Friday: dinner

After work I thought I'd try getting the raking done...the next two days are going to be a tad busy and there are lots of other chores on the list, so I thought I'd at least try. Things were going well and I was just getting to the exciting part (i.e., the place with more leaves so it's easier to see progress) when the gnats attacked. So I decided the other half of raking could wait.

Ashley and Stanley came over tonight. We went to Grand Central and had some good food and then taught them Hand and Foot. The girls almost won but the boys squeaked out a win by just a few hundred points. Oh, at one point Flurry sniffed Ashley's hand, got a little pet, started to walk away, and then remembered she didn't like new people. So she did the weakest hiss ever. Silly cat.

Thursday: hole

Today wasn't quite as busy as yesterday which was a bit sad, but I did get caught up on a lot of things that I needed to do.

Half way through the morning I went to the restroom and realized there was a huge hole in the butt-seam of my black pants. Then I remembered that I had told myself to always wear black underwear because the seams were a little sketchy. I, of course, had forgotten that and was wearing white underwear because I only wear these pants about once every three months. Luckily, a coworker had a mini sewing kit so I did a quick repair job and ta-da! no more problems.

However, this now makes two pairs of my pants that need repair. :( The to-do list for the weekend keeps getting longer.

Wednesday: catching up

So first the photos that wouldn't upload:

Aunt C and I

The family

Ping Pong

Clay showed Small Group how to use their cloth diapers on Tiger.

Oh, this one is so true.

And now that all those pictures are posted, a few more random things. We had a retirement party at work and there were these amazing brownies. They were frosted brownies with Oreo crumbles. I had three.

I also spent 45 minutes looking for a little blue cylinder with about four other people. It had bounced on the floor and ended up in someone's garbage can.

It was a really busy day which was awesome.

Oh, and yesterday I found out that So You Think You Can Dance is on on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this season. Since Bible Study is Tuesdays, I might have to ask my wonderful and very kind friend Dusty if he'll record it for me.

Days: this and that

We made it safely home from Michigan, although the plane ride changed Ben's cold from annoying to terrible. We managed to make it to most of the favorite restaurants including 8th Street Grille for chicken corn chowder, Good Earth for #5: The Pueblo, and 84 East for Baked Spaghetti.

Today work was rather busy, which was exciting. Tomorrow even looks busy. Then we had a small small group tonight. There wasn't really anything planned, so it worked well. We played Double Solitare (or Dutch Blitz or Nutzee). I pretty much stomped everybody. There's just something about that game that works for me...Ben doesn't play it with me any more because he says that I always win.

Well, I had a whole bunch of pictures to show but they are taking too long to upload. So you only get a few. Maybe more tomorrow.

Sunday: quote

I found this reading my book (and no, it has absolutely nothing to do with the weekend)

"Some say that crying is childish. Daniel - who since the bith of Godfrey [his son] has had more opportuntiies than he should have like to observe crying - takes a contrary view. Crying loudly is childish, in that it reflects a belief, on the cryer's part , that someone is around to hear the noise, and come a-running to make it all better. Crying in absolute silence, as Daniel does this morning, is the mark of the mature sufferer who no longer nurses, nor is nursed by, any such comfortable delusions."

Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

Friday and Saturday: more Michigan

Oh, lots of things happened these past few days. I have a few pictures, but the cord is upstairs and the camera is ...somewhere...and I'm too lazy to get it.

Friday we slept in. We saw a happy Scarlet for lunch. Then for dinner it was the whole family and Grandma Hilldore which was a lot of fun. Afterwards we played some Wii and teased the kids. It's amazing how two little burp cloths can keep a kid super happy and entertained for hours.

Saturday morning we saw my parents and got caught up with them. Then off to Jacob's football game...I didn't really watch very much. Aunt C did stop by so I got to see her for a bit and get caught up with that side of the family. Then it started raining so we all crowded under some big umbrellas. Travis ran to the car to get another umbrella and when he popped it open everyone laughed because it was so small.

Then off to see Abby and get caught up with her a bit. Thanks to facebook mainly I at least knew some of the major points in her life, so it was nice to see her again and get some of the other things that are going on.

Phew..this is turning into a long post. So the rest of the day was spent with family.

