On Being Small

Mom for the Weekend

2012-01-24T21:36:00.001-05:00

In spite of the chaos reigning in our house right now (boxes, boxes, boxes as we shuffle things around), Mom came out to visit for the weekend. Such fun! We shopped, ate out, went to Jason's hockey game, and sat in the living room with chocolate croissants while it snowed. A very nice way to spend the weekend.

Mom and I also ventured out to BabiesRUs, a daunting outing but made much better by her company! It is strange to think that the next time she comes to our house, we will be three instead of two!

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2012-01-18T22:55:00.000-05:00

In case our hints have been more subtle than we intended, we want you to be the first to know--we are having a BOY in May! Casey is convinced that this means that he will only have girls. When he does, his sisters will shower those girls in dresses and bows.

It turns out, though, that boy clothes are pretty cute, too--I mean, after five nephews I know this, but look how darling this outfit is that Jenny and Chad got our boy! And Grandma Small has already started sending cute things. He came away with loads of stuff at Christmas. Not only did Shaanti and Adam give him another adorable outfit AND he now has a BSU onesie and competing U of I bib (thanks, Auntie Kim and Uncle Casey!), but we also filled a duffel bag with hand-me-down clothes from the Bucher boys. I tell you what, this kid is going to love going to visit his cousins.

Breakfast for Dinner

2012-01-18T21:54:00.000-05:00

In spite of the fact that the I'm-in-control January menu suggest that I was going to have this tonight for dinner, since about 2 pm today, nothing has sounded better than waffles. Jason (sadly) is not really a fan of breakfast for dinner--it's an, indication of grocery desperation in our house--but he's in Germany this week, so I got home and ate two whole waffles, complete with melted blackberries and a side of eggs with leftover salmon. Soooo good.

Turns out waffles are a popular idea tonight. I was talking to my mom on the way home from a haircut, and my sisters and their families were all over for dinner so that they could have waffles. With blackberries. So even 3,000 miles away, we all sat down to breakfast for dinner. I wonder what Kim and Casey ate?

It makes me happy and a little sad to think about. After ten years, I've gotten used to living here--and the past few years have been infinitely better than the previous several. I would actually miss the DC area if I left at this point, and I know that we are blooming where God has planted us. Still. Home with family and waffles still sounds as nice as it did to a most homesick me ten or so years ago.

2012 has been a very to-do-list oriented year so far, and on every weekend list the word "blog!!!" has appeared...and subsequently been the only unfinished task by Sunday night. It is ridiculously unacceptable that, according to this blog, the first day of the year is January 18, Christmas did not happen, and no one knows what type of baby we are having. I will do my best to catch up over the next week or so, but FOR THE LOVE.

For now, it's another picture-less entry about waffles. And flannel sheets, which are on the bed because Jason (who rates flannel sheets lower than breakfast for dinner) is gone. And Five Mile Creek, which I have been watching every night because Jason is gone. And oh, I'm looking forward to him coming home tomorrow...

New Years Party

2012-01-03T22:42:00.000-05:00

So, in spite of my end-of-year hesitations, we had a slam dunk of a New Years party to ring in 2012. Not so much a party as a low-key impromptu end-of-year get together, I guess. Not only was everyone willing to come with less than 24 hours notice, but they brought food and put their babies to bed at our place. The house was bursting with pack n' plays, and we laughed wondering where we would put the ADDITIONAL three babies next year!

Happy 2012!

A Cabiny Christmas

2011-12-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

It may seem like months ago now, but our Christmas at the cabin was utterly delightful, as usual. Our full house gets fuller every year, and having four boys running around (and one toddling between aunts and uncles) made things even more fun...and maybe just a tad more chaotic! I will confess to a moment or two of panic that the next time we have Christmas together, Jason and I will be the ones chasing down a toddler and trying to keep him from climbing the stairs, climbing into the fire, eating candy off the counter by the handfuls, etc.

Cooper gets ready for some Rock Band.

Inches of snow is no problem for sledding!

People are always saying Christmas is better with kids (usually it goes something like, "Christmas is only for kids," which I think is ridiculous, but whatever), and this Christmas WAS better with kids. Mason and Troy have joined Cole in being old enough to gleefully open stockings and get excited about every gift they opened. The extended grabbers (which Cole named "gribby grabbers," I think) were the kids favorite...and the adults least favorite.

Heavy load, Cole?

Best buds Troy and Mason

We spent the whole week before Christmas in Idaho, most of it in the mountains. We did have a big ol' family breakfast with the Grahams Wednesday morning, which was as fun as it has been for the past thirty-some years.

Fightin' words.

Snow angels with Granny

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of snow in McCall this year--usually we have a couple of feet, this time we had a couple of inches. Made for a rough sledding hill (just ask Kim!), but we made the best of it.

Piles of pah-resants!

Christmas morning

Kade in a bucket

It was Christmas as usual--The Littlest Angel, the seafood feast, the Lord of the Rings viewing. All wonderful. And then we headed down the mountain to catch our plane...which was delayed so badly that we would have missed our connecting flight. So we rebooked for a little later...and then had another delay. It gave us an extra night with my parents, and when we left the next morning, we were bumped up all the way to DC! The plane from Chicago to Dulles had those fantastic seats that lay almost all the way back...mmm...best hour and a half flight ever. I almost wanted to go all the way to Moscow just because I was so comfy...

End of Year Thoughts

2011-12-30T10:21:00.000-05:00

My hair is standing up on end. I've finished a book (good riddance) and drunk tea but am still in pajamas (don't tell Jason--he should think I've been very productive this morning). I've "cleaned the library," which apparently means that bins of sewing projects, fabric, and piles of DVDs to rip down are all over the floor and desk. And so is brown sugar, which is clearly what I was doing before I got distracted by all the blog posts I haven't read since we left for Idaho.

It is clearly that weird week between Christmas and New Year's.

Here are a few of the things going through my head:
* I love having friends over for New Year's, but I am balking at the idea of hosting a party. Or making a big dinner. Or staying up until midnight. Yikes. What to do.

* We are packing up our entire upstairs for a vicious construction project (which is why Jason needs to think I've been productive), and it is very, very weird to pack up all my suits with February still a'comin. It's not like they fit (this week, NOTHING fits--I so wanted to be that cute pregnant woman with the little round belly and adorable attire, but instead I already waddle and have fallen irrevocably in love with my sweats), but it is still weird.

* In the mornings, the Spare Oom is my favorite place in the house--all clean and white and yellow and sunshiny, with its east-facing window.

* Have you ever gone to rip down your own DVDs (or maybe one you borrowed from your mom) so that you can eventually watch them on your iPad, but before you can stop it the first thing that pops up is the FBI warning that you are breaking the law nine ways to Sunday, and you suddenly feel guilty? Yeah, me neither.

* I bought a paper planner this year. It seems like a weird thing to do, what with google calendar and the iPhone and what have you. We'll see how it goes.

* In spite of the five fantastic nephews, every once in a while I am caught by panic that I don't know what to do with boys. Like when I read about this. Or when, say, I look in my lovely, clean, white covered spare room and think that life will never be the same. Last week I had to remind myself a lot that I am starting with a teeny baby and not a three-year-old-boy.

* Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies really are a healthy, perfect post-Christmas-binging breakfast. Really.

* When I typed www. into the whachamacallit field where you type the site name, our blog immediately popped up. Apparently the world wide web thinks I don't blog enough. And clearly, since I have not told you about our construction project, our ultrasound, or, for the love, a lick about Christmas 2011, it's probably right. More to come, as soon as my hair is no longer standing up on end, I have found a pair of jeans to wear, and I can prove to Jason that I have done more than finish a library book and eat cookies this morning while he is working.

December Calendar

2011-12-28T22:35:00.000-05:00

Apart from having fun company and a bad head cold (which I blame for the fact that I'm just now posting these pictures), here are a few of the things we did in December:

Right off the Bat: Twinkled
It has been a really mild winter so far (with a few abruptly cold 30 degree swings), so we took advantage of a 65 degree day to put up twinkle lights. Such fun to come home to, as always. I made the mistake of telling Jason that you are supposed to leave the lights up until Epiphany, not realizing that Epiphany is January 6th and not late January like I thought. The lights came down on the next 65 degree Saturday, but so worth it in the meantime.

Also, this was my favorite Christmas decoration of the year, which Jason brought back from Germany last spring. (Somehow he keeps going to Germany without me, and yet I'm the one who speaks German, what?)

December 4th: Much a'did
Embracing what may be our last chance ever to go to the theatre, we hit DC's wonderful Shakespeare Theatre in early December for a showing of Much Ado about Nothing, my all-time favorite play.

December 5th: Visited the White House
I'd never actually been to the White House at Christmas, so MJ took me as her guest of honor. So fun to see it all decorated. And for the record, since I'm posting this more than a month later, it is weird how not-pregnant I look in these pictures. No wonder the security lady wasn't sympathetic enough to let me use the bathroom.

December 9th: Decorated our own tree
Our poor tree stood in our living room in nothing but lights for two weeks. I pretended it was because Hudson and Carter were coming over to play and I didn't want to tempt them with our not-child-friendly ornaments. That only made me feel better for a week, though. Our tree was the perfect size this year. So nice, in fact, that I was actually a little sad to take it down after New Years.

December 17th: Christmas Caroled
We actually did go Christmas caroling with friends this year (no pictures, sad), which was so fun. I love that our friends want to make these things a part of their children's lives and they let us tag along. But we also went to see A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theatre with Kevin and Missy. As usual, it put us in the perfect Christmassy mood.

We also, you know, passed a federal budget right in the nick of time, wrapped Christmas gifts just before we headed out of town for the holidays, and lit the Advent candle in church...which required just one too many dress-up maternity outfits for the week. December absolutely FLEW by, but what a fun whirlwind of celebrating family, goodwill, and, most of all, our Savior's birth!

Three Bumps

2011-12-05T15:55:00.001-05:00

Steven, Amy, and Hudson came "back home" to visit this weekend and stayed with us--fun, lazyish weekend of basically eating and then sitting in our living room and talking until way too late in the evening (that's why I look gross in this picture). To our eternal enjoyment, it turns out that Tilly, Amy, and I are all pregnant AND all due in May 2012. Ridiculous.

A Virginia Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T19:52:00.000-05:00

We had a really nice time hosting Thanksgiving for the whole Small family this year and were glad to take some of the load off of Lynda, who is working her way back to full health after finishing six months of chemo (yay!). We particularly enjoyed having Justin and his girlfriend April stay with us--I think I've said before how much fun it is to have our siblings stay with us, now that we are all grown up. Fun fun.

We spent the weeks before the meal planning menus and buying groceries and prepping ingredients, so it was super fun that the food all turned out just right--Jason's cider-brined turkey was seriously the best I've ever eaten...in spite of the raw meaty brine spilling all over the counter and floor at just the wrong time the night before!

"These mashed potatoes are so creamy!"

Cider-brined turkey, golden and delicious!

We ate:

Cider-brined turkey with cider gravy
Sausage, apple, and sage stuffing
Garlic-thyme mashed potatoes
Roasted Brussels sprouts with grapes
Green bean casserole
Tapioca Salad
Pies and sugar-free chocolate trifle

Gathered around the table

We spent the rest of the weekend doing a variety of things, including visiting the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum and trying to find a solution to our major Thanksgiving Day plumbing situation--thank goodness for Justin and George! Fun visit and great people with whom to celebrate all we're thankful for!

At the Air and Space Museum

Thanksgivingness

2011-11-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

I've been learning to practice thanksgiving this year, particularly after reading One Thousand Gifts this spring (Most Significant Book of 2011, so far). I'm not very good at it yet, but I am recognizing the truth of what the author says in the book--that when we look for ways to thank God, joy pours into our lives. She says that "thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace." I love that.

I also love this: "When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows."

So I've been practicing--a few things each day that I'm thankful for, a practice I started in June and have kept up (unfortunately) sporadically since then. Here are a few of the things on my list so far:

* Pigeon pose at 6:15 a.m.
* Pictures of Krystal with us on vacation.
* Heavy Carter asleep on me.
* The sound of Jason awake upstairs.
* Jenny. And her prayers for me.
* Irish breakfast tea.
* Ecstatic news about Lynda's cancer.
* A flock of green beans hiding under broad leaves.
* Recess hours.
* Skinny jeans (who would have thought?).
* The downward slide of the week.
* Peaches in the CSA.
* Polyjuice Potion in "Luminos" font.
* Mason on the phone.
* Long dinner talks on the deck.
* Amy's birthday playlist.
* My iPad.
* War movies without papers.
* Jason's hand on my hip in bed.
* Anne of Avonlea.
* Red Robin french fries.
* 165 beats per minute.
* Bouquets of sharpened pencils with Dawn.
* Tapioca salad ruby-red in Aunt RaVae's footed bowl.

I hope you have a moment to look for the things you are thankful for today, as well.

Good morning!

2011-11-22T07:57:00.001-05:00

It's 7:56 a.m., and, after a trip to the doctor yesterday, it is the first night in at least week I haven't kept both of us awake with my coughing. And I only had to get up to go to the bathroom once last night! Hooray for a whole night's sleep!

It's a good thing, too, because I have so much to do today to get ready for Thanksgiving guests tomorrow. My list includes:
* Figure out how I am going to set the table...and find the china...
* Make pies (it's a good thing I love to eat them, because I do not love to make them).
* Decide what to do with the box of winter clothes not yet in my closet that aren't going to fit me much longer anyway.
* Decide what to do with the box of maternity clothes in the basement (thank you, sisters and Andrea!) that don't fit me quite yet.
* Go boot shopping (because that is a priority right now...).
* Clean the whole house, in hopes that Justin and April stay with us for the weekend.
* Work out. Just once. Come on, you can do it!
* Make someone's Christmas gift. Because starting homemade gifts in late November is the best way to keep the holidays stress-free?
* Go to Costco.
* Eat breakfast.

I actually really do need to eat breakfast--my stomach is growling, and I finally feel like drinking warm beverages again (tea, oh how I have missed you!) and have delicious, (fatty, sugary) chocolate-caramel coffee creamer in my fridge, calling my name. Pretty loudly. But instead I am sitting here hanging out on the internet. I'm reading a few blogs--a new one I like so far here (suggested to me as a fashion blog, because I put the worst outfit together yesterday...and then went shopping and to the doctor and to dinner and to Bible study in it. Yikes.), my favorite one of Dawn's here (if you are not reading this blog yet, you are behind the times, my friend)--and then imagining I have time to make something like this during the afternoon (you'll note it is not on the list, so I'm not optimistic). It is really the opposite of being productive.

This entry is really random, but I am going to start trying to let a little less time elapse between posts. That probably means a little more randomness. Be prepared.

10 Year Flashback

2011-11-10T10:41:00.001-05:00

Here's the thing: it feels like it's been 10 years since I graduated from college. A lot has happened in 10 years, and I have started to learn things about being a real grown up--things like how to apologize when I'm wrong, how to show up to work early and stay late, how to put together a budget and stick with it. It's been a good decade, but a decade nonetheless.

Class of 2001

Classic Senate Picture

But then we all got together in the lobby of our junior year dorm and ate the amazing donuts our RD used to make every Wednesday night, and time kind of melted away. Ten years has apparently been good to my college class, which made my 10-year reunion extra fun. Of all the reunion groups at NNU's homecoming, we had the largest, and yet I got to talk to most of my former classmates and felt like there was still a genuine connection. Over 10 years I have learned to appreciate the common ground I can start from with these people. I was very, very glad I made the effort to go!

