Its been a whirlwind of a year, hasn't it? :)

January

Winter in Providence. | President Obama inaugurated.

February

Working on my Nancy MacIntyre book | Teaching Web Design | St Patricks Day in Boston!

March

I turn 30. | Fun snowstorms. | Last Spring Break ever.

April

Thesis is looming. My world is consumed by photographing work. | Celebrate seder with the Scoobs.

May

Finished thesis. | Graduated. | Participated in RISD Grad Thesis Show.

June

New England road trip with my family. | Moved out of the little apartment that I absolutely loved. | Started an urban loft sublet adventure in downtown Providence.

July

Summer in Providence. | Movies projected in the square at night. | Waterfire. | Interviewing for jobs.

August

Started working for Memento, Inc, in Concord, MA. | Moved to Cambridge, MA. | Scoobs go to Cape Cod!

September

Fall in New England. | A weekend home with my family.

October

Hiking in Leominster State Forest. | Charlotte turns 2.

November

Thanksgiving in Lake Charles. | Exploring Boston.

December

Home for Christmas. | Welcomed a charming little man into the world.

"And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

I turned thirty this week, and it was not at all the traumatic experience I was fearing. Instead, I took a nice, leisurely day to myself on the actual day, and then had a whole week of scattered lunches, dinners, coffees, drinks, etc, with various friends. It was pretty great!

This morning I started a week-long stint dogsitting this little hellion. Sources tell me she is a very sweet Beagle mix named Eve, but I have yet to be convinced. But we've had our first walk, and she's now asleep on the floor with her head on my feet, so maybe we're getting somewhere.

Eve belongs to my friend Angela, who flew to California this morning to begin her pursuit of global domination as an intern for Apple. Eve is the daughter of her childhood dog Marcie, who had several puppies last summer. Eve came to live here, and her sister Peanut went to live with her sister in Florida. I think Eve got all of the beagle characteristics, while Peanut (who is the size of a teacup Chihuahua) got everything else.

I have really enjoyed the flurry of postings from those participating in A Post A Day in May, and now that I am tying up the loose ends of my school year, I want to play too!

And so I give you A Post A Day For the Rest of May. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

The first thing I have to do is talk up how amazingly awesome the thesis presentations were this year. They were going on all day Friday and Saturday, and I sat on the edge of my seat for every single one. This is what a typical thesis defense looks like here:

Each day's presenters set up sections of the graduate gallery with their work. There was an area of seating with a screen and a podium, and after a 10-15 minute presentation, we would all troop into the gallery to hear what the critics had to say. This year the critics were Alicia Cheng, David Reinfurt, and Alice Twemlow, and they each had insightful and constructive things to say.

Up next is setting up for the big show encompassing all of the MFA graduates. It opens tomorrow night at the Rhode Island Convention Center, and I can say from experience that it is mind-blowing to see the work of 400+ artists and designers in one place.

I spent most of my Sunday desperately trying to get some work done, but kept myself entertained by finding excellent podcasts and YouTube videos to stream in a little window on the corner of my monitor. The best one by far was from a BBC Series called The Machine that Made Us, hosted by British television Stephen Fry. In the show Mr. Fry sheds light on the invention of movable type by following the construction of a working replica of Gutenberg's press, as well as travelling across Europe to learn how to cast type and make paper. The series lasts about an hour, and I enjoyed seeing the process in action.

Having spent a lot of my first semester here at RISD studying Mr. Gutenberg's series of innovations (G developed not only a printing press, but a new lead alloy, a formula for ink, as well as an entirely new casting process), I particularly enjoyed watching Fry actually carve his own punch of a blackletter 'e', strike it into a copper matrix, and then cast several pieces of lead type that would eventually be used on the replica press. I spent a lot of time trying to find images of this process for a research book, so I was amazed to have such a detailed video fall in my lap!

The real shock came, however, as I started up the first video... lo and behold! Mr. Fry's is a face I knew well — for uttering the very line quoted in my last blog entry, no less! — as the endearingly clueless Mr. Mybug in BBCs miniseries of Cold Comfort Farm.

It was funny to reconcile the bumbling, hopelessly egocentric Mybug, whose life's amibition is to prove that Branwell Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights, with the charismatic TV host geeking out over movable type.

I woke up this morning with this line stuck in my head. I could recite exactly how it was said, and with the proper accent, but could not remember which movie it came from. This happens to me a lot, although usually with pieces of movie scores instead of actual lines. I will find myself humming the theme to a movie, and once I realize what my subconscious has served up for me, I hunt up the dvd and watch it until I can locate the location in the score where I was humming.

Thankfully, stray movie lines are much easier to type into Google than randomly hummed melodies (although there's something for that, too), and a quickly typed search on my dad's Palm Pilot revealed the answer in one try: the line is from Cold Comfort Farm, declared by the utterly clueless Mr. Myberg as he arrives uninvited to Elfine's wedding.

Today, however, this line is completely appropriate. It IS a marvelous day for a wedding! A truly PHPC wedding, in fact, between two people I have known since one fateful Mo Ranch Junior High Celebration back in middle school. Zack and Beth are getting married this afternoon, and I think the entire church is going to be packed like sardines in the sanctuary to watch the event! I can't wait. :)

Happy Valentine's Day! I did actually print these in our type shop, but then was too busy to put them together and actually mail them to anyone. Its an accordion book with some images from my black and white photography class..

Enjoy! :)

Cover:

Inside (scroll to see it all!) :

What do you think?

Its our new mascot. I think he's rather dashing!

Welcome to the world, Charlotte!

"And when I'm 53, I mean to write a novel as good as Persuasion, but with a modern setting."
- Flora Poste, Cold Comfort Farm

This summer I have begun to make good on a long-held goal of mine: to read the complete works of Jane Austen. I got my hands on a collection of six of her best known novels through my participation in a friend's project last semester. I was told to go to my local Salvation Army and buy a few objects without any premeditated purpose. In my case, I found a red t-shirt with white silkscreened hearts on it, the aforementioned Jane Austen book, and a package of those little yellow plastic corn-on-the-cob skewers. I brought these items back to my friend Meg, where she photographed them as part of a portrait series. I never did get reimbursed, but I wear the t-shirt all the time, and I have kept the book sitting on my coffee table in the hopes that I would pick it up.

And there — with the exception of a brief trip in a moving box — it sat, unopened, until a few weeks ago. I have started work on a freelance book design project, and have seized upon Jane Austen as a welcome antidote to almost 300 pages of gleefully detailed accounts of the famine, social unrest, and labor camp system of Stalin-era Russia.

So far I have finished Pride & Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion. Sheer will kept me reading through the first few chapters of Pride & Prejudice, but it got more enjoyable once I managed to stop hearing Jennifer Ehle's voice in my head. For that reason I have enjoyed Persuasion the most simple because I could enjoy it with a clean palette. We'll see how the others go.

The excitement of the Deathly Hallows is behind me, although I can tell you that most of the weekend was spent glued to my couch reading (and re-reading). I guess I was anticipating a very intense book, something like all the final chapters of all the other books combined into one whopping grand finale. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were quiet stretches mingled in amongst the action. And sometimes one of the characters would do something so perfectly right, so quintessentially them, that I found myself laughing even when what was happening was unquestionably sad.

In these moments I was most conscious of how brilliant Jo Rowling was (is!) at creating this world for us to enjoy. And only after knowing how it ends can I appreciate the mastery of control she maintained — layers upon layers of detail, over ten years, across seven books — so that a single fragment of any book could be recalled and influence how it all turns out.

Some of my predictions came true, and some of them didn't. I also felt like the book's epilogue opened up the door for continuation of the story, or at the very least provided fodder for a lifetime of bad Potter fanfic. Rowling has hinted at writing an Encyclopedia as a companion to the Hogwarts world, where she would tell us all of that background information that hasn't been revealed. In the meantime she has also been much more forthcoming in her interviews since the final book was published, so I can only hope some of my lingering questions will be answered there.

The benefits of living across the street from a really wonderful independent bookstore (two wonderful independent bookstores, actually!) is that you can stroll across the street in your pajamas at five to midnight, pick up your brand spankin' new copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and be home by a quarter after. There were easily over a hundred people crammed into the place, attempting to sort themselves into some sort of order while we waited in line. It didn't take long - as I made it to the back of the store I heard a loud cheering and saw several carts of tagged preorders being wheeled out. I got #154:

Is it strange that I am a little afraid to open it? I had all these plans of spending an indulgent night reading the thing from cover to cover, but I'm also not wanting it to end. Regardless of when I start, I don't plan to resurface until at least Sunday.

Since I have only handful of hours left, I feel like I should record my predictions for tomorrow's book, albeit in shamefully borrowed format. I preordered by book several weeks ago, and will be picking it up at the store's midnight release party. I can't wait! I think I'm going to need a steaming cup of coffee and a box of Kleenex with me the entire time.

Who will die? I think Voldemort will die, and Snape, and sadly, Hagrid*. I'm up in the air about Harry. I suspect that a lot of the book will deal with that grey area in between the living and the dead inhabited by spirits and ghosts and all those headmaster portraits that still seem very much alive. Perhaps Harry, in his search for Voldemort and his family, will even spend time in both realms. Dumbledore said on a number of occasions that there were worse things in the world than death, and that Harry was superior to Voldemort in his ability to love. Can Harry defeat Voldemort by sparing him somehow?

Will Harry return to Hogwarts?
Yes! Perhaps not as a normal student, but its too much of a magical stronghold for him not to go back.

To what does "Deathly Hallows" refer?
The argument has been made that hallows are the Horcruxes, especially since one of the non-English book titles translates as Relics of Death. I hope the place behind the veil where Sirius disappeared in Book 5. I'd like to see whats back there. We also still have to learn whats so important about Harry having Lily's eyes that Rowling mentions it in almost every book so far, and I think it has something to do with this.

Is Snape good/bad/neither?
Snape is seriously messed up, and would benefit from being put out of his miserable existence in this book. But I don't think he betrayed Dumbledore in the way we were led to believe. I've heard theories that he's a sort of free agent who is working towards his own ends while playing both sides, which wouldn't surprise me.

* A wild conspiracy theory I read earlier today: The case has been made—along with drawing comparisons between the entire series and Egyptian mythology of Horus—that Harry's journey is a metaphor for the alchemy of the Philosophers stone with its three elements represented by black, white and red. He's already seen two of his most influential father-figures (Sirius Black and then Albus, latin for white, Dumbledore) fall defending him, and in order for him to reach his own immortality/enlightenment/destiny he must also lose red: Rubeus Hagrid. I stil don't know if that means Harry lives or dies, but its a fascinating theory. Interestingly, if you look at Mary Gran Pre's illustration on the back of the US hardcover, you'll see a snake that is equal parts black, white, and red.

Well, my semester is over, process books are done, goodbyes have been said. Now I'm home in Dallas for a blissful two weeks of doing whatever I want. So far that has meant reading magazines, getting a pedicure, catching up on blogs, and eating an awesome amount of food. Oh, and getting 10+ hours of sleep a night, as well as an afternoon nap.

Its been abnormally rainy and cool here for June, and I went out yesterday morning and took the first of what I am sure will be a ton of pictures:

It is a beautiful and sunny Easter Sunday here in Providence, but I am sitting here quite homesick for the beautiful and sunny Easter festivities that are going on in Dallas. I listened to services from PHPC over the internet this morning, wishing I had flown home and could be sitting there listening to Blair and Elizabeth in person. My family is gathering for a large dinner at The Homestead right now, and for once it is truly cold enough for my dad to build a fire without having to turn the air conditioning on! My aunt Ann and cousins Emma and Hannah are in town, and my soon-to-be uncle Jim's children are also joining us for the first time, and I wish I could be spending this afternoon with them.

Listening to Dr Monie talk this morning about joy and rebirth, it struck me that I have often measured the time in my life by Easters (and my birthday, which often falls in or near Lent) instead of by the calendar year. It is the New Years Day of the religious world, and while I have not been a part of that world lately, somehow that part has stuck.

This has been a year of great highs and great lows for me. It saw a change in jobs, in cities, and the start of a challenging new graduate program. I watched my oldest friend walk down the aisle and start an exciting phase in her life, but also saw the end of my own long-term relationship. I sat with my friends as one of our own buried her father, and yet learned that night she was expecting her first child. I have a collection of friends, both new and old, who have been there for me in the last few months, and who have been inexplicably patient with me despite my repeated failures to return emails and phone calls. I have worked harder, slept less, and pushed myself more in the last seven months of my life than at any other time, but I have been rewarded with a confidence, an awareness, and a body of work I never thought I could achieve.

It has truly been an amazing year, both in the commonly intended meaning of the word, "astounding, astonishing, wonderful, great beyond expectation," but also the rarely used, darker connotations of "causing distraction, consternation, confusion, dismay; stupefying, terrifying, dreadful."

I don't think I can survive many years like this in a row, but I'm very thankful for the one I've had. :)

And, since I have been reminiscing about Easter and church today, I feel I should briefly resurrect (pun intented) an old habit of ending my blog entries like this:

Ruach, Namaste, Love,
Katy.

The Chinese New Year, that is. 2007 is the year of the Pig, and you can get your horoscope in all sorts of places on the Internets today.

Anyone familiar with my own special blend of stubborness (ahem, Dad) will not be surprised that I was born in the year of the Goat:

Excellent!

Yesterday afternoon, while sitting down to finish up a book I've been reading, I happened to glance outside. What should I see, but a squirrel carrying an entire slice of pepperoni pizza up the side of my neighbor's tree??

I just don't know that Tufte can compete with that.

Well, in a shocking turn of events, we got almost zilch for snow last night. It turned to rain by mid-morning, and maybe an inch of slush accumulated on the ground, all of which is supposedly going to freeze into one solid block of ice overnight. Fun!

This Valentine's Day I spent the day with my new boyfriend, TurboTax, and I have dinner plans with my good friend FAFSA. I have funny associations in my head between this day and blizzards, since the two always seemed to coincide the last few years I was in Virginia.. Since FAFSAs are due to RISD by Feb 15, I guess it'll be a trifecta of taxes, valentines, and blizzards for the next two years!

It seems we're going to finally get our first real snowfall of the year tonight, and Providencians are unusually frantic about it. Cancelled events, crowded grocery stores, and breathless weather predictions from the local media:

NEAR-BLIZZARD CONDITIONS WILL BE POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY EVENING AS THE WINDS INCREASE AND HEAVY SNOW BANDING POSSIBLY DEVELOPS. THE SNOW WILL END BY LATER WEDNESDAY NIGHT. BOTH THE MORNING AND EVENING COMMUTES ON WEDNESDAY ARE EXPECTED TO BE TREACHEROUS.

You'd think we were getting three feet of snow, when all thats predicted is 2-5! My mom was in town this past weekend, so its a good thing she left Monday so that her travel wasn't affected by the incoming storm. Forecasters predicted last week would be the coldest of the entire year, with highs barely topping the 20s. I was impressed at how easily she adapted to the New England chill, especially after getting some particularly awesome shearling boots. Good work, mom!

This week is a break for me - Wintersession classes ended today, and spring semester gets underway next Monday - and I am spending it finishing up a project at my new workstudy job. By the end of today I will have personally touched every single public (and not so public) page of www.risd.edu as part of a school-wide documentation effort. Not the most glamorous of vacation activities, but it pays the bills. :)

Trying to push past my reluctance to post these days with a little meme I picked up from Allsorts. Basically you list some strange things about yourself for the purpose of general public amusement. I'll go for five:

1. I can only eat M&Ms once they are sorted by color. Then I eat one of each color in a round robin style, making sure that the number of each color remains in balance with the others.
2. When I was a kid I had a twin fascination with archeology and dentistry. I would practice my future career(s) by scavenging rocks from the backyard and then delicately cleaning them in my room.
3. I was also a champion maker of mud pies. Except I added yellow and green leaves, red berries, and grass from the backyard and called it mud taco salad.
4. People regularly referred to me as Skippy in elementary school because I was always skipping down the hallways.
5. My current favorite snack: my tiniest Nigella Lawson measuring cup filled with a combination of pine nuts and semisweet chocolate chips.

I'm taking advantage of a rare lull in the activity here to give my blog some much-needed attention. I finished up my classes at around 6 this afternoon, and I have spent the entire evening doing everything non-school related. All right, I did cheat and do some reading for my seminar class (an essay called Think/Classify by Georges Perec - I am supposed to be reading another book by Perec for a book club this weekend, but thats doubtful), but for the most part its been an evening of homemade fajitas, tv, laundry, and a cold Killians Irish Red.

I've been working on lots of interesting stuff lately. Mixing neutral primary, secondary, and tertiary colors with gouache and then matching them on my inkjet printer - I am a co-owner of a fancy new wide format Canon printer that uses a cool eight-ink system. Designing a book cover for a fictional Department of Labor document. Creating a photographic tour of my studio (which is up on flickr, in rough form). 10 1x2 inch slides with compositions inspired from the movie Il Conformista.

Just this morning I finished a project known across campus as The 500 - 500 one-inch thumbnail sketches in a week, all based on a small wooden cube and an s-hook, rendered in black ink. Once my camera is charged back up, I definitely want to document that one - its truly an exercise in process and pushing past creative block, especially when you get to your 200th drawing and think you have no more ideas left.

I'm very rarely away from my work these days. I'm in studio or class by 8:30, and I mostly get home after midnight, even on weekends. I have dreams of typography, of the 500, and of concept sketches for Form+Communication assignments. In addition to my studio at RISD, I have a tabletop photography setup in my basement, and anything in between is fair game when it comes to photography projects. (Just the other night I had Adam working as my assistant as I tried to photograph water beading up on my car's windshield.) My main academic building has an art supply store, a commissary (like Entropy @ CMU), and a coffee shop all on the main floor, which means I don't really ever have to leave it!