Thursday: Michigan

Today we went to Michigan! Yay! The flights went well. I love looking at the houses when going into Detroit and wondering what is going on down there...there are so many houses that there are probably happy people and sad people, nice people and mean people, babies and adults, people in love and people struggling with a breakup.

Then I tried figuring out what happened at all the industrial looking places. One place looked like all it was was a truck hub...a bunch of littlish buildings with trucks backed up to them on all sides. There also didn't seem like there were a lot of huge parking lots which surprised me a bit.

Also going into Detroit there were two women in the seats behind us...

"Is that Lake Michigan that I see?"

"Umm, I think so. Well, Superior is by Chicago so that must be Michigan"

sigh

We then got in and since we had managed to not check any bags got picked up right away. We talked with Larry and Cheryl until it was time for bed.

Wednesday: raking

Today was busy at work, which was very nice.

After work I raked. It turns out that our pine tree is loosing it's needles. It's worse that normal leaves, but I also find them more satisfying than normal leaves. They completely coat the grass, changing it from green to yellow. So every time I do one rake I get a lot of pine needles, but since they are so thin about half of them just pass right through the rake. But the grass looks so different every time you do a rake it. And even when you can't tell there are a lot of needles you still get a lot of needles.

Since it is Wednesday I worked on the quilt, although not as much as most Wednesdays. I did manage to get all the pieces cut out though! Yay!

Tuesday: Small group

Today was a rather good day. I got a bunch of work today, which was exciting. Then we were having a potluck at our house, so Ben and I cleaned the house. I love having a clean house. Then people came over and brought really good food. And we played Taboo. And now I'm finally checking my e-mail and such and have cold toes. My blanket is really close but I'm also feeling tired and therefore too lazy to get it.

Monday: blanket

Today I decided to get my computer blanket out because I was a little cool. Well, Flurry was showing interest in being on it so I took it off my shoulders and lowered it so she could have some. She ended up going on the wrong side and being under the blanket.

After a bit she realized that wasn't the most comfortable side of the blanket and went on the top. Awesome, the cat is by me! However, my fingers are getting cold because I don't have the whole blanket now. :( Guess I love the Flurr-ball.
Yeah, it was a rather slow day. I worked on my program most of the day so that I could get a trial version out to a few people.

Sunday

Today was a pretty normal Sunday. Ben played drums in church, so I had time to do lots of errands. Oh joy. But they're done, so that's good. We came home, I took a nap, worked on the quilt, did some chores, etc.

I've been taking pictures of Flurry laying around for about a month.

Saturday: applesauce

Today I made applesause. I've never made it before, but the apples we had were a little soft for our liking...they seemed perfect for applesauce.

It turned out really well and was fairly easy. The hardest part was prepping the apples because they were all rather small and therefore the apple to work ratio was rather low.

We also did our first raking of the season.

Friday: vet and blogs

I'm tired and kind of want to take a nap, but am afraid we will go eat soon...

Flurry had the privalege of going to the vet today. She would have been satisfied to not have this privilage. She got in her carrier happily as normal. On the way there she reminded me that she didn't really like to be in the car. Once we got outside the vet she started hissing. However, since she was in the carrier she had no choice but to go inside. She did however have the choice to let me know she wasn't happy and pretty much hissed or growled for the next 40 minutes as the time for our appointment came and went. She wasn't happy for the vet and when the exam was done the vet said "you can't jump off the table." So she jumped off the table. We quickly put the carrier back together and she happily went inside. After that she only hissed once in a while. Then we went to the car and she was very happy to be in the car driving home.

(Side question...she is significantly worse that this vet than any other vet and they are always running late. Do we try a different vet that is farther away? Or figure that all vets aren't going to be great so at least this one is close.)

In other news, two friends have started blogs! Yay! I now have a higher chance of having something to read when I click the refresh button. It is so sad when the most recent one was last updated over a day ago.

Thursday: batteries

Life is so much better when your keyboard batteries aren't dying. My healing ability significantly increased when every button I pushed resulted in a heal instead of every other.

Hmm, what else...I made a cool wire sculpture/finger toy today. It's yellow wire with one blue wire. The day went pretty quickly, so that was nice too. And tomorrow is only about a half day!