How well do you remember your roommate?

with Marbs and Andrea

There was the official reunion lunch--complete with the newlywed-esque Roommate Game AND the afore mentioned donuts--and then there were the fun side events. Amanda hosted a lovely book club tea at her house. Andrea and I squeezed in a really nice coffee break. Kristy had a large group of people over for dinner and laughing and a little Rock Band. I like how boundaries between groups and people have loosened since our five year reunion. So fun. The only thing I missed was Krystal (and Jason, the party pooper).

Rock Band at Kristy's

Since NNU is about 15 minutes from my parents' house, I also got to spend a stolen weekend with the fam. Love those boys. It was full of activity but very, very fun.

Coop and I, doing what I do best these days.

Thanks to Marbs for most of the pictures, since my camera broke within 15 minutes. She is as dependable as ever. :)

If I have to be at a desk...

2011-11-10T10:38:00.001-05:00

... at least this is the view from my window. Pretty spectacular. I came home yesterday to the most amazing fall day--mid-60's (a nice break from the frigid Idaho mornings!), sun and blue skies, golden leaves practically glowing on the trees. Nate, my window-sharer, and I have been looking forward to this lovely moment all summer.

The Egyptian Flu

2011-10-31T20:46:00.000-05:00

Apparently my dad announced my pending arrival to my grandparents by telling them that my mom had been a little under the weather and seemed to have the "Egyptian Flu." When Grams seemed concerned, he explained: "She's going to be a mummy."

Apparently Grams fell for that joke again about 18 months later, before Shaanti was born.

Jason told a similar story yesterday to our Sunday school class, something about me not feeling well lately and the doctor saying something about being 13 weeks pregnant, due in early May.

We are very excited. We've been waiting a long time to publish this blog post.

I have never seen or heard anything more amazing than that 165 heartbeats per minute in my whole life.

Low Light Shoot

2011-10-31T20:09:00.001-05:00

A while ago we bought a Living Social coupon for a photo class. We finally got around to signing up--on Sunday, thank goodness, instead of Saturday, since it SNOWED on Saturday (for the love). We learned some new tricks about shooting pictures in low light...and wished the whole time that Steven was teaching us! Here are a couple of pics that we took:

Prague

2011-10-22T06:37:00.001-05:00

I toyed with the idea of titling this blog "Czeching out Central Europe," but it just seemed too kitschy for what was really a gorgeous and amazing city. I have this dream of two weeks spent meandering through Central and Eastern Europe--Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Romania (so want to go to Romania)--but so far we haven't found two weeks and available flights at the same time, so this past week we decided to at least get Prague out of our system.

Prague from the Charles Bridge

Old Town Square, with Tyn Church

The historic Clock Tower

Charles Bridge

Prague is the most beautiful city I've ever been to (which is why there are a million photos on this entry). It did not hurt that it reminded me very much of Oxford, one of my favorite places. And it is fall, and crisp and lovely, and we absolutely loved our trip. Apart from what felt like the longest plane flight ever (I swear worse than going to Kenya), our trip was utterly fantastic.

Our side (Little Quarter) of the Charles Bridge

The John Lennon wall

More Charles Bridge

The famous clock in the Old Town Square

We like to walk around cities, and Prague was a fun city to walk around. Since Britain and France basically handed it over to Hitler, it was never destroyed during WWII, so all its historical, Medieval glory still exists. We loved the beautiful Old Town Square, the statuesque Charles Bridge, the amazing Prague Castle, the Jewish Quarter, and the historic Wenceslas Square, where the Czech people toppled Communism in 1989.

The other Lenin, at the Museum of Communism

Wenceslas Square

We spent particular time in:

The Old Jewish Quarter, which was home to Prague's Jewish population for centuries. Before WWII, 120,000 Jews lived in Prague (all in this tiny space), and only 10% of them survived the Holocaust. We visited the Pinkas Synagogue, onto the walls of which the names of all those people who were killed were written, covering every space. Looking at the enormity of it made it a little hard to breathe. We also visited the Old Jewish Cemetery, with it's piled, topsy-turvy graves--for years and years Jews were only allowed to bury their dead in this small spot, so the graves are piled deep.

Pinkas Synagogue, covered in names.

Old Jewish Cemetery

Prague Castle, which looks out over the city. We visited the very cool library at the Strahov Monastery and particularly loved St. Vitus Cathedral.

The Strahov Monastery Library

Changing of the Guard at the castle

St. Vitus Cathedral

The O2 Arena, where we watched Prague's two hockey teams, Slavia and Sparta, duke it out on the ice. It was fun to do something that was not translated into English.

Slavia vs. Sparta

Here are a few more random moments:

At the statue of King Wenceslas

Hot chocolate on the tram (good solution to the rain and 40 degree weather!)

Goulash for the first time (scary?)

Sorry, this ridiculous self portrait makes me laugh

We've been to a lot of places where I feel like I could say, "Alright! I've been there!" and call it good. Prague was not that place--our five days there felt like an intro preparing us to come back instead of a trip in itself. It was amazing. Go to Prague, I say! Linger on the Charles Bridge and watch the sun set over the Old Town Square! Eat goulash! Watch hockey like a local and make jokes about "czeching"!

Rereading

2011-10-14T22:25:00.000-05:00

This has been a pretty unsuccessful reading year, in spite of my best intentions and being out of school. But it has had some wonderful moments, too.

I think I mentioned my scheduling mistake in taking my research class during my last semester instead of first--though, really, it would have been more helpful to take a literature research class as an undergrad sophomore than ever as a writing and editing grad student in any case. Anyway, it is no doubt due to my own mistake that there were a lot of tedious moments in that class last fall. And then there was one class that was quite interesting and thought provoking and, well, what I expected grad school to be all the way through.

The topic: How do we read? At some point the professor threw out this out-of-character personal application question, and people perked up--this is what they came here for anyway, to this English graduation program, because they love to read. And I ventured to say that I often need to read books a second time, or even a third time, because when I get really into a book I start reading it so fast--in both anticipation and dread of the end--that I basically skim the last half of the book.

My professor was baffled and, let's be honest, slightly appalled. I had already admitted in the previous class to having never read the Russians, so I'm pretty sure he had a low opinion of me as a person anyway. He countered that he reads slower and slower as he gets closer to the end of a book, drinking it in, taking copious notes, stretching it out as long as possible. And then he never reads the book again.

And then, of course, he pointed out that his junior high daughter can read the Harry Potter books so many times that he is pretty sure there is something wrong with her.

I did NOT confirm that I am more like his junior high daughter than my grad school literature professor. But since then I have thought a lot about my rereading habits (which really do make me a pretty poorly-read, multi-English-degreed person). I really do read a new book so quickly that I can turn around and read it again and discover all sorts of new delights (Harry Potter being a case in point, since I did just that with the last book). It's hard for me to start new books, just like it is hard for me to start new friendships. I know there are worlds of lovely unread books out there, but there are crap books, too (I was really disappointed in "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," for example), and why would I want to venture into crap when I have such delightful, tried-and-true friends on my ample shelves at home?

So this reading year has been unsuccessful in many ways--I struggle to answer the question, "Have you read any good books lately?" for example. Because you know what good books I've read lately? Harry Potter. And, oh, Anne of Green Gables. I spent a lot of my Idaho-time in August curled up in my parents' living room, reading Anne on my iPad...and then rereading it by random chapters, and reading that last chapter where she and Gilbert finally make amends one last more time. The medium may have been all new and modern, but I ran smack into my sixth grade self while I was there, the one who read Anne of Green Gables so many times that the binding broke in half and I had to buy a new one. I still have the "diamond sunburst and marble halls" speech etched into my brain. I honestly think that my August recovery was as much due to rereading Anne as it was to the great Idaho air.

Now, of course, I'm trying to make up for the fact that I did NOT read Anna Karenina as planned by reading three books at once--all for the first time. It is not really going well--I'm not a multi-tasking reader (also, I believe, a result of the obsessive nature of how I read), but I like the books, at least. Quite a lot, actually. If I give them time, I may even discover some new friends. I finally picked up The Help again after failing to read it for book club last year, and I read 150 pages in a sitting. And The Paris Wife is particularly interesting after reading A Moveable Feast a couple of years ago. And The White Tiger really is good, in spite of the fact that I got totally distracted from it by Anne and have not come back yet.

But, honestly, once I have read these books (and Lacuna, the next daunting task), mostly I will feel like I have earned the right to do a late-year Harry Potter rereading, and maybe even read Possession (Most Fantastic Book, 2002) again, since it's been practically jumping off the book shelf lately.

This summer Andrea sent me this fabulous quote, which I think sums this up quite well:
From The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs, where he quotes poet L.E. Sissman:
"A list of books that you reread is like a clearing in the forest: a level, clean, well-lighted place where you set down your burdens and set up your home, your identity, your concerns, your continuity in a world that is at best indifferent, at worst malign. Since you, the reader, are that hero of modern literature, the existential loner, the smallest denominator of moral force, it behooves you to take counsel, sustenance, and solace from the writers who have been writing about you these hundred or five hundred years, to sequester yourself with their books and read and reread them to get a fix on yourself and a purchase on the world that will, with luck, like the house in the clearing, last you for life."

From a well-educated, poorly-read rereader...who still has Anne of Avonlea sitting on her nightstand and kind of wants to pick it up before she goes to bed.

Fallishness

2011-10-08T17:25:00.001-05:00

It is so lovely here right now. After a month of rain, the sun has been out for the past few days and we have that nice, crisp feeling that says the humidity and dragginess of summer are behind us and good, sweater-clad things are ahead. Every day this week we arrived at work and talked about how glorious it is outside...and yesterday we topped off the conversation with pumpkin bread, just to push things way over the top. Right now all our windows are open, and the leaves outside are starting to change, and we had the most amazing apple oven pancakes for breakfast...

So, anyway, it's pretty nice around here. Plus, we've had hardly any weekend plans since we got back from Idaho--which is so unlike us--and, let's be honest, it is awesome that I don't have homework. It's been almost a year, but, mmm, still so good.

Seriously, I have nothing else to blog about. It is all leaves and crispness and pumpkin bread around here. (And apples. We bought some at the farmer's market this morning (along with a big bunch of kale so gorgeous that I want to put it in a vase), and I suspect apple pie will be on the menu this weekend.) I just hated to leave you hanging for another week.

Out West

2011-09-25T17:39:00.002-05:00

Here's the last of the "catching up" posts! We ended our trip to Idaho with Steven, Amy, and Hudson joining us in McCall for Labor Day weekend. So fun! We had been talking about having them join us some time, and how great to actually make it happen! The whole family was anxious to meet them and wanted to come (minus Casey, sad), and they fit right in with the crew.

The weekend was just about perfect, with clear, warm days and cool, crisp nights. We did all the cabiny things that we like, such as fly fishing (Steven caught a fish on his first or second cast--unbelievable), four-wheeling, floating down the river, playing games, shooting (guns and bows, this time), hot tubbing, and, of course, playing Rock Band. It was special to share our dear friends and dear family with each other. The only bad part was that now that we have we said good bye to the Kings and sent them back to North Carolina, we don't know when we will see them next! :(

A nice side-treat to having Steven around is a plethora of fantastic pictures...and of course trying to find time to sort through them has delayed this post long enough! Here are a few of our favorites:

Cole and Troy on an adventure

Apollo

88 candles for Gramps

A morning dip

Jason teaches fly fishing lessons

Steven's first catch!

Ice Cream Alley. Just right.

Blue-faced Mason. Again.

Rockin' with the band.

Kade and Auntie Kim

Quiet Sunday morning

Dangerous.

Chad and Coop

The "big boys."

Fire-pit dinner

Conversations at dusk

Auntie Kim's awesome pancakes

C is for Cole

A walk in the wilderness

Peas in a pod

Fishing buddies.

On McCall beach

Post-river float reinactment

This picture makes me crack up.

Ticket to Ride

Roasting marshies

Jason and his buddy Hudson

Summer, according to my iPhone

2011-09-19T10:53:00.000-05:00

This has clearly NOT been the summer for blogging, but this past weekend the weather was in the 60s (!!!), so I'd better get summer under our belts before we move on to the decidedly more pleasant fall.

As mentioned previously, we spent a lot of time behind desks this summer. But as I was flipping through the pictures on my iPhone, I realized I had a lot of other moments (mostly food moments) I'd neglected to blog about. So here goes, a picture essay of our summer.

Summer was very tomatoey. Lots of BLTs. Mmm.


Jason gave me French cooking classes for Christmas last year. Bon appetit!

For a brief moment, our garden was everything you could hope and dream for. Isn't this picture lovely?

The leftovers from Amy's party. Peach cobbler it is!

It may look like 100 degrees, but it felt like 117. July was the hottest in history.

Surprise favorite dinner of the summer: Proscuitto and peach pizza.

We ate this cherry bread salad, like, once a week all summer.

Look how clean my desk is! I love August.

Blackberry picking with Dawn.

A moment of missing Amy.

Sewing projects! Finally made it past my multi-year backup and made this in a day!

Best things about recess: We the Pizza and fro-yo from Sweet Green.

Weird albino trout at the Hagerman Trout Station (work trip). There are also weird blue trout in that pool, too.

Idaho at Last

2011-09-19T09:50:00.000-05:00

All year I have been working toward the reward of spending a good, solid chunk of time in Idaho. For the past four years my trips have been short and crazy-full of work, but this year I needed to just be in Idaho--to, like my boss said, wake up with a cold nose in the morning in the middle of August. I get a real thrill at driving home from Shaanti's in the evening with the windows down and the old Country Gold Saturday Night radio program playing.

Idaho was just what I needed after the past year. I worked for a week and then played for a week. We did stuff like this:

* Went to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival with picnics in hand to see Taming of the Shrew.

* Casey and Kim came down for a short but great visit, and the three of us went to see HP7 again--so good the second time (but so sad that I didn't take any pictures, arg!).

* Had a Sisters' Night Out, complete with dinner, shopping without strollers, and shaved ice. Classic.

* Read almost all of the Anne of Green Gables books on my iPad. Pretty fantastic.

* Played with little boys. A lot.

I think this is my favorite picture from the whole trip.

Somehow I can't get rid of Cole's evil eyes...

* Ran a ridiculous 10K Dirty Dash through mud puddles, over hay bales, and, most excruciatingly, up a ski hill. It was one of those things I'm glad we did, and I was not glad to be doing.

The fear before the race.

The filth after the race.

* Went to dinner with my dad, which was so fun.

* Ate ice cream. And lots of other food.

Mason, wearing his classic blue ice cream.

Last minute ice cream date with Uncle Jason.

It was SUCH a good trip. I had been feeling so burned out and exhausted that I didn't think I could ever get back to "zero," but I came home and felt like my soul was very refreshed. It was such a blessing to be able to spend so much time with my family--especially when they traveled down to see me or spent nearly every evening with me. Such a happy trip.

Ouaga Where?

2011-09-18T16:14:00.006-05:00

At the end of August, Missy and I left the same day on work travel (she went west, I went east). My flights to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (my first visit to both places). Ouaga (as it is called for short) is one of those unusual capital city names you usually only find as an answer to a geography question in trivial pursuit. Burkina Faso, locals will tell you, is the crossroads of West Africa given its equidistant location between the Sahara desert and the coast. (Cotton is a major industry -- the Limited Brands purchases organic cotton from Burkina Faso to produce some of its organic-line garments for Victoria's Secret.)

