Sunday: finished

I ended up finishing it today too. Now I just need to talk to someone to figure out how to actually make it into a quilt and not just a top.

Congrats to Brian and Roommate on the birth of their daughter yesterday!

Sunday: getting closer

Friday: toes

Here's what I've noticed recently about my toes: they are almost always cold in the winter. I'll get into bed and they are ice cubes, but then an hour later they are still cold. It has been the downfall of several naps...when I can't get them to change from ice cubes to just cold.

Thursday: dates

So lately I've been having to type the date often. I have found that last year I liked using slashes (12/09/09), but this year the slashes seem more cumbersome and so I'm going with dots more often (1.25.10). I think it is partly due to how the "1" and the "9" are closer to the "." and the "/", respectively.

Wednesday: nada

Today nothing very special happened. I had a hard time staying awake around 2pm but then a second wind kicked in and I got quite a bit done in the last two hours of work. We forgot to put the trash out which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but the trash can was much fuller than normal. I'm sure we'll somehow make it through another week, but it might get a little tight. We also have a computer chair that died so we're hoping the trash people will pick it up too, although I have my doubts.

Tuesday: language

Her's my favorite sentence of the day:

"Shrink all sleeving with the robotic shrinker and all shrink labels"

That's right...I used one word as a verb, noun, and adjective.

Small group party at our house tonight. With a snack-luck. I really like the word "snack-luck." It was a lot of fun, although the boys won the game. :(

Sunday: Ben's home!

Ben's home! He was gone all weekend and definitely missed.

Saturday: puzzle night!

Tonight some friends came over for the express purpose of putting a puzzle together! :D It was a lot of fun.

Pre-puzzle

Puzzlers (along with Heidi, who was taking the pictures)

Finished puzzle!

Friday afternoon: someone understood my problem

So I'm going along, looking at specs from the web, and find this:

Well, it doesn't take much to figure out that something is wrong. So I call the company. Except that it is before business hours in California, so I get someone without a clue.

Amanda: can you open the file from the website? It'll make things easier to explain

Clueless: ok, I see the dimensions

Amanda: so you see that .690 doesn't equal .325+.150.

Clueless: but that is how you're supposed to cut it.

Amanda: but the dimensions don't add up.

Clueless: I don't understand. Cut it to those dimensions

Amanda: is there a dimension I'm missing?

Clueless: no, everything is right. Can you tell me your problem again?

Amanda: .690 doesn't equal .325+.150. How am I supposed to cut it?

Clueless: using the dimensions that are there.

After about five minutes he says he'll get with his boss and they'll call me back. They didn't. So I called today, asked the person to look at the drawing and he understood right away. All I had to say was ".690 doesn't equal .325+.150". It made my day.

Wednesday: fishing

Since I went with a serious topic yesterday, today I'll go with a funny one.

Someone at work has a wildlife calendar. Probably wildlife that you might hunt, but it's only January so I'm not sure yet. Anyway, some days have this weird symbol on them...either white, grey, or black. The symbol kind of looks like one of those long, skinny balloons on it's side.

At first I assumed it had something to do with the moon, but then it just didn't line up correctly. So I looked at the key...they stand for good, better, and best fishing days. How does one tell about six months in advance when the good fishing days are? I know almanacs do some of that, but what makes for a good fishing day? Was it coincidence that no Wednesdays were even good fishing days and the weekends were often good fishing days?

Tuesday: options

Today I thought of lots of things I could talk about, from inconsequential to very serious. I think I'll go with the plain "serious" though.

Small group is on Tuesdays. However, we canceled it tonight because the weather was looking iffy. The roads were fine when I was driving, but it was a little above freezing with a light precipitation. So we canceled group. I especially felt bad about this because we were going to be at a new house and it was a party night so it would have been fun to see everyone. But I also want everyone to be safe. It was kind of one of those no-win situations.

Monday: hmm

Hmm. I'm not sure what I want to talk about today. Throughout the day I try to remember something relevant but odd, but I don't remember any from today.

I had lunch with Jess which was great as always. Zach joined us for his first 25 man raid which was cool. My elbow hurts when I touch it.

I made about 120 potions for some people today in WoW and was exicted that I got a 4x proc. Zach asked what proc stood for and we had no idea. I wikied it...it stands for Programed Random OCcurrence.