Wednesday: a beautiful day

Today was beautiful out. I didn't get to be outside much due to work, but the time I was outside was wonderful. It is slightly warm and the trees are starting to turn.

A WIP went on vacation today. I ran out of ideas on how to fix it so it got shelved for a while. Maybe when we come back to it later it'll magically work.

And since it was So You Think You Can Dance night, it was also quilting. I finally took a picture for Valerie. I now have everything traced out and just need to finish cutting the white and brown.

Tuesday: bonfire

Today we did a bonfire for Bible Study. It was a very nice one. Heather and Aaron showed up for a little bit, and it was nice to say hi again.

I also had a brownie and ice cream. It tasted really good, but I really didn't need to eat it. Sigh. I've been chewing more gum at work since I often feel like eating but either don't have any food or know I shouldn't be eating. The problem with gum is that after a while my jaw feels all weird and yucky. However, I have been enjoying many interesting flavors since I only like normal minty ones once in a while...something orangish (my favorite), blueberry, and melon mint. Melon mint is still pretty minty smelling so it is kept in a different location so it doesn't contaminate the other flavors. What I'd really like to do is join a gum tasting group so I could try lots of different flavors.

Monday: Hugh Henry

We got to see Hugh today! I was looking forward to it all day.

He was rather charming...and didn't cry much at all. He didn't cry at all while I was holding him which earned him a lot of bonus points in my book. He also holds his arms like I do when I sleep, so we became sleeping buddies.

We had dinner with Clay and Jess and her mom, and it was really a rather funny dinner. It started with Ben's salad dressing problems and went from there.

Weekend: big happenings

This weekend Jess and Clay had their baby...congrats! We're visiting them tomorrow and are excited.

This weekend was also the women's retreat...it was really good. The speaker was Marlyn from Central Wesylean (Aunt C, do you know her?), and she did an amazing job. It was also really nice to get to know some people better and to meet several new people.

Thursday: Indian food

1) WIPs. These are things that pneumatically strip wire. Sounds cool, right? Well, there are a lot of them and they need tending once in a while. Since I'm the newest person I get to tend to them. Sounds fun, right? I get to take them apart, put them together...that part really is fun. The problem is that I'm really rather incapable of fixing them by myself though. I think about 10-15 have needed help in the past two months and I've been able to fix one by myself. One. There are currently four waiting for my attention, but I just don't really like them.

2) We went out for Indian food tonight. It was good. We got the yummy mango drink and bread and curry. There are a lot of left overs. The tables had handrails on the sides. We were trying to figure out why, but didn't end up with a good reason.

3) The quote of yesterday: "Can you grab this [stuff I'm carrying]? I need to take out the garage."

Wednesday: white

Today I finished tracing out all of the quilt squares on the white cloth. That means I only have brown left. I didn't really enjoy brown much before because it is really dark and hard to see where the lines are.

So at work we got an upgrade to a program...I was a bit excited, because I didn't really like the old program. There are just a few problems...1) new data can only be accessed on the upgrade and 95% of the people don't have the new upgrade. 2) The upgrade interferes with adobe acrobat which in turn crashes my browser every time I try to open a file. (I can still save the file and open it though). 3) I have no idea what the upgrade changed because on my end it broke some buttons that used to work and fixed other buttons that used to be broken.

It would be rather humorous if it wasn't so annoying.

Tuesday: moving and blog

The Bible Study helped someone move this evening. We went a bit longer than planned, but not too much. We moved a lot of stuff, so that's good.

I (obviously) played the look of the blog again. I still have some changes to make but was excited to get a picture of my own in the background. I then proceeded to lose all of my friend links, so if you could please double check that you're on there (if you have a blog). I used the history of the browser and I think I got most of them back, but I still might be missing one or two that I had.

Monday: wheee!

We get to fall through the floor in one of the fights

Sunday: church

Today Ben and I spent a lot of time at church. Ben played drums, so we were there for practice and then for both services. (I did make a quick detour to get more thread because my first spool ran out last night!) Then after that we went to the youth group kick off because I'm going to be helping with it about one Sunday a month. I figured that since I'm at church anyway because of Ben I may as well volunteer somewhere. So we did a mall scavenger hunt, ate pizza, and played nerf gun wars. It was fun. And I met a bunch of new people!