On my first full day in country, a Sunday, my cultural exposure included a visit to the sacred crocodiles of Bazoule. These crocs are considered to be ancestors of the local village people. Normally, visitors are able to purchase for $2, petite poulet, or small chickens, to feed to the crocs. Unfortunately, there were no chickens to be had that day, so we had to content ourselves with satisfying them with ... the promise from our guide that they don't eat humans. As the dozen or so crocs swam up out of the small lake and began to circle us (I swear hungrily hoping for one of my legs) and a rainy season storm pelted down, I perched above the croc for these photos. (I'm smiling out of absurdity, not joy)...

After a productive few days of meetings in Ouaga, I flew to Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Having worked on the post-election Cote d'Ivoire political crisis from December to April, I was fascinated to see the neighborhoods and places that held such significance and mostly existed in my mind as aerial images. Abidjan surprised me. Once known as the "Paris" of West Africa, it had all the hallmarks of a modern city (highways, high-rise buildings, traffic lights) that with only rare exceptions had I seen elsewhere in my travels on the continent. It was hopeful to see that the city is recovering quickly and that Cote d'Ivoire may one day return to its previous glory.

City view from my hotel room.

I had made plans to take a "rest stop" day on my way back in Belgium -- but cut my trip short to return home just hours before the arrival of Hurricane Irene. Days earlier, we both missed the earthquake that hit Virginia -- but we were relieved to find the house still standing with no signs of visible damage (inside or out). Thankfully the only danger was having to bail water a couple of times out of the outside basement landing before it threatened to surge above the door threshold.

Darkness Falls

2011-09-08T19:03:00.003-05:00

Our electricity rarely goes out, but after days of downpours and one horrifically exciting flash of lightening and thunder right outside our door, we are reading by candlelight and waiting for pizza to arrive (oh for a gas stove!). I have loads of catching up to do on the rest of August, but for now happy rain day!

6.

2011-09-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Dinner at the adorable Ristorante Piccolo
in Georgetown

Like Jason's birthday, we spent our first anniversary at home in many moons this year. We did all the usual anniversary things, like going out to dinner and watching our wedding videos and making red velvet cupcakes in memory of our red velvet wedding cake (that last one was new but delicious!).

For our wedding reception, we made a short video where we were "interviewed" about our relationship--how we met, what we thought of each other, our first date, getting engaged, etc.--so that our diverse guest list would know our story. It had been a few years since that video made the anniversary rotation, and as we were watching it this year, we couldn't help laughing at how different we were then...and how it seems now like we hardly knew each other, even after two and a half years of dating! It is probably always a gamble to marry someone, but oh, man, this is a gamble that has paid off big time.

August again.

2011-08-12T12:55:00.002-05:00

It wouldn't be August without a post about how lovely, LOVELY this month is. Jason laughed at me when I said the other day that August is better than Christmas, but there is some truth to that--Christmas is a month of anticipation for one, maybe two days, whereas August is a whole month. And for me, it is a month of space that provides room to organize the chaos--in my house, on my desk, and in my head.

This has been possibly our worst summer ever for blogging. It was the hottest July in DC recorded history (the last weekend in July the heat index was 117!). Combine that with the fact that House leadership cancelled all of our days out of session in July, and July was really kind of sucky--when we weren't working, we were hunkering down in our basement, trying to stay cool. I might be the most un-tan I have ever been.

But things are starting to look up. Lately we have:

* Celebrated Jason's birthday! It seemed weird to actually plan a normal birthday, until we realized that we have spent most of his birthdays out of town--San Francisco, in the wilderness, Niagra Falls, Idaho, Idaho, Idaho... We went back to Rasika for dinner, mm, mm. Fun to celebrate him.

* Finally, finally went to see Harry Potter--which was, like, the only thing I really wanted to do this summer! I'm so relieved, since I have held off re-reading the last book for two years now. We saw the movie Saturday, and I finished the book at midnight on Tuesday. Sounds about right.

* Watched Band of Brothers obsessively, thanks to Kevin and Missy. Amazing, and enhanced by all the war novel reading I did last fall.

* Started reading again. Isn't it funny how you can get out of the habit of reading, even if you love it so much? I was so looking forward to reading whatever I wanted after school finished, but things have been so busy that I have found myself choosing easier things--magazines, watching tv, sleeping--in my limited spare time. (Plus, let's be honest, I was trying to read Virginia Woolf again, and that never goes well.) And to be honest, I should have known better than to give myself a reading list right out of school. But I finally picked up The White Tiger, which Jason has been prodding me to read for months, and even between Potter books I am really enjoying it. Jason got a Nook for his birthday, so he's on a roll as well. It feels like something has clicked back into place for me.

Anyway. Perhaps now I will be able to do more than just these catch-up blog entries? Perhaps there will be more to talk about in August?

A Reprieve

2011-07-30T15:13:00.007-05:00

I spent the whole week working (60+ hours so far...) and trying to resign myself to the fact that we would be in session and debating the appropriations bill we've been writing all day Saturday and Sunday. The combo of working until 11 pm or midnight two days in a row and no light at the end of the tunnel left me on the verge of tears most of Thursday. Then, suddenly, the light reappeared! They pulled our bill from the schedule! I am sitting here in cutoffs instead of on the House floor in a suit! Praise the Lord!

(Have I ever mentioned that the unpredictability of the schedule is the thing I hate most about my job? It is. This week is an absolute case in point.)

This was already supposed to be the first free weekend of the entire summer (we even put off Harry Potter--again--in order to have a weekend of nothing), but the sudden reprieve from work has made this weekend feel sort of magical. I woke up with a raging post-work headache, and even that hasn't put a damper on things. We've already done so many lovely things (though we have not, incidentally, laid on the hammock outside, since it is seriously a million degrees outside, but that is how today feels), like:

* Sleeping in until 10. Jason also had a crazy week, what with four African presidents in town (he complained that he had ceased being a policy person and become an event planner), so we fell asleep early last night and racked up double-digit hours of sleep. Awe.some.

* Going to the farmer's market for the first time in weeks. I love how much the market changes after even a week's absence, from greens and strawberries to peaches and piles and piles of tomatoes.

* Roasting some of those tomatoes for this. I think Andrea linked it on her blog, what, four, five years ago? I'm finally getting around to it. Between the market and our garden, we have our own pile of tomatoes to work through. Yay!

* Sewing projects in the cool basement. Mom dug me out of my sewing backlog when she was last here, and it turns out I don't hate sewing after all! Thinking about hemming a couple of skirts and giving them new life, hmm.

* Trying out this restaurant. So happy we didn't have to cancel our reservations. It's been far too long since it's been just Jason and me on a weekend, and even longer since we wandered in to DC for dinner.

* Painting my toenails, changing the sheets, going to the groc, cutting new flowers for the kitchen, mopping the kitchen floor, and sitting on the couch with a book--all things I didn't think would happen until mid-August.

See? Such a nice day. And there's this lovely little rumor going around that, rather than staying in session an extra week in August (I will quit), we may just give into our exhaustion and start recess immediately once the debt ceiling crisis is finally fixed. I'm not holding my breath, but still...

Sad.

2011-07-28T20:31:00.010-05:00

The worst part of this summer (and that is saying a lot, since tonight is the first night all week when I got home while it was still light outside...or still the same day...) is that Steven, Amy, and Hudson have moved to North Carolina. Boo. I have vacillated between resignation and despair since they told us in mid-May. I am so sad to lose these dear friends of ours--not only are the Kings some of our closest friends here friendship-wise, but until Tuesday they have literally been our closest friends. Like, same zip code. Five minutes away (which, in this area, means practically next door). Call them at 11:30 p.m. when you have to go the emergency room. I hated changing their address in our list today. We will SO miss them.

We have had a long summer of goodbye, between the last book club, the last dinner with the Gambills, the last Sunday school class and all. Luckily they are coming to Idaho with us for Labor Day (yay!), so I can just pretend they went on a long vacation...for now...

A Grown-Up Party

2011-07-24T21:06:00.007-05:00

Amy turned 30 last week (finally!), so we celebrated in style by throwing her a fancy-dinner-surprise party last Saturday night. Mmm, it was so perfect--weather was delightful (as opposed to the heat dome we're living under now), the table looked just as I imagined it should, the yard looked just right, the food was delicious, and Amy, of course, was the belle of the ball.

Our menu included:

Grilled-peach pork loin
Mint-sugared fruit salad
Rosemary roasted potatoes
Green beans with cherry tomatoes
Tomato and peach salad
Broccoli salad
Rolls
Mint iced tea
White cake with peach buttercream frosting

So delish.

All the girls pitched in to the point where I felt like I had the lightest load to carry. Jason and I basically set up the lights (memories of wedding time!) and watched it all come together!

Being in our thirties is surprisingly nice, and it seemed appropriate to celebrate Amy's milestone with a grown-up, fancy dinner--with her grown-up, fancy friends. :)

Fishing

2011-07-19T21:08:00.004-05:00

I am overwhelmed with the urge to go fishing. My coworker Laurel just got back from a float trip on the Middle Fork, and when she was telling me about how she caught so many fish she had to take a few hours off to give herself a break, I wanted to whimper. Any commercial for Nature Valley granola bars (particularly the one where the couple is watching the sun rise on the mountain side) makes me sigh.

I want to stand in the middle of a stream where it is perfectly quiet except for the sound of the water and feel my heartbeat slow to the rhythm of my fly rod moving back and forth, back and forth, "Missy's-my-name, and-fishing's-my-game." I want to not move from that place until it is time to go back and sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate and watch the stars come up. I want to be still, even if I don't catch a single fish.

Clearly I am in need of an August.

Wizarding Fun

2011-07-14T21:08:00.005-05:00

I am not at the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie tonight. I want to be, but, as Casey so eloquently put it, "I am not 16 anymore...or, really, I have a job now." My coworkers will certainly thank me tomorrow for not coming in with two hours of sleep under my belt, but, well, I'm still a little sad.

To make up for the fact that we literally can't figure out when we're going to see the movie (!!!), we had a little wizarding fun last weekend to get ourselves prepared. We went over to Kevin and Missy's to watch Deathly Hallows Part One, and Missy put together a spread worthy of the Three Broomsticks--pumpkin pasties, Fizzing Whizbies, cockroach clusters, Polyjuice Potion, and of course, Bertie's Every Flavor Beans.

And we donned lightening bolt scars. And Missy wore her wizarding robes (never wished so much that I'd swiped that Oxford robe that we wore to the dining hall). And I almost brought my Nimbus 2000 but Jason said he wouldn't come if I did that. Good times had by all (even Jason, believe it or not).

Boom!

2011-07-10T15:22:00.008-05:00

I have this picture (which, of course, is not digital and therefore not postable) from nine years ago of Jason and me watching fireworks on the National Mall. We are there with a crowd of new friends, we had just met a week or two before, and it was the first time we had gone downtown for the fireworks. It was also the last time, until this year.

Luckily, this year we didn't have to stake out a spot in the scorching heat for hours or walk home afterward (that year, 2002, it was 96 degrees outside when Krystal, Amanda (who was visiting), and I got home at midnight. Um, yikes.). This time we had connections. This time we got invited to watch the fireworks on the balcony outside the Secretary of Interior's office, with Secretary Salazar and a hundred or so "close friends." MJ got to come too, which made it even more fun. After months of feeling fizzled out, it was nice to have something pleasant come of all this work!

The fireworks were AMAZING! We were literally right there--they were going off in our faces, and we could feel them in our throats. When the finale started, we felt pinned to the wall, as though we were being shot at. It was unbelievably awesome. That is definitely how I like to do the downtown fireworks!

Friends for the Fourth

2011-07-10T15:13:00.006-05:00

Patrick, Kim, and Katie--Jason's good friends from his grad school days--joined us for the Fourth this year, along with Katie's boyfriend James. Such fun. These guys have always made me feel so welcome and part of the gang, and I absolutely love spending time with them.

We spent Saturday in DC at Eastern Market and hanging out at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, before our water ran out and we needed ice cream desperately and came home. The basement was nice and cool, and we watched The Young Victoria before eating dinner and taking a nighttime tour of the monuments.

Sunday we went to church and then had brunch at the Carlyle before packing up a picnic and staking out a lawn seat at Wolf Trap for Mamma Mia! Loved it. By the end there was singing and dancing in the grass as well as on stage.

Most of the crew had to leave early Monday morning to get back up to New England in time for work, but we squeezed out every minute we could. We're already looking forward to the next time!

Lately

2011-06-30T21:14:00.000-05:00

Yowzahs. Are we ever behind on the blog or what? Here we are tapping on the door of July, and I still feel like we're in mid-May somewhere, imagining all the things we are going to do with our summer weekends and evenings. Today? Today we know what we are doing with each and every weekend--we are having friends in town, watching the fireworks at the Department of the Interior, going to book club, making butterbeer for a Harry Potter 7 Part 1 viewing party, celebrating birthdays, saying goodbye to the Kings and squeezing in every last drop of time with them that we can, taking our bill to the floor, and then finally, finally glorying in the reward that is August recess.

Lately we've:
* Finally, finally gone to see Wicked, which we loved. Loved-loved.

* Enjoyed a visit from George and Lynda, where we:
...ate fondue...

...took an afternoon cruise on the Potomac...

...had lunch in the dining room at the State Department...

...and celebrated the very good news that Lynda, who recently had two surgeries after doctors found cancer, just got her lab results back which indicated that there is NO cancer there anymore! Such an answer to prayer! The doctor still wanted to do chemo just to make sure it never comes back, so she started that this week.

* Found baby bunnies in our garden. I feel very uncomfortable about this. They are uber-adorable and so tiny and new...but rabbits like to devour vegetable gardens and are roundly considered pests around here. Eek.

* Got blackberries in our CSA this week and made awesome blackberry pancakes.

* Worked. A lot. I'm starting to feel unreasonably envious of people with normal jobs. We are tired all the time. Even during recess (this week) I feel like I am about to start a race when I step out of my car to go into the office--a race between my too-long to-do list and the limited hours in the day. I went to a stress management seminar specifically for LDs yesterday, and when people had to start sharing about what stresses them out, the room got palpably tense. Our appropriations bill is scheduled to start moving through the process next week, and oh, I can't wait until it is done and I can see if there really is life on the other side...

Okay, see, that wasn't so hard! At the rate we've been going here, you would think writing on the blog is a daunting task! Perhaps July will offer us a fresh start. (ha.)

Of Ferries and Starbucks and Tea on the High

2011-06-30T20:53:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time we went on vacation.

And then, unfortunately, we came home...where work immediately started spinning out of control, we had no groceries for days, we couldn't fall asleep at night or wake up in the morning, and it took me nearly a month just to look through our pictures on the computer to figure out what to tell you about.

It was worth it, though, I promise.

We’re not really sure why we decided to go to Seattle/the Pacific Northwest on our vacation this year, except that it turns out we have a lot of good friends there—one in particular, Krystal, who we suddenly realized we must. go. see. before she moves to Portugal for the foreseeable future (where, of course, we will have to go see her again). Plus, I had this inexplicable desire to rehabilitate Seattle in the eyes of Jason, who wasn’t terribly impressed when we spent a few hours there a few years ago (understandably. It was cold, we parked in a sketchy neighborhood, and let’s face it, we were there for a funeral).

Seattle in June was much more fun, though honestly we didn’t spend much time actually in Seattle. We had breakfast with my K-12 friend Janae and her two youngest (and kicked ourselves for forgetting to take pictures), had coffee at a Starbucks conception store, where they don’t dress in green and do serve wine, and then walked around the pier area for a few minutes before catching a ferry to Bainbridge Island.