Sunday: quilt

I got one of the four big blocks finished. I think it'll fit the bed pretty well in the end.

update: I now have two done!

Saturday: busy

Today ended up being a pretty busy day. This morning we went to church for a Bible Study leaders meeting and to find out what we're doing next...it's The Prodigal God. We've had some preview stuff and it looks really, really good. I'm excited to start it.

Then we had lunch with Clay and Jess and Hugh. Good times.

After a nap (we had to get up early after all) I made some cookies and we went to a game night. Also fun, and it got done a little earlier than normal which was kind of nice.

I didn't get the wash started. :( But I thought about the wash and that I'm going to put my new flannel sheets on next. Does that count?

Friday: weird tricks

We watched Inglorious Basterds with Dusty and Laura tonight. Afterwards we were discussing the different ways that the Germans and Americans/British count on their fingers, only to find out that Ben and Laura can't keep their pinky down while keeping their ring finger up. Then we discovered that Ben and Laura can't stretch their toes sideways while Dusty and I could. It brought forth a lot of laughter.

Keeping the ring finger up

Not being able to keep the ring finger up

Toe stretch (with Flurry coming to investigate)

So here's the question: can you do both or neither? Is there something that makes one person be able to stretch their toes and fingers better? Or can you only do one of the above mentioned things?

Thursday: Nathan

I have a great brother! However, I don't have many recent pictures of just the two of us.

Wednesday: In the last 24 hours...

In the last 24 hours...

1. Have you had the flu?

2. Have you had a headache?

3. Have you been stressed?

4. Have you had a heart attack?

I seriously answered a survey with that question today.

Tuesday: headaches and legos

This morning I had a little headache. The kind that is annoying but doesn't really make you stop doing anything you want. By the time I got into work, I thought I'd take an Excedrin. Then the Excedrin kicked in...I felt so much happier! It's amazing how feeling almost well and completely well make such a difference.

For Christmas, I got a lego ice cube tray. Below is my creation. They're rather slippery, so don't really stack well.

Although making the blocks colorful was a fun idea, it turns out the ice melts when you touch it and you end up with a big mess.

Monday: going into McDonalds

Today we decided to go to McDonalds for dinner, and when I pulled into the parking lot there was no one there. So we got the best parking spot. Why is it the best? Because Ben and I both got to be in the cold for the least amount of time. My picture below describes it much better.

Our car is sad. Not only are we leaving it, it is dirty, has bad belts, and a fuel smell. However, we made it slightly happier by going through the car wash on the way home! I really do love car washes.

Sunday: chap stick

This past week I finished a tube of cherry chapstick. I've kept the tube around so that I would remember to post about this accomplishment. I don't use chapstick a ton, so to a) not lose the tube and b) actually finish it was very surprising!

I had something else I was going to say, but now I don't remember. Maybe that I started using some of my new quilting supplies? They've been fun. I had to take a break from making progress on the quilt to fixing something on it, but I'm about back to making progress again. Yay!

Oh! I have a friend (the Ertman-Towbridge Family) who is pregnant and on bedrest. With a one year old. I was thinking it might be fun to post your most addictive webpage so that she can use it as a time sink. If you have one that would be fun with a one year old, that would be even better. I think mine will be... http://icanhascheezburger.com/ and http://dictionary.reference.com/fun/crossword/index.html

Saturday: cold hands, warm heart

Today I spent some of my Christmas money on a little space heater. In the past we've just kept the door to the computer room closed and that has helped with the temperature, but this year our hands were still getting cold. So we'll try something different.

I also went to a women's Bible Study at church. It was pretty good. I car-pooled with Jess which was fun.

Nathan thinks I should see deer-cow at our local deli.

"the taste of wild game but with the convenience of your local deli. Cow-deer. Now at your local supermarket"

Friday: deer-cow

We were driving home after dinner yesterday and saw some deer in the road. So obviously, we slowed down. Then the fattest deer we've ever seen came into the road...Ben and I both thought it looked more like a cow. I thought it because of the face, Ben because of the rump. We laughed about it for the rest of the way home.

Thursday: ups and downs

So, most of the day part of today was just ok. I tried fixing WIPs, which is always lovely. I've ignored them for quite a while, and they were piling up. I gave three back to operators to test, one I don't know how to fix yet, and five are remaining. They did, however, give me an excuse to wear jeans.