This morning I went to a lecture on freelance writing and the design media. I was interested in it primarily because Grace Bonney - she's the force behind design*sponge, in addition to doing freelance design writing for magazines - was on the panel. I sat in the back finishing my 500, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

When I worked at Network Solutions, I would sometimes have entire dreams where I wrote html on a color-coded screen. Last night, I had a dream where I traced a Futura Medium Condensed capital 'A' several times onto tracing paper and created compositions out of it. The transition is complete.

It is because of her that perfectly nice photos like this are just not good enough:

Improved:

Most of the time I am firmly in the subtle photographic enhancement camp, but in this case I did actually replace my closed eyes with new and improved (and open) ones from another picture. And I removed that dude sitting behind us. Its still not as bad as being photoshopped out of a family portrait so that my brother could have head shots for his college applications.

The moving company came in today and packed up all of our stuff. It's anticlimactic, really. You spend all this time frantically getting ready, and then spend eight hours sitting around doing relatively nothing while other people pack your stuff. Eight hours and 90 boxes later, we were all set.

Tomorrow another wave of movers will invade our home and put all of our stuff into the moving truck. Then we'll hop a ride to Baltimore with a friend, stay overnight in an airport hotel, and then jet down to Dallas for Laura and Scott's wedding. We'll then jet up to Philly for the formerly-secret-but-now-revealed birthday party for Elizabeth. Then we'll hop a train up to Providence and, God willing, be reunited with perfectly intact cars and belongings. Who knew we were such jet setters?

In preparation for this move, I have been collecting and archiving a lot of photo CDs that found their way into the nooks and crannies of my home. I will to post a few of my favorites over the next few days!

Today is my last day at the office. Its been sad and surreal this past week - cleaning out my desk, saying goodbye, handing off projects and documentation. I'm going to miss my team, most especially, but also those day-to-day interactions with everyone. When you've spent every day with the same people for four years, even saying good morning to the front desk guy can take on poignancy when you realize its the last time you'll ever do it. On Wednesday the Web team took me out to lunch as a goodbye present, and at the end of the day we all went outside to take one last picture together. It felt like the end of summer camp!

My mom suggested planning a nice dinner out this evening so that I'd have something fun at the end of an otherwise depressing day. So thats what we're doing! No idea where, yet, but they'd better have wine. ;)

I flew by stealth to Dallas yesterday morning in order to surprise Laura and Scott. A lunch of the PHPC gang was planned in lieu of a shower, and so Judy and Ellen conspired with me to come join in the fun. Ellen and I, without intending it, ended up sitting one seat away from each other on the same flight, so we were able to ride in to El Fenix (where else?) together. Our group consisted of Dr. Bill, Judy, Steve, Laura, Scott, Ellen, Margaret, and me. It was really fantastic to sit down with all of them again and reminisce.

Afterwards Ellen and I scoured the swanky new Northpark Mall for silver shoes to go with our bridesmaid dress, courtesy of Scott. :) And of course a homecoming wouldn't be complete without a dinner at Angelo's with my family.

Today is a little more loosely scheduled, although the idea of a breakfast excursion to IKEA has been floated. Tonight the larger Harris contingent is descending upon Buca di Beppo to see each other - I'm just glad I could be here for this one!

I didn't bring any form of camera on this trip, which feels a bit odd but also freeing. I'm here to just enjoy.

I got my upper TMJ appliance fitted on Monday, so now I have great hunks of plastic and metal in all corners of my mouth. Almost nothing is viewable when I talk or smile, but I am having flashbacks to my early days with braces. The appliances do noticeably affect my speech, however, and I have never been more conscious of how awkward and slurred my words come out. The wires of the upper appliance keep my tongue from hitting my front palette, so words with sounds like "sh" come out all mushy. Hopefully by the start of school I will be able to avoid letting something like "Hello, Award-Winning Dethign Profethor, nische to meet you!" escape my metal-bound mouth.

Yeehah! It feels like Texas..

This Independence Day morning I was inspired, for some reason, to make myself a mix cd*. I've been enjoying it all day, and maybe some of you will enjoy it too. God bless America, and God bless iTunes. :)

Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra
Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
Float On - Modest Mouse
Chosen One - The Concretes
Another Travelin' Song - Bright Eyes
Happiness - The Weepies
Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) - Bright Eyes
You Can't Hurry Love - The Concretes
Summer's Gone - Aberfeldy

*I apologize in advance to those of you I know will lament my excessive patronage of The bands. ;)

We got back from Providence Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately we returned apartment-less. We looked at tons of places, but everything in a good location was pretty run down or noisy, and everything that was quiet and well maintained was situated in less-than-ideal locations. It was frustrating, but we did end up learning a lot more about the character of the various neighborhoods. I guess one or both of us will head back up in a few weeks and try our luck again.

Tomorrow I head under the knife to have my wisdom teeth removed - a task I thought I had outlived until my TMJ issues cropped up. For some reason only two of my wisdom teeth ever materialized - on the top right and the bottom left - and I anticipate some really bizarre diagonal swelling over the next few days. Nothing a few quality pain killers and a steady supply of Wendy's frosties can't handle! Still, it pretty much wipes out my entire weekend.

I have also spent my week trying to figure out my own immunization history so that I can meet all of Rhode Island's vaccination requirements for incoming students. Who knew this was such a difficult task?! I've been at my doctors office every day this week - getting shots, drawing blood, dropping off forms, picking up forms - until I felt like I could drive the mile between by house and the hospital in my sleep. At least now I have a recent tetanus booster to protect me as I play - er, work - in the various shops across campus.

Yesterday I received the much-awaited packet of information on the RISD Laptop Program. I get a shiny new Apple 15" Powerbook Pro, which comes seriously loaded with software: Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Font Folio (you mean I am required to buy 2,200+ fonts for school?? Excellent.) and the Macromedia Studio. Woohoo! They open up orders tomorrow, and it is probably the one thing I will do before heading to surgery. :)

I've been back a week now, after spending a week in Dallas hanging out with my family. I went up on Memorial Day weekend, and stayed until the following Saturday. It was such a nice vacation! I liked not feeling like I had to cram tons of activities into my typical one weekend trip, and I got to catch up with a ton of my extended family too.

First and foremost, my house had been infected with a crazy case of Maverick fever. I've never watched or talked so much basketball in my life! Every morning the Dallas Morning News would have huge, blown up pictures of Dirk Nowitzki (who is, I have to say, a really scary looking man) with dramatic 60-point headlines like "50!" (when they won) and "Never mind" (when they lost). This pride and excitement for a basketball team is a relatively new sensation for longtime Dallasites, a situation underscored at work when a coworker admitted he'd never even heard of a team called the Mavericks. But, for the sake of my dad and brother, I am rooting for them in the playoffs this week. :)

I went down to Dallas with a project already planned - because what is a vacation without a project? I wanted to archive all of my family's old vhs and hi8 videos onto DVD, and I had bought a dvd recorder online in preparation. Things didn't quite go as smoothly as I would like, but, four trips to Best Buy later, we had a decent vhs capturing setup. I spent the whole week dubbing home movies, church musicals, graduation videos, and tapes from our summers at Skyline. It was fun watching home movies, and my inner librarian had a blast sorting and archiving everything.

Another project for the week was spiffing up the courtyard on the east side of our house. On the morning of Memorial Day we all trekked down to the Dallas Farmers Market, where there is a whole street just filled with plants from local growers. I wish I had such a resource here! We filled the Explorer with all sorts of azalea bushes and hanging baskets and flats of annuals, and then spent most of Monday outside planting.

Monday night we had a lovely dinner with the whole big family at Macaroni Grill, minus Alison and Eric and Tatum. But I got my Tatum fix a day later at lunch with my mom, aunt Carol, Alison and Tatum. We ate at local Mexican food restaurant who's claim to fame is that the owner invented the frozen margarita machine. A generation of college students on spring break thanks him.

My grandparents came into town Wednesday, and although Jeff had started his summer semester, and my dad had to go back to work, Mom and I had fun touring the Arboretum and going over my granddad's home movies. We even endured a little "adventure" while eating breakfast at La Madeleine, where we were pooped on - twice - by pigeons. Apparently its good luck when this happens, but I'm reserving judgment. Of course we had to cap a visit from Grandad and Meemaw with a big dinner at Angelo's, which was, as usual, delicious.

Jeff also turned 25 while I was in Dallas. With all of those home videos lying around, we just had to drag out some of our favorites from over the years to torment him. My favorite is from the Christmas where he got a big, red plastic guitar. He spent the whole Christmas day perfecting his rock and roll boogie, and my dad spent his preserving this embarrassment for future generations. I'll have to put that one online for all to enjoy at some point!

Our last bit of excitement came later in the week, when my mom happened to look out the front window one morning and notice 4 Channel 11 News trucks in our front yard. Turns out they'd been broadcasting the news from our front lawn since 5:30 that morning, and none of us had noticed! We tuned in only to see that the one distinguishing feature of house visible in the broadcast was the pile of leaves that hadn't been raked up yet. Oh well. ;)

Today is a day for celebrations:

• Happy Birthday to my talented and gorgeous Mom, who is looking really awesome for 29. ;)
• Our very own Cris graduated from her masters program at Harvard today. Congratulations, Cris!
• Robin and Jason welcomed their son Keegan into the world at 8am this morning. Dad has already claimed that he was born with a mohawk, flashing a metal sign. :)

The doorbell rang a few minutes ago, and I got up from geeking out over Quicken to walk up the stairs and answer it. A guy was walking down the street, ringing doorbells and putting flyers on each doorstep. He heard me open my door, and asked if I was the homeowner of our townhouse. When I answered no, he replied, "Well, if you could just give that flyer to your mom or dad, they might be interested in our discount."

Tell my mom or dad?! Right after I write my rent check, sip my glass of wine, and consolidate my student loans.

AJ. Ad-man. Adam bin Baldwin. Candy fiend. Champion nap-taker. Lover of pajama pants. Geek among geeks. Warcraft addict. Best Boyfriend Ever. Happy Birthday. :)

• Big news
• Flowers from Adam
  
• Photo montage!
• Lunch at Anita's with the Web Team
• Pile of loot from my Amazon wishlist (thanks Mom!)
• Dinner at Bonefish with Adam and Go
• A trip to Media
• A morning at Longwood Gardens (see more photos)
  
• A quiet Sunday evening at home. :)
  

Many thanks to everyone for all the emails and comments and phone calls - its awesome to be able to share my excitement with so many people! :) Its finally beginning to feel real for me, even though I haven't received my "official" letter from the admissions office yet. I've told everyone at the office, and this weekend I started a massive financial projection spreadsheet that would make my Dad proud. I don't know if it rivals the infamous Apartment Matrix, but I have three years to perfect it.

Since I really haven't written much about it (jinxes, you know), this all started back in November, when I flew up to RISD for an info session and made the decision that this would be the year I applied. From that point until the end of January, my only goal in life was to prepare my portfolio. The portfolio is both the best and worst part of applying for a design program: on the one hand, there is no studying, no prep courses, and no test to take; on the other hand, you have absolutely no frame of reference for how you stack up against your peers. Its completely subjective, and working for months and months towards a nebulous goal without any boundary or reference point completely wears you down, physically and creatively.

But ultimately I finished, and raced it off to the post office at the absolute last minute (typical Katy style). Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I got an email from the department head. RISD narrows the initial applicant field down to a smaller group (30 if I remember correctly from the info session) and then asks them all to come up for an interview on campus. So Adam and I hopped on a flight up to Providence!

There were some stressful moments - losing my luggage and racing frantically to purchase new clothes, practicing tough interview questions with Adam, last-minute internet research in the hotel Starbucks - but ultimately I had a great interview and left feeling more confident that it was a place I could thrive in. I've never to date had a leisurely, planned-in-advance trip to Providence, but I do hope I'll get one eventually!

Last week I got another email, with the excellent news that I was accepted into the program - a three-year MFA program in Graphic Design. I'll spend my first year taking core design classes like typography and color theory, and then spend two years in graduate studios working towards a thesis.

So if you've ever wanted to travel to New England, now's your chance - I hope to have lots of visitors. :)

I got in.

Happy Birthday, Jason! Sorry J, I just couldn't resist using this picture. Its all in love. ;)

...for everyone's favorite writer, friend, and all around cool person..

Happy Birthday, Julie! :)

..as Lizzi takes the Bar today.. GO LIZZI!!

I'm going to try and recap all the wild and wonderful things that have been going on with me lately. Hopefully this will get me back in the habit of posting here! I'm going to try and keep this post on the top so that as I add new stuff it won't get lost.

So, without further ado..

Things I've done since last posting...

• Won big at the company holiday party


• Hosted a fondue dinner


• Traveled home for Christmas


• Traveled to Media for Christmas


• Rang in the New Year


• Indulged my stomach - and my wallet - at DC Restaurant Week


• Channeled my inner twelve year old


• Applied to graduate school

After a lazy Christmas morning in Dallas, Adam and I hopped on a plane for Philadelphia to see his family. Flying on the actual day itself turned out to be pretty easy - no crowds, no lines, and most people were in pretty good moods! Plus we each had a pile of newly-gifted books and magazines to read during the flight. :)

Sunday night we had dinner at Adam's house and settled in to watch Sky High with Elizabeth and Aaron. The next day we had lunch with Jim and Wendy and Elizabeth at PF Changs, and got to hear all about the cruise they went on over Christmas. It only increased my wish to go on a cruise some day. Monday night we had a delicious Christmas dinner back at Adam's house, and then opened presents! Janice painted us a gorgeous holiday bowl, and we were showered with movie and dinner gift certificates - we are going to dine in style for a while. :)

On Tuesday we were up (relatively) early to make the short trek down to Wilmington, DE, to catch the Amtrak train back to DC. Elizabeth came with us because she was spending New Years with cousins in West Virginia. We ran the full gamut of land-based travel that day - car to Amtrak to Metro to taxi to home - and were pretty wiped out afterwards. About all I could handle was watching Austin Powers before I crashed!

All in all our holiday vacation was exactly what we'd hoped it would be - all travel went smoothly, all loved ones in good health. Plus, one unanticipated upside to spending holidays so far away is that Christmas lasts a whole lot longer, with packages of presents trickling back from all over the country for weeks! :)

Its been fourever (da dum dum ch!) since I posted, so I figured what better way to break the ice than a cheezy meme! I promise I am working on actually having real things to write about here.

Four jobs I've had:
Hostess at Cantina Laredo
Language Learning Center computer lab assistant
Pulling and packing orders for a childrens clothing manufacturer
CMU Information Desk attendant

Four movies I can watch over and over: (Adam can attest to the fact that there are way more than four movies that fall into this category, 'cause he's had to watch them all)
Cold Comfort Farm
Love Actually
Pride & Prejudice
My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Four places I have lived:
Dallas, TX
London, UK
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairfax, VA

Four television shows I love to watch:
Project Runway
Debbie Travis' Facelift
Modern Marvels Engineering Disasters
City Gardener

Four places I have been on vacation:
Telluride, CO
Tybee Island/Savannah, GA
San Francisco, CA
Winston-Salem, NC

Four of my favorite dishes:
Meatloaf
Grilled salmon
Filet Mignon
Brisket

Four websites I visit daily:
Flickr
Apartment Therapy
Lifehacker
Design*Sponge

Four places I would rather be right now:
Outside
My studio
Dallas
London

Four bloggers I am tagging:
Twilight Invasion
writersbloc
Teacher. Wordsmith. Madman.
Allsorts

Maybe its the impending snowfall we're expecting tomorrow, or the Christmas music I've been selecting for this year's mix, or my latest silkscreening project, but this weekend I have been in an extra Christmas-y frame of mind. Here are a few spots to indulge your cravings for all-you-can-stand holiday imagery:

Allsorts
My mom is posting oodles of pictures of the decorations at the Homestead. Its making me nostalgic!

Vintage Christmas pool on Flickr
These people make me look like Scrooge.

Wee Wonderfuls (more on Flickr)

my mailman, for bringing me such an awesome pile of goodies yesterday:

Many thanks to to all of you that helped me out with my latest company contest! Our combined efforts have paid off, and I (as well as Jason and Soma) am the proud owner of a new iPod Nano. :)

This weekend, in preparation for a visit from my (Great) Aunt Virginia and her husband Mark, Adam and I did a lot of cleaning. Real cleaning, too - vacuuming and dusting and organising of random corners filled with stuff. I only saw one closet where something had been stashed away in desperation, which is pretty good for me!

Ultimately their visit was cut short by time and health and the need for sleep, but it was great to see them even for a short bit. We gave them the grand tour of the (sparkling clean) place, talked a bit about holiday plans, and then they were off! I envied them their drive out the Dulles Greenway and north through Leesburg and into Maryland - the scenery is gorgeous out there, and I'm sure the leaves were starting to turn.

Speaking of leaves, fall on us with a vengeance. After the summer drought left everything parched, last week was a solid block of drizzle and rain. The temperatures are dropping, leaves are starting to fall, and pumpkins are cropping up in doorways. I put a pot on the stove with mulling spices this weekend because it just seemed to fit with the weather! I received the bulbs I ordered earlier this summer from Brecks, which definitely tells me fall is here - I've got to get planting!

I'm taking advantage of the federal holiday on Monday and heading home to Dallas for a few days! I'll miss my grandparents by just a few days (the power is back on in Lake Charles - finally!) but I will get a nice weekend with the fam. We're already thinking of taking a trip down to the State Fair and enjoying the chaos. Apparently a friend of a friend has taken the blue ribbon for his homemade Mayhaw Jelly, and there's a jar from the same award-winning batch sitting at home that I hope to get to try.

In other news, everyone's favorite mountain man has finished a 2600 mile, seven month journey along the Pacific Coast Trail, from the Mexican border all the way up to Canada. The daily journal of the trek is a must read. Congratulations, Dave!