Let me pause for just a moment to say a word about Krystal, who is one of my favorite people in the whole world. Since this blog is all post-marriage, you don’t get to know her very well, but she played the very significant role in my life of being the friend in my life when I met Jason. In fact, she met Jason first—and when she decided we needed to go to the Starbucks conception store because she thought it would be a good story for Jason to tell later, I laughed out loud, because she was spot on. She joined us on vacation, and we had such a good time (and laughed a lot). I feel so lucky to be her friend I could just pinch myself.

Anyway, on Bainbridge Island the most dramatic section of our vacation started when we got in the car after lunch, right on time according to our schedule that said it would take 90 minutes to get the ferry to Victoria, BC…and the GPS announced that it would take two hours. I feel like that story is probably better in person, but let’s just say that Jason still twitches and jumps into sprinting position every time he hears a ferry horn blow.

We did make it to Victoria as planned, where the weather was delightful and we stayed in a great suite with its own kitchen and made elaborate breakfasts every morning (dragon fruit was on the menu, just because).

We spent a good part of the first full day at Buchart Gardens, which was absolutely lovely—spring has come really late to the Northwest, so while it was 95 degrees here, the tulips were still out in the gardens and we were perfectly comfortable in jeans. So nice. That night we ate at a fantastic French restaurant, Bon Rouge, where everything was perfect.

Thursday dawned a little cloudy, but we still rented bikes and took a ride along the coast, and by the time we got to our turnaround point the sun was out again. Such a nice way to spend the morning.

Thursday afternoon was my highlight—High Tea at the Empress Hotel. Everyone who knew we were going to Victoria said that I of all people had to do this one thing there, so we did. I think both Jason and I were very glad to have Krystal with us—she and I could get delighted together, and he could enjoy his tea and scones…and sleep…in peace.

Our nice walk back to the hotel involved peeking into a few pubs to see how the Canucks hockey game in the Stanley Cup play-offs was progressing (not good) and an attempt to find some other weird fruit for breakfast the next day (we settled on...chocolate croissants).

Friday we ferried back to Port Angelos and drove down to drop Krystal back off at the ferry to Seattle, then drove south to Olympia, where we got to see Telfer, Andrea, and Cate again and meet Baby Jane. See what a fun week of hanging out with friends we had? We love to eat out with Telfer and Andrea, who love food like we do and have introduced us to some of our best restaurant experiences, and Acqua Via didn’t disappoint. The next morning Andrea took us to their fabulous farmer’s market, for coffee (where Jason, of course, told all about the Starbucks concept store), and for a walk along the waterfront. In the afternoon Andrea took me to one of her favorite shops, Compass Rose. I've been wishing they had a DC outpost ever since. We had such a good time with them, as always.

The only downside to a trip to the west coast is the horrific time change, accompanied, of course, by a red eye flight. We got back at about 10 am Sunday morning and went promptly to bed until 4 pm. I honestly think it is harder to adjust to this change than flying home from Europe.

I notice as I read back here that I’ve used the word “nice” to describe a lot of things on this trip, and, looking back, that seems about perfect. It was a vacation for drinking hot beverages, walking slowly, and enjoying really great conversation, which is just what we needed.

Nate's Wedding

2011-06-15T21:07:00.006-05:00

I have reached that happy point in one's career when I get to hire many of the people I work with, and Nate was my first pick. We have all clearly agreed that he is everyone's favorite in the office--I literally hired him because being around him makes you happy, and I was pleasantly surprised that he is also very good at his job.

Happily, Jeni is just as awesome as Nate--in fact, the other girls at work threatened Nate that if he did not marry her, we would fire him and hire her instead. It's all turned out for the best, since now we get to keep Nate and still have Jeni for staff Christmas parties and BBQs.

Jason and I had such a great time at Nate and Jeni's wedding, partly because it is so delightful to watch people you really like get married, and partly because they got married on Jacksonville Beach in Florida, which is incredible. We got up on Saturday, rented two beach chairs and an umbrella, and parked ourselves until it was time to go to the wedding. Awesome.

While I'm raving about the Greenes (hee hee!), I have to say that the wedding itself was one of the coolest weddings I've been to. Jeni has amazing style and taste and such attention to detail. Everything--from having the attendants carry big balloons instead of flowers to the guest photo booth (love the classic pic of Jason and me below) to the cute cutouts on the soda straws--was perfectly done. Our coworker Solara (Nate, Solara, and I all worked together in the old job) came, too, so we got to hang out with her as well. We absolutely loved getting to celebrate with these two!

(Note: I'm still not over referring to "Nate's wife" as often as possible, even though we've been back in the office for three days. So far, he doesn't seem to mind...)

Outside Things

2011-06-05T19:33:00.004-05:00

Summer is here--full-bore and not looking back to lovely, perfect spring. I talked to Shaanti last Monday and was complaining that it was already 95 outside, then she said it was 55 in Meridian. Can we not clearly see a happy medium for everyone at about 75, 80?

Still, when summer hits all the outside things start creeping onto our deck and onto our counter and into our fridge, and I love that. I love summer when we are looking for lettuce for hamburgers and can just go pull it out of the ground, which is what we've been doing lately--lovely, perfect heads of lettuce, more arugula than you can shake a stick at, snow peas popping up on the vines, and little tomatoes forming nicely.

This year in our garden we planted: green onions (which hardly came up. So disappointed), carrots, radishes (all long eaten), Ithaca head lettuce, green beans, spinach, arugula, leeks (which appear to have completely died), summer squash (those little acorn shaped ones that are perfect for stuffing with goat cheese), four kinds of tomatoes, and snow peas. Oh, and potatoes. First time for those.

Ours aren't the only green things coming up--we took our first visit to the farmers market last weekend and came home with asparagus and absolutely perfect strawberries, and our CSA finally started up. Last year's farmer decided not to do a CSA this year, so it's a bit like starting fresh and not knowing what to expect...though another pint of perfect strawberries was included with the first share, which definitely started us off on the right foot!

Officially Done

2011-05-25T21:19:00.006-05:00

Graduation was last week, and while we're still sort of picking up the pieces from a busy weekend, we had a great, fun celebration. I thought it might feel anti-climactic to walk after being done with classes for five months, but I'm glad I did--nice and official-feeling.

Both my parents and Jason's parents came out for graduation, which was so fun. They had met exactly one time (wedding), so this second visit was long overdue. We're so lucky to have parents who like each other, get along well, and are generally nice, stellar people.

We had a big graduation party on Friday, debuting the fabulous new back yard and celebrating with friends. Steven was designated photographer, so we'll get some pictures up here soon, but let me just say that our yard is awesome. Oh, and send a big shout-out to Dad and Jason, who planted way more flowers than they expected to on Thursday and Friday. So worth it, really.

Also, a post about graduation would not be complete without a shout-out to Jason. I love this picture above of him helping me figure out how to put on my hood. So symbolic of my entire grad school career, during which he put up with an exhausted and often tearful wife, read my entire thesis (God bless him), told me I was a good writer, didn't let me quit, set the timer so that I could read for an hour and then take a break, thought a Masters was worthwhile even if it didn't come with a promotion or a pay increase, prodded me with tea when I was losing it, gave direction for my scholarship application, made more than his fair share of meals, figured out what the heck I was trying to say in my thesis, and never complained (okay, well he might of complained once about having to read my thesis...). Lots of people have told me that they were glad that they weren't married when they were working full time and going to school, but I could.not. have done it without him.

Just Right

2011-05-13T21:19:00.003-05:00

We had the most lovely week of weather this past week...which means I watched the 75-degrees-and-sunny-with-no-humidity pass by longingly through the window by my desk. Still, mmm. Spring has been spotty so far this year, but it finally seems to have settled in for a bit before making way for hot, humid summer.

Last night we went on a run then puttered around our garden for a bit. These radishes were part of dinner--I don't really like radishes, but do you know they are ready to harvest in 20 days? Um, that is awesome. I have, like, three rows of them. But not for long. They are all ready to go and about to pick themselves (and actually pretty good roasted). How's that for gardening?

Risen Indeed

2011-05-13T18:08:00.008-05:00

I know I am SO BEHIND, but I still feel compelled to write about Easter. My Lenten preparations this year involved not only giving something up, but committing to do as well—I worked on being diligent about Bible study and journaling, and I also spent March and April reading One Thousand Gifts and N.T. Wright’s book on the resurrection, Surprised by Hope. Both books were incredible. Surprised by Hope in particular brought home what the resurrection really means, that God is in the business of restoring the world, us included, something that brings meaning to everything we do. I love that, I want to embrace that in my every day, the idea that what I do matters.

I know that in the wrong spirit Lent becomes legalistic, but it shouldn’t be. Lent this year was about putting myself in a place where, on Sunday morning, I had tears streaming down my face singing, “Christ is risen from the dead, we are one with him again!” and wanted to shout that “He is risen indeed!” Wright talks about celebrating Easter at least as long as we prepared for it, and even today, three weeks later, I feel like raising my hands in gratitude that I get to be a part of the new creation Jesus ushered in at his resurrection!

I missed spending Easter with Jason, but it was—and always is—really special to spend it with my family. Prep for Easter also includes egg decorating, of course, and we had a lot of fun dying eggs with the boys. Mom wisely moved things outside, since Mason was blue from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers within about two minutes…and had also cracked open at least one egg and was eating it, dye and all.

At least he knew where to put the yolk when he was done with it???

We got a fabulous Easter surprise when Casey and Kim randomly joined us for dinner at Texas Roadhouse on Saturday night--they'd driven down from Potlatch to spend Easter with us! What a treat to get to spend time with them! Made everything extra fun. It was the first time more than one boy was into the egg hunt, and then during the grown-kids hunt, Kim came away with the golden egg! I was hampered in my hunt by Kade-boy, not a bad deal. :)
What a glorious celebration!

Ice Cream Dates

2011-05-10T20:44:00.006-05:00

When Kade was born, I sent Cole and Mason a "New Big Brother" package, complete with awesome goodies like monster cookies, pieces of gum, quarters, and coupons for ice cream dates when I was in town next. The latter was the hit of the week while I was in Idaho--for the boys and for me.

Cole was pretty keen on getting to go to ice cream all by himself--he'd generously invited Granny to join us at one point, but by the time our date rolled around on Friday, he made it pretty clear that we should NOT invite Mason to come! We had two rounds of the sundae bar at JB's, and I had so much fun hanging out with Cole--he is so funny and so smart and so grown up...even with his silly camera face!

Taking Mason and Troy for ice cream required a wee bit more planning...and some strategic backup. Mason is lightening fast and slips through your hands like they are buttered--watching Shaanti strategically tackle him is pretty amusing (for me, not her). And it takes Troy a while to get warmed up to me...even when ice cream is in the mix.

The solution was to take Papa with us. He may not be sure about Aunt Missy, but Troy adores his Papa--at the dinner table one night he thanked God for Papa but left everyone else off the list--and between the two of us, Dad and I managed to limit the number of things stained bright blue by the ice cream (you'll notice that lips and hands escaped our control). We had a great time. It's hilarious to watch those two carry on a conversation, and between their two smiles you just want to laugh out loud.

Coop and Kade missed out on the ice cream dates, but there will be time for that next time.

Best Day Ever.

2011-05-10T19:41:00.003-05:00

Here are five things I loved about what quickly became known as the Best Day Ever:

1. The giddiness in Shaanti and Jenny's voices when they marveled at how easy it was to shop, shop, shop without (most of) their energetic boys in tow (we took Kade along so that we'd have someone to coo at);

2. How tan my mom's feet look in the picture of our pretty new pedicures (wonder which one of us spent two weeks in Hawaii this spring?);

3. Having the opinions of the people I trust most while swim suit shopping (yikes!);

4. Prawns and halibut chunks at the Stagecoach--the ultimate "special occasion" dining experience for the Johnson family;

5. Staying at the mall...and then the restaurant...and then Target as long as we wanted to (or until they kicked us out), with no pressing engagements or responsibilities weighing on us.

The only thing not to love was the absence of Kim, who would have rounded out our Johnson Girl Day Out experience perfectly. So, so fun.

Hi, Again

2011-05-08T21:16:00.002-05:00

Hey, remember us? We used to blog here. I'm not sure how we disappeared off the face of the earth--maybe it was the traveling, maybe it was the fact that the "busy season" at work seems to be stretching into a "busy eternity," maybe it's just taking me a long time to figure out how to move pictures from my iPhone to the computer.

We're doing our usually Sunday night thing, trying to get our ducks in a row for the coming week--Jason is calming ironing while I am frantically wondering how my Cooking Light subscription expired (don't they send you, like, a million notices before that happens?!?) and just realized that my laundry is still not put away. It's really hot tonight, and yet I still have sweaters hanging in my closet. So we're a little behind in other areas of our lives, not just the blog.

Dawn had a great blog entry this week about how she gets sucked into thinking she has to "catch you up" on every detail of the big events that happened while she was not blogging, and I should totally follow her lead and just start from today...but I have such fun pictures of my nephews to share from my time in Idaho, so I probably won't do that.

I'll be back, just didn't want you to feel neglected anymore.

Readers of the World Unite!

2011-04-19T19:19:00.006-05:00

So, while the awesome moment of last week was this (long sought after, hard worked for, can-hardly-believe-we-pulled-it-off kind of legislative high...), and while I will confess to doing the happy dance around the office on Tuesday morning, there were a couple of other cool moments to recall.

This one came in the middle of a pretty mind-numbing hearing on Thursday. I sit through a LOT of hearings, but sometimes they end up being very cool. Like on Thursday, when Ken Burns spoke about the value of the National Endowment for the Humanities and country singer Trace Adkins spoke about the value of preserving Civil War battlefields (could listen to THAT voice all day!).

And like when Azar Nafisi testified on the value of the humanities, particularly reading. She wrote Reading Lolita in Tehran, which was on my Amazing Books List circa 2004 and actually jump-started another reading binge, after too long away from books. Her book is a memoir of life in Tehran, described through the tale of the illicit reading group she taught to women in Tehran. Austen, James, Gatsby...and Lolita, of course. I'd never read Lolita before, so I tried, and I honestly couldn't finish it. But I like knowing that I couldn't finish it.

Dave, our subcommittee clerk and fellow English major, said that he wanted to jump up and clap for her because she reminded him why he majored in English twenty or so years ago. I felt the same way. After she testified, my boss thanked her profusely and then told her she couldn't leave until she talked to his staffer, who had been raving about her book all morning. I was beet red but also grateful--got to talk to her briefly afterward, and she wrote Nabokov's quote about readers being free.

Very cool. Almost as cool as finally, finally getting wolves off the endangered species list.

Almost.

Then and Now

2011-04-17T20:00:00.007-05:00

In late Fall of last year, we decided to create a "backyard." Our home's true backyard is filled by 3 giant homes constructed before we bought the house, so I suppose what we really created is a "sideyard," but we wanted one with a backyard feel. Between tearing out invasive vines, installing a new privacy and picket fence and laying new sod, we now have a "backyard" space worth the investment. Looking forward to future summer BBQs on the lawn! Here are two snapshots that show the change:

Summer 2009

Spring 2011

Facetime

2011-04-10T21:12:00.005-05:00

For my birthday, Jason totally surprised me with an iPhone--I had literally been counting down the days until the iPhone came to Verizon, but I knew that the technological/corporative contract/deal-striking challenges were nothing compared to his unshakeable distaste for Apple and his commitment phobia when it came to signing up for a data plan (the extent of interactiveness on our lovely once-cool, rapidly-aging flip phones is texting. oooo.). I was fully expecting to wait another year or so (or until my phone actually died) before we could have a serious talk about taking our cell phones to the next level.