But I have a slight headache now and am feeling just slightly out-of-sorts. I'll probably read for a bit and then go to bed.

Saturday: stick

Today I was going to put up a door stop in the garage. We noticed a small hole formed from where the door bangs it, so it was going to be a simple matter of just making a real hole and screwing the door stop down. Well, when I opened the door stop package I found out that they had sticky backs! I was pumped. So I just stuck it on the wall and a simple project turned out to be even simpler than I imagined.

Then I tried caulking and had a hard time with the caulking gun. But the places did get caulked and due to a Pro-tip on the caulk itself it even looks rather nice. The tip was to mask off the area getting caulked. So I did that and then when I pulled the tape off I had nice straight lines!

Ben and I went out to eat with Clay and Jess and talked for a really long time, but it was a lot of fun.

Oh, and yesterday we watched "I love you, Man." It ended up being really funny.

Thursday: hello

Hi

Today was a good day. I had plenty of work to do, trained some people on a process that I helped to improve, and took a hot shower.

I also got ready faster than normal because I forgot to turn my alarm on . And then someone decided just to lay there and play with the kitty instead of asking why I didn't get up. Luckily I was ready on-time and even had enough extra time to put away half the clean silverware.

Wednesday

Hmm, I don't really have a ton to say today.

Oh, here we go: a tip.

If your shower is pink, yellow lemonade (we use CountryTime) will clean it right up. Pink might work too. I just kind of scrub it with my foot and it looks a whole bunch better. It would probably look like brand new if I actually used a brush to get in the anti-slip stuff.

And this way our shower gets 100% of the Vitamin C that it needs.

Monday: happy Labor Day

Today we had lunch with friends from church at a park. After lunch we played some volleyball. All three girls ended up on one team, which was rather funny because we all admit that the ball really needs to be in just the right spot before we'll try and get it. However, we ended up losing two, winning one, and then losing another 26-24. So we did ok in the end.

Sunday: quilting

Flurry tried too.

Sunday: no work tomorrow!

So after we got home we decided to take a nap right away instead of eating lunch. We then woke up at 4:30, three hours later, and realized it was time for dinner. :)

Therefore, we're still both very awake. Good thing there's no work tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of quilting and Ben and I played a game.

Sunday: one more unfair thing

Why is it that on Saturday, when I can sleep in as much as I want, I tend to wake up between 8:30-9:30. Then on Sunday, when I get up to an alarm at 9:45, I always sleep until the alarm and have a hard time waking up.

Why can't they be switched???

Thursday

Happy Thursday! Tomorrow's Friday! And then a long weekend! I worked quite a bit on my quilt tonight. Wow...two q words in a sentance. I quickly worked quite a bit on the Queen's quilt. Too bad I'm not quick or a queen.

Not much else is new. I have a ton of leftovers. Yesterday someone brought in bagels, so I had a bagel instead of my sandwich. Then Ben and I went to Chinese for dinner, and had tons of extras. Then tonight I didn't eat all my dinner and I still have an italian chicken in the fridge. That's like four lunches. Pretty exciting. We also have too much salsa in the fridge. We keep trying a new type and deciding we don't like it but then not getting rid of it.

Well, tonight's post is getting a little loopy, so maybe I'll go read. I finished my puzzle last night which was exciting. I thought I had lost a piece but it just got under the mat.

Monday: the things I dislike about laundry

1. If you don't take it out of the dryer fast enough, it wrinkles.

2. Folded laundry tends to stay in the living room for a while.

3. I regularly go to bed only to find my bed sheetless. It's the worst feeling. All I want to do is go to bed.

Sunday: church

Clay did announcements at church this morning...and they were some of the best ones ever. He got a little lost and so invited the children's message people up twice. Ah...I think it helped wake everyone up.

Then we had a church picnic after Church which was fun. I talked to old friends and met some new people and had good food. Yum.

Then I came home and took a three hour nap. I was exhausted. I finally woke up and did some chores and watched a movie, and I'm almost ready to go back to sleep. I hope I don't do anything to lose the feeling now, because I'm a bit scared I'll have a hard time getting to sleep.