And, in conclusion, I will now post a picture of my cousin's baby Tatum. Cause she's just cute. :)

We got word this weekend from neighbors who stayed in Lake Charles through the storm - a lot of houses in the neighborhood have trees toppled onto them, but my grandparents house is fine. They just happened to have removed the one aging tree from their property a few months ago! Whew.

Its very surreal to watch places that you've spent time in get shown on the news. I've been glued to The Weather Channel tonight watching the progression of Hurricane Rita, and although the storm is thankfully weakening, its still nerve-wracking to watch. Every time they show that loop of the current path I'm sure that its going to veer slightly to the north and nail Lake Charles.

At least now I only have to worry about places and things - I called home to confirm that Grandad, Meemaw, Meemaw's children and grandchildren have all evacuated to Shreveport to wait out the storm.

On Saturday morning, for some reason, I found myself compelled to upload pictures into Flickr. Lots and lots of pictures. If you feel like spending a few minutes on memory lane, check a few of the new (old) sets out!

Trip to Virginia Beach - 2002

Visiting Laura in Philly - 2002

Picking Pumpkins with J and Cris - 2002

General Scoobiness - 2002

Jason Runs the Marine Corps Marathon - 2002

Visiting Neema in Madison - 2002

The Blizzard of '03

Cherry Blossom Festival - 2003

Easter - 2003

My car, Jenny, hit an impressive number today on the way home from work!

I'm heading off for a week of vacation on Saturday, and I couldn't be more ready! We're spending a week with all of the scoobies in Tybee Island, GA. Its only 20 minutes from Savannah, so we'll be venturing into the city to explore and take tours, I'm sure. I even read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil to get into the spirit of things! We're staying in a funky cottage on the southern end of the island:

Curiously, the weather reports for where we're staying look like this:

I'm optimistically (naively?) interpreting this to be like the weather in Florida - sunny most of the day with a small, daily shower in the afternoons. Otherwise we're going to be spending a lot of time on that covered porch.

I don't chat much about my work life here, mostly because its boring and not really fodder for entertaining blog entries. But every now and then us valued employees are given coupons and neat stuff to give away to friends and family.

So. If you weren't aware yet, my company sells hosting, and I have a few coupons to give away for 50% off your first year of hosting, which comes with a free domain (or renewal/transfer of an existing domain).

If you or anyone you know might be interested, drop me an email at katybeck (at) katybeck (dot) com and I'll send you one.

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

At long last, I am finally accepting the iTunes meme baton that writersbloc passed to me a number of weeks ago. If you get a chance, check out the other responses by Teacher. Wordsmith. Madman. and As I Please. Or join in!

Total Music Files on my Computer: 1481 Songs, 4.86 GB. Adam has 5.9 GB on the computer 2.5 feet away from mine - that counts right? :)

Last CD I bought: I don't buy full CDs all that often, but the last full album I bought was Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love. The last few singles I bought were:

• Refuge (When its Cold Outside) - John Legend


• Tiger, My Friend - Psapp


• Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold


• Sprout and the Bean - Joanna Newsom


• Book of Right On - Joanna Newsom

Song playing right now: (Da Le) Yaleo - Santana - Supernaturale

Songs that I listen to a lot:

• Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes


• Don't Wait Too Long - Madeleine Peyroux


• Take My Hand - Dido


• Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows


• The Lucky One - Alison Krauss & Union Station


• Wildflowers - Tom Petty


• Homeward Bound (Live) - Willie Nelson With Paul Simon

Songs that evoke a lot for me:

• Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole


• The Front Porch Song (Live) - Robert Earl Keen


• God Only Knows - The Beach Boys


• When You Come Back Down - Nickel Creek


• To a Wild Pony - Jim Morgan

Adam and I spent last night at Wolf Trap Park, enjoying an outdoor concert featuring Joss Stone and John Legend. At first we were worried that hot, muggy weather would keep us from enjoying the performance, but it turned out to be a really nice evening! I had never heard John Legend's music before, but he sold me with this concert - he had a commanding stage presence and a beautiful voice. I'm definitely checking him out on iTunes!

Joss Stone also had considerable stage presence and an astounding voice, but it becomes obvious very quickly that she is really, really young. She hopped, skipped, and giggled around the stage until I wanted to tie her to the microphone stand just to give my eyes a rest. She often had to ask her band what song she was supposed to sing next, and at one point she abruptly ran off stage, to the obvious confusion of her band, instructing them to "play something pretty.. I'll be back in a tic!" while we all sat there wondering what was going on.

But even these things couldn't distract from the fact that the girl can SING, and it was hard not to get swept up in her energy and passion for the music. All in all, a really great night!

Thanks, Adam (who is now fully recovered), for my awesome birthday present. :)

Friday morning found me taking care of a sick boyfriend instead of going to work. So I hopped over the grocery store to buy apple juice and lots of bland crackers for my invalid, and then settled in for an unexpectedly low-key Friday.

I added some new pictures of Tucker to the little memory gallery I've been keeping. My favorites are these three, titled "Give me the BBQ!", "Give me the pie!", and "Give me the whipped cream!" respectively. Pretty much sums her up, I think. :)

I took some pictures of the Alamo Fire Bluebonnets that I grew from the seeds I was given at Christmas. I've grown up seeing bluebonnets everywhere on roadsides and fields, but until this summer I've never really gotten up close to them. They smell amazing!

I also keep a photoset of stuff going on in my garden here.

Happy Birthday to the coolest Mom a girl can have! :)

I'll miss you, Tucker.

Well, not really. But it *is* my head inside a really, really big magnet. (I believe this is a birdseye view of a slice of my head, with the forehead at the bottom) I had my first experience with an MRI this morning, a first step in (finally!) getting some treatment for the TMJ problems I've been having for too long now.

Getting the MRI was uncomfortable, but not scary. They stuck earplugs on me and rolled me into a big tube, but because I just needed my jaw imaged I was only halfway enclosed. I did three, three-minute images with my jaw closed, and three more images holding a stack of 16 (I counted) tongue depressors in my teeth for nine solid minutes. A nice trick for someone with a displaced jaw! Ouch.

I can sympathize with people needing to be all the way inside the imaging machine because there is NOT a lot of room in there. Its also quite noisy. In the endless minutes of sleepy boredom in the machine, unable to move, I found myself comparing it to being in the bathroom of a really loud techno dance club - there was a rhythmic variation in tone, but it was muffled, and I could feel the beats more than hear them. That, or it was like being stuck inside the world's largest subwoofer.

I was excited afterwards, though, because the technician gave me a CD with all of my MRI images on it! They were in a medical file format, but trusty Google quickly led me to a free DICOM-to-JPG converter that I could use. And the results are pretty cool! By scouting around medical websites and looking at my own images, I'm getting the ultimate personal anatomy lesson.

When I visited Dallas over Easter, my family made our traditional pilgrimage to the Dallas Arboretum for fun and photographic frolicking. It just also happened to be the weekend of Dallas Blooms, and a gorgeous sunny day in the mid-70s. Between the four of us we got some pretty cool pictures.

I also found another Dallas Blooms photoset on Flickr!

Am I the only person who is perversely fascinated by images of destruction? I once watched the better part of a 12-hour marathon of Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters on the History Channel. My favorite disaster was when an oil-drilling rig had an accidental meetup with a salt mine, causing an entire lake in Southern Louisiana to disappear underground in a swirling, muddy vortex. (no one was hurt, thankfully)

Perhaps thats why this site has entertained me for the last half hour: an extensive video library of things being pulvarized by an industrial shredder. Cool.

I've been in the office half an hour and already the April Fools gag products and parodies are hitting the internets!

The iPod Podshave:

The iPoo GPS toilet locator:


BoringBoring - a directory of dull things:


Google Gulp (Beta) - "That's why we're pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)â„¢ with Auto-Drinkâ„¢ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.

The Great Cherry Blossom Tornado of 2005

Last weekend Adam and I met up with Ann, Mike, Emma and Hannah for some fantastic culinary adventures courtesy of Paolo's Ristorante in Georgetown. I hadn't seen Ann or Emma since my cousin's wedding two years ago, so it was really awesome to see them again! :)

I took pictures:

I've finally put up pictures from my day-trip to see The Gates.

They're on Flickr, where I succumbed to temtation and purchased a Pro account last week. I uploaded every high-res image I have from 2002 and only used 7% of my bandwidth for the month. Excellent. :)

My new account also enabled me to put a relocate lots of photos that previously lived here. Check them out if you're feeling nostalgic:

Visiting Adam in CA (May 2002)

The family goes to London (Jeff's pictures, March 2002)

I've been having trouble getting myself to write lately, as you might have noticed. Its not because there isn't anything going on. Maybe its that TOO much is going on. There was the weekend trip to New York to see The Gates (additional pictures still forthcoming). There was the fantastic weekend of celebrating the birthdays of two very special people, Julie and Jason (no pictures from this one - probably for the best ;>). And then there was this weekend, spent busily creating a baby shower gift for my cousin Alison. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but if you want a sneek peak, click here. :)

Today you might have found me in one of two places: sleeping on my couch, or sleeping in my bed. I did spend a questionable couple of hours watching Eurotrip on the DVR. Think American Pie, in Europe, but not as funny. At least the weather was nice, so I could sleep with the windows open!

In a moment of pre-coffee hysteria, I attempted to write a limerick beginning with the above line. Then I thought better of myself and decided to just say: Happy Birthday Julie!! :)

In a bit of Friday afternoon impulsiveness, I decided that I absolutely *had* to take a day trip up to New York and see The Gates. Especially after all the lively discussion! So I bought an Amtrak ticket for Saturday morning, and arranged to spend the day touring the city with Laura and Scott!

I arrived in the city around noon, and, following a little subway adventure, I met up with them at the Museum of Natural History. We grabbed some food in the cafe and raced upstairs to catch an IMAX movie about the Vikings. Now I want to visit Iceland. I am such a sucker for educational movies like that.

We left the museum and headed into Central Park. And, of course, the gates were everywhere! They really do look stunning with the sun shining on and through them. If you look at Christo's early sketches of the project, you can really tell that he had planned for this effect. When the sun went behind the clouds, the gates suddenly became very dull and lifeless.

Another detail that struck me as we walked was the size and placement of each gate. Each one was slightly different in width depending on the pathway it was situated on. One moment we might be walking through a densely-packed tunnel of orange, and then a few minutes later they'd spread out again. It made me very aware of the conscious planning that went into this: they hadn't just ordered a few thousand gates and haphazardly plonked them down the week before. Each piece was individually tailored to suit the spot it was in, and placed with great care to achieve an overall design.

After taking the requisite pictures and admiring all the cute dogs wandering around with their owners, we ducked into a nearby Krispy Kreme to warm our hands and fill our stomachs. Its very funny that my memory of the delicious hot glazed donut I had is as powerful as the once-in-a-lifetime public art display I had just come from. :) A few more hours of wandering around with Laura and Scott, and I hopped on my train for the (very) long trek back home.

A very Happy Birthday to my cousin Callie, and Happy Valentine's Day to all of you! :)

Notes from a lazy Tuesday afternoon:

• I must send out Happy Birthday wishes to the person who claims the enviable title of Most Pitifully Overdue for an Email from Me, everyone's favorite Teacher, Wordsmith, and Madman, Chad Hermann. Happy Birthday Chad!
• Despite some non-too-subtle nudging from various people, its been a while since I posted here. In the interim I have been attempting to combat a sudden bombardment of comment and referrer spam on the various web sites I maintain. Neither of these have really been visible to the end user, but they were wreaking havoc on my MovableType installation, as well as rendering my site's traffic statistics virtually useless. I've settled on a two-step approach that seems to have done the job, which I hope to turn into a full how-to article in the near future.
• The title of this journal entry comes from none other than Britain's favorite transvestite comic extraordinaire, Eddie Izzard. I got Adam several of his DVDs for Christmas, and last night we sat down to enjoy one of his earlier ones called Circle. The line is from a scene where God is suggesting some alternatives to the traditional bread and wine of communion. Good stuff.
• You may not have heard, but there was a teensy weensy little football game this past weekend. We had the gang over for an afternoon of excellent food and heart-pounding football on Sunday afternoon/evening. Lizzi, as usual, spoiled us rotten with three kinds of chicken wings and personalized hoagies to feast upon. The Eagles weren't quite so satisfying as the food, but they fought respectably to the bitter end, and you can't really ask for much more.
• Walking back from our semi-monthly sushi outing this afternoon, my coworkers and I decided to stop into the local Starbucks for some caffeinated refreshment, where I tried the new uber-thick hot chocolate confection called Chantico. At several hundred calories an ounce, this was essentially a second meal, albeit a delicious one. Unfortunately, the MarieBelle Aztec Hot Chocolate that I had at Lunettes et Chocolat in NoLiTa is still by far my favorite.

2pm: 3 inches and still falling swiftly...

Arctic weather has descended on northern Virginia, with highs barely reaching 30 degrees and snow on the forecast pretty much every day this week. I've reached back into the depths of my closet and retrieved my ski gloves and my big, poofy red parka. Fashionable I am not - but I'm warm! :)

In other news, I'm in my second week of design class. This week we're picking a master's painting and abstracting it out into three or four values of black so that we can analyze its composition. My choice is an Edward Hopper work titled Chop Suey. In the next few weeks we'll be working from more paintings, as well as our own photographs.

A bizarre tidbit of Southern trivia for you:

In 1983 the government established Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday ocurring every year on the third Monday in January. Virginia, however, already had state holidays honoring Robert E. Lee's birthday (January 19) and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's birthday (January 21). So the Virginia legislature, in order to keep the holiday calendar neat and tidy, lumped all three together.

And thus Lee-Jackson-King Day was born, despite great controversy. And thus it remained until January of 2000, when then-governor Gilmore proposed moving the Lee and Jackson bits to the Friday prior to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Which makes today Lee-Jackson Day in the state of Virginia.

Monday night was spent having a lovely dinner and exchanging gifts with Grandad and Meemaw. I'm especially excited about the handmade pincushion that Meemaw embroidered for me - now I don't have to use the arm of the couch! :)

Tuesday consisted of a leisurely breakfast at La Madeleine, a tour of Central Market, and an hour or two spent wandering around http://www.halfpricebooks.com/001.html. Later that night my dad fired up the grill and we had (another!) big family meal with all the out-of-town relatives. Pork loin, yellow squash, and peaches - all cooked to perfection over the grill with olive oil, salt and pepper. Top the evening off with coffee, three flavors of gelato, and excellent company, and you have a lovely evening.

Wednesday was supposed to be my day to fly home, but, given the trouble we had getting to Dallas, I decided to stay a few extra days until Friday morning. With all this additional time, we did what any self-respecting, tech-savvy family would do after Christmas.. we headed to the Apple store! By the end of the day, we had helped my mom become the proud owner of "screamin'" new Powermac G5 with dual 2.0 Ghz processors, a 19" flat panel monitor, and the new Adobe Creative Suite. Jealousy, thy name is Apple.

In all fairness, my mom is one of the few people I know who can, without argument, justify the purchase of such an amazing system. I spent most of Thursday working with her in the studio, installing software, configuring network setups, and moving over hundreds of her archived photoshop files. Even before my flight on Friday morning, she was up and putting her new workhorse to use, doing rough sketches for another project. I can't wait to see how much more she can do now that her computer doesn't crash twice a day. :)

I flew back to DC on Friday morning, tired but happy. It was yet another awesome holiday for me, even more so because I got to share it with two families in two parts of the country! And even with all that time off, I still had a three-day weekend to relax at home and recover from all that excitement!

My Dallas Christmas didn't end with Sunday, surprisingly enough. There were still relatives to hang out with, more gift exchanges to enjoy, computers to troubleshoot (I am firmly a member of the Tech Support Generation), and more food to eat!

After dropping Adam off at DFW (he had a flight back to DC that he couldn't change), I spent an enjoyable day with my great-aunt Virginia and her husband Mark exploring the Dallas World Aquarium. This place was so cool! Its housed in a large warehouse building in the West End, and there's a huge tropical landscape filled with wildlife inside. We started by taking an elevator to the top of the building, where we emerged onto a pathway that snaked through the canopy level of the trees. There were all sorts of monkeys and birds and small mammals climbing around tons of dense foliage, and we could look down into lagoons, streams, islands, and waterfalls below.

The path circled slowly towards the "forest" floor, where there were more birds and monkeys, as well as ducks and swans and flamingos. As we descended from the canopy, we started to notice things swimming in the water, and it became apparent that the water was REALLY deep. In the shallow water there was a monstrous alligator floating lazily, and from its lack of movement you would have thought it was fake until it blinked one huge eye at you.

The path eventually descended below the water surface, and you could look out into the water through thick glass walls. There were manatees, 4-foot-long catfish, sting rays, and hammerhead sharks everywhere, as well as tons of schools of silvery fish. Once the path was completely underground, we walked through a submerged glass tube with sharks swimming overhead. It was great to watch all the little kids screaming with excitement when they saw one swim by. :)

I can't believe it took me so long to see this place! I can only imagine its even better in the summer when the temperatures are sweltering outside.

waking up to a January morning warm enough to roll the windows down on the way to work.

We made it to Dallas with half an hour of breathing room before my family arrived en masse. I'm sure we looked a little shell-shocked by that time, but there's nothing like a house full of your favorite people to melt the stressful travel blues away! That and The Greatest Shower on Earth, conveniently located in my bedroom.

One of the things I love about my family gatherings is the sense of controlled chaos they induce. My parents are at the center - the kitchen - cooking the food, directing the placement of tables and chairs, filling glasses of wine, entertaining relatives. My aunts are in and out of the epicenter, heating the dishes they've brought over, making sure the presents are under the tree, catching up on the gossip. The kids (I am, at the tender age of 25, still in this group) are racing around underfoot, searching for Cokes in the fridge, sampling the dessert, helping with whatever task my dad has concocted (this year it was grating mountains and mountains of parmesan). The grandmothers and the grandfathers and the boyfriends are standing and sitting wherever they can find a spot. And the dog is excitedly yapping, running from group to group hoping for a handout.