I love my iPhone, but I confess that I spend a lot of time looking at it...and not really knowing what to do with it. Why, for example, when I say, "call Jason," does it call St. Alphonsus' hospital? And why, honestly, does my phone have the number for St. Al's in it? Where is Kim's number? When I went to call her on her birthday, I could not find it in my phone, and yet the next day when she texted to tell me that Cole and Mason each sang "Happy Birthday, Aunt Missy," to her, her name popped up as if my iPhone already knew her. These are mysteries to me. But still, love.

And yesterday my love hit a new level when I tried Facetime for the first time and got to meet this little face in (sort of) person. Let's just be honest here, third children get the shaft when it comes to baby pictures...and therefore long-distant aunts get the shaft when they don't get showered with pictures of their newest nephew the way they did when, say, his oldest brother was born (though kudos to Shaant on updating the blog lately, from where I stole this picture!). But Facetime, mmm. I got to watch him coo. I got to hear him grunt. I got to see him staring at his dad and licking his lips. It was awesome.

I also got to see Mason put on his sweet helmet for scooter riding and have Cole tell me that "he didn't have much planned" for the rest of the night. Highlight of the weekend. Even Jason was enjoying my iPhone.

The rest of the weekend was relatively uneventful. Assured that we would have jobs and paychecks come Monday morning (though it was a close call on Friday night!), we had this lovely Saturday planned with where we'd actually canceled plans so we could just hang out together--sleeping in, delicious breakfast, reading until we got bored, maybe even a bike ride...and then we woke up to the State Department calling, and Jason ended up having to work until 3 (some crisis in the Ivory Coast, blah, blah). I was ungraciously and childishly cranky, but happily the sun came out today and I gained some perspective and we got to plant our garden--yay! I planted radishes this year simply because they are ready to harvest in 20 days--20 days! I don't know who will eat them in 20 days, but they will be coming up!

And We're Back!

2011-04-04T21:14:00.002-05:00

Spring is back, that is, though no one has dared to put sweaters away or take out shorts. I'm getting tired of seeing my turtlenecks hanging in my closet and turning on my space heater at work.

Today was a nice relief from the very cold, rainy week we just had, and the trees are in full bloom! Love spring in DC (minus hoards of people and tour buses). I went on a run (sad, slow, out-of-shape run) after work today. I'd forgotten my iPod (tragic), so I carried my new iPhone that has, like, five songs on it. While the music was certainly lacking, I managed to take a few pictures of one of my favorite spring sites--since I only see it running and never have my camera on hand.

The little garden outside the Smithsonian Castle is lined with magnolia trees that are perfectly in bloom right now. It is like a fairy land. I wish I could eat my lunch on one of these benches every day.

Happy April!

False Spring

2011-03-27T21:09:00.004-05:00

Um, hi, this is what we woke up to this morning:

You have to be kidding me.

I felt sorry for all those Cherry Blossom Festivalers stamping around to keep warm while trying to figure out which puffy white things were flowers and which were snowballs. Unbelieveable.

We, meanwhile, were having a delightful weekend, snow and all. As a birthday treat, Jason booked a night at the Marriott Ranch near Front Royal, Virginia, just shy of the Shenandoahs. It's the one bed and breakfast in the Marriott chain and was once the vacation home of the Marriotts...after it was the home of James Marshall, brother of John Marshall, the Supreme Court Chief Justice. That was in, like 1814.

We'd hoped to spend the weekend walking or bike riding, assuming that the 70+ degree weather from last weekend was here to stay (ha!). Even so, we enjoyed curling up with cheese and books and napping under blankets just fine. We had a fabulous dinner at Apartment 2g in Front Royal, where we ate five courses, watched the chefs cook, and had to roll ourselves on of the restaurant and back to the Ranch.

We stayed long enough for breakfast today and then drove back, and we felt fantastically rested. The heart just pumps a little slower outside of the city.

Birthday Weekend Recap

2011-03-27T20:56:00.003-05:00

Apparently in my old age I can't blog in a timely fashion anymore. No matter--since today was the final part of my annual week-long birthday celebration, it's totally timely to post about birthday weekend now.

Birthday weekend was not only my birthday this year--we were rockin' and rollin' with the b-day parties. I can hardly keep up with all the birthday celebrations in my own family this month (as can be attested to all the extra postage I've paid for gifts in order to get them there on time)...first Casey, then Mini-Coop, then Kim, then Adam is Saturday, and Jenny is just around the corner. Phew! Ready for the break that is May!

Anyway. My birthday. Perfect day. Jason started it out with chocolate croissants and tea, and we ended things at Duangrats, my favorite Thai place near our house--last year's celebration was so fun, I thought we might as well do it again! Jason made me an amazing chocolate cake and my friends came out to celebrate. Such fun.

Saturday morning I headed to Dawn's where she hosted some friends for a lovely birthday tea party (if you remember, her birthday is the day before mine--"Our Birthday," as we call it). She'd done up the table just perfectly, the jasmine tea was delightful, and I ate way too many cucumber sandwiches. And we wore hats. Fun.

I got home in time for us to turn around and walk across the neighborhood to Hudson's first birthday party--an "I Love You, Stinkyface" party. Hudson is the youngest of the "five in six months" babies born in our dear group of friends, and his was the first party where all of the babies had basically turned into interested toddlers--below is the picture of Carter (who, at 4 1/2 months, is remarkably good at sitting in a chair!), Carly, Walker, and Anna listening to the story.

Somehow we didn't get a single picture of the birthday boy!

Champions at heart

2011-03-21T20:56:00.007-05:00

My ice hockey team played in the winter season final match a few weeks ago. Though we entered the third period leading 2 goals to 1, we lost in the end 3 to 2 in what became a competitive and physical game. A supportive crowd came to cheer me on (Mark Wojo and two of his boys, the Harveys, the Petersons, Kevin Patterson, and Missy of course)! While we turned out our best season ever since we became a team two years ago, it was still a disappointing end. On to summer season -- starts March 25!

Little Dresses

2011-03-05T22:48:00.004-05:00

It was Dress Day around here--the girls in our Sunday school class got together to spend the afternoon turning pillow cases into dresses for little girls in Africa who have lost their parents to AIDS. Pretty cool idea--check out the website here.

We had a fun crowd--seven girls brought their sewing machines, and we had lots of extra hands to iron, cut, and pin. We ended up working well into early evening and finished 13 dresses. We have 15 more waiting for the final step. I was thankful for all those Caravans badges in sewing, I tell you what! I'm also thankful for Amy's great camera skills that captured the day!

Missy gives us a demonstration so that we have a small inkling of what we're doing!

Lots of cutting...

Kathryn sews casings while Maria measures elastic.

It turns out sewing is not always fun...right Natalie?

Donna ironed bias tape for hours.

The finished product was beautiful!

This Week at Work

2011-03-04T21:03:00.006-05:00

We're in the middle of the mad season at work again. After ten years (!!!), I've gotten used to the crazy days and late nights, but I have yet to develop a taste for it. Sometimes we get by on plain silliness. For example, this week:

* MJ celebrated Justin Bieber's birthday by bringing in her ukulele and singing that "like, baby, baby, baby" song for us all. And by us all, I mean the entire staff and the Congressman. And the night mail clerk.

* We had our first hearings with my boss as the Chairman. I sat behind him for three hours while the EPA Administrator testified, and all I could think of the whole time was that some reporter was going to take a picture of my boss in which I was going to be chewing on my lip awkwardly or sneezing or rolling my eyes to the back of my head, and that picture was going to be plastered all over every news website in Idaho. Forever. Why do I think this? Because this picture has been used for the past two years every time my boss is mentioned. Poor Kaylyn and Megan.

* One of our district staffers was in town, and she convinced all of us to wear pink on Thursday, because that was what she had brought to wear. So we did. I don't know why. It's not Breast Cancer Awareness Month or anything. I also don't know why it was so easy to convince us. But I know it was funny--especially when Mike sat up in the dias with his pink tie and I sat right behind him with a matching shirt. (As you'll note from the picture, Nate had to balance out his pink tie by covering it with a blue sweater. Just in case.)

(And by the way, this picture makes me want to roll on the floor laughing. Not only did we decide to take a picture right before Mike left and had therefore changed into a polo (which looks great with the pink tie), but his expression is classic. I love working for him!)

* We have our own barista in the office, as Nate makes coffee each morning in his French press. He and I have been the only coffee drinkers in the office, but in the past few weeks two new staffers have started. Between them and the visiting Nikki, he had to press two pots this morning. I think we should probably start tipping him.

* One of our new staffers is a nuclear engineer doing a fellowship in our office. He told me during his first week that he thought I was too cynical for someone so young. This week he started responding to constituent mail. Suddenly I don't look so unreasonably cynical...

Don't worry, we also had five hearings this week, passed some legislation, prepared a handful of speeches, and met with a lot of people. We just figure that we might as well add a little color to make these busy days a bit brighter...and if that color is pink, well, fun for us!

New Things

2011-02-27T19:07:00.015-05:00

Here are a few new things for February:

New Spring: It's not really spring, I know, but it's getting harder and harder to keep from pretending it is. Look at these lovely little signs of life. I love bulb flowers--they make you feel alive, even though it's very possible we could still get another snow storm. Delightfully warm day today. We opened our windows and went on a walk. So nice.

New Diploma: Finally arrived on Friday. I'd poo-poohed the idea of framing it, hanging it in house, etc., but then it turns out I'm sort of in awe of it--all pretty and official looking. Perhaps a frame is in order after all...

New Favorite Restaurant: We've been trying to go to Rasika for months--after multiple failures to get a table for the next night, we finalize realized that we'd have to make reservations weeks in advance, and then I ruined our last try by getting sick. We finally went last night, and it was soooo. worth. it. We both woke up thinking about the fried spinach appetizer and the black cod. Birthdays and anniversary? Check.

New Haircut: In cutting my hair, I have officially cut my morning routine in half. Huzzah. Am so a short hair person. Have no idea how I had let long hair sneak up on me again.

New Book: We're still very set in our winter books-in-the-living-room ways, in spite of not needing a fire today. Jason, who has uncharacteristically found himself reading about four books at once, finished Hamlet's Blackberry today, which he'd put down for Harry Potter, and I gobbled up 70 pages of One Thousand Gifts--utterly amazing. About becoming fluent in the language of thankfulness. Expect me to be talking about this one for a while.

New Fence: Our big project of the winter was getting a fence put in--something we've hemmed and hawed over for years and finally just did. We love it. It looks so much better than I thought it would--and we actually have a "back" yard (and a corner in which to pile all the branches from two weeks of wind storms)! Suddenly our house seems perfect. Of course, someone walking their dog yesterday asked expectantly if we were getting a dog. Um, no...

New Habit: I've taken to baking bread every weekend lately--just quick breads, don't get all freaked out on me. Missy tipped me off to Whole Wheat Molasses Bread, I made my Grams' banana bread one week, and the past two weeks have been cheesy breads from this delightful book (this week's is a tasty (and overly lemony) cheesy olive bread). Next week I'm determined to pry the recipe for the carrot cake bread Tilly made this weekend out of her hands...

Playoffs!

2011-02-25T23:29:00.003-05:00

Tonight was a night of many firsts in my Kettler Capital Iceplex Lower C hockey playing career:

My team - Redrum - finished first place (among 8 teams) in the regular season, giving us first place seed in the single-elimination playoffs.
I played my first hockey playoff game (I always seemed to be traveling during playoffs in previous seasons, and of course there was the dreadful season-ending ankle injury of 2009).
We won our first playoff game -- 9 to 1.
I contributed to the win with a goal-- a first in my playoff history.
My team advances to the second-round of the playoffs (next Friday, 9:30 pm) for the first-time ever. (Sorry, but due to league regulations, our games are not broadcast, you must come and watch in person!)

Long Weekend

2011-02-21T19:49:00.002-05:00

It was 70 on Friday, and since the busy 60+ hour work week prevented me from going running (something I desperately wanted to do), Kaylyn and I walked around our building--twice--and ate Oreos with fro-yo, in spite of the fact that my feet were aching after three 14-hour days in high heels.

Tonight it is snowing. Or, rather, almost snowing--right now it is rainy and cold, and the temperature is inching its way down in order to pelt us with 4-5 inches of snow by morning. We had split pea soup for dinner in order to make the best of the situation. Have I mentioned that I dislike February?

In spite of the fact that, when I DID try to go running today, an icy wind turned me back home after only a few blocks, we've had a really nice weekend. It was a busy week--the kind of week where adrenaline kept me going through Thursday, when we were supposed to go out of session, and then dropped me completely when we stayed in session until the wee hours of Saturday morning. I got to go home by 10 each night, and by Friday night I laid in bed and felt like if I tried to move my legs or arms I would throw up. I can't imagine how my boss, who stayed until 2 or 4 am each night, felt.

So Saturday was a calm day. Sleeping in. Lazy breakfast with tea. Knitting with my friend Missy (although Kade has arrived, his baby blanket has not...). Going out for Italian. Sunday we had some people from church over for dinner and made this, which blew our socks off (for lunch today Jason and I spooned the sauce into bowls and dunked bread in it, just to keep ourselves from spooning it straight into our mouths). We went on a walk looking for all the tips of hyacinths and daffodils we could find, and we watched Harry Potter. Jason has finally finished book four, and we've been watching each movie as he finishes. I'm not sure why, actually, except maybe I want to participate in this process, and maybe we want to prove how much better the books are than the movies. Either way, we stayed up late last night, happy to sleep in again this morning and eat strawberry muffins all day.

Jason left for hockey practice about 45 minutes ago, and I still don't know how I should fill the rest of my night. I've been reading Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and within a chapter or so I felt instinctively like we share roots--so it was no surprise to find, on googling her, that she's from Idaho. Her novel smells like Idaho. It makes me a little homesick, so probably I need to move on to something else for a while. Like putting my laundry away or getting ready for work tomorrow. Something like that.

V-Day

2011-02-14T21:50:00.004-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day. We celebrated in the classic way--by working late, eating dinner out of the crockpot, and checking Facebook on our separate computers. It was romantic.

Actually, Jason made me a delicious pork loin for dinner last night, complete with classy white dishes, flowers, and candles. And reading by the fire. And dark chocolate covered cherries, yum yum! And I made these cookies.

I am a big, big fan of Jason. He is awesome.

Booze Cruise

2011-02-13T20:52:00.001-05:00

Okay, so we totally didn't go on a booze cruise, just a dessert cruise. I just wanted to call it that after one of my favorite classic "Office" episodes.

That being said, we had a good time. And we might have seemed somewhat inebriated, but that's just because we were laughing so hard. You know those annoying teen youth groups on planes that insist on singing songs and taking up too much space in the airport? Yeah, we were them.
At least we were old enough to know we were probably being annoying. But we were having so. much. fun. Well, except maybe all the guys, who couldn't stand up straight in the boat.

We got dressed up, went to Olive Garden for dinner, and watched the monuments cruise by, our faces sticky from chocolate fondue. It was good times. Even in February.

Hello, Kade.

2011-02-07T23:12:00.004-05:00

Just when I think that I am totally used to nephews making their appearance in the world, another one shows up and takes my breath away for a moment, proving to be so unique and yet just as unexpectedly charming as the last. Kade Phillip Bucher made his appearance late last night, via text message and tiny little text picture. Am so happy he has a name and is some one now, and I can't wait to meet him. Or see pictures on a bigger screen than the one on my old, crappy phone (you know that Verizon commercial with the people counting down the seconds until the iPhone comes out? That is me).

And, can I just say, it is so easy to get overwhelmed by the rush of affection I feel for those boys? And this new one will have a special place in my heart, since he turned a bad day into a good one. He is in the NICU for a few days now (expected, but still not fun), so you can be praying for him and his mama, who is one of the most special people in the world.