Saturday:date

Ben and I went on a nice date tonight, first to Olive Garden and then to see Julie and Julia. The movie was pretty good and had some really funny lines.

Friday: dinner

Tonight we had some people over for dinner. We had italian chicken...yum. Then we played poker with just the four of us. I'm not sure I've ever played with such a small group, but it was fun because you got to play more. (You also had the chance to lose money a lot faster.) However, whenever Luke and I went head-to-head I always won. It got rather funny after a while.

Wednesday: midweek

Today is Wednesday. I don't really have much to say about today. Yesterday and today were both slightly better at work because I'm getting some stuff were I get to "lead" it. I think that's one of the things I've missed the most since switching projects. And I understand I have a lot to learn and such, but still...

Yesterday we played volleyball with Bible Study. It was fun. We've never been to that side of the park that we played at, and it is a really nice park. Then we went out for ice cream. Yay ice cream! It was just what I was in the mood for.

Monday: gutter 0, Amanda 1

The day started off by sending an e-mail to five people. Two seconds later I received five out-of-office replies. This is the first time I think I've ever gotten five, and definetly the only time everyone on the list has responded as such.

Tonight Ben mowed the lawn and I weeded, then planted my sunflower. Since Ben was still mowing I decided to tackle the gutter. You see, every time it rains the water overflows the gutter. A lot. The mulch has long since disappeared from under the gutter where the water falls out. So I took it all apart and found that there was a lot of stuff stuck at the downspout hole. So I poke at it with the screwdriver. WWoooosssshhhh...the water starts coming out. And keeps coming out. And keeps coming out. It turns out the gutters can hold a lot of water.

Here I am with the gutter. It's hard to tell but I'm soaked and a bit dirty. But smiling!! And Ben did a cool shot with the sunset.

Sunday: I win!

Today I soloed Onyxia. (To put it in perspective, this used to be a boss you needed 40 people to kill. It took me 30 minutes to kill.) I almost died twice, but managed not to. :)

Saturday: stuff

Hmm, well I woke up today not feeling great. I had gone to bed not feeling great and hoped when I woke up I would feel better. After a few hours I did feel better.

Good story, I know.

I cured the dishwasher rack of some rust stains today. Most were from our cookie sheets on the plastic, so it hadn't actually got to the metal yet. But I removed the rust anyway and put on some "special" paint which I think was just white-out.

I read a lot and worked on my new puzzle quite a bit today. It was a rather relaxing day for both Ben and I but definetly needed...it's been a while since we've had a day were we got to stay home all day.

Friday: dinner

Well, I decided that I wanted to go to a local restaruant for dinner last night. We used to go there quite a bit, so the owner recognizes us and we know that the service isn't always very speedy.

Except I forgot that the service isn't very speedy.

We all got normal dinners and it took us about 1.5 hours to get out of there. But at least the food was good and it was with good friends.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Birthday!

I had a wonderful birthday this year. Tuesday our Bible study got together and someone brought donuts! Yay donuts! We also played games and that was fun.

Wednesday was pretty much a normal day, but Ben was extra nice to me and I got lots of phone calls. And a few presents! Even Flurry sent me a card.

Sunday and Monday: hot!

Well, it is hot out now! I'm glad for our deck, but that is about the only reason. It is supposed to start raining again tomorrow, which will be nice.

Yesterday was really too hot to do anything, although we did get some groceries. Then we went swimming with some friends...it was very nice to cool off in the water. We continued keeping cool by playing a game in the basement (and the boys won for the first time). By evening it had cooled down enough outside that we stopped by a bonfire for a bit.

This was a very fun day, but of course meant that none of the "normal" chores got done. We aren't quite out of socks yet though, so I have a few days to get it done. :)

Today I had a hard time getting motivated. The morning was rather frustrating, although went by quickly.

Saturday: my busy day with pictures!

First I went to Jess' baby shower.

Jess opening the gifts from Heidi and I.

Then Ben and I stained the deck. Please note that about 30 minutes into the project (when we were working on the vertical slats but hadn't done any horizontal surfaces) it started sprinkling. We put drop cloths on the deck hoping it would blow over quickly. Then it started sprinkling hard and it almost got called off. Luckily, the rain then stopped. The next two days still look rain free.