Just when you think it can't get any louder, any hotter, any more confused, we are all somehow standing around the long dinner table waiting to say grace.

Not that the dinner stays that quiet and peaceful. Soon there's talking and laughing and the passing of dishes around the table. We take a break after the meal to clear the table for dessert, make large quantities of coffee, and serve up mountains of pie. At the very end, there's the traditional setting fire of the amaretti cookie wrappers, accompanied by much cheering and clapping as they rise to the ceiling.

After Christmas dinner we all piled into the living room to exchange gifts. Our gift exchange setup this year meant that we had lots of little presents to open, which was entertaining. My cousin Callie unveiled a scrapbook she made for my cousin Alison and the baby she's expecting (it really got most of us crying as she read it out loud), and we all gave my grandmother framed pictures to put up in her apartment. I ended up with a fantastic hoarde of seeds and gardening supplies that I can't wait to put to good use in a month or two. Adam got a HUGE stash of candy that he kept trying to give away, and my dad looked like a total drunkard after unwrapping his twelfth bottle of wine. :)

I have only recently begun to emerge from my hibernation after a fun (and food!) filled week of holiday festivities. I was gone long enough for it to feel weird to sit here again at my desk and attempt to be productive. Code doesn't come as easily as it did a week ago, and I've had to stop and actively remember the names of things that usually roll off my fingertips onto the computer. I'm happy for this break in the rhythmn, though. And I'm thankful for the new office coffeemaker that makes single servings of decaf Hazelnut coffee. Yum.

Adam and I started out on our holiday adventures on Christmas Eve, when we flew to Philadelphia to spend Christmas with his family. It was fun to get a peek into another family's holiday traditions, and I was really grateful and moved at how much I was included. There was even a stocking over the mantle with my name on it! :) I had fun jumping into The Great Christmas What Time Shall We Wake Up debate between the kids and the adults, a discussion I had often as a kid.

Christmas morning was a blur of candy and chocolate and stockings and presents and over-excited puppies. We headed over to Adam's dad's place for an amazing homemade breakfast - where I discovered the wonderful combination of queso and scrambled eggs - and then back for an excellent Christmas dinner. So much food in so little time! No sooner had we finished our dinner than it was time to catch our flight to Dallas.

We would have made it to Dallas if our flight weren't cancelled. The ticketing agent (a real gem of a woman) told us we'd be lucky to fly out of Philadelphia before Wednesday. There were a lot of frustrated people in the airport that night who had been there longer, or whose flights had been cancelled for reasons other than a sick-out, or who had lost their luggage, but it was still hard to accept the very real possibility that I would miss Christmas entirely.

So we waited in lines, waited on the phone, waited in more lines. And, with a stroke of luck, we managed to get on a flight early the next morning, plus a voucher for a night's stay at a hotel.

O Tannenbaum - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Baby It's Cold Outside - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - Bing Crosby
A Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives
Rockin' around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
Let it Snow - Rosemary Clooney
Jingle Bell Rock - Brenda Lee
Silver and Gold - Burl Ives
Silver Bells - Clay Aiken & Various Artists
Sleigh Ride - Ella Fitzgerald
I'll Be Home for Christmas - Michael Bublé
Christmas Time is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio

Also available as an iMix.

Greensleeves - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Christmas Time is Here - Rosemary Clooney
Winter Wonderland - Louis Armstrong
Happy Holidays - Bing Crosby
I'll Be Home for Christmas - Tony Bennett
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
Looks Like a Cold, Cold Winter - Bing Crosby
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow - Michael Bublé
The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
White Christmas - Rosemary Clooney
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland
Walking in the Air - George Winston

This is also now an iMix for your listening pleasure.

Today marked the end of developement for my latest project at work, and now that its out of my hands I find that I'm able to stop and catch my breath for the first time in a few weeks. Whew!

I'm also, surprisingly, almost completely done with my Christmas shopping and wrapping for the year! A lot of my presents this year are quite small, and so I was able to wrap everything in dozens of tiny, silver nesting boxes that I found at IKEA a few weeks ago. They look very festive all piled on top of one another in my studio. I'm preparing a big box to send off to Dallas tomorrow, and I'm including a huge spool of red ribbon so that I can tie on all the bows once we get there. Did I mention I love wrapping presents even more than I love shopping for them?

In addition to the gift-related searching and shopping and wrapping and shipping, it has also been a week of eating and merriment. On Monday, Adam and I kicked back with our favorite Chinese takeout and finally watched our brand new copy of Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban. On Tuesday, we met up with Becca and her dad for the excellent fare at Chutzpah. On Thursday we gathered at Jason and Cris's house for piping hot pizza and the lamer-than-lame Apprentice season finale. And, even as I sit here typing this entry, I am still recovering from this afternoon's into traditional New Mexican food at Anita's.

Even with a week this good, I also know that Christmas is still a week away. It can only get better from here! :)

Tucker strikes again

I've selected a few of my favorite pictures from my Thanksgiving holiday and posted them over at Flickr. Enjoy. :)

After a short, but satisfyingly crazed weekend, the best I can come up with is a bulleted list. :)

• Adam and took a whirlwind trip up to Media this weekend to share a meal with his family, play with a few babies, and celebrate 106 years worth of birthdays. There was actually a big, wax 106 candle on the cake! We also dined in style on gyros (from an authentic Greek connection) and Italian chop salad - soo good.
• Saturday night, when we were supposed to be driving up the highway, really saw us dealing with one of the must frustrating maintenance issues of our new townhouse - lightbulbs. They burn out constantly, and we've made more than a few "lightbulb runs" at Home Depot in the recent months. Since we were going to be welcoming a houseguest soon (see below), we felt compelled to make sure she had working lights during her stay. Our sense of hospitality is just astounding, isn't it? One side benefit of all of this bulb-changing was the opportunity to thoroughly clean the lantern on our front porch - its now sparkly and clean! And it works, too!
• Our lightbulb frenzy was inspired by the impending visit of Becca, one of Adam's friends from the School in Rose Valley. This is our first real house guest (besides my mom, who only halfway counts :>) since moving in!
• Work is busy and stressful at the moment. We're through with development on a release, but now the tricky and tedious work of testing everything begins. Despite my love of all things techie, I am not the most detail-oriented person. In my own projects I tend to adopt a fix-it-on-the-fly sort of attitude, but at work that doesn't cut it. The sustained concentration needed to stay accurate while picking through screen specs with a fine-toothed comb usually makes my head hurt. And there are still two and a half weeks to go. As my grandad would say, "Uff da!"

As I mentioned earlier, Adam and I spent Thanksgiving this year with my family in Lake Charles, LA. We started our traveling on Wednesday with some trepidation about the high volume of travelers - but we were pleasantly surprised with how organized and efficient Dulles airport was! There were hordes of employees in orange gear flagging us to our parking spot, and a bus was idling right next to us so we didn't have to wait to get to the terminal. Kudos to Dulles!

Once in Houston we grabbed our rental car and began the trek along Highway 10 into Louisiana. After a scenic tour of downtown Houston (there were some "issues" with the directions I printed out), we eventually found ourselves moving in the right direction, and made it to Lake Charles in about three hours. My parents, the brother, and the dog all rolled in a bit later that day.

And thus began two days of pure digestive indulgence - we started off with dinner at Harlequin on Wednesday night, followed by a sumptuous Thanksgiving feast prepared by my ever-talented grandmother (Meemaw). There was turkey, gravy, two kinds of dressing, sweet potatoes, green beans, bread, homemade cranberry sauce and spiced apples. And, of course, to-die-for desserts: pumpkin pie, pecan pie, pumpkin roll, and handmade dark chocolate truffles dusted with cocoa powder (which, I know from experience, taste just as good at breakfast as they do at lunch!).

In addition to the traditional football-watching, I also got a chance to take a walk around the neighborhood with my grandparents and let Tucker explore all the new smells. I also spent a several enjoyable hours piecing together my quilt, while my mom worked on sewing her entry for Loobylu's November Month of Softies project. I even got to name him! On Thursday night we all sat down to watch Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney in the 1954 classic, White Christmas, which will soon be added to my collection of Christmas movies.

After breakfast on Friday morning, Granded took some of us out for a driving tour of Lake Charles, including a turn through the old Chennault Air Force Base. We had lunch at the local hot spot Tony's Pizza, and then we hopped on the road back to Houston!

It was a short trip, but it was still wonderful to spend quality time with my family for a few days. And I was excited to be able to share the holiday with Adam for the first time! So now we've officially ushered in the Christmas season, and I'm busily preparing decorations and presents and projects galore. Is it any wonder this is my favorite time of the year?? :)

Finally, finally, FINALLY, the weekend gets here! I've got so much stuff I want to do and I've finally got some time to sit down and do it. I'm in the process of making this year's Christmas mix. If I haven't said it before, iTunes is the most wonderful service ever.

Adam and I will be heading off to Lake Charles on Wednesday to be with my grandparents and my family for Thanksgiving. I went down there last year and I had a really awesome time! I can't remember if I posted pictures or not, so here are a few highlights:

I provide the soundtrack...

We eat LOTS of food..

Take lots of group photos..

Torture Tucker a bit by getting her to sit in the holly berry wreath..

But spoil her a bit, too, by hand-feeding her whipped cream from the dining table. :)

Combine that will lots of lounging, watching of football, reading, eating, shopping, troubleshooting of computers, and MORE eating, and have a fairly decent idea of what my Thanksgivings are like. :)

You may have noticed that this website wasn't available for some of Friday and Saturday. I messed up some DNS settings with my lovely registrar (and employer), and while the bad settings took only minutes to propagate, the corrected ones took considerably longer. C'est la vie. But I'm back now, and I've missed my little MT interface, so I plan on using it a lot today!

I spent a good portion of my weekend preparing for and supporting a software release at work. This is the third release I've supported since starting over two years ago, but none of them have involved quite so much time and effort as last night. I drove to work at 1am through dark, empty streets. I kept thinking of the scene in Field of Dreams when Ray and Terence Mann are driving back to Iowa after meeting Moonlight Graham, because that was the kind of mood it evoked. It was dark and crisp and everything was illuminated in cold white lights. Very surreal.

Anyways, the only real visible changes we implemented last night involve offering a whole slew of new country code domains like .co.uk, .de, .be, etc. There was a lot of stuff behind the scenes, too, but this girl's got her confidentiality clause to think about. ;)

Not that I enjoy pulling all-nighters at work (I got home at 10am), but I do enjoy the incredible views I have from my office. My cube is on the northern side of the building, and if I stand close to the window I can see Dulles Airport and a huge expanse of the Blue Ridge mountains to the west. So I took a break Sunday morning from reading endless streams of server logs and watched the sunrise spread out over the mountains.

All in all, it was not a shabby way to end a long night of work. :)

I just had a 4 oclock meeting where they served champagne. I think this should be a weekly thing. ;)

(I apologize in advance, my tender-eared relatives, for the language in this post. ;> )

Jason Kottke writes:

I don't think America is that divided. I think most of us are ill-informed in two major ways, "conveniently" split along the lines of the two major political parties available to us. We're told we have two different choices -- you're rooting for this team or that team and the other team is the enemy -- and we believe that and organize our beliefs accordingly. There's a lot of fear and emotion involved on both sides. I can't count how many times in the last two days I've heard self-righteous "liberals" call the entire middle of the country "stupid". Kerry voters, we need to get over ourselves...we're not special. We're not informed by some superior intelligence that gives us a unique insight into how the world should work. We buy into the Democratic Party/liberal/anti-conservative/fear the church crap in the same way that our "red state" brethren buy into the Rebublican Party/conservative/anti-liberal/fear the gays bullshit.

Read it all.

Adam and I decided to be voting buddies this morning, so we trekked out to the polls around 7:30am. There were 100+ people already there, and we waited in line for about 10 minutes to sign in and get our voting cards. Except that, by the time we signed in, they had given out all the voting cards and were giving out sheets of spiral bound notebook paper, torn in half, with the word "Vote" scrawled with a Sharpie marker. Very official. :) An hour of later, after waiting in another long line, we cast our votes and received our stickers. And now we have only to sit back and watch the tallies come in tonight!

So, that's my story. What's yours? Long lines? Any interesting conflicts or stories to share?

Some stories from around the country (via Kottke)
Stories from around DC (via DCist)

Take some time today to go and visit our newest blog neighbor, Chad. That's right - our favorite teacher, wordsmith, and madman has (re)joined the ranks of the online elite and produced a blog! While still in its infancy, I'm anticipating good things from this one. :)

We have trick-or-treaters! Its seems like the tiniest, cutest citizens of Fairfax County have visited us so far. And the individually-wrapped Twizzlers are the crowd favorites, hands down. Hooray for Halloween!

I'm sitting here, on the last day in October, with all the windows in my house open. They weather reports tell me that its eighty degrees outside, and the sun is shining every now and then. This is freak weather - its supposed to be cold and rainy like it was earlier this week, and like it will be again come Monday. But, for now, I can enjoy mother nature's excellent gift of a warm, sunny weekend.

I started off my weekend with a quick trek out to Charlottesville, VA, with Matt and Julie. We were headed to a charity fundraising auction at UVA Law spondored by the Public Interest Student Association (PILA), which raises money to send law students to do public service internships during the summer. Lizzi received one such grant last summer, and spent the last few months as a chair of this year's auction. So we donned our finery and went out to party! We didn't buy anything at auction, but we did have a really fun time.

Saturday morning we stopped off at the Blue Bird Cafe for some brunch before driving back to DC. I had some sinfully good french toast made with Banana Nut Bread and a strong cup of coffee. The weather had already turned warmer from the night before, so we were able to sit outside on the patio and have the leaves fall on us.

Today I woke up very early, and grabbed some coffee and ran some errands. Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, I got all my tasks done before 11am. ;) I've even got a bowl of candy all prepared for trick-or-treaters tonight. I'm excited to finally live in house so that we'll get lots of kids coming by! Strangely enough, I had trouble finding individually wrapped candies at the store, but I managed to come through.

I could do a LOT of damage with this sucker. Its the specialty Dremel Pumpkin Carving Kit, and its only $20.

I'm a bit suspicious, though. It looks eerily similar to the Dremel Pet Nail Grooming Kit.

And that's not all - There's also a Dremel Cordless Manicure Kit and a Dremel Golf Cleaning Kit.

The people at Dremel are brilliant!

I don't condone pushing your political beliefs on others, especially in your place of business. But I do support encouraging people of all convictions to get out and vote. The American Institute of Graphic Arts has amassed an amazing collection of Get Out the Vote posters for you to download and print out. I've got one hanging in my cube. You should too!

I'm emptying out my RSS news bins again.. Enjoy! :)

Saul Bell Winners Announced
The Saul Bell Design Award Competition is an annual jewelry design competition. The stuff people come up with is amazing! The winners for 2004 were recently announced.

Movin' on up
Firefox aims at 10% market share among browsers by the end of 2005. This Firefox user certainly hopes they make it. I also hope that it propels certain large ecommerce websites (ahem, Art.com) away from making their core functionality IE-only.

Netflix for handbags
Pay a monthly fee and borrow as many designer handbags as your little heart desires. Interesting concept..

Its a personal trainer, workout video, and Xbox game, all rolled into one package. I'm intrigued.. [via Daily Candy]

Over the weekend we made some good progress on the townhome.. I finished painting my studio area, and started some test patches in the main living room. Adam's dad and grandmother came down on Sunday to visit and see the place, so that served as good motivation to get some of the key living areas in good order. We took a nice tour of the house and then had lunch at Coastal Flats in Fairfax. That place has the most amazing grouper fingers. Mmm.

On the gardening front, the grass seed that I put down two weeks ago has started to come up and gain hold in the front lawn. I didn't sow the seeds very evenly, it seems, so there will be some more work to do in the spring. I also took the plunge and order some bulbs from White Flower Farms. No more ghetto yard for us!

Note: I was excited to learn, while on the phone with my mom last night, that White Flower Farms has been my dad's garden catalog of choice for many years. Like father like daughter. :)

Macroeconomics was one of my most memorable classes at CMU, and the credit for that belongs to Finn Kydland. He spoke with a crisp, pronounced Norwegian accent, and became very indignant if you suggested that he was from Finland. He rode a flashy yellow motorcycle with matching yellow leather jacket (that, let's face it, only a European man could pull off), and had a nerdy, off-kilter sense of humor that went completely over the heads of most people in the class. He was brilliant, animated, and passionate about economics. He sometimes got so excited, and his signature wild arm gestures got so big, that we were afraid he'd topple over!

He was tough, too. I can't remember working as hard or as long for any other class in my four years there (except for maybe BizComm). Olga and I spent many, many late nights preparing assignments and papers, and spent many early mornings at the start of class struggling to wake ourselves up enough to wrap our brains around all the information.

Today Professor Kydland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to macroeconomic research. I'm proud to have been one of his students, and can't imagine a more deserving recipient. Congratulations Professor Kydland!

Well, of the various activities listed on Friday, I ended up only making it to one: Adam and I ventured out to Falls Church Saturday night to see Not2Night play at Bangkok Blues. It turned out to be a great night! The table I reserved ended up being right at the front, conveniently next to the table filled with Jason, Robin, Jan and Jane! We snacked on some excellent chicken satay, and I enjoyed one (ok, two) very yummy Singhas while the band played.

The rest of the weekend was spent on the townhome.. We hung curtain rods, cleaned floors, and unpacked even more boxes. I spent some time on Saturday weeding the front yard and sowing some grass seed, then went to the local garden center and picked up a few plants to make the place look a little nicer. I also ventured out to the fabric store for materials for curtains to put on all the curtain rods we hung. I'm going to be breaking in my new sewing machine very soon!

I officially moved out of my old apartment last night - I did one last walk-through and then turned in my keys at the leasing office with about 15 minutes to spare. What a relief! Now I can focus all of my energy on moving forward, rather than spending time re-blandifying my old place back to its pristine white-walled glory.