Saturdays

2011-02-05T19:27:00.003-05:00

I am still not over how delicious Saturdays are when there is no homework hanging over your head. I have spent the day drinking coffee and reading magazines, washing the sheets, putting things away, and having (more) coffee with friends. It's like my house and I know each other again. So good...

It's a nice, gloomy, rainy Saturday, and I like those every now and then--especially when I am full of sun and warmth after our cruise. I'm starting to check little "projects" off of my list, like putting together my book list for 2011--something I haven't done since I started grad school. I have been inspired both by Andrea's post-college five year reading plan (assigned at the end of our senior year) and her more recent"52 for 52" list, but I am not so ambitious...and I don't handle structure that well! It's one "assigned" book a month for me.

I hope to read more than 12 books this year (way more), but this list is sort of my "Just because I'm not in school any more doesn't mean I should only read Harry Potter and Bridget Jones" list. For those other non-assigned books, I'm focusing on books that I own this year--why not, for example, read some of Jason's books? And what about the stack of books that I just keep "picking up" at Costco or when I need free shipping on Amazon? Plus, there's that whole "Library of Congress delivers to my desk" thing...

So, anyway. Reading list for 2011 (minus January, my month to accomplish nothing, because I could), in case you're interested:

February: North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Lynda gave me the movie years ago, and I loved it. Have been wanting to read the book ever since.

March: Confessions, by Augustine
Should have read in Oxford, of course (where I learned to pronounce it "AuGUSTin" instead of "AugustEEN"), but my atheist professor quoted Augustine during the semester and said, "You have to be careful reading Confessions, or you just might find yourself becoming a believer." Intriguing.

April: Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe/Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Northanger was my first Austen, so why not read the book over which Cathy obsesses throughout the novel with it?

May: Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood

June: The Common Reader, by Virginia Wolfe
Wolfe has been on my reading list since 2005. have yet to finish a book. Am afraid.

July: Too Much Happiness, by Alice Munro

August: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
I now have two degrees in English and have never read Tolstoy. Am ashamed.

September: The Golden Bowl, by Henry James
Uncle Chuck left it in my room at the cabin for me.

October: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

November: Don Quixote, by Cervantes
See note on August. Also, should be able to weave the word "quixotian" into a sentence with ease.

December: The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling

Exchanging Snow for Sun

2011-02-03T18:43:00.005-05:00

Taking a trip (one of our favorite things to do) seemed like an appropriate celebration for completing grad school--both of us needed a vacation after all the work (and encouragement given) last fall, and what better way to spend a miserably cold and snowy week in February than to spend it somewhere warm and sunny? Thus, the Graduation Celebration Caribbean Cruise.

This was my first cruise, and I hope it will be the first of many. We did all the things we love to do while traveling: eating (have you been on a cruise lately?), sleeping (somehow we slept for 12 hours one night. I won't tell you what time we went to bed...), and lounging in beach chairs reading (Jason is now on the fourth Potter book, and I finally got a chance to read this, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least two (maybe three?) years). Heavenly.

What we do best

Our ship--"Navigator of the Seas"--together with another at the port of call

We did get off the boat at our two ports of call. First was George Town on Grand Cayman, where the water was bluer than I thought possible. We ventured away from the cruise boat spots and took a bus to Cemetery Beach, where we did some fun snorkeling and basked on the beach.

The blue waters of Grand Cayman

Second was Cozumel, where we decided to be a little more adventurous and did a dune-buggy trip around the island. We did some more snorkeling, ate some good Mexican food, and got to see some amazing views on our trip...and Jason got to drive the stick-shift dune buggy through downtown. He was a pro.

Mexican serenade in Cozumel

On the dune buggy

Para-surfers on Cozumel

We got home this afternoon and have spent the last few hours shaking the sand out of our shoes and trying to remember to put a coat on before we go outside. Oh, and going to the grocery store, so that when the next storm hits (tomorrow?), we can face it with more than two carrots and a carton of eggs to our names.

Thundersnow.

2011-01-27T22:41:00.006-05:00

Honestly, we had the worst commute ever yesterday. Jason says to call it "harrowing," and I think that, as the person who had to drive the worst parts of it, it's more than fair to let him decide how to describe it. Let's just call this a collaborative entry. You'd think after Snowpocalypse (or Snowmaggedon, the names are interchangeable now) that this city might have figured something out about handling a snow storm. But no. They have not.

We all knew the snow was coming--we woke up to icy slush, and all the warnings pointed to a brief respite during the afternoon before 5-10 inches descended on us. The East Coast has been pummeled with bad storms this winter, but somehow Washington had escaped them all until yesterday. Right on time at 3:00 p.m., the rain started, and right on time at 3:00 p.m., the government announced a two-hour early release, and right on time at 3:00 p.m., every worker in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area spilled out into their cars and onto the streets. Rush hour turned into rush minute.

We ventured out right into the middle of it. Due to a last-minute meeting (people who were “had to get to the airport,” ha), I didn’t spill out into my car at 4:00 p.m. to go pick him up two miles away. I finally got to him at about 5:10 p.m. I thought we’d hit the worst of it until we got onto I-66 for the last few miles and what is usually the easiest part of our commute. My relief at finally being out of DC (and giving Jason the wheel) was short-lived, however. I-66 was a string of brake lights, and as the rain turned to snow and the snow turned to ice, that string started to blink a bit as cars began to fishtail down the road. An oversized commuter-bus jack-knifed across both lanes of traffic, slowing the mind-numbing crawl to a complete stop for a while, and finally we discovered that up ahead it had snowed so much that they'd already shut down lanes so that only one was still open. Lovely.

We’d only had to go one exit on I-66, so when we finally reached it after an hour and a half (note: total drive time at this point is 2:30), we were feeling a bit reckless, so Jason bravely gunned it up the off-ramp. We cheered…and then realized that, no matter how we came at it, another steep hill stood between us and our house.

Our first plan was thwarted when two power lines came down right in front of us. Our second plan forced us back into painful traffic where we sat for another hour, just a mile and a half from our house. People had already started abandoning their cars in the middle of the road, having run out of gas or just simply given up and walked home—and don't think we didn't consider it. Finally we reached the road that goes to our condo, and we decided to make a break for it.

Jason seriously deserves a medal for Gutsiest Driving, 2011. We watched as at least three cars ahead of us started up the hill and slid backwards, but when there was a space, he gunned it and maneuvered his way past them, doing everything he could to keep the wheels spinning. At the top he let out a shakey breath and we braced ourselves for the last hill. The snow was wet and thick and landed like a sheet of slushy ice, and when we turned onto the last street an abandoned van sat in the middle of the road, having run out of gas. Jason took a deep breath, laid on the horn, and picked up speed down the hill before gunning it again to go up the last slope. All of my dad's lessons about what to do when the car starts fishtailing came flying back to me as we careened this way and that, narrowly missing one car and a fire hydrant as the wheels threatened to spin out of control. When we finally reached the top of the hill, he laid on the horn again and we flew through the yellow light.

We turned onto our street at 8:15 p.m. Over four hours after I left work.

Jason has this uncanny gift for being able to fall asleep whenever, wherever…something that sort of annoys me when I lay tossing and turning in bed. But last night he was still flush with adrenaline, and plagued by recurring flashes of the horrific drive, it was he who tossed and turned. The only saving grace was that we were together. It would have been terrible to have lived through those hours separated, constantly wondering if the other would survive the night and without means to attempt any sort of rescue.

We took full advantage of the offered delay on coming in this morning, waiting until the ice had turned back into slush before venturing out again. We definitely had a story to tell when we got in to work, but it turns out lots of people had it way worse off—someone was stuck on the GW Parkway for twelve hours, for example, and someone else took a grueling bus ride from the airport to the metro, only to have the metro closed and the bus turn around and go back to the airport. So all in all, only a little room to complain. Besides, we have a sunny getaway only a couple of days away, and we wouldn’t be able to truly appreciate it without miserable weather here, right?!?

A Sad Goodbye

2011-01-25T19:16:00.005-05:00

We took an unexpected trip to Ohio this past weekend to celebrate the life of Jason's grandma Small, who passed away last week. A sad event, but not an unexpected one, as Grammy had been very sick over recent months and fell and broke her leg right after the New Year. Sometimes when someone is in pain and suffering, the sadness co-mingles with the joy that they are in a better place, you know? That Grammy is now at the feet of the King makes me smile. We were very happy that we'd been able to see her and have such a good time at Christmas, which we recognized at the time as a big blessing.

It was absolutely frigid in Mount Vernon while we were there--Saturday morning it was below zero when we left the house, and I think the high was about 15 degrees F for the weekend! It was nice to get an extra chance to spend time with the family again. We enjoyed the chance to visit with Justin and his girlfriend April briefly, we went to see True Grit (v. good), and on Sunday afternoon we drove a couple of hours to have lunch with some good friends from when the family lived in Pennsylvania when Jason was young. That was a real treat.

Sad moments like these, when they come, remind me of what Jesus has done for me, how He died so that I could be reconciled with Him. We've been talking a lot about reconciliation lately, about God's amazing powers to restore us to the people He created us to be, to restore the world, to restore our relationships with each other. When I have a God who can make things right again, I feel foolish that I don't always trust Him to do so. What a relief to live in His power instead of my own!

Routine

2011-01-15T08:28:00.004-05:00

When a new year rolls around, I always, always hear my mom’s voice in my head talking about getting “back into the routine” and getting with a “new program.” These phrases always accompanied any occasion where a shift in mentality was called for—the beginning of the school year, January, coming home from a vacation, what have you. Granted, her “new programs” almost always came with some sort of chart for divvying up the household chores, but while that was never fun, there was always something sort of calming about getting back into the routine. I distinctly remember my mom’s set of index cards laying out what tasks belonged to what days—I imagine there were times that without that sense of structure, she might have gone crazy. It must have profoundly influenced me, as I still look for my bearings in the comfort of routine.

Anyway, January is a good time to both "get back into the routine" and start "new programs," and I’m learning that the lynch-pin for many of those programs (i.e. eating healthy, taking lunches to work, getting control of spending) is the same: meal planning. I am heavily dependent on meal planning, and I’ve mentioned in a few blog entries the ambitious four-week menus that have kept me sane during particularly busy times. I suspect that there are a lot of us out there who have latched onto meal planning as either a good new program or a way to get back into the routine for 2011. I don’t claim to have the best solutions to menu planning (I am NOT good with coupons, for example, which I realize completely influences how you plan meals), and I think there are lots of ways to do this (I love Becca's idea from way back here), but if, as Andrea has suggested, you’re looking for some tips, here's how I do it.

My menu planning has two levels of intensity. Ever since Jason and I got married and I discovered that you cannot actually live on love alone, I have planned my meals on a weekly basis, writing out the entire menu on a white board on our fridge. A couple of things I consider:

Weeknight meals need to come together in 30 minutes or less. If I have a recipe that takes longer, it needs to be scheduled for the weekend.
We don’t usually get home from church until shortly before 1:00 on Sundays, so I try to plan meals that can either go in an oven set on a timer (roasted veggies are particularly good) or in the crockpot—especially dishes that can only cook for 3 or 4 hours (as opposed to the 10 hours required for weeknight meals).
Speaking of crockpots, Wednesdays are usually the longest days at work, so I try to plan a long-cooking crockpot meal, like this, for that night so that we can walk in, dejected and worn out, and smell dinner ready to spoon into our bellies.
I try to choose meals early in the week that provide leftovers to take for lunches during the rest of the week. For example, we almost always have soup on Sunday nights, and I occasionally make four servings of a dish on Monday instead of two.
Figuring out what to make is always a challenge—easier if you’re only doing it once a week instead of every night, but a challenge nonetheless—so I’ve put together a list of meals that we like to eat. I can then just look at the list rather than sort through all my recipes and cookbooks.
I know this seems to go without saying, but once I’ve chosen the menu, I pull every recipe out to see what ingredients I need to buy at the store. If I don’t do this, I inevitably forget that I need green onions for black bean tacos or didn’t realized I’d run out of the cashews I need for curry.
Perhaps this also goes without saying, but I plan out the entire meal—main dish, sides, veggies—and mark where to find the recipe. This enables Jason to make the meal if he gets home first, which is key to the success of both our meal plan and our marriage.

In a particularly busy season, I take my meal planning up a notch and plan for four weeks at a time. There are clear advantages to the four-week plan—obviously, less time figuring out what to have, but also less grocery shopping and less wasting of perishables—but there are disadvantages too, mainly lack of flexibility. I often lament at three food magazines worth of recipes going untested during the four-week plan, but sacrifices must be made. For a four-week plan, I think about:

What dishes can I double so that half can be eaten the first night and the other half put in the freezer for a quick meal later in the month? Things like this work well.
In the same vein, what dishes can I make on, say, Monday of one week, and then eat again on Thursday of the next week, so that I use up all of, for example, the shredded cabbage that I only like in black bean tacos?
In the same vein (again), how many recipes do I have that use plain yogurt? Cilantro? Green onions? What do these ingredients all have in common? 1: I can never, ever use a whole container/bunch of them in one meal, and 2: I have three or four well-loved meals for each ingredient. Solution? Plan meals around ingredients to use them up, rather than throwing away yet another bunch of slimy cilantro or putrid yogurt. For example, cilantro goes in this and this and this.
What can I use up that’s been in my pantry or freezer for a long time? Somehow the type of planning that involves using up the side of beef we bought from my parents, oh, three years ago goes better with long-term meal planning than short-term, so I like trying to clean out what we have by the end of the month so we can start fresh.
What simple meals can I plan for nights when I know I won’t have a lot of time? I realize this should be how I think on a daily basis, but meal planning exercise forces me to look at dinner differently—as something that has to be done each night instead of a fun activity to take up an evening. I know, you think I’m looking at this backwards, but honestly, when you have to work until 6:30 and drive home in traffic and then read 300 pages and write a five-page paper before going to bed at a decent time so that you can do it all again the next day, it’s healthy to consider dinner as a means to an end. This summer Andrea (to whom this blog entry is dedicated) impressed upon me the importance of setting realistic expectations in the kitchen—paninis and salad, for example, are a nice meal, as is anything that takes 15 minutes or less (like this or this).
Also good: leftovers. How have I forgotten this message? My favorite nights all through high school and college were Sunday night leftover nights, which were a smorgasbord of whatever you liked best. Plan one night a week to finish off all the last bits of curry and those last two slices of pork that are not enough for a meal all by themselves but go really well together with a dollop of tapioca salad.
Grocery shop for a month at a time. Putting together the four-week meal plan is a production—recipes everywhere, scratching out things and moving them to different days, list after list—but go all the way and make your grocery list at the same time. Write down every ingredient you will need for each week, then go through and put all the canned goods, frozen meat, etc., on your grocery list for week one. Your pantry and freezer will be full, but for the next three weeks you will just have to add the list of produce and other perishables you’ve already created for that week to whatever milk and eggs you need to get. If the point of the menu is to save time in the kitchen, save time at the store, too.
And here is my last tip: If you are planning for longer than two weeks, keep one night free each week. Stuff always comes up—a friend comes into town and you go out to dinner one night unexpectedly, Jason has to work late and we decide to do “dinner on your own” (aka ramen noodles), someone invites you over to dinner for this next Friday—and you can really only guess how the calendar will look four weeks in advance. The four-week meal plan was particularly successful for me during school, since I knew what I was going to be doing at least five nights a week (homework, class, homework, class, falling asleep at 7), but these days I would need to build in for some uncertainty. Maybe I make this my leftovers night, with the recognition that we can have leftovers on Saturday for lunch if we don’t eat them on Thursday. Whatever. It’s a good practice.

