Fall is here!

blue sky, chilly breeze, golden-y leaves. this is my favorite time of year! the end of sweating! the end of upper-arm-baring tops! the beginning of blazers and cozy sweaters. pumpkins and craft projects.

but this time of year also brings 'round the dreaded Switching Out Seasonal Clothes. admittedly, it's an easier chore now than in years past. i used to have to stack a small dresser on top of my larger dresser, then drag over a rickety desk chair to stand on... then climb onto dresser number one, then way, way up onto dresser number 2... then sling one leg and part of my torso up into the loft of the bedroom... drag over a hugeass tupperware under-the-bed-storage bin with a cracked side and an ill-fitting lid, full of heavy jeans and sweaters.... then somehow crawl back down the whole mess, feeling for direction with my feet, while carrying the heavy wobbly half-broken bin. and i have TWO bins, so even though my nerves would be thoroughly shot after the first trip - i'd have to get right back on the saddle and do it all again. it's not much better now, but at least i have a real ladder instead of stacked-up furniture.

it is safer (marginally) but still a monumental pain in the rear. usually half my clothes are either missing or too small or eaten my moths, so a temper tantrum/crying jag ensues. i can't have scott witnessing any of this, because i am usually attempting these feats of acrobatic balance and emotional distress while wearing only torn-up granny panties and half a too-small bathing suit (or some similarly awful getup). it's not something i look forward too. but it's gonna happen soon, because i can't keep wearing the same 3 long-sleeved shirts to work over and over and over.

in other news, joe and dana are starting a blog! i'll add a link when they send it.

i had a great weekend of fall fun. on saturday scott and i, and cliff, courtney, ian and angel went to the "life and death on the C&O canal" - a spooky, fun, awesome, kind of hokey, great program run by the national park service at the great falls park in maryland. the canal runs parallel to the potomac at that section, and the tour reinacts various grim and gruesome acts along the canal and river over the last hundred or so years. civil war field hospitals, mine collapses, booleggers getting shot in the night, drunken canal workers robbing folks on the path, rival irish gangs who dug the canal brawling and killing each other, kids drowning in the canal... i can't even explain how fun it was.

on sunday, the october meeting of Sew Watts Cookin' was a spectacular hit! we focused on fabric printing (paper printing was also on the docket, but we didn't get to it). we had two methods - freezer paper stencils and making a cheater silk-screen with mod-podge painted right onto the silk. i embellished a canvas pea coat with the paper stencils - it looks SO good. i want to paint on everthing in the house now! someone else used the other method and made a set of six fabric coasters, and they look terrific. i can't wait to do it all again. pictures on the Sew Watts blog will appear in a day or two. here is a link to the freezer paper method, in case you want to give it a try: http://www.neitherhipnorfunky.com/?p=106

what did you guys do over the weekend?

oh, but it's friday

i used the word "awesome" in a conversation with my boss the other day.

i am still mortified.

hurricanes in ohio? and other news.

so i've been out of touch with the news that past few days. i was in NC for my brother's MBA graduation, then had a crap-busy day at work on Monday. i didn't hear about the "hurricane" in ohio until late last night! yikes! i called mom and dad this morning, and they are fine. they have a generator, which they are using to power the fridge and freezers... and they are living in the camper, since it uses much less power than the whole house. fun! still no power, but they are thinking of it as extended camping. wow. i still can't get over it. hurricane in ohio.

anyway!

so today is day three of a self-imposed "no refined sugar, no refined flour" diet. i did it a few years ago, in the month leading up to halloween. i lost about 7 pounds, then went on a tootsie-roll-dorito-pizza extravaganza for a week and never looked back. the fridge and cupboards were bare, and i needed to stock up on essentials - what better time to clean the slate and try again? i can't do no-carbs, because i like a little starch. and i can't do it forever, because i love bread. but for a short while, it's a good challenge.

monday:
breakfast - oatmeal with skim milk, coffee
lunch - seaweed salad, miso soup, futo maki roll
dinner - turkey sausage and potato pancake with cabbage, peas

tuesday:
breakfast - puffed rice cereal with skim, apple, coffee
lunch - green salad with feta, green beans, 1/2 grilled chicken breast, fresh fruit (catered at work!)
dinner - zucchini cut into long strands like pasta, steamed; sauce of fresh tomatoes and red peppers, with ground turkey, olives

for snacks and guilty-pleasures, i can have popcorn (whole grain)... potato chips (hey, they're just potatoes, right?)... cheese... apples... and other assorted, more boring stuff.