The new place is coming along - we've got the kitchen and bedroom and basement in general working order, and now its time to focus on the living room and all of those pesky extra boxes lying around. The one thing I seem to be missing a lot of are those pesky metal brackets that hold my IKEA IVAR shelving together, though. Those things are the hardest to keep track of!

I'm also wanting to do a little damage control on the front yard. My landlord didn't seem to want to do any sort of yardwork that involved actually touching the dirt, and so solved the problem of weeds in the lawn by spraying it liberally with - get this - Weed & Grass Killer. So now the lawn is half dead and (still) covered in weeds, and if I don't do something soon we will indeed earn the title of Most Ghetto House in the Neighborhood. So I've got a bag of turf repair seed in the trunk of my car, and this weekend I'm goin' to town!

I can't really make the yard look any worse.

My weekend in a nutshell? Painting. I spent all day Saturday, and half of Sunday, painting my old apartment back to its original shade of bland - err, antique white. It was a pretty depressing project, and I wasn't even able to finish the whole place, so whatever additional work needs to be done will come out of my security deposit. All that needs doing now is vacuuming and a light cleaning. But by Thursday I will officially be out!

I took a break from the painting on Saturday night to spend the evening at Lizzi and Matt's for a Yom Kippur break-the-fast feast. We had quiche and kugel and bagels and lox and every yummy food you can think of, as well as wine and sparkling cider. With all the work I've been doing on my various dwellings, it was great to finally take a break and spend some quality time with good friends. And kudos go to Matt for passing the 24-hours-without-sleep mark to be there with us!

Once I threw in the towel on painting, Sunday afternoon was all about the football! Even though I come nowhere near the levels of fanaticism seen in, say, Adam's family, I find the ritual of Sunday afternoon football to be very familiar and comforting. So I cozied up on the couch and worked on finishing up my first quilt block while watching the Eagles pound on the Lions. :) I still have to piece together the rows, but once its all together I'll post pictures..

In other news, I've fallen behind in my linking:

• Visit Neems' Random Ramblings to hear about her first week of teaching and see photos of her summer in India.


• Check out Saniva.org and wish him well in Liverpool.


• Wander over to Rianel Love Rings and check out Lizzi's dad's latest business venture. Note: You must also do some requisite ogling of Matt's technical handiwork.

While reading Apartment Therapy this morning, I stumbled across a mention of Front Studio, an architecture studio founded by two CMU graduates.

I was especially excited to see that one of the principals is also actively involved in the Friends of the High Line project, which I've been following in the news for a while.

For the past week or so I have been in the midst of The Great Townhouse Move. We patched, we painted, we purged, and we packed. Then we unpacked. And unpacked. And unpacked some more.

Somewhere in there I also managed to have a grand time with my mom, meet some of her friends, spend an evening on the town seeing the Capitol Steps, spend a lovely day with Adam's family, make an obligatory pilgrimage to IKEA, scout out a quilting shop, acquire a sewing machine, and still watch a fair amount of Pride & Prejudice. It was such a great week!

On the moving front, Adam and I are still up to our eyeballs in boxes. I spent the last four days wearing ratty blue flip flops because I couldn't find where the movers had packed my shoes until this morning. We have very few curtains up yet, so it feels a bit like we're living in a very cluttered, very public dollhouse. But we have a wireless network! And the kitchen is almost looking meal-worthy! And the hot water heater works! The rest will happen in good time. :)

I have just spent a lovely weekend hanging out with my mom and preparing the townhouse for its new inhabitants. After getting my eyes poked and prodded at the doctor Friday, I trekked out to Reagan airport. From there we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant in Old Town - Il Porto. It didn't disappoint!

I had intended Saturday to be a full day of painting. But in reality some frustrating paint color negotiations with my landlord ate up most of the day. In the end we were able to agree on some colors, but we only got about an hour of painting done before it was time to call it quits.

Sunday, however, was another story. Thankfully I inherit my crack-of-dawn waking habits from my mother, so we were over at the the new place painting by 9:30! We got through the bedroom and the entire kitchen area in one day, with only minor setbacks along the way. The place already looks SO much better! Its amazing what a little tan paint will do to grubby walls.

Despite all of our work, my mom and I are finding ample time to relax, watch our evening installments of Pride & Prejudice, sip glasses of wine, and discuss all sorts of things. Its been great!

The scoobies gathered last night for our first Thursday night dinner of the fall season. There was no Friends to entertain us, sadly, but we loyally gave Joey a try. The verdict was lukewarm - not as bad as we had feared, but not as good as we had hoped. I think Julie summed it up best: "Well, its not as bad as Good Morning, Miami."

Lizzi outdid herself yet again last night, serving up two kinds of baked ziti along with steaming garlic bread, salad, and very yummy wine. For dessert there was ice cream drizzled with a peach and blueberry sauce. Yum! I haven't eaten that well in months!

Last night also marked the highly anticipated second season of The Apprentice. As always, The Donald was over top with his bad hair, bad ties, gaudy displays of wealth, and ever-expanding ego. But the show sucks you in quickly, and pretty soon all of us were weighing in on the candidates. It should be interesting to see how things go.

My Labor Day weekend got off to an excellent start - Friday afternoon I headed outside for our not-so-regular BBQ out by the pond with the "cool" kids of NSI. I had intended to bake brownies for the occasion, but that never really happened. But I did enjoy some excellent hamburgers and cookies. After such a lazy, laid-back afternoon, it was realllly hard to get back into the work mode, but I managed to make it through the rest of the day. :)

I was so excited by the excellent weather that evening that I set up a little nest with towels and a pillow on the swing outside my apartment and knitted until it got too dark. I finished my first scarf! And I taught myself how to purl and bind-off from my little how-to book. Woohoo!

On Sunday Adam and I headed over to our new house to do a final walk through. The place wasn't as clean as we would have liked, and still smells strongly of cooking oil and mothballs, but we documented everything pretty well with my digital camera. Our landlords left us with about 8 large tubs overflowing with mature tomato plants, and it looks like we'll still get quite a good harvest out of them! That was an unexpected bonus. I also took detailed measurements of the rooms and have started making scaled floor plans in Illustrator. I'm quite proud of them!

Despite the fact that it is still early in the day, mentally I am already heading into the long weekend.. There's projects to do, leases to start, friends to spend time with, and lovely weather to get out into.. And I have three whole days to fill!

Adam and I will do a walkthrough of our new apartment on Sunday, the official start of our lease. We'll get our keys, and probably accumulate a big heaping pile of random administrative knowledge about our new house. I'm looking forward to getting in there and measuring out the rooms and building up a rough floorplan of the place, as well as start to get a feel for what paint colors the rooms call for.

Other than that my weekend is gloriously empty. I think I might bust out some of my newly-formed mad knitting skills (thanks Janice!), as well as finish up a miniature fountain project I've been working on. I also have a ton of website work I could be doing, but we'll see if I feel like sitting indoors for that long. :)

I don't know what events conspired to make this happen, but instead of the crappy wholesale donuts we usually have in our office kitchen on Fridays, today we have Krispy Kreme. Life is good. :)

Some of the scoobies gathered at Julie's last night for an informal evening of food and hanging out while Julie did laundry and packed for her trip to Boston. I brought sandwiches from Potbelly's, which for some reason I had been craving all day, and spent most of the evening under a blanket on the couch chatting away. I don't know how much packing got accomplished, but I had a great evening!

We found out on Monday that our move-in issues with the townhouse are resolved - we will start our lease on September 5 as originally planned. Yay! We don't know our exact moving date yet, but it will be nice to have access to the place to paint and stuff like that.

The other good thing about this is that my mom, who is coming to visit me starting September 10, will get to see our new place! And possibly help me with all my evil decorating schemes. :)

This weekend I realized that I have officially crossed the line from enjoying summer to wanting it to be fall. A storm blew through yesterday and behind it came crisp, dry air that was so nice Adam and I took a walk in it. At some point I smelled someone's bbq smoke and it made me want to have a fire in my fireplace. And when I went to the mall looking for new shoes, I found myself coveting sweaters and corduroy pants and warm clothes again.

I've even ventured as far into the winter months as to plan this year's Christmas card and start thinking about the wrapping paper I want to use on all my presents. I've wondered what sort of wreath I'll want to put on the door of our new townhouse, and where I can get pinecones to stack in my planters while everything winters over. I can vividly remember the feeling of walking through stores filled with holiday decorations, and I'm starting to anticipate it again.

I'm also looking forward to doing some new things: Having an actual house to decorate. Taking walks around the golf course after its snowed. Driving up into Shenandoah during the fall and staying at the lodge. Cabin camping with the scoobies.

Does anyone else start to feel this excitement at the approach of fall??

The kitchen in my office has a schnazzy electric bagel slicer. That is, until this morning, when I watched a very clueless consultant (who probably makes three times my salary) stuff a bagel in from the wrong direction and break it. He just sat there, holding the button down for longer and longer intervals, as if somehow that would make the knife blades magically reattach to the gears. In order to save myself the annoyance of hearing more whining-gear noises, I put a little sticky note on it to keep others from trying the same thing.

Bad idea. A little note saying "Broken" was really an irresistably exciting test of skill for the 50+ engineers who all use that kitchen. One after another they wandered in, noticed the sign, and thought "I'll bet I can fix it!" At times whole groups clustered around it anxiously, trying to get a look, each believing so implicitly in their own problem-solving prowess. And that annoying, grinding, broken-bagel-cutter noise wafted into my cube, over and over again, until the janitor finally wheeled it away on his little cart.

Trinidad has won its first medal of these summer Olympics, and its first (ever?) in swimming! Woohoo! (via Sanjiva)

My good news from yesterday: I found out yesterday that my cousin Alison and her husband Eric are expecting their first baby on April 16 of next year. Woohoo! I'm gonna be a... second cousin?

My not-so-good news from yesterday: The house we will be renting is occupied by a man named P.J. P.J. and his family have purchased a house, which is occupied by an elderly couple. The couple is building a new house, which only yesterday failed its building inspection. Which means the couple can't move in, P.J. can't move out, and we can't move anywhere, which leaves all of us in a bind.

My fun for this past Friday evening consisted of sitting down with our new landlord and hashing out our lease agreement for the next year. We met his wife and kids, and learned lots of random tidbits about our future neighborhood. We've signed everything and are all set to take possession of the place on September 5th.

The rest of my weekend was verrry mellow. I hung out with the invalid in his apartment for most of Saturday, and spent Sunday poking around my apartment cleaning and organizing. This seems to be a trend. After living in a messy place during the chaos of the last few weeks, I found a lot of satisfaction in restoring order to my little domain!

I also spent some time outside enjoying my patio. My hostas are in full bloom, and they have an awesome jasmine-like scent that gets stronger in the evenings. This is good, because that's the time I tend to be out there! I potted some new ivy cuttings, and ripped out a sweet potato vine that was overtaking one of my planters. I'm currently contemplating ways to make big, inexpensive planters for the patio/deck space at the new house. Feel free to share any ideas/sugestions. Or make me some (Jefe). ;)

This whole process has been a whirlwind of activity: I first met with the realtors to tour homes on Monday evening, then Tuesday evening, and by Wednesday evening Adam and I made the decision that we liked this one. We filled out a rental application, which our realtors submitted Thursday. And today I got the call - we got it! Woohoo! I'm really excited to settle in and make it home.

So now that this item is checked off of our list, all we have to do now is coordinate a move, figure out where all our furniture is going to go, and procure a bed. And I am, of course, already planning what colors to paint everything. :)

And speaking of painting and furniture, I've also been hoarding design and furniture websites lately:

Apartment Therapy	MoCoLoCo
Room & Board

The big excitement in my life currently? The townhouse hunt is now fully underway. I set up a meeting yesterday afternoon with a husband/wife realtor team that were recommended to me. I am really happy with them. It turns out the wife is a former Network Solutions employee, and they even offered to let me test drive their hybrid Prius!

First we chatted in their office for a few minutes, then hit the road to scope out some of the properties. We managed to get into four different townhomes last night! I was impressed by how easily the whole process went - having someone with access to all the lockboxes definitely speeds things along. It was also reassuring to see that Adam and I will be able to get a really nice place for the budget we've set out.

I'm heading back over there tonight to look at a few more places, and we could possibly make a decision as early as this weekend. Its hard to believe that we'll start our new lease in only three weeks. Time has flown by!

I've been noticeably silent here this past week or so. It was one looong week for me, and I am quite happy to be looking back at it. Adam's surgery went well, and he's home from the hospital and recooperating nicely. He's surrounded himself with books and movies and games for his new uber computer and is enjoying his time off. I spent most of this past week being more sick than I have been in recent memory. It was really a bad cold with sinus issues mixed in, but I spent a lot of time resting and regaining my strength. I only went to work a total of 1.5 days!

So now its Saturday - a perfect, sunny, crisp Saturday that so far has no plans filling it. I have already spent some time cocooning in my apartment. I might head to the National Building Museum to see the exhibit on Affordable Housing, which ends tomorrow. A trip to IKEA is also on the table. Plus I'm looking forward to ogling the new laptop that Julie is rumored to have purchased on her day off yesterday.

Last night the Scoobies took Adam out for a mouth-watering meal at Famous Dave's to send him off to surgery in style. Such good food! When we got there, they presented him with an entire tray of cornbread muffins, which pleased him immensely. They weren't there to see it, but he demolished those last four muffins (and the baked beans, and the Philly Ice) with glee at about 11:45 last night. ;)

In other news, both Adam and I had to give notice with our leasing company this week. Its a slightly bittersweet moment for me, because I love my little apartment. It was the first place I ever lived completely by myself, and even though I've been there a whole year (as of tomorrow) I still have so many things I want to do with it. Now its just too late to justify doing them because I'll have to undo them in a month. But I'm excited to move on to our new place, wherever that may be. I've already begun planning. I'm in a fierce nesting mode right now. :)

My addiction to obscure supply catalogs is alive and kickin' these days. First is was McMaster-Carr, with its thousands of pages of industrial goodness. Recently its been foodservice suppliers like AceMart and Instawares, or packaging supplies like PaperMart. Anything with "mart" in the title, really.

But the newest to catch my eye is Farm Tek (via Apartment Therapy). Its got hundreds of pages of the most random, fascinating farming supplies you've ever seen. From huge plastic tents for sheltering tractors, to specialized rollings carts for weighing piglets - its got oodles of fun things to look at. The best stuff is less livestock-related and more agricultural (although I have no objection to pigs, I don't really want to raise them, you see) such as greenhouses, plant carts, seedling trays, hundred-foot industrial watering hoses with specialty attachments, etc. And of course 10ft x 10ft portable canvas-sided buildings for those inevitable roadside plant sales. This stuff is golden!

(My evil, crafty mind also tells me that if I ever wanted to exhibit at a local craft show, a sturdy canvas-side shelter is a must-have. Mua ha ha!)

Need I really say more? :)

Last night one of Adam's team members had us over to his house for dinner with his family. It felt so.. adult. We sat at the dinner table laughing and chatting with their two kids, and later I realized that I still have memories of similar dinners at my own house. Except *I* was the kid at those dinners. :) Nevertheless, we had a really fun time.

I cannot go to work today
Said little Katy Beck today
I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps!

• Major congratulations are in order for Neema, who has finished her Teachers Portfolio from her year in the Boston Teacher Residency. This also means that she's done with - not her first - her second masters degree. Go Neems!
• A cool new interactive Bunnyfur activity at my mom's site
• A really fantastic picture of the Scoobies at J and Cris' wedding is over at JBRealist. I heart my friends, too. :)
• Now that the wedding has gone off swimmingly, Things Pink is alive and kicking! Woohoo!
• I've always liked the concept of living in an off-the-grid house. Particularly one that is made of strawbales and harvests solar and wind power. Plus they use my current favorite sustainable buzz-word: passive solar heating.
• A good set of CSS How To Articles:
  Designing a CSS Based Template - Part 1 | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Most people I know have this problem - they have piles and piles of obsolete electronics/pc towers/monitors/printers/keyboards sitting in their office/spare bedroom/attic/garage collecting dust and wasting space.

Now you can take it all to Office Depot! They'll take it and recycle it appropriately - for FREE! Woohoo! I'll be taking the printer that died last month, and the cell phone I just replaced this week, and possibly my ever-expanding collection of fried ethernet cards.

The one catch is that you can only bring in one item per person per day. And the offer doesn't apply to overly large TVs or standalone VCRs or random kitchen appliances. Despite all this, its still a pretty damn good deal.

So go forth and recycle!

Yesterday I began the hunt for my next apartment! There is going to be one significant difference between this year's search and the last: I'm going to have a roommate again. Well, not just any roommate. :) Adam and I are taking the plunge and moving in together sometime in September. Woohoo!

I called and inquired about a bunch of listings, and I've already learned a few things. Realtors are strange, strange people. Some have been super friendly, while others have barely spoken English and couldn't have cared less that I wanted to toss piles of money at them. A surprisingly large group of realtors just plain didn't answer their phones, nor did they have voice mail. Odd.

But the good news is that there are a lot of nice places up for rent in our area. And the prices aren't too bad either! I'm one of those bizarre people who really enjoys scavenging around for properties, so I'm looking forward to getting inside these places and exploring all the options. We're looking at the first option this Saturday!

I upgraded my cell phone last night. It took a marathon session with a slightly inept Verizon sales team, but I walked out last night with a shiny new Samsung a670 that cost me next to nothing! Fun fun. The phone has lots of storage, a teensy digital camera, and all of those new fangled ring tones and games and stuff. I don't really plan on using the camera portion of things, so I didn't sign up for any monthly usage fees. But I can set it up so that your picture shows up on my phone when any of you call me. :)

The next order of business is to search out a simple, non-annoying ring tone since all of the pre-loaded ones are crap. I know Julie at least will be very excited about my new ringtone because it means she won't get the old one stuck in her head anymore. :)

After the good example set by Julie and Matt and Olga, I have done this personality quiz.