In the evening, Ben and I made some Dungeons and Dragons characters. (We're both blue Dragonborn, but we can't fly. I'm a sorcerer and Ben is a Warlord.) That took about three hours, so than we played just a quick round against some skeletons. We won! Phew.


The people helping us with D&D had some cat mint in their backyard, so we brought some home for Flurry.

And then we crashed into bed, exhausted. It was a great day, but I didn't get my nap in. :)

Thursday!

Nothing special happened today. We hoping for another 5 days without rain, so Ben cleaned the deck again. I finished watching "So you think you can dance" (thanks to Dusty for the recording). I'm happy that Jeanine won. She ended up being one of my favorites.

Oh, my toes are doing much better. I've started taking the band-aids off whenever I don't have to wear shoes. Even when they're in shoes they don't leak too much, but if they did the sock would just soak it up and that's rather gross.

Weekend: Niagra!

This past weekend we went to Niagra with some friends. Here are the highlights...

We went on the Maid of the Mist and all got blue ponchos. It is a short boat tour that brings you around to both of the falls and gets you in the spray. It was kind of a rainy weekend, so the ponchos came in handy after the boat ride too.

The view from Canada...

A quick stop at the Hershey store

The next day we went to the American side to go to the cave of the winds. It was by far the best part of the trip. It (again) started raining while we were by the falls, which made them even wilder. Here is the bottom of the falls.

And here the falls are coming over the deck, so Ben and I stood in them a bit. After this we went to the "Hurricane Deck" where we got to stand under the falls and where water was pouring over the deck. The yellow ponchos did not hold up as well as the blue ones and almost everyone's got at least a little tear by the end. (I.e., we all got wet.)

Some people were smart enough to have kept the blue ponchos, so some of those were put on and some of us double bagged.

Friday: friends

Some out-of-town friends are here for a long weekend, so there's been lots of laughter since last night! Last night Laura made a delicious dinner and we all got caught up and played a bit of rock band. Ben and I took today off which was wonderful. Everyone was coming to our house, so the house got almost completely cleaned. It's nice to have people come over so that it does get cleaned well. After lunch we played ultimate/hit a ball around/played a quick round of frisbee golf. We wanted to go for a swim, but the pool was closed for constuction. Then a good dinner, poker, and some delicious pie.

I'm not in charge of taking pictures (so I don't have any), but I'll probably have some up in a few days.

Tuesday: Bible study / ultimate

Tonight we celebrated Aaron and Heather, as they will only be with us for about another week. Julie made a wonderful cake with lots of fun and meaningful things on it.

We also played more ultimate Frisbee. I think we're getting quite a bit better because the time between TDs is getting longer and longer. Although we've also been adding interesting challenges such as the dark.

Monday: slightly discouraged and 501st post

Ah ha! This is my 501st post! I'm a bit sad to have missed number 500, but here's hoping to another 501!

House stuff has gotten me a little discouraged today though. It is supposed to rain tomorrow night, which means no deck staining (although the deck does look really nice and clean). We got quotes on the driveway top-coat, only to learn that we need to deal with the little sidewalks first (which we have no quotes for.) And one of the gutters is being problematic, although I think that it is at least the gutter and not the piping that runs under ground.

But then I took a nap and as always, that improved my mood a lot.

Sunday: deck

Well, we may have just found 4-5 days without any rain, if you can believe it. Ben washed the deck tonight...the difference between the unwashed part and the washed part was amazing!! There was a ton of dirt on the deck, and you couldn't even tell. Anyway, hopefully it will be dry tomorrow so we can stain it. And hopefully the weather forecast doesn't change, because the deck really needs to be stained.

Saturday: colors and cloths

Ben: Woah, look at this! The gatorade turns ... ... ... clear when cold?

Ben: Really? What else could it be?

Amanda: keep thinking

Ben: oh! you put water in the bottles! Because of the orange nalgene behind two of them it looked like it turned clearer as it got colder

Amanda: That would be really cool.

I also finally figured out a good way to dust the bedroom furniture...a microfibre terry clothe. Still not perfect, but it picked up the dust better than anything else I've used so far.