Then this evening Flurry sat on my lap (twice!) and I found out Doug got a job and Zack and Jenny joined our guild and we killed a WoW boss for the first time.

Wednesday: April

Today was the day we found out more about our intra-corporation merge and layoffs. (Our site is now part of a larger group instead of just being our little group. So far...no obvious day-to-day changes.) Sorry if this post ends up being a stream of thought instead of semi-good paragraphs.

They aren't doing the layoffs until APRIL. April!!! There were rumors for the end of January, but I was expecting February or early March. Pros: people have extra months to save money, and houses will go up for sale in the good selling season. Con: we have to wait three more months to find out what's going on. Three months isn't so bad, but considering that we've already been waiting two it is getting obnoxious. Couple this five month wait with the waits from the last layoff periods and it just means there has been a lot of waiting to find out what's going to happen. (This is somewhat of an understatement. It means there are a lot of "what ifs". It means there is a lot of not spending.)

Oh, there will be around 1100 layoffs across our new group. If they are spread out equally across sites (which they won't be), we would lose about 175 from our site. Those odds don't seem too bad, but one never knows what they are thinking and if our site will be hit badly. There could also be some unexpected people laid off as companies are merging and there will be overlap in what people work on.

Monday: first day back

Work was fine. Nothing really exciting happened, but nothing really bad happened either. It is a bit depressing to think about how long it will be before we get more vacation.

I did a whole bunch of laundry this weekend and now it is all sitting in the hallway by the washer. We have clean clothes and the ...desire?... to fold them has disappeared. They're much more fun as an obstacle course.

Sunday: Flurry

Flurry's sitting on my lap!!!!

I love her.

Sunday

Oh, I have to go back to work tomorrow. I've enjoyed the long vacation. Today was again quite frigid, but we had to go out. We did some errands (I got new quilting supplies and a frame for one of our prints) and went to church. After church we went to Ruby Tuesdays with some friends...they have a cool brunch special: biscuits, parafiet, small entrée, and cookies. I got an omelet and wasn't very impressed, but the rest of the food was really good. We briefly stopped at the drum store and I started not feeling great. However, since there was pretty much no food in the house we still stopped at the grocery store. Our cart was barely full and yet we still managed to spend $70. I just don't understand how that works sometimes. Ben put the groceries away while I took a nap and recovered.

I know, wasn't that exciting! I'm sure you really wanted to know all those details. Well, have a good night.

Saturday: brrr

Ben and I went out to shovel the driveway and realized why the furnace had been on so much today...it was frigid! It luckily didn't take us very long to shovel, but we were cold by the end. We also took down all the Christmas decorations. I miss the lights. I think that is my favorite part of Christmas decor.

It was still a very nice day though...we played some WoW, I took a nap, and just hung out.

We were are on a cool day in Florida.

Friday: 2010

What a wonderful way to start the new year...we went to a Rockband Party last night and then stayed home all day. Flurry was still nice and cuddly so we spent a lot of time reading by here. We finished unpacking and played with our Christmas presents.

Thursday: the year in review

So I was thinking about 2009 and decided it wasn't one of my favorite years. Now, there were lots of good times, no doubt. But there were a few things that overshadowed most of the year that also made it not my favorite. So, instead of talking more about that I decided to take one random picture from each month...and I was reminded how blessed I really am.

January: Betsie left. :( Here are people from our Bible Study at the good bye bowling.

February: I made a tablecloth.

March: Bible study potluck at our house. We had lots of potlucks this year!

April: Ashlyn and I painted our toenails.

May: Dad and Pat came over and we went to Watkin's Glen.

June: Girl's night! We put parafin on our hands and feet.

July: Ben got me a get-well kit.

August: we went to Niagra with some friends.

September: I went to a woman's retreat with my church. It was rather cold.

October: still quilting away.

November: we put the Christmas tree up

December: I took a picture of driftwood on a beach in Florida.

Wednesday: from Sun to Flurries

The day started out beautiful.

Then we had to leave. However, the kids didn't throw up in the airplane, our car didn't break down on the way home, the house didn't burn down while we were gone, and Flurry was still alive...so it was a successful trip home.

Here's Flurry with the helicopter. She would get closer to it than the vaccuum, but tried to never let it out of her sight.