Wackiness: 30/100
Rationality: 46/100
Constructiveness: 68/100
Leadership: 72/100

You are an SECL--Sober Emotional Constructive Leader. This makes you a politician. You cut deals, you change minds, you make things happen. You would prefer to be liked than respected, but generally people react to you with both. You are very sensitive to criticism, since your entire business is making people happy.

At times your commitment to the happiness of other people can cut into the happiness of you and your loved ones. This is very demanding on those close to you, who may feel neglected. Slowly, you will learn to set your own agenda--including time to yourself.

You are gregarious, friendly, charming and charismatic. You like animals, sports, and beautiful cars. You wear understated gold jewelry and have secret bad habits, like chewing your fingers and fidgeting.

You are very difficult to dislike.

What do you guys think?

Last week my company surprised us with an unprecedented invitation - our latest off-site, usually at a boring hotel with equally boring speakers and soggy Chicken Parmesan, would be held at a local winery! So in 20 minutes or so I'm boarding a company bus and heading further into the boonies of Northern Virginia to spend a day at the winery. We'll still have the boring speakers, I'm sure. But we'll also have wine and lunch and softball and a dunking booth (we all got to vote on who takes the plunge). If it doesn't rain too hard we'll also get tours of the winery and hay rides through the crops, too! I'm looking forward to it. :)

Today hasn't been the first of my holiday weekend adventures! It all started when I managed to score a standby seat on an earlier flight to Dallas. I was able to be home in time to have a late lunch with my mom and brother at Chip's on Knox Street (one of my favorite areas in Dallas)! My grandparents arrived later that afternoon, and we headed to our favorite place for dinner - Angelo's! Yum.

The next morning, activities began at 8:30am with a big homemade breakfast at my place. Then we headed to the West Village, a new mixed-use development just outside downtown Dallas. The area used to be a empty field dotted with a few remains of demolished buildings, but now its a cool mix of shops, restaurants, apartments, and an art house movie theater. You can catch the trolley from there and take it down McKinney Avenue and into downtown to the Dallas Museum of Art. We stayed on board and headed back to the S&D Oyster Company for some delicious fried shrimp and lemon meringue pie. Again, Yum. :)

Later that evening we picked up my Gramma from her apartment and made our way out to Grapevine, TX, to the Gaylord Texan Resort & Conference Center. I have enough to say about the place itself to fill an entire second post, so I'll leave most of my impressions out of here. :) Simply put, the place was amazing. We had dinner at the Riverwalk Cafe, a buffet-style restaurant styled like a Mexican food house on the San Antonio riverwalk. We had margaritas, ate some delicious fajitas, and listened to the strolling mariachi band. It was a great evening, and I'm so glad that I got to share it with some of my favorite people. :)

I hope that everyone is having, or has had, a wonderful holiday today! I just got back from having lunch with my Aunt Carol. cousin Alison and her husband Eric, my Aunt Nancy, and my cousins Callie and Caycle. We had some fantastic BBQ at Spring Creek, and then trekked over to the new theater at Valley View to see a matinee of Spiderman 2. What a fun movie! I haven't seen the first one, but thanks to Matt's very patient explanations of the comic hero world, I understood a lot of the back story without needing to ask. :)

I had a great time hanging out with my family. Eric entertained me with stories of the jumbo margarita maker he recently built - imagine a turkey fryer custom fitted with an exposed food disposal mechanism. It can make 24 gallons of the stuff at once! I found out Callie made the color guard at the high school that she'll be going to next year (gah!), of which I'm very proud. And Cayce told funny stories about the program at her school where her teacher trains seeing eye dogs in their classroom. It was fun just to hear what was going on in everyone's lives!

Now I'm at home looking forward to some R&R and maybe a little nap. Perhaps I'll be able to see some fireworks on the horizon if I climb up onto the roof! The trees in our neighborhood have gotten pretty tall, but we used to be able to catch some good ones.

Enjoy the rest of your holidays, everyone!

Head on over to see the super cool new Sanjiva.org. It looks like there was a redesign, and perhaps a change of platform?

I like the glasses, Sanjiva! :)

No, really.

I came home to cook myself some lunch. I came inside and found a strange man in my bathroom. He was the pest control guy, but it was still startling. So when he left I closed the top lock out of habit paranoia.

Now I'm trying to open the door to go back to work, but the deadbolt is stuck! The knob turns and turns but nothing happens.

So now I'm waiting in my apartment for the maintenance guy to come and rescue me. I'm not really missing much at work, but I really want ice cream right now and I can't go get it! Waaa!

**Update**
I've been rescued!! Just as I was trying to figure out how to pop the screen off of my living room window, the facilities guy came over and climbed into my apartment. He took the lock apart, declared it broken and in need of replacement, and has wandered off to get the new hardware. Yippee!

**Update 2**
Hardware is replaced, and I am begrudgingly back at work. My new lock is shiny and new, but every time I touch it I get WD-40 on my hands.

All this fitness-y girl-power has inspired me to scout out some excellent places to find womens fitness apparel. One of our WTP sessions started off with a presentation from Moving Comfort, a womens fitness apparel company founded right here in Northern Virginia! It really got me thinking about how much the selection and quality of workout clothes for women has improved, especially sports bras. Check some of these places out!

Moving Comfort - They don't sell online, but they do offer a detailed product catalog that you can browse through, as well as links to retailers that carry their clothes.

Title 9 Sports - Not only do I find the name entertaining, but Title 9 has a nice selection of cool clothing and accessories. Oh, and their web site gets two thumbs up from me. :)

See Jane Run - Another nice online store. They also have an entertaining newsletter. :) Too bad they are located in CA where I can't get to their cool-looking programs!

Road Runner Sports - Not exclusively a women's store, but they still have a good selection.

Athleta

Saturday morning dawned with perfect running weather - slightly overcast, a crisp sub-70 temperature, and a slight breeze. Perfect for running in the Reston Runners Women's Distance Festival! The race didn't start until 8am, but I got there around 7:15 so I could pick up my race packet and number and warm up. We did a warm-up with all the Women's Training Program (WTP) participants, and then broke up into groups based on our mile pace. I had a fun, lively group to run with, which really made things enjoyable. The WTP coach who ran with us was both encouraging and a taskmaster - despite being on her fifth month of chemo. Knowig that made it a lot harder to complain about being tired. :) I finished with a time of 39:57, which is about eight minutes faster than I ran in the Race for the Cure. It just goes to show how much cameraderie and support can improve my running!

I had a lot more fun at this race than I expected to, even though I was routinely schooled by women more than twice my age. I will be happy to be half as fit as those women when I am over 60!

This past weekend I had the privilege of watching two good friends say the big "I Do." It was a gorgeous wedding! The ceremony itself was laid out on the practice putting green of a local country club. A green, I might add, picturesquely situated on a stretch of land jutting out into Naragansett Bay. We walked towards our seats accompanied by a lone bagpiper just near the water. It was a tad chilly, but no one really noticed. Cris looked absolutely beautiful in her dress and veil as her parents both walked her down the aisle. The ecstatic joy on her face didn't hurt either. :)

The wedding itself was very personal and informal. There were a lot of laughs and smiles (and yes, Julie, tears) during the short ceremony, and of course tons of pictures afterwards! We waiting in a receiving line to say congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. M, and then headed indoors to eat, dance, drink, and generally be merry. We ate some wonderful food, heard heartfelt speeches, and danced to some great music. No one really wanted to leave at the end - the DJ pretty much had to shove us out the door. :)

The next day we gathered at a local park for a relaxing BBQ for the newlyweds. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day for it, either. The weather was gorgeous, and there was a nice breeze the whole day. We sat at picnic tables and ate tons of food, and then played horseshoes or lazed about in the sun. I watched a group of people play ultimate frisbee while dozing under a tree by the swimming pool. There was even a set of stairs at the back of the park that led down to the beach, where Neema and I took our shoes off to explore and look for seashells. It was one of those perfect days that lasts forever, where no one had anywhere else they wanted (or needed) to be.

Ultimately, however, we did have to leave. So Neema, Julie, Adam and I headed into Providence to try out a restaurant Neema had heard of. It was an asian fusion place, and I was feeling a bit adventurous, so I ordered Crispy Duck. And that's exactly what I got - an entire duck, broiled to crispy perfection, chopped up on my plate. Trying to get meat off of a whole duck can be a bit like eating a crab - you really have to work for it, and you don't get as much meat as you'd really like. But what meat I did manage to get was delicious! Paired off with a chilled Thai iced tea, my meal was a wonderful success. :)

Later that night we said goodbye to Neems and headed off to bed. Our travel the next day was blessedly easy and uneventful, and we got back to DC early enough to take naps and recover a bit from the whirlwind weekend. I know I said it to them then, but J and Cris deserve not only our congratulations, but our thanks as well for putting together such a wonderful weekend for all of us. So, thanks J and Cris! We love you!

p.s. I really really hope the two of you are NOT reading this on your honeymoon right now. If you are, what are you thinking? Go away! Have fun! :)

p.p.s. Pictures that the DJ took of the evening. More coming soon!

Its time for the 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival! The three themes for this year's festival are Haiti, Mid-Atlantic Maritime Communities, and Music in Latino Culture. It seems like such a random combination of ideas, but I'm looking forward to it!

The music from each group sounds like it will be really entertaining, and of course there will be astounding displays of craftsmanship, as always. But I'm a bit disappointed that there will be no representation of Latino food. I guess its hard to pick foods that are representative of such a large and varied cultural group, but still! There have to be a *few* highlights that they can showcase!

Anyways, if you're in the area, wander down to the National Mall sometime in the next two weeks and take in the sights, smells, music, and foods of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Its one of my favorite events of the year, and its all free! How cool is it to live in DC??

So our dear friend Matt is having a momentous day today - he's being promoted to a Captain in the United States Air Force today! I'm not very knowledgeable about military ranks and what they all mean, but I do know that this promotion marks his four years of service with USAF. In those years he's served in Oklahoma, Saudi, numerous bases in Virginia, as well as his current post at DISA.

We're all very proud of you, Matt!

You deserve that steak dinner your wife suggested on Monday. :) But if you feel like playing kickball this evening, I'll buy you a beer afterwards. ;)

I've got VH1 on in the background while I play around with my website this evening. I usually don't really pay attention to the tv while I'm coding, so it was interesting that I happened to tune in at just the moment when Randy Jackson was interviewing two musicians - John Mayer and Paul Simon. Its not a combination I would have thought of on my own, but now that I hear them singing 'The Boy in the Bubble' its pretty cool. They've pulled it away from its original Graceland stylings and mixed in some of John Mayers more bluesy influences (thank you Stevie Ray!). I like it!

Last night the scoobies gathered at Jason and Cris's house to hang out, eat food, and help them with last minute wedding activities. I was late due to my training program, but I got there in time to see them open their present and hang out a bit. Lizzi was labeling placecards and the guys were upstairs pulling together music for the slideshow. There wasn't much for me to do, really, but I gave moral support. It was the last time I'll see J and Cris until they are walking down the aisle on Friday evening! Pretty exciting stuff!!

People are heading up to Rhode Island at varying times throughout the week, but Adam and I are flying up on Friday morning. The wedding is Friday evening, and then we have the rest of the weekend to chill out and explore what Rhode Island has to offer! I've never really spent time there, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

But mostly I'm just looking forward to a beautiful wedding for two wonderful, wonderful people. :)

Last night I sat on a blanket at Wolftrap with Adam, Jason, and Cris, and enjoyed an evening of comedy will Bill Cosby. It was an awesome night for an outdoor concert - warm and clear with just a hint of a breeze. Adam worried that I'd be too hot with my jeans and 3/4 length shirt, but I was supremely happy basking in the heat and the humidity.

I've never had much exposure to Bill Cosby the stand-up comedian. I loved The Cosby Show, of course, and ate my fair share of Jell-O. But I think he's even funnier when he's up on stage just being himself. He tells hilarious, rambling, nostalgic stories of his childhood memories. He mixes subtle physical comedy in with the intellectual, and delivers it all in that classic Cosby rhythm. He spoke for almost two hours, and rarely missed a beat. I don't think I saw him even drink his water more than once the entire time!

The evening was a truly enjoyable one, and I'm very glad that we went. I might even have to put some of his DVDs on the Netflix queue my super wonderful boyfriend's Netflix queue!

(The Post also has a review of the evening's show here. )

When you register for the Race for the Cure, they don't tell you that you've also been given a bonus slot in the lesser-known Race for the Advil. This smaller, secondary race occurs anywhere from right after the race to even a day beyond, as contestants compete for prizes in the Sorest Knees Division and the Tightest Muscles Division. While the race itself went really well, I think I'm up for a medal in the knee category. :)

For those of you who remember my New Year's Resolutions for this year, yesterday's run brings me up to 2 out of 3. And I still have another 5k to do this summer! The goal of getting a dog has been postponed for the time being, until I live somewhere with a bit more space. So I think I'm doing pretty well!

Before I get into the lovely concert last night, may I just say that I think I caught one of the many communicable diseases that Matt brought back with him from the evil casinos. Now put that together with sitting outdoors in chilly, wet weather, and staying up past my bedtime for some late-night tech support for the fam. What you get is a stuffy head, sore throat, and an unusually bad attitude. Grr.

But back to the extremely enjoyable concert. After wrangling with traffic and parking for a while, Adam and I made it to our seats just as the concert was getting started. The format was relatively fast-paced - one group would come forward to sing one or two songs, and then make way for the next group. We heard from bluegrass staples like The Nashville Bluegrass Band, and from an amazing brother-sister duo Cody and Sierra Hull. At 15 and 12 respectively, those kids had more talent and stage presence than some of the adult performers on the tour! It was great to watch.

Finally Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS) took the stage. There's a reason why they are the top-performing bluegrass group in the country right now, and they showed it last night. They did renditions of "Down to the River to Pray" and "Man of Constant Sorrow" from O Brother Where Art Thou, and also got into some of the songs from Cold Mountain. Alison Krauss' voice is just incredible.

Aside: Seeing a concert at Wolftrap feels a lot like sitting in the middle of Anderson Auditorium at Montreat. Its much more open to the breezes and sounds of the park around it, but there is that familiar feeling of being protected by a high, rounded roof. I missed Montreat a lot last night, especially during Down to the River to Pray, which was a special song for all the small group leaders the last time I was there.

After a few pieces by just AKUS, some members of each band came forward to form smaller ensembles to sing various pieces from Cold Mountain. It was interesting to watch people who didn't normally perform together - they tended to watch eachother more and interact in a way that a group like AKUS doesn't do as much.

The icing on the cake last night came in the form of bluegrass classic Ralph Stanley, who entertained the crowds with frantic flatpicking that belied his age. At one point the rest of the members of the show came out and were dancing on the stage while he played, which he seemed to enjoy. He closed out the concert by getting the audience to sing along to Amazing Grace.

What a fun night! After making our way back to the car, Adam and I capped the night off with a little hot chocolate on the way home. I had a short talk with the fam, and then happily dropped off to sleep. :)

Its that time of year again! I'm participating in the National Race for the Cure next Saturday, June 5. This time I'm going to be attempting to run as much of it as possible as preparation for my Womens Distance Festival 5k later in June. So if you feel like contributing to the Race for the Cure cause, go for it! Otherwise just send me and e-mail or comment here and tell me good luck. ;)

Birthdays. Because I am a bad sister, I forgot to call my brother and tell him happy birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday Jeff!! I will be calling you today. :)

The weekend. The weekend was filled with bridal showers and bachelorette parties in celebration of Cris and Jason's upcoming wedding. There were late night preparations and celebrations, lots of singing, dancing, and general merriment. Oh, and FOOD like you've never seen before. At our largest there were 12 ladies who came out to celebrate with Cris, and we had a blast. :) So much of a blast, actually, that I spent most of Sunday sleeping and recovering. On Monday we met up at Sinplicity for lunch, where we had a good time retelling all of our weekend's antics to the boys once they returned from Jason's bachelor weekend in Atlantic City.

5k Training. My weekly training session was cancelled last night due to a tornado watch that never delivered. I wish I could say I came home and worked out anyways, but I can't. :) Instead I cozied up on my couch and caught up on all the sleep I missed this weekend.

Gardening. My plants are still alive! I know you were all curious to see if I'd killed any of them yet. There's one plant that seems to continually attract the tiny little claws of the area chipmunks, and I always have to dump abuot a third of the dirt back into the container when I get home from work every day. The plant hasn't really taken notice of this yet, thankfully. I'm also now the proud parent of a sweet potato plant that decided to sprout while I was away in North Carolina. That sucker can grow.

Alison Krauss. Tomorrow Adam is taking me to see the Great High Mountain Tour 2004 at Wolftrap. Alison Krauss and Union Station are the headliners on the ticket, and I couldn't be more excited!! There are also some heavy-hitting bluegrass legends on the line-up, so it should be an entertaining night. They'll be performing music from Cold Mountain and O Brother Where Art Thou, as well as many others. Fun fun!