Okay, long blog entry, but hopefully interesting? What are your ideas for menu planning? Does it work for you or not? Any tips or advice you want to offer?

The First Few Pages

2011-01-09T17:17:00.004-05:00

We have spent the first few pages of 2011 just like this: fire, shared ottoman, books. Sometimes (like now) tea. Nearly every night this week, we have cleaned up the dishes and settled in for at least an hour. It is heavenly. I actually feel like I'm doing something extravagant and probably irresponsible, even though the only things hanging over my head are dinner (and since, inspired by Andrea, we made this recipe for lunch today, we are not at all hungry yet) and a pile of constituent mail that needs editing.

You may notice, by the way, that Jason is reading Harry Potter. I know, I'm completely beside myself but trying not to overreact and thus scare him away. He has committed to reading at least through the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is generally agreed to be the "hooking point." The other day he randomly wove the phrase "house elf" into a conversation about not wanting to empty the dishwasher. My heart leapt.

So far, 2011 is exACTly what I had hoped it would be. There are delicious new recipes (this and this are for dinner tonight). There is working out (oh! THAT'S what's hanging over my head today!). There is a new Congress where my boss is both presiding over the House floor (yay!) and chairman of the approps subcommittee on which I work (double yay!). There is paced organization of everything, starting with a new spreadsheet of the recipes I want to try from my cooking magazines. There are new boots found on clearance on their way. There are long hours with books by the fire. There are twinkle lights, at least until the rest of our neighbors have taken theirs down. There is the tantalizing anticipation of a graduation celebration on the beach.

The only thing missing is chocolate cake.

New Year

2011-01-01T17:54:00.003-05:00

Jason started the year toasting it in with friends who came over to play games. I started it in bed with a cold, kept company by Mr. Darcy and good cold meds. We've laid low the past few days, and all in all I'm grateful that the cold came when I was already planning to lay around in sweats and watch obscene amounts of tv, versus finish papers or celebrate Christmas or start new Congress next week.

Today's to-do list started with sleeping in far too long, then:
1. Drinking lots of coffee;
2. Tearing down the Christmas tree in overcaffeinated frenzy, then packing up all the other Christmas decorations (still feel grinch-ish for being so anxious to get everything down);
3. Eating soup leftover from last night's party;
4. Taking a shower;
5. Sitting.

There is still dinner to make, and Jason is organizing his computer games in an effort to pass time until the hockey Winter Classic starts at eight. But this quiet moment, in the clean, uncluttery (love tree, but takes up third of room) living room with tea and fire is my favorite way to start the new year.

I've been anxious to put 2010 behind us--this fall, particularly, felt like being trapped in a deep rut, so I feel relieved that January 1 is finally here. I want something totally new for 2011, something to break the mold. Like moving to London. Or quitting my job and writing a book. Or taking up ballet. Or, at the very least, getting a bold new hair cut.

For today, I've abandoned my Lady Grey for some new white tea and put away my Sara Groves playlist for a long-forgotten Lifehouse album. I feel a bit better, ready for a January where I will:
* organize my house, room by room, starting with the spare room and working my way up to that ridiculous shelf of crap in the utility room;
* write letters (or, okay, emails) to the dear friends whom I have completely and utterly neglected over the past year;
* update my iPod;
* practice the art of meditation, as studied in Celebration of Disciplines last year (perhaps not bad idea to stop for a moment and give God a little space to speak in my life);
* stop eating sugar (must dispose of hundreds of cookies, chocolate candies, etc. in next 24 hours) and get in awesome shape so that I a) look fabulous in a swim suit, b) stop huffing and puffing up the stairs (pretend it is the head cold, but pretty sure it is the lack of working out since before Thanksgiving), and c) fit into the majority of my jeans again;
* write something. Just something.

I am very happy for new beginnings this year...or, at least, I will be once I have polished off this last bag of cookies...

Ohio Christmas

2010-12-29T12:27:00.004-05:00

We had a really delightful Christmas with Jason's family this year. Jason's work schedule forced us to arrive on Christmas Eve, but we were able to get there by lunch time and spend the afternoon hanging out with his parents before heading to the Christmas Eve service at their church that evening. I like Christmas Eve services. Growing up, we always did the carol singing and Christmas story reading together at home, but it is nice to do it at church, as well--plus, we enjoyed the Christmas "readers' theater" in which George deftly played the dog that guarded the Baby Jesus in the manger. :)

After church, we had dinner together and then watched The Nativity Story. This is definitely on Jason's and my list of Family Christmas Traditions--I was skeptical until Jason practically made me watch it a few years ago, but oh, so good. It gives me a new appreciation for the Christmas story all over again.

We had a fun Christmas, complete with White Christmas, gift opening, a delicious dinner, Christmas crackers with silly crowns (Grandmom wore hers all day, and I don't think she realized it was still on when she went to go home that evening!), and a fun game of Christmas bingo during which $20 was at stake. Of course Jason won the money. And he wonders why I don't like to play games with him! We got to meet Justin's girlfriend, April, at dinner, too--she was the perfect addition to the meal, and it was so great to get to know her a bit!

We finished off our trip with more games and lunch at Hunan Garden (which I've heard about constantly but had never been). In light of all the crazy storms on the east coast, we made it home easily and without incident--and to absolutely no snow on the ground! I think DC must have had a weird bubble over it over the weekend... Such a nice weekend and such a fun Christmas!

Run-up to Christmas

2010-12-29T12:06:00.005-05:00

We have been very bad bloggers. Apparently my subconscious now associates spending time at my computer with school (sadly, also, Christmas music, so v. good that Christmas season is almost over, as feel like some sort of grinch), and have therefore neglected not only blog but email, organizing photos, and spending the $10 Amazon gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket during the pre-Christmas ban on shopping for self.

Anyway. Christmas did come to our house--we got home from Thanksmus at about 3 am on a Sunday morning, and once we finally woke up and got unpacked, we got a tree, put it up, and hung the stockings, knowing that the next few weeks would offer no time to stop and decorate. Then we went into a holding pattern until school finished, when we could finally begin to celebrate.

We got to host our now-annual Christmas get together with the Kings and the Gambills--brunch this year, and I made my mom's cinnamon rolls, which (finally) turned out fantastic. Baby Carter was fantastic, too, in his adorable Santa outfit. What with the addition of two little ones, our brunch was much noisier than last year! We ate and ate, and then we just hung out and visited for a long time, and it was wonderful to have no where to be and nothing hanging over our heads! Wheee!

Jason did a bang-up job again this year of putting lights on our house (we are getting good enough at this that it does not threaten our marriage anymore--nary a fight this year!). So good to come home to after long nights at class!

And this year I listened to A Christmas Carol on my drives to and from class. I love A Christmas Carol, it puts me just in the Christmas spirit, and I have fallen in love with audiobooks this fall--am only disappointed in self for not having discovered them earlier as great distractions from long and painful drives to class. Which, happily, are now over.

It wasn't perfect this year (had to miss many Christmas parties, teas, gingerbread house constructions, etc., in order to write mediocre final papers), but we did a pretty good job, considering. And besides, as was discussing with my friend Deanna last week, not having everything just right at Christmas reminds me--sharply, sometimes--about the real point of Christmas: God coming to us, offering grace so that we can accept his invitation to be beautiful.

Grandma Cookies

2010-12-23T15:21:00.002-05:00

Even though "Baking things, i.e. cookies" was near the top of my list of "Things to do when school is done," I'm really not much of a baker. Most people I know say they prefer to bake than cook, but, unless I'm in a crowded kitchen of sisters and moms and grandmas (and nephews, as Cole is a pretty awesome sous-chef), I get tired of baking. I get annoyed by having to interrupt whatever I'm doing every 12-15 minutes to take cookies out of the oven and put in a new batch, etc. It's not just that, since Jason is not a dessert lover, I end up personally eating at least 70% or whatever I bake (though that's a large part of it). It's just that I think baking--especially cookie making--is a social activity, and I get a bit lonely when I do it by myself for too long. I miss my mom's big counter and huge yellow canister of flour spilling out while we haggle over washing the mixer bowl, with too-loud Christmas music in the background and Grams sitting in one of the counter seats, tempting us with Rice Krispie Treats or Muddy Buddies and slicing anything that needs cut and laughing at my lame jokes.

That last bit motivated my pre-Christmas cookie extravaganza this week. Another thing I've learned about myself as a baker is that, while I love to try new cooking recipes, I like to bake the same things over and over--my recipe box (circa 1987) has three very used dessert recipes at the front (Grams' peach cobbler, Grandma's rhubarb crunch, and Mom's brownies, mmm), and then a bunch of totally clean recipes I've never tried.

My cookie recipe collection is similarly organized--Grandma Bunn's sugar and spice molasses cookies and Mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (best. ever.) constantly stay at the front of the stack. But for the past few years I've missed the carrot cookies Grandma Johnson made every Christmas. I guess carrot cookies make about as much sense as carrot cake, but I distinctly remember trying them for the first time one Christmas when Grams and Gramps lived in central Washington being amazed at how tasty they were--all orange scented and cakey and so light you could put down a whole stack before noticing.

All this to say, I've decided to make a holiday tradition of baking my favorite cookie recipes from my grandmas (acknowledging that Rice Krispie treats don't count as cookies and to this day eating them makes me miss my Grams each time). So by the time Jason got home on Tuesday I had dozens of carrot and sugar and spice cookies littering the counter...and he, who only likes plain chocolate chip cookies (which I had made on Sunday), hasn't eaten a single one. Of course, these cookies were for me, a way for me to remember grandmothers who loved Christmas so much and for whom I ache a bit when this time of year comes around. Oh!

I don't really remember Grandma Bunn making the molasses cookies as much as I remember my mom making them, but when I tasted the first carrot cookie to see if it turned out, I found that I had to swallow it around the lump in my throat that it evoked. It was to cookies what Grandma Bunn's piano music is to carols--perfect and just a little bittersweet.

I'll pass on the recipes as my Christmas gift to you.

Grandma Bunn's Sugar and Spice (Molasses) Cookies: These are like gingerbread, but soft and thick instead of crunchy and crumbling. I'll let you guess how I prefer my gingerbread.

(Warning--this recipe makes about a million cookies (by which I mean 5-6 dozen). Expect a v. full KitchenAid bowl.)

Mix together:
1 c. soft shortening
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. molasses

Sift and stir in:
4 c. flour
4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ginger
2 t. cloves
2 t. cinnamon

Roll into balls the size of walnuts and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Grams' Carrot Cookies
3/4 c shortening
1 c sugar
1 egg
1 c mashed cooked carrots (canned carrots work fine)
2 c sifted flour
2 t baking powder
1 grated orange rind
1/2 t lemon extract
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 c nuts (optional)

1. Cream shortening and sugar add egg and beat.
2. Add rest of ingredients and mix.
3. Bake 12 minutes in 400 degree oven.

Frost with a powdered sugar frosting using lemon or orange extract (I like orange). 1 c powdered sugar, 3 T milk (1% gives a nice thin glaze, but use cream if you want it thicker), and 1/2 t orange extract.

...1!

2010-12-16T21:26:00.003-05:00

Done! This morning I sent my 90 page bibliography and my 17 page research paper to my professor and officially finished my career as a student (assuming I pass, of course--my paper on Kim was really sub-par). A silly grin comes to my face every time I think about it...which, of course, is quite often!

Between the end of term and the beautiful snow we got today, it's been a really delightful day--even though I thought we were going to be celebrating by writing constituent mail (me) and trying to quell violence in the Ivory Coast (Jason). We ended up leaving work in time to go to the Carlyle for dinner, where the snow set off the twinkle lights perfectly...just like we have been planning for about six weeks. So many things to do now--take a bath, watch the Northanger Abbey I DVR'd in February, make cookies, read the backed up pile of magazines, get Jason something for Christmas besides having his wife back...

...2...

2010-12-10T10:55:00.004-05:00

Things are getting exciting around here. The paper chain my friend Missy (I think I will always have to call her "my friend Missy" so that you all don't think I'm talking about myself in the third person) made me in August is seriously sooooooo short (seven links left!), and I can actually see the end of the semester looming before me.

That is due, in large part, to the fact that yesterday, at approximately 3:29 p.m., I turned my 123 page thesis over to the GMU library. WOO-HOO!!! Even typing those words makes me want to laugh out loud! I went to bed last night at least a thousand pounds lighter. Yes, I still have two major projects (including research project I have barely started) due in less than a week, but oh, to have that thesis done, to know that it is approved and signed and out the door... Glorious feeling.

And now I have this lovely Friday stretching before me. My boss unexpectedly gave us the day off today. Lo and behold, it is snowing (first snow!) and for some reason the Christmas lights outside came on again this morning, so I'm sitting wrapped up in blankets and drinking tea and reading. Granted, I'm reading academic journal articles about seances in Victorian England so that I can write a credible research paper about Kim, but I'm not complaining. A week from now I will be reading Bridget Jones' Diary with a sense of complete freedom....

3...

2010-12-08T20:46:00.004-05:00

The countdown until the end of school (forever) is finally on. (As if it hasn't been on since this.) Tuesday night I attended my last lit class for the semester. One down, two big things left to go... Am v. happy to be done with this class--as you can see, we read a lot a lot a lot of books. That's 5,267 pages since Labor Day. My final paper was a shining example of mediocrity, but I read every single one of those pages--a graduate literature class at its finest.

Actually, apart from the fact that I've done absolutely nothing but work and read in the past four months, this was a class full of good books. I loved The Young Lions. And Mary Lee Settle's WWII memoirs. And, oh, East of Eden. And I will never look at World War II the same way again--on Monday our office got a special tour of the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the painting "Back to Civvies" actually made me tear up. And don't get me started on the first 28 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

But seriously, I have a stack of books this high that I've been saving to read.

Thanksmus 2010

2010-12-03T23:56:00.008-05:00

It is so almost midnight, and I have soooo much homework to do tomorrow, but I just logged onto our blog and realized that I haven't posted in almost a month. And that the last post was about October. And I felt suddenly compelled to prove to you that we had a November.

I love Mom and Auntie Fay's "silly" faces.

I mean, we sort of had a November. Every time I thought about posting, the only thing I could think to write about was what book I was reading for class (Andrea, let me know if you want an annotated bibliography...). Otherwise, only three things really happened in November--our friend Carter Gambill made his long-awaited appearance, the Harry Potter movie came out, and we went to Idaho for Thanksmus.

Everyone (but photographer Auntie Fay) at the Thanksgiving table.

Cole made everyone beautiful place tags for the table.

We have a nice schedule in place for the holidays, switching Christmas and Thanksgiving so that each family is together for the one holiday each year. Somewhere along the way, my family decided that, since we were all together anyway (and we would all spend Christmas with other sides of the family), we might as well exchange gifts in person on Thanksgiving years. This year we took it to a whole new level, pulling out most of our annual Christmas traditions--reading The Littlest Angel and the Christmas story, ornament giving, and the fabulous seafood feast--a few weeks early. We even threw in some Beatles Rock Band (best.game.ever.) and a foot or so of snow to make it extra Christmassy. Gramps and Auntie Fay, Uncle Charley, Katie, and David joined us, of course.

We got Troy his own tools set for Christmas.

Cole with the feast of clams (Shaanti got a label maker for Christmas and promptly labeled her eldest).

Mason likes to share Troy's toys. He put the goggles on and just walked around beaming at everyone.

I can't believe that we didn't get a picture of Cooper smiling. He smiles ALL THE TIME.