This morning we also awoke to snow! It was nice that it held off until we were home.

Monday: happy birthday Larry!

Today was Larry's birthday. We got him some ducks so he could teach his grandson to line all his (Larry's) ducks in a row.

We also spent time in the pool and the sun and just had a very nice and relaxing day.

Saturday: the Bubble Room

Today we went to Captiva to the Bubble Room. They have some amazing desserts...it was delicious!!
Afterwards I collected a few shells on the beach. I also tried to be artistic and took a photo of some driftwood.
Here we are on the boat! It was kind of cool out today which is why everyone is covered up.

Then I took a very nice nap. Yay naps!

Friday: Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Today was a wonderful day with family. We opened presents and got and gave a bunch of fun things (RC helicopters were one of the popular gifts). We played games, read books, and ate good food the rest of the day.


Overall, a wonderful day.

Thursday: Merry Christmas Eve

We made it to our destination safely, on time, and with all our luggage. Guess the prayers worked. :)

It's nice and warm and so far we've enjoyed being with family, eating, and watching a dumb dog Christmas movie. It was fun to uh...laugh at the movie. :) I knitted while watching the movie, and I almost have a skien finished. One left, along with edging.

Here is my vacation to-do list:
-Nap whenever I want to. (So far, so good)
-Read several books (only one down so far, but it was good)
-Finish the skien of yarn (shouldn't be a problem)
-Have no travel problems (still on track)
-Enjoy being with family (check)

Thursday: a post from on top of the world

Ben and I can currently look out of our window and see the tops of clouds. We got a free trial to airplane Wi-Fi. It's a little slow, as expected, but not too bad.

We made it out of Grand Rapids without any problems. :D Yay. I even talked to someone in the airport. Usually I just go my way and let everyone else go theirs, but I had asked someone a question and then we met again at the McDonalds after landing. It was kind of nice.

Tuesay: Avatar

We went to see Avatar...it was a great movie. I won't say much about it since it hasn't been out for long, but I would definitely recommend it.

I'm also starting to freak out about our Thursday flights a bit...it looks like it is going to start getting icy around the time we're supposed to leave. Well...I guess I'll try praying about it instead of freaking out. Or at least that even if things go poorly I don't freak out too much.

Monday: more Hudsonville

This morning Pat, Liz, and I went to get fabric for the next quilt. I'm still not done with the first one, but I might be ready to start the next before I see Liz again, so I wanted her to pick out some fabric. I was going to take a picture, but didn't. So you'll just have to wait a bit to see her beautiful fabrics.

Joel, Sarah, Anna, and their kids stopped by for a bit. It was fun to see them and I got some cute pictures.



After dinner we went bowling with Dad and Pat. It was a lot of fun. Pat stomped us the first game with 116 and then Ben won the second. We also got to have a theme for the scoreboard, so we chose Christmas. It was neat to have different things in the background for once!

Sunday: a relaxing day

Today was very relaxing and spent in the company of fun people. We read, napped, Wiied, and tried to go to a store only to remember that everything is closed on Sunday in this neck of the woods.

We also got a gift from Grandma Menkveld. Two years ago we got a gift from Grandpa Overbeek. These are my step-grandparents who really, I rarely interact with. And by rarely, I mean maybe once every three or four years. But the possibility that we might be coming to a Christmas party means that we get a gift too, even after Pat has told them not to get one and that we don't have a high chance of coming. To me it shows a new meaning to the words generosity and hospitality, things that I think I'm good at. I guess I still have a ways to go.

Saturday: Christmas in Hudsonville

We made it to Hudsonville today! We got up a bit before 4am though, so it is currently 9pm and we're already in bed.


Pat, Liz and I went to a 2nd hand store that was having a half-price sale and got some cute clothes. Then we exchanged presents. Below you can see Nathan sporting his new biking goggles.We had a delicious lasanga for dinner, played some hilarious catch phrase, and just had a really nice time together.

thursday: food day 4

Today was once again delicious. There were donuts! and bagels and these Oreo truffles that were amazing.

Tueday: food, ups, and downs

Today was food day #2. We had a catered lunch along with desserts (the cheesecake again!) at work and then a potluck with our Bible Study in the evening. More yummy food!