Cicadas. The cicadas have reached what seems to be their peak in my area. I've even been hearing them in my apartment comlex! I'd forgotten about all the small patches of old growth forest that the developers left alone when building the complex. I walk through such a grove on my way to Adam's apartment, and the pathways are littered with little cicada shells and bodies. I've noticed that the periodical cicadas make a different set of sounds than the ones I am used to. The humming is sharper, and the rhythmn is faster. When they are not humming, there is an eerie ring in the air. It took me several days to realize that it was the cicadas. Its a bit like the sound that subway rails make when a train is approaching, and when you're near a large population of them, the sound is breathtaking. Even though I really enjoy the sound, I quickly learned that driving through a densely populated area with the car windows down was not a good idea. While most of the bugs can be seen swarming around the treetops, a lot of them make their way towards your car, where they make great big splats on your windshield. So I enjoy at a distance. :)

Baseball. The scoobies ventured into Baltimore last Thursday to take in the last of the Yankees-Orioles series. Traffic was hellish, and even leaving two hours in advance didn't get us to the game in time, so we missed the first three and a half innings. By that time the Orioles had pulled ahead 3-0. The euphoria didn't last long, as the Yankees spent the rest of the game steadily pounding the Orioles faces into their own finely-packed red dirt. But we had a good time cheering and scarfing down ballpark hot dogs and beer. Several fans in our section were catching cicadas as they flew near the lights and eating them live. This elicited much fascination and disgust from the crowd, but we cheered them on anyways. It seemed the fun thing to do. :) At the bottom of the 8th inning we decided to call it quits. The Orioles were down by 11 runs, so we figured it was time to head home. But it was a great night for baseball, and I hope to go back soon!

Sunday. We proved to Jeff that we really, really loved him by gathering by the car in the pre-dawn light at 5:45 in the morning. We were in line at the university by 5:50am, and by 6am we had secured 8 seats in a prime location under the trees (Adam and I had done some reconnaisance work the day before to find out the seats that would be in the shade the longest). Three hours later, the ceremony itself began. Jeff's class was the last to march in, and the last to go up and get their diplomas, but we had a fun time cheering everyone on and looking up everyone's home towns in the program.

Jeff processes

The much-anticipated keynote address came from Colin Powell, who flew back from an economic conference in Jordan to be present. He started off well - getting lots of laughs from the parents and students alike - and made comments that showed he'd done his research on the customs and traditions of the campus. But from there he settled back into a disappointingly generic Bush administration stump speech, touting No Child Left Behind and the progress in Iraq. Ironic points to use as cornerstones of a speech entitled "Do the Right Thing," to be sure.

I was more impressed, ultimately, when Powell remained standing to shake the hands of all 900+ undergraduates who walked across the stage to get their diplomas. He also presided over the swearing in of a handful of ROTC graduates. I'm sure Matt would be able to comment more knowledgeably, but it had to have been a pretty amazing experience being sworn into the armed forces by the highest ranking member of the military you're ever likely to come into contact with. Who can actually say with full sincerity, "Welcome to my army" at the end of it.

Post-diploma!

Total chaos reigned once the ceremony ended. Graduates where wandering everywhere - taking pictures, chatting on cell phones, jumping up and down with their friends and cheering. It reminded me of the chaos and excitement of my own graduation, and I was very proud to watch Jeff going through the same thing!

Trying to locate friends

Big group pictures

Distinguished graduates of Calloway School of Business

Silly boys

Friday. Adam and I get up before dawn to catch our flight. We make it to Greensboro by 10am, and to Winston-Salem by 11, thanks to a last-minute flight/car rental deal from site59. The Big Man on Campus arrives, and takes us to one of his favorite lunch spots: Rose's Diner. I have my first Dr. Pepper from a soda fountain since hitting Gazeebo Burgers at Christmastime. Grandad and Meemaw arrive later in the afternoon, and we all head to Macaroni Grill for dinner. (Great) Aunt Virginia is able to make it just in time to order!

Saturday. We all get up early to make it to the Wake Forest Baccalaureate. Jeff was only given 6 tickets, so Adam and I find a nice shady spot of grass on the Quad and listen to service outside. The weather was gorgeous, and the service included one of my favorite hymns - Be Thou My Vision. Sitting outside, we were situated perfectly to enjoy the closing carillon, which was an interpretation of the same hymn. If I hadn't known it before, Saturday morning reminded me that Wake Forest's campus is beautiful and incredibly peaceful, especially with the sound of bells everywhere.

For lunch we headed over to Old Salem to the Old Salem Tavern. We were seated at a long, wooden table on the back porch of the old building. Old Salem was founded by Moravians, so I figured the most appropriate food to sample was the Moravian Meatloaf. I discovered that this is a lot like normal meatloaf, but made with veal as well as beef. Whatever it was, it was amazing! After eating we wandered around the shops at Old Salem until the rain forced us back inside.

Lunch at Old Salem Tavern

Grandad & Meemaw

Dad, Aunt Virginia, Mom

From below

Saturday night we fancied ourselves up to head to Ryan's Steak and Chophouse for dinner. Have you noticed yet that my family really enjoys eating?? We have a sentimental attachment to Ryan's because its where my parents took Jeff on the night before they left him at school for his freshman year. It also serves up some incredible food in a warm and cozy atmosphere. Jeff opened some of his graduation presents while we finished up dessert, including the traditional Harris Graduation Scrapbook, courtesy of my mom. :)

For those of you that don't know, I spent this past weekend in Winston-Salem, NC, witnessing my little brother Jeff graduate from college. It was a fantastic weekend filled with family, excellent food, and a lot of pride and admiration for the coolest brother a girl could ask for. I am, however, still totally exhausted from the trip. I've got pictures to show and stories to tell you, but its taken me longer than expected to go through everything and write it all down.. In the meantime, check out some of the pictures my mom put up from the weekend!

Kickball season has started back up in the Washington area. I'm not playing this year, but instead am part of the loyal and loud cheering section for those who are playing - Adam, Julie, Matt, and Jason. The team this year is called MoeBling - a hybrid of last year's BlingBling and Moe's Tavern, one of our former competitors. The team is really large, so our guys don't get to play as often as they would like, but they represent the Scoobies well nonetheless! Last night MoeBling beat out the yellow-shirted Missing Toes in a 14-8 win. We journeyed afterwards to Crystal City Sports Pub for celebratory food and beer. I had a great evening, but my throat is a little sore from yelling over the din. Anyways, I'm hoping for many more evenings of kickball fun. Let's hear it for MoeBling!

Oh, and Matt has posted a much better play by play of the game on his site.

I've finally tweaked my fitness journal to a point where I want to show it to all of you!

I'm a little nervous about publishing this part of my site because a) its very easy to see the days/weeks where I copped out on my workouts, b) many of the posts were written before I intended to make them public, and c) you can all see how slow I run. ;)

But I'm shoring up my courage in the hopes that making the journal public will motivate me to stick with the program, so to speak. So here they are! You'll find that there's also now a permanent link to them in the main menu.

Enjoy! :)

• I Do Not Like Matthew Felling, Media Director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs
• I'm Not the Only One
• Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

I had my first of eight sessions of the Women's Training Program on Monday night. Basically the program consists of eight weeks of guided training, with an ultimate goal of completing the Women's Distance Festival 5k in late June. About 200 women showed up for the orientation, where we heard from the program director and learned a little bit more about what we were doing. Afterwards we broke into groups based on fitness level, goals, and running pace.

I chose the Run/Walk group since I have slacked off in the running category lately. There was also a Walkers group, a Beginning Runners group (11 minute miles and up) and an Advanced Runners group. We started out with stretching, and then did a nice workout on the wooded trails behind the high school where we meet. The 5k at the end of the program is set out on the same set of trails, so I'm looking forward to training on them.

The cool part about the program is that you can move between the groups each week depending on your progress. And you always have a ton of people around you on the trails to offer support, encouragement, or a general sense of security in what is otherwise a very secluded area. I'm looking forward to going next week!

Adam and I both took Friday off so that we could drive up to Media in a leisurely fashion and have the whole of Saturday with his family. The weather was gorgeous, and the drive was almost traffic-free. For a Friday afternoon on the 95 corridor, that was a miracle in itself!

Our main reason for heading to Media this weekend was to attend Mayfair, an annual festival at The School in Rose Valley. Adam went to elementary school there as a wee lad, and now his sister Elizabeth is finishing up her final year there. Mayfair is a little like Alumni Day at Hockaday, or Carnival at CMU - its a time for current students to celebrate as well as the time that former students and staff come back to visit. SRV is a small, closely-knit community school that just celebrated its 75th anniversary, so it was not uncommon to see several generations of alumni wandering around.

The day started out with carnival games, bake sales, lemonade stands, and music. A lot of the games and food stands were decorated and operated by the students themselves, and everything fit into the renaissance theme for the year. I even got to taste the infamous lemon sticks that I had heard so much about!

Once everyone had gotten some food and played for a while, it was time for the dancing to start. All the parents found seats by the blacktop, and one by one the different classes sang a song or performed a dance for us. It was especially cute to watch the teensy little 3-4 year olds try to coordinate themselves and sing their song. :)

The older grades do two special dances called the Sword Dance and, of course, the May Pole dance. These were so cool! In the sword dance kids danced in groups of six with small wooden swords, weaving the swords and themselves into intricate patterns in time to the music. At the end each group hurries to be the first to work the swords into a rigid star pattern that they then carry around the dance floor.

In the May Pole dance, the students started out in two cocentric circles around a pole with a disc on top that has 20 brightly colored ribbons hanging from it. They gathered speed for a while, and then each grabbed a ribbon to begin weaving it. First they formed some cool formations, like a star and several small "pinwheels", and then came the final weave - the two concentric circles began to weave in and out of eachother in opposite directions, and the ribbons formed a tight braid down the pole in the center! It was very cool, and all the students involved seemed really proud of what they had done. :)

I even took a small video on my camera! Take a look:  maypole.avi

After all the students were done, it was time for the alumni to take the stage. Adam and a few alumni from his grade were all out there having a good time, and they even won the race to make the star in the sword dance! It was cool see how all of them still remembered the dances and the music in their advanced old age. ;)

I think I'm going to catch up with my recent happenings today.. To begin we have to go back to last Thursday, when all of the scoobies came over to my house to watch the second-to-last Friends together. I decided to try out my new crepe maker, so I pulled together a bunch of ingredients for people to fill their crepes. We had dinner crepes: sausage, ham, spinach, asparagus, ricotta, monterey jack and cheddar cheese. And we had dessert crepes: chocolate pudding, cool whip, homemade cinnamon whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries, pecans, honey, and syrup. Afterwards we toasted Friends and friends with a round of mimosas. I had a mountain of dishes to do afterwards, but it was a really wonderful night! Thanks guys for coming out!

OLGA! Who is hopefully out running/walking her heart out, and the preparing for a lovely celebratory dinner with friends and family! :) Have a great day, Olga!

A couple of shots of the celebrations at Adam's office today. There was cake (courtesy of a co-worker's wife), lots of balloons and streamers, and a prank that I can't show here involving some rearranged keyboard letters. ;)

... and all you other golf enthusiasts out there in search of a stylin' mode of transportation on the links: the Falken Cart. Enjoy. ;)

A very cool guy was born today, and you should all wish him a big Happy Birthday!! He's officially old. ;) I'm looking forward to taking hime out tonight for all-he-can-eat crabs with the rest of the Scoobies. Yum!

Feel free to leave him well wishings here, since he's one of those anti-blog sorts. ;)

I just have to rave about a new company I discovered this weekend. Well, discovered is a strong word considering their product are sold at Target and millions of other people probably bought some of them this weekend. But its very cool, and you should all try it. Its a line of home care products from a company called method, based out of San Francisco. Their products are non-toxic, biodegradable, and come in a mouth-watering array of
colors and scents.

Plus the writing on their website and their print ads is just hysterical. I actually spent time reading their entire advertising insert in Real Simple this month. As an example:

It's time to rid the world of dirty. Okay maybe that's a bit ambitious, so let's start with your home. We hate to break it to you, but most household cleaners are full of toxic chemicals. They're dirty and method is against that. Using the stuff can be unpleasant, even dangerous. We're against that too. However, we noticed when some people say dirty, often they mean kinky. But kinky we're all for. Then again, too kinky can be dirty, and that we're against.

I picked up their grapefruit mandarin all-purpose kitchen cleaner this weekend, and I'm really liking it so far! I've never actually been motivated to clean by a cleaning product before. My kitchen is clean and smelling of oranges, so I guess it worked!

• National Building Museum
  As my boss would say, we're going to go on a trip on the Way Back Machine for a little bit. Last last weekend I spent the afternoon with Julie and Matt touring the National Building Museum downtown. Despite our docent's dumbed-down commentary, I still had a great time learning about the history and origins of the building. Not that I wasn't already a fan of this unique museum, but now I just have more to say about why I think its cool. ;) (thanks Matt for posting pictures!)
  
  
• TMJ
  Wednesday I got the official confirmation from my doctor (also a Dr. Bill - a good omen, I think) that I have issues with my jaw joint, aka the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). I've been having trouble chewing or opening my mouth without pain, and my teeth occasionally don't align the way they normally do. So I took a trip to the doc, where he gave me some fun drugs to take and instructions for a specialist to go and see if things don't get better. Supposedly I can get some sort of jaw splint to help things out, but my parents paid entirely too much money to my orthodontist for me to muck it up with a still questionable treatment that could ruin my bite. So I'm sticking with Aleve for the time being. ;)
  
  
• Gardening
  This past weekend Adam and I spent a bit of time at the Merrifield Garden Center. He was looking for plant food, and I was looking for a few new plants to put on my patio. I ended up with a hardy, shade-loving hosta and some cool ornamental grass called festuca. Both plants take on a beautiful blue-green hue in the shade, but hopefully will tolerate the little bit of sun my patio gets. I am trying to steer clear of super flowery plants because I'm deathly afraid of bees and wasps, so anything I can do to not attract them is a good thing.
  
  
• March for Womens Lives
  I spent Sunday with Julie, Lizzi, and Matt, and a few hundred thousand of our closest friends. We gathered on the Mall for a very large, very spirited rally and march in support of reproductive rights. I'm not the biggest protest person, but I was moved by the sheer number of people there that day, as well as the powerful speeches we heard before marching. Matt has posted pictures if you want to see what the day was like for us!

Still in the depths of blogstipation, the best I can do right now is post links of things I've been looking at recently.

This morning I ran across Designs on the White House, a clever spin on online grassroots campaigning. Its a nonprofit group that supports (but is not affiliated with) John Kerry. They are sponsoring an open-call t-shirt design contest: design the coolest, the most effective, the trendiest, or the most-likely-to-show-up-on-queer-eye t-shirt supporting Kerry. Visitors vote on the best entries, and then all the winning designs go on sale on the site as a fundraiser!

I just might have to design something!

(Editor's Note: The site also has an RSS feed for their updates. Cool.)

Since my brain has been rebelling from writing blog entries these last few days, I'll try a little exercise that's flitting about the blog community:

1. Go into your blog’s archives.


2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).


3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).


4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

(Unless I counted wrong, there was no fifth sentence. So I used the last one.)

Now you try! For those of you who love their books more than their blogs, there's also the original book version.

After a hour's worth of boring internal administrivia at an all-hands meeting with the VP of Engineering, I come back to my desk to find a single AIM window blinking on my desktop. In it I see the words:

DAMN YOU OMAROSSA!!

I couldn't agree more, Sanjiva. I couldn't agree more. ;)

Finally, a bit of good news! This is what my weekend looks like, weather-wise. In a word: gorgeous. :)

Last night an abridged group of Scoobies gathered at Adam's for some Friends reruns and the finale of The Apprentice. Sadly, Kwame didn't take home the big prize as we'd all hoped. But in the final competition Bill really did perform better, so he fully deserved his new job. We had fun booing and hissing at the screen whenever Omarosa did something evil, and talk abounded about which of the contestants had hooked up with one another. Good times!

This weekend is hopefully going to be really fun! Well, mostly anyways. Julie and I are doing some long-dreaded bathing suit and spring dress shopping, which has the potential to be soo not fun. But we've decided to limit our attempts to small, short shopping sessions so we don't get tired or cranky. Sunday some of us are heading to the National Building Museum for a special tour with some other CMU alumni. This is easily my favorite museum in Washington, but I've never really even been above the ground floor! So I'm excited to get a more thorough look and scope out some of the currect exhibits.

In other news I'm still going strong on my gardening phase. I've spent a little time in the last few days finding online nurseries, scouring catalogs and doing research. I'm hoping to find plants that even I won't kill if I try and grow them in containers on my patio! If you have any personal favs, please suggest them! For your mid-Friday entertainment, here are some of the better sites I've found:

Burpee - The granddaddy of seed catalogs. They also brought the garden.com domain into their control after that site went belly up.
Spring Hill Nurseries - My current personal fav. They have a nice search widget that lets you filter by climate zone, intended planting area, sun exposure, etc.
Wayside Gardens
Gurney's Seed & Nursery
Santa Rosa Gardens
White Flower Farm - This one comes highly recommended by Adam's mom! (and with recent orchid happenings, we should really all listen to her.) They offer detailed information and tons of pictures. They also get my award for the best-designed nursery site so far. :)

Saturday turned out to be a perfectly sunny and moderately warm day. Adam and I met up with Julie and Neema at Sinplicity, where we all enjoyed Belgian waffles piled high with fresh strawberries and syrup and powdered sugar. I also indulged in a cup of their very excellent coffee, which didn't disappoint.

After sitting and chatting for a while, Julie, Neema and I braved the weekend traffic and drove to the Mall to try and find parking. Luckily Julie (who is a hard-core, fearless type of driver) was driving us, so we found parking pretty quickly. From there we walked down around the Tidal Basin - the cherry blossoms were still out! - and took Neems to see the FDR memorial.

The weather by this time had become warm and balmy, so we found ourselves a soft spot of grass on the Mall and plopped down for some good, lazy dozing in the sun. There were lots of cute babies and puppies meandering down the sidewalks to entertain us!

Dinner for the evening was at Las Tapas in Old Town, where we filled our table with excellent little plates of cheese and potatoes and sausage and olives and every good thing you can imagine, and paired them with an excellent Spanish rioja called La Orbe.