So fun. Troy and Mason are now old enough to be best buds, and it's hilarious to watch them chasing each other around the cabin and laughing hysterically. Cole is getting so grown up, and we watched Cars together at least twice. And Cooper is seriously the most adorable little guy, always just waiting for someone to look at him so that he can beam a smile at them. We can't wait to meet the newest Bucher boy in a couple of months! It was a fabulous time together, perfect if it hadn't been so short.

The Tail of October

2010-11-05T23:25:00.004-05:00

Last weekend was full of fall festivities.

First,

We got up reeeally early on Saturday so that I could run the Wolf Trap Howl-oween 5K with Kaylyn in the frigid cold (um, 38 degrees when we left the house) and Jason could hold everyone's camera and keys and take pictures. We missed Tilly, who inexplicably decided to decline this year. We also shaved seven minutes off of our time last year. I think it was the cold.

Second,

We bundled up again for the now-annual hayride and bonfire at Krops Crops with our Sunday school class. Jason made chili (I didn't marry him for his chili, but oh, I could have), and I made s'mores. Actually I made s'more, singular. I left everyone else to fend for themselves. I used to think paying for a hayride and bonfire was oh-so-east coast--Dad use to give a killer hayride and make a mean bonfire upon request--but, according to this and this, the trend has spread west.

Third,

We answered the door to a little lion and his safari parents (Steven made it very clear that they were dressed up as photographers, not hunters). Hudson was our first trick-or-treater of the night, and definitely the cutest.

Finally,

We dressed up (yes, Jason DRESSED UP for Halloween) and headed to the church's Trunk or Treat event. Jason went as a hockey player, and I went as a college student, complete with glasses, fake Uggs, and GMU sweatshirt. Okay, so we dressed up as ourselves for Halloween. But still.

One thing we did not do was homework. Or, at least, very much homework. I had a deliciously light week of homework, which came at just the right time, since I briefly hit the end of my rope. We had split pea soup for dinner and I watched You've Got Mail and all was right with the world.

The Tiger, the Race Car Driver, and a Couple of Pirates--Argh!

2010-11-03T14:57:00.003-05:00

I'm hoping that by the end of November I will have finished blogging about October, but in the meantime, I just wanted to share my favorite (long-distance) trick-or-treaters with you. They are pretty awesome. Thanks for sending the pics, Mom!

Mini-Coop is looking grrrreat!

Speedy Troy

Argh, me matey Cole!

I think Mason is wondering why he's wearing this hat...

Fall Catch Up

2010-10-25T18:30:00.004-05:00

Things are so delightfully fall-ish around here, in spite of our lack of anything to talk about on the blog. It's been a bit difficult to post here, what with all the homework (blah, blech), but tonight I'm cranking out the fourth of five 100+ citation bibliographies for my research class, and the only way I know how to get my citation program to work is to give ten minutes between each upload. So, wha-lah. Blog time.

Here's what we've been doing:
* Readers: The big news of the week is that my thesis is now in the hands of my readers--approved by my committee chairperson, who was very complementary (of the FOURTH draft, for the love), and one giant step further down the road to being finished. My gracious boss has let me take a day off each week while Congress is out of session to work on it and I have needed every minute. I don't have to think about it (much) for two weeks now while they read it, and that makes me v. happy.

* Nigella: I miss cooking, which I've given up for all but Friday as we push through to the finish. I think Jason misses me cooking, too, but he's such a good sport. He's more than a good sport--he is awesome. Anyway, I recently discovered the charms of Nigella Lawson, who now has a show on Food Network, and found one of her cookbooks used. I read it cover to cover, hearing her British accent on each page, last weekend. Glee got me through the spring, Nigella is getting me through the fall.

* Apples: Although cooking has generally been sacrificed to the homework dragon, I will make applesauce this year. I will. Which is why my friend Missy and I got up early Saturday morning for our now-annual apple picking trip to Maryland. Kevin, her husband, was craving the delicious Jonagolds from Rock Hill Orchards, so what can you do? And now, of course, the apples are rotting in a bag in my kitchen... Oh, another note--we did not go pear picking, but I grabbed some at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago and made this. Unbelievable on toast with goat cheese...

* Nephews...s...s...s...s: That's five nephews, for those who find counting hard. We are getting all set to welcome Bucher Boy #3 into the family in February. Dresses are nice and everything, but we really like boys in our family! Shaanti and Adam are such awesome parents, and we can't wait to meet this new little guy! (And see how Mason likes being a big brother...we already know that Cole is ready to be, as he says, "another brother.)

* Graciousness: Another thing I've neglected to mention is how grateful we are that God took good care of Andrea and Baby Jane, who are finally, finally home in Olympia. This makes me so very happy.

* Coffee: It's official: I am a coffee drinker. For some reason this disappoints my mom, who thought that we were the lone holdouts on the no-coffee team (and yet Mom doesn't drink tea, so we're not really on the same team). I have been toying with the idea of learning to like coffee since college, but it wasn't until I started to have classes until 10 pm after a full day of work that I decided the caffeine outweighed the cost, calories, and addiction. And then. Oh, and then I discovered marshmallow mocha creamer. So amazing. Like my favorite hot chocolate from Moxie Java at home, but with a jittery kick. I honestly have to limit myself to mochas on the weekends or I would go through a container of creamer a week.

I am mildly concerned that most of these things revolve around food. And me. Clearly this list should have been entitled "What I'VE been doing." Whatev, he can write his own blog entry (when he gets home from Alabama, where he is doing some training for work). And now I have no excuse to not go back to the creative writing piece I'm doing for class tomorrow. It is awful and not getting better. Oh, what is that? There's an episode of Friends on TV? Just a few minutes is okay, right?

The Season for Hockey!

2010-10-09T14:18:00.004-05:00

Irregardless of the fact that the temperature has stretched back into the 80s today, October signals the start of another exciting NHL season. Last weekend, a friend from my hockey team gave us his two tickets to one of the Washington Capitals pre-season games. Despite the disappointing loss, it was fun to go to Verizon center and watch the Caps in action!

My hockey season is also in full swing (since mid-September). We are on quite a run (we have a 3-1 record) -- having beat a formidable adversary last night 8-0!

Work Bench!

2010-10-09T14:05:00.004-05:00

Having a designated corner of the house as a place for home repair and improvement projects is to be coveted. We had long envisioned this corner of our renovated utility room to serve just that purpose. After successive weekends of installing and painting pegboard, we finally finished the work nook. We might even find a bench stool at Ikea today to round out the work space! We have many to share the credit with, notably Dad Small for the utility room overhaul and Dad Johnson for his advice and assistance installing the pegboard. I suppose I now have no excuse for finishing those lingering home improvement projects!

A Celebration for Baby Gambill

2010-10-09T08:16:00.007-05:00

My friend Tilly is about the most joyful pregnant woman I have ever met. Brent says that she's extra fun to be around because she laughs at everything, as if her joy is just bubbling over, even when the joke isn't that funny. I love that. Tilly is one of my favorite people, and swollen feet and all, it has been an outright delight to watch her get ready for the arrival of Baby Gambill.

Andrea, Megan, Tilly, and Layton

Maria and Destin made a beautiful fondant cake and cupcakes.

So when it was time to throw Tilly a baby shower, we felt like it needed to be a real celebration. Tilly's pregnancy, which came after a long, long wait and lots of prayer, was a reminder of how faithful God is, how perfect his timing is. We needed to celebrate this baby with fireworks and a big brass band!

Each guest wrote a blessing for Baby Gambill on a quilt square so that
we can stitch them together for Tilly.

Okay, so we didn't do fireworks or a band. But we did all get dressed up, pull out the twinkle lights, and put on a wonderful black-tie affair of a baby shower. Maria and Destin did an absolutely amazing job of decorating--the yard looked like a fairy land--and the food was delicious. And joyful Tilly, looking fabulous at eight months pregnant, had a wonderful time.

Tilly with all the shower hosts!

Amy and I, taking a picture time out!

I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends here, friends who encourage and pray for and celebrate with each other as if it is a joy and a privilege, not a chore. There is a Sara Groves song that talks about how life is "Twice as Good" with the people in her life, and that is how I feel about these girls. There is a line in the song that says, "At my good news, you're dancing on the table--baby's born, a celebration." That is exactly what it was like last Saturday...although no one dared to get up on a table in their high heels, the sentiment was everywhere.

Along the Sahel

2010-10-06T20:15:00.020-05:00

I just completed a visit to three countries in West Africa: Niger, Mali, and Mauritania. This was my first visit to these countries since taking up my responsibilities for U.S. policy in West Africa in January. The countries have many similarities, such as large swaths of the Sahara desert and high poverty (example: Niger rates dead last on the UN human development index). I spent much of my time learning the dimensions of the challenges the U.S. Embassies in those countries face in advancing U.S. policy in the region: goals as diverse as counter-terrorism, humanitarian disasters brought about by regular droughts and floods, and political instability. My ten-day trip (all in one carry-on suitcase) included flights on such well known airlines as Air Mali and Mauritanian Airways. My flights were virtually all on-time, a rare occurrence I am told. My biggest complaint was when they served fish curry on an Air France flight (who thought the smell of spicy fish was a good decision for a cramped coach cabin?).

I didn't have much chance to get out into the country-side as I had hoped, since I was detoured unexpectedly to Mauritania about half-way through my trip to assist our U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott. Nevertheless, I did take one afternoon to check out the pristine Mauritanian beach front. The water of the Atlantic was incredibly warm -- likely due to currents from the Gulf of Mexico. If only I had had room in my carry-on to pack my swimsuit!

I also ran in to some camels!

The Library and Other Exciting Things

2010-09-30T10:10:00.001-05:00

If you are actually expecting exciting things in this blog entry, I would suggest that you close your browser or move on to someone else's blog. But there is only one thing going on in our lives right now (well, Jason's been in Africa for ten days, so that's something), and we could go many moons without an entry if I wait until something exciting happens before I write.

And that one thing? School. I find it fitting that, ten years after I holed up for a semester in this intimidating library-version Wonder of the World, I am again drowning in books and library lingo. Last time I had Oxford's Bodleian Library at my disposal. This time, I am even more grateful than usual that the Library of Congress delivers practically to my desk.

In addition to wrapping up the thesis, this semester I am taking two classes:

1. The Last Generation: My Tuesday class is a lit class focusing on great writers of the WWII era...and for the past five weeks, that has meant reading war novels. And not just any war novels, but novels anywhere from 600-850 pages. A week. Please feel sorry for me. Actually, after weeks of literally sitting in the chair in our living room with cup after cup of tea, I am going to be able to come up for air this weekend--the next novel is only 153 pages. (Ha! It's like an article in the New Yorker!) And, anyway, the thing is that the books have been really good--especially the most recent, The Young Lions, by Irwin Shaw. It lacks the guts-spilling-on-the-battlefield of The Thin Red Line and The Naked and the Dead, sure, but it's got a good story to make up for that. And only 661 pages.

2. Literary Research: Originally this class was supposed to be "How to Write a Thesis," which you'll note would be a complete waste of time for me at this point. Instead it is really "How to Write a Literature Paper." Also a skill I will never use again (please tell me why NNU didn't offer this class in 1998), but, surprisingly, I don't hate this class. In fact, in some ways it allows me to indulge briefly in a decade-old fantasy of being a literary scholar, ala the characters in Possession. For example, I get to read Kipling's Kim for the class, and reading something by Kipling was on my to-do list. And I'm doing a comprehensive bibliography of Margaret Atwood, one of my favorite authors in college, which is surprisingly fun. Don't get me wrong, this project is going to be the death of me, but at least I get to go out in style.

Meanwhile, starting at 10 pm tonight, Week Five of the Sprint to the Finish will be over. I'm feeling pretty good about that. As of 1 o'clock this morning, Congress is adjourned until after the election, and I'm feeling pretty good about that, too. It's absolutely pouring outside my Thursday-morning work window, and I'm sitting here with a lovely cup of huckleberry tea, and, to top it all off, Jason is en route from Paris as we speak. Really, I couldn't be happier.

Middle Earth under the Stars

2010-09-17T08:18:00.004-05:00

The reward for a day of studying on Saturday was a trip to Wolf Trap, the National Park for the Performing Arts, that evening with our friends Jeff and Deanna to watch Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. We sat on the lawn eating picnicky goodies while the movie played on the big screen and a live orchestra played the score from the stage.

Soooo good. The music was phenomenal, the weather was perfect (you could even see a few stars, something I don't remember ever seeing in DC), and the movie (of course!) was as wonderful as ever. I loved it when the crowd spontaneously burst into applause when Aragorn came onto the screen the first time. My only disappointment is that we waited until the third and final movie to go to this event!

Bronco Nation

2010-09-08T21:27:00.006-05:00

Dad started planning a trip to DC over Labor Day 2010 over a year ago, about the time he heard that Boise State would be playing its season opener at the Redskins' stadium against Virginia Tech. So on Monday afternoon, Mom, Dad, Jason, and I all donned our blue and orange and headed to FedEx Field in Maryland for the big game.

Ready for action!

With my friend SolaraJason, me, Mom, and Dad at the game.

I tried to warn my parents that there would be a lot a lot a lot of Hokies at the game--considering Virginia Tech is about three hours away and lots of alum live in the DC area. And, seriously, the stadium was rocking with maroon and orange on Monday night. But Boise made a pretty good showing, considering how far the fans had to travel. Hopefully the last person out of Boise turned out the lights--there were probably 8,000 to 10,000 BSU fans there, which made it a blast.

Blue tail-gating madness

We still like Brian, even if he's a Hokie!

We started off the afternoon with a tailgating party, attended by both Mike and the Governor, my former boss, which was fun. Then we climbed to the top of the stadium for a bird's eye view of the game. Dawn and Brian, who sported blue and maroon, respectively, and decided to call it a truce for the night, hiked up to say hi (they had way better seats!).

Mom and Dad with questionable BSU spud hats

Old office pic with the boss (Nate, me, the Governor, Brandon, Solara)

The game was a blast. The stadium was roaring, and the Broncos pulled out a win with a minute and nine seconds to go--my throat is still feeling tender from screaming so loudly! Such a good time, and so fun to watch with my parents and all my Idaho friends out here. I foresee a lot more letters, resolutions, and bills on the BCS in my future here.

Kaylyn, Ryan, Jeni, and Nate

Lots of blue!

While the game was the highlight, the other five days we had with Mom and Dad were great, too. We basically took a trip down our to-do lists, which was probably only marginally fun for them but made my life 1000 times better. Mom got projects done here that I wouldn't have dreamed of touching until January, and Dad helped Jason prune our out-of-control rose bushes and fix the trellis that had completely fallen over in, oh, June (it made us look like the neighbors with the couch on the front porch). I am so grateful! What a fun weekend!

Sprint to the Finish.

2010-09-01T14:15:00.003-05:00

Ten years ago today I started my last year of school...I thought. This time, I really mean it. Yesterday marked the first class of my last semester of grad school. Today I submitted my (hopefully) next-to-final draft of my thesis to my adviser. It turns out that there is a light at the end of this long tunnel, people.

My friend Missy made me this awesome paper chain so that I can actually see the semester getting shorter. So sweet of her. It has been wonderful to have supportive friends who encourage me, offer to read my novel-length thesis and provide constructive comments (thank you, Andrea!), and can't wait to celebrate with me when I'm done! And then there is Jason. Do. Not. Know. how I would do this without him. Taking two classes in one semester is ugly for both of us, but his encouragement and willingness to make dinner means we will be ALL DONE by Christmas. Woo-hoo!