The down is that Julie crashed her car on the way to our house. She's fine, and they have good insurance. We still feel bad because it was our house she was going to...if we had chosen a different house or a different time or even a different activity maybe it wouldn't have happened. I know...a lot of ifs. But still...

The ups were that we did have a fun white elephant party though. I ended up with a Christmas tree topper and Ben with a game that gets boring rather quickly. Heidi ended up with footy pjs that everyone agreed just don't work for adults because they are too hot. Oh! And we all got to see Hugh's first roll. It was rather exciting. He just seemed rather grumpy that he was put on his stomach in the first place.

Monday: first day of food week

So someone in the building I work, being very smart, decided to make our Christmas eating celebration last all week instead of just one day. Today was "hot foods" but there were also snacks. Tomorrow is "catered lunch by the people that didn't want to bring anything." Wednesday is snack and catered lunch by Lockheed, and then Thursday is snack day. It might be a bit rough not eating everything. Today there were brownies with cherries, amazing carrot cake, puppy chow, chocolate covered pretzels, and the hot dishes.

Only four days of work left!

Sunday: ice

Today it was raining and right around freezing at noon. On our way home from church we saw five ambulances, several cars in the ditch, and multiple emergency vehicles. It was sad, but also weird because by the time we went by the roads were ok. The ice must have only been around for a few minutes, but enough to do damage.

Hmm...not a ton more happened today. We did several chores, I got the last of the Christmas presents (only waiting for one more to arrive), watched a movie, played some WoW did some quilting. The quilting has slowed down a bit these last few weeks, but oh well. I still do a little bit each week, just not as much as I had been doing. Oh! I also took a nap. :)

Saturday: Prince Caspian and Goats

We gave some goats again. I'm not sure what it is about these goats, but I love them. Maybe it's what the pamphlet says "Goats are cheap to raise. They will eat almost anything and can graze everywhere. They also provide nutritious milk to drink and meat to eat." They just sound like the ideal animal! I was listening to NPR on the way to work the other day and they were talking about people and their goats. It was a rather sad story overall, but these people did really care about their goats...they were basically the bank for the family.

We also watched "Prince Caspian" tonight which was much better than I was expecting. I always think about how hard it would be to have grown up and then have to become a teenager/kid again. I mean, you've already dealt with a lot of the annoying physical changes, but now you have to do it again. And you've grown up mentally too - kids think differently than adults, but now you're back to being a kid again.

Friday: a bit of paradise

I had one kiwi left from earlier in the week and had run out of other foods, so I decided to take it to work for lunch. I had to peel it and it was rather drippy, so I was eating it over the trash can, which put me in a different spot so I could feel the warm air from the heating system blow on me. If I closed my eyes it was like a little piece of paradise. But then I had to open them. :(

Thursday: misc

My phone has a problem. It has this mail/bell thing and I don't know what it's...I just figured it out. It was reminding me to add money. Well, that was going to be a fun post that failed.

The weather is calling for a chance of scattered Flurries. Hehe. Flurry scatters herself every morning.

Travis came over last night! Yay! He sat down in our semi-broken but not quite chair and it went "POP" and the center pole is now sticking out of the bottom of the chair. It was rather amazing. We also sat around talking and eating cheese cake and I felt like an adult.

Tuesday: cheesecake

Ben and I made cheesecake last night, and it was delicious tonight. The top didn't even crack! Clay also did a great job with the Bible Study today. WoW has a new instance which was fun.

The sad part of the night was that a tire blew on our way home from work. We were probably one minute away from getting to change it in the garage, but you really just can't go any further once the tire is flat.

Monday: ice cubes

Ben and I baked this evening. The first step? Turn the oven to 500 degrees and put ice cubes in. Seems rather silly if you ask me.

Saturday: a busy day

Today was rather busy. It started with some errands that included getting my hair cut. Ah, it is much better now. It was getting way too long. Then to a Christmas tea at church, where we ate good food, listened to a speaker, and just had a good time.

We also revealed our secret sisters. My was Deanna! She is on the left below and was an awesome secret sister. I also told Lisa that I was hers, and that was a good time. I had to follow her around at the church picnic until an opportunity just happened to open up so I could talk to her, and since then we've talked a few more times and waved a lot. I was happy that I wasn't just a random person to her.

And then games and delicious food tonight! I also got one load of laundry done and Ben helped with some other chores. Now it's time for bed.