last time i did this, i cut out all artificial sweeteners. and coffee and all caffeine. i think that was a swell idea, but sometimes i just want something sweet and that became a deal-breaker. so this time i am allowing sugar-free hot chocolate and sugar free pudding, if i reeeeeaaally need it. and coffee. last night i had sugar free cook-n-serve tapioca pudding, with a cinnamon stick boiled in. it was worth the chemicals, let me tell you. i can only find sugar-free cook-n-serve in two kinds - chocolate and tapioca. the cook-n-serve taste (i.e. slightly toasty) hides most of the sugar-free taste. try it. you'll like it.

we are going to a Nationals game tonight. let's see if i can find anything to eat there.... yikes! i suppose a hotdog, sans bun? some chili? this could prove to be interesting.

it's too bad all i can think about are pancakes like these - jess, i think these look right up your alley. sort of like those nifty breakfast muffin thingies you make and then freeze. make some, then mail them to me in approximately one month. :)

oh yeah.

and a friend of mine, ellen, just got a new tattoo while we were all in san francisco. it has awakened my desire to get another tattoo. maybe a post-wedding celebration? my first tattoo was chosen to be added on to at a later date. i think the time has come!

back from the dead.

whew! i've been gone a long time! i blame work. and traveling for work. and general laziness.

i warn you now - this is going to be a reeeeal boring post. no pictures.

in recent past:

- i went to san francisco for work! a whole week on the company dime! i was in a workshop on a new-fangled archives tool for a few days, followed by several days of a big archives conference - the society of american archivists big annual meeting - so it's not like i was lounging around having fancy cocktails. i was sitting in meeting rooms most of the daylight hours, but i still saw some sights around town. i haven't dealt with my pictures yet, but i did manage to take a few before my camera battery conked out. i'll just say for now that san francisco was a strange place, and not as pretty as i thought it was going to be. i'll go more into that when i put up some pictures. oh wait! here is a picture i stole from one of my co-worker's flickr - from the closing party of saa, and the sign from the bar we ended up at later:










i look like a dullard with bad posture and schlumpy hair. where did my good posture go? and my hair needs help. help!

- scott and i are ramping up the wedding planning business, and have chosen a caterer (awesome!) and are narrowing down our location choices - which will allow us to announce a date REAL REAL SOON. i promise. likely in the next week or so. then i can start thinking about even more fun stuff like decorations! cakes! invitations! oh yeah, and getting back to the gym. :)

- the kitties are getting along great! they chase each other all over the house all day. and all night long they hold Extreme Wrestling matches under our bed. how two cats can be so clumsy and loud, i have no idea. although i think nilsson's one-eyeball-ness factors quite a bit into the random clunks and crashes that we hear through the night. he ran smack into the bedframe so hard the other night that i was afraid to look. i thought for sure i'd see his little grey body, lifeless on the floor with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. vashti was shy with him for a day or two, them scared and combative for a day or two. now they take turns being the bully and i think they are doing just fine.

that's all for now.

new style of compliment - use it on your friends!

i almost forgot about this - it happened on saturday evening, as i was on my way home from dinner with scott and his brother, kevin. it was kevin's birthday, so i was making a secret stop at the safeway up near Piney Branch road to pick up a Carvel ice cream cake for desert...

there was a drunk/high older woman serenading everyone in the checkout area with her homemade song - which went something like “oh, my beeeeeaaauuutiful blue balloon, my shiny blue balloon….” she was twirling around, looking up at the ceiling, so i suppose the song was inspired by the mylar birthday balloons hanging around the florist/plant section. Everyone was cracking up, but giving her a wide berth. I got my ice cream cake and started to leave, but as I headed for the doors, I passed by the aisle where she was now buying some stuff. I overheard her tell this odd compliment to the poor little teenaged kid who was ringing her up:

“you are cute, yes you are. i could just crawl up inside your BEHIND. right up in there. yes i could.”

i almost peed my pants laughing all the way home. that poor kid will probably never recover from that.

cozy places.

why can't i have one of these? to escape to for weekend and vacations?



http://www.simondale.net/house/gallery.htm