Comfortable full, we made the short hop to the Hoffman theater to catch a sneak preview of 13 Going on 30 starring Jennifer Garner. We topped off the evening with dessert and hot chocolate at Bread & Chocolate across the street, and then it was bedtime for me! It was awesome having Neems here for the weekend, and I think we gave her a fun birthday celebration, scooby style. ;)

Today is Neema's birthday, so everyone who is capable should call her or write her and tell her so! The DC gang is especially lucky because we don't have to do any of those things - we can tell her in person! Our gift to Neema this year was a plane ticket to DC to come and visit all of us. Julie and I had a travel adventure yesterday heading out to BWI to pick her up (we are now MARC train afficiodados!), and then the three of us headed back into the city to have some dinner and hang out at Jason and Cris'.

We had dinner at a cozy little Lebanese restaurant in Crystal City, although I can't remember the name off the top of my head. I had this fantastic dish of stewed lamb with a garlic yogurt sauce, toasted pita bread, and pine nuts that had been sauteed in butter. It was amazing! There was some sort of cheese all over the dish too, but I don't know what it was called. It didn't really matter, because I inhaled it all anyways. ;)

Afterwards we all trekked over to J and Cris' for a fun game night. We started off playing Imaginiff, but the real winner of the night was True Colors. I was sleepy by this point so I simply observed, but the game offers some really interesting insights into the way people perceive you, as well as how the players perceive themselves. I highly recommend it!

Today we're off to meet up with everyone to take Neema to bruch at Sinplicity and then spend the day at the museums on the Mall. Tonight we do more birthday celebrations! More on that to come.

Happy Birthday Neems! We're so glad you're here. :)

Starting May 3, Ann Taylor Loft will finally have a respectable online presence. A special preview is live now. Its one less store Cris actually has to physically go into in order to shop for rehearsal dinner dresses! ;)

We got back to DC early Sunday afternoon so that I could make it to the Liz Phair concert later that night with Julie and Elaina. It was such a great concert! The opening acts were talented, but no one really ever comes to a concert to listen to the opening act, right? The first opener, a female singer named Rachel Yamagada, can be summed up like this: I've been screwed over by men, so now I'm into women. The second opener, an all-male band with extremely cute guitar players, seemed to have taken a few extra hits of the reefer before getting on stage. They got old really fast.

But finally, finally the woman herself took the stage! For those of you who aren't familiar with Liz Phair (and to be honest, I barely am myself), she's a very funky combination of willowy-blond hippie chick, who plays a mean electric guitar and writes edgy, provocative lyrics. This particular evening happened to be the closing concert of her tour, so everyone on stage was hyped up and ready to party. Julie and I, particularly, were hoping that she played our favorite song, H.W.C. [With full knowledge that some of my youngest and oldest relatives read this site, I'll abstain from getting into why this song is fun. ;)] We got to the second song of the encore and worried that she'd skip it completely. In the end she closed the concert with it! How awesome was that!?

So despite getting home late, reeking of smoke, and having a sore throat from yelling, I think Liz Phair's concert was one of the most fun I've been to in a long time. And now I have her CD in my car to enjoy! Woo hoo!

This weekend Adam and I took a fun, albeit short, trip up to Media to see his family. The initial reason was to celebrate his dad's birthday and take him out to dinner (P.F Chiangs, yum!!), but we were also able to go and see Elizabeth play soccer, have some quality time with Annabelle and Zoe, have brunch at the Court Diner (yum!!), and just hang out with everyone. I am now officially obsessed with crocheting now that Adam's mom has taught me the basics. I actually found myself crocheting in my head during the really boring opening act of the Liz Phair concert Sunday night. Janice you have created a monster! :)

I woke up Monday morning feeling tired and worn out, so I decided to take a day to play hookie from work. I emailed the boss, then went back to sleep and didn't wake up until noon! After a wonderfully long shower, I wandered over to Costco to do some much-needed re-stocking. I discovered that Costco is a much less stressfull place at 1pm on a weekday!

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry, dozing on my couch, and tidying up a bit. I finally grouted the mosaic flower pot that I made back in February, sorted out some confusion I'd had over the weekend with my online banking, and potted some of the small flats of ivy I got for a steal at Costco. All good, basic domestic type stuff.

If only I could do this every week. ;)

The Scoobies gathered at Matt & Lizzi's last night, along with Lizzi's dad and brother, and Matt's brother, to celebrate pesach (passover) with a traditional seder meal. There were 11 of us in total, and we were seated around a long table that Matt had moved into the living room to give us more space. There were flowers and candles and bottles of wine everywhere, and every one was in a very festive mood. Each person had a copy of the readings, and we took turns around the table reading the leaders part.

Seder dinners are always interesting because the meanings of the traditions are built into the dinner itself. When you eat each component of the meal, you first recite the symbolic meaning of that food and what part of the ancient story it refers to. So its not only a religious observance but a ritualized retelling of stories and ideas for the benefit of the younger generation, as well as those who don't come from a Jewish background.

The dinner portion of the seder was also amazingly yummy. We had chicken and brisket, latkes and green beans, and much more that I can't even remember now. The best way to eat all of these things, I discovered, was with sour cream and apple sauce drizzled liberally over everything. For dessert there was chocolate cake (flourless of course!), a fruit tart, and an assortment of chocolates and biscotti to nibble on. I started with the chocolate covered marshmallow bars (sans gelatin so that they were kosher) that were to die for. I never even made it to the cake!

The perfect compliment to all of this food were the good friends and family that were there to enjoy it with us. Even though I see the scoobies several times a week, its always fun to sit down together at a long table and chat. It was also good to get to talk with Lizzi's brother Andy and her dad, who were both honorary scoobies for the night. I didn't get to talk to Matt's brother Tom as much because he was at the other end of the table, but there'll be time for that at some future seder, I hope. :)

With talk of the house that Matt and Lizzi are hoping to move into soon, we ended the evening with a tongue-in-cheek prayer:

Next year, in Centreville!

The web is a mess. We're tired of this deluge of <font> tags, nested tables, spacer GIFs, and broken HTML. We're tired of having to make separate pages for Netscape 4 users and adding "?printable=1" query strings to URLs just to come up with text only output.

We're tired of unclosed tags and unquoted HTML tag attributes. We're tired of <p> used as a line break. We're tired of tables within tables of cellpadding=1 and a bgcolor used just to make single pixel borders. We're tired of numeric permalink anchors which give us validation errors just because the id attribute needs a value that starts with a letter. We're tired of line after line of useless "happy text" web page copy, pushing the real meat of the page below the fold.

We're tired of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Of the many online April Fool's sites I've seen today, this one is my favorite. ;)

I do believe my 25th birthday was one of the best ones I've had in several years. Throughout the whole day I kept getting so many happy emails and phone calls and blog posts that it was impossible not to have a good day, really. So to everyone who wrote, called, or posted, THANK YOU! :)

My day culminated in a lavish Italian dinner in the city. I'd requested early on that the restaurant be a suprise, and I knew from various sources that emails had been flying between the scoobies for several weeks trying to determine the perfect place. I was so excited to see the place that everyone had been working on for so long! After only a few mishaps on the highway (we ended up in Georgetown when we were supposed to end up near Farragut Square. Ooops!), we pulled up in front of Galileo, one of DCs best Italian restaurants. And we were not disappointed! Adam and I both tried a special dish prepared in celebration of the Cherry Blossom Festival - roasted duck drizzled with a cherry chocolate sauce, fried cauliflower, potatoes and spinach. I sampled a wine that was new to me - Barco di Camignano, which is 70% Sangiovese, 20% Cabernet and 10% canaiolo. It was excellent, and complemented the sweetness of the dinner quite well.

For dessert I had an incredible chocolate almond cake that was filled with melted fudge. If it hadn't been for the equally delicious coffee, I probably would have fallen into a coma right on the spot. I think that feeling was shared by all at the table that night, too.

Dinner at Galileo really capped off a fantastic birthday. I realized on the drive home how grateful I was to have the loving and supportive family and friends that I do. I'm one lucky twenty-five year old. ;)

Happy Birthday to me!
Happy Birthday to me!
Happy BIRTHday to me-eee!
Happy Birthday to me!

(And many Smurfs!)

I begin the adventure of living my second quarter century today, and already things are looking up! I am now able to rent a car without paying extra fees. And my dream of running for the House of Representatives can now become a reality. Sadly, my dream of running for the Senate will have to wait another five years.

My birthday is going rather well so far! I've gotten emails and cards and phone calls and hugs and presents and smiles and all sorts of good things. I am also treating myself to a decadently large cup of coffee. :)

My mom made me a fun online game to go along with my birthday that I think everyone would get a kick out of, so go play! Here's the one I made:

What better thing to do on a slow Monday morning when you're tired than write about your exciting weekend! I did so many things over the weekend that I should be tired, but really it was quite relaxing and mellow.

Friday night the gang gathered at Matt & Lizzi's for some excellent sandwiches from the Italian Store, and then carpooled over to the AMC Hoffman to see Jersey Girl on its opening night. I really enjoyed this movie! There were some overly mushy scenes, I'll admit, especially when Ben Affleck's character recites long-winded and overly emotional monologues to his infant daughter. Even so, the mushiness was tempered with Kevin Smith's biting sarcasm and scathing commentary on various show business characters, making for a funny and entertaining couple of hours.

Saturday rolled around with warm temperatures and rainy skies, so Adam and I got a lazy start to our day. Later in the afternoon I headed out to Tyson's Corner with Julie and Geoff for some much-needed retail therapy. We wandered, we tried things on, and generally spent a very enjoyable day in eachothers company. Later that night I was having some serious cravings for the steak bites at Crystal City Sports Bar, so we joined up with Matt and Lizzi for some ice cream at Sinplicity and then the awesome steak bites, with a pitcher of beer and some additional appetizers thrown in for good measure. I must have been completely exhausted by my earlier shopping, because I headed home and was in bed sound asleep by 11:30. :)

Sunday Adam and I hopped on the metro and met up with Julie and Geoff on the Mall. We walked the entire loop around the tidal basin (clockwise), soaking up the sights of the cherry blossoms in full bloom. The trek to the Cherry Blossom Festival is something of a scooby tradition now, mostly because it usually falls near my birthday, and I milk this to my fullest advantage by making everyone come out with me. :) This year the weather obliged us and was pleasant without being too hot, and were able to grab our lunch (Hebrew National hot dogs!) and eat it out on the grass in the shadow of the Washington Monument. As always, it was a great way to spend the day. :)

After several failed attempts, I finally made it up to New York this weekend to visit Jessey and Olga! The weather wasn't the world's greatest, but we persevered and had a blast anyways. :)

Friday evening I hopped on my plane and made the trek up to the city. A short cab ride later, and I was happily chatting away on the couch in Jessey's very cool apartment on the Upper West Side. We donned our scarfs and coats and headed over to Cafe Lalo for some coffee and sinfully rich Irish Cream Pie. When you haven't seen your friends in such a long time, you tend to want to talk a lot, so we didn't head to bed until the wee hours of the morning.

Despite the late night, all three of us popped awake by about 8:30 the next morning! Our brunch destination for the day was a little place called Sarabeth's Kitchen. They served excellent coffee and very unique brunch options - mine was a pumpkin waffle topped with pumpkin seeds, sour cream, and honey. It was incredible. :)

The rest of Saturday was spent wandering around NoLiTa, poking around in all the varied stores and shops. Olga also brought us to a funky little store called Lunette et Chocolate, which means sweets and glasses, that served up thick, rich Marie Belle hot chocolate in tiny cups. I was also able to go into my longtime favorite store - Kate's Paperie - to pick up some cards and general drool over everything.

We were understandably exhausted after our long day of walking, so we made the short walk to Joya near Olga's apartment. The restaurant was fun and casual, and we had a cool bartender who gave the more indecisive of us tastes of several different martinis. Afterwards we wandered over to Olga's neighborhood bar - the Zombie Hut - to grab a drink and hang out.

For some reason Olga and I woke up quite early Sunday morning, so we geeked out for a while and installed Movable Type in her new hosting account. Once Jessey was awake, we walked down Smith Street to Bar Tabac, an authentically French bistro with live jazz and amazing fries. No freedom fries there! :)

After brunch we explored a little bit more of Brooklyn, during which time Jessey and Olga kept giving eachother funny looks and speaking in hushed voices about secretive things. Every time I asked them what was going on, they insisted they'd have to kill me first. Turns out they were taking me to get the world's most amazing birthday cupcakes at Downtown Atlantic! And I do mean amazing cupcakes. The kind that are so big you can't finish, and are covered with thick frosting that is just the perfect amount of sweet without being cloying. Yum. :)

And then it was time to head home. An impromtu stroll through Living on Smith on the way home netted me a cool souvenir vase from my trip, and then I hailed a cab to the airport! It was a wonderful weekend, filled with lots of good food, catching up with good friends, and soaking up the atmosphere of the City. Thanks guys!

Oh how I love Dilbert. :)

How many happy memories do I have of Jim Livengood?

Coming over for dinner and laughing as Jim sang I'm a Lumberjack at the top of his voice. Knowing he was in the audience while Catherine and I danced in our latest ballet recital. Observing the rapt attention of his flock of young choristers as he processed them into an Evensong. Watching him proudly conduct a very young Jeffrey through the opening notes of Once in Royal David's City. And many, many others.

We'll miss you, JL.

He made St. Mark's choir sing - Dallas Morning News
St. Mark’s Mourns Choir Icon - St. Marks

In response to Matt's announcement, I have put in an email to be listed on the DC Metro Blog map.

This mess is ironic, of course, for a woman who built an empire on control. Those who dislike Martha for her brittle personality and incessant advice on homemaking will be rubbing their hands. They may also be missing the point.

An interesting piece in the Washington Post paralleling the influence and careers of William Morris and Martha Stewart. If you're hoping for jail-cell jokes, you'll be disappointed. ;)

For clarification, I think I should note that all the animosity from my previous post is reserved specifically for the CMU Graduate School of Industrial Administration. My experience with the faculty, administration, and staff of the rest of CMU was absolutely amazing, really.

I was very involved during my four years of college, and consequently worked closely with many different adminstrators and professors - Chad (the coolest!), the undergraduate Business administration, Student Life, Student Affairs, Housing, the Info Desk staff, etc.. Even though sometimes my favorite activity was complaining, looking back I think I was incredibly lucky to work with such dedicated, involved, and responsive people.

Who knows? I think I compensated for the annoying parts of GSIA by getting involved in more general activities like the Student Dormitory Council, being an RA, or working AIME. So it all worked out in the end!

But I still reserve the right to complain about GSIA. ;)

Can I just take a moment to talk about how pretentious the Carnegie Mellon Graduate Business school is?? I got a card from them today with the words "ITS COMING..." in large white block letters on a black trifold postcard mailer. Inside there are several lines with gibberish text in grey, interspersed with more white block text reading:

GET READY...
BE THERE. 03 19 04
DON'T MISS THIS HISTORIC EVENT...
AN UNPRECEDENTED EVENT...

I won't even comment on how bad the copy is. What made me angry was that the "major event" they were trying to promote is actually a live webcast on the GSIA website. A webcast?!? I'm sorry, nothing that school produces will EVER be considered an historic event, especially when introduced in such an inconsequential forum as a webcast on their own website.

Of course, this comes from the same school that, after earning a #2 ranking from the Wall Street Journal, printed four huge wall-sized banners proclaiming their superiority and hung them on the outside of Posner Hall so they could be seen from the bleachers at our commencement ceremony. The blatant, almost tacky self-promotion should not really come as a shock to me.

I have always considered the profound distinction between ninjas and pirates to be an absolute one. One was either ninja or pirate - there were no inbetweens. One personality type was skilled and proficient, elegant and silent, contained and constrained, honourable and spiritual. The other type loud and flamboyant, gregarious and unrestrained, life-loving and vigorous, passionate and strong.

Thus begins Tom Coates' hysterical explanation of his new Pirate-Ninja-Elf-Dwarf Theory of Human Classification. As my title suggests, I put myself in the Dwarf-Pirate quadrant, quite close to the axes. Where are you?

Yesterday afternoon my dentist uttered those dreaded words.. The ones I've managed to avoid hearing for the past 25 years: You have a cavity.

I've always been secretly proud of my cavity-free status, to be honest. It really did make my perfectionist heart all warm and fuzzy. But realistically I have to chalk it up to luck and good genes rather than any form of stellar dental hygiene record. Flossing is NOT fun, and I don't care what the dentist tells me.

I'm strangely terrified of this drilling/filling process that I'm supposed to go through next week. I really shouldn't be - I've been through much, much worse. I've witnessed no fewer than nine teeth exit my mouth through unnatural means. And I was conscious as they quite literally sewed my gums back together with a needle and thread after my graft. Drilling a tiny hole and filling it with resin should be a piece of cake, right?! We'll just see.

Last night another honorary Scooby, Erin, was in town from law school, so we all headed over to Jason and Cris' for some homemade pizza and fellowship. I had a great time! Cris' pizza creations were, as always, amazing. And we had several excellent flavors of ice cream from Sinplicity for dessert. I think Adam single-handedly finished off the entire vat of Blackberry Sorbet. :)

I also have to take a moment to write a big, huge CONGRATULATIONS to Adam's mom, Janice, whose lovely orchid(s?) took the blue ribbon in the novice division of the Philadelphia Flower Show this past weekend. Woo hoo! :)

A lot has gone on since my weekend trip to New York fell through. I got my luggage back (the only part of me that actually did make it to the correct city) at about 3am Sunday morning. This enabled me to finally charge my poor little cell phone, whose battery power was holding on for dear life. On Sunday I spent the day doing general domestic-type activities like laundry and vacuuming. The weather was quite nice in DC that day, which helped make up for not being in New York. But only a little. ;)

Monday night I headed over to Famous Dave's for an impromptu dinner with Matt and Lizzi! Even with my loyalty to true Texas brisket, the Texas Brisket Sandwiche at Famous Dave's is pretty darn good. Especially when paired with seasoned fries and warm cornbread. It was great to spend some time with Matt and Lizzi, too, because I hadn't seen them in almost a week! We schemed about seder dinners and websites and travel and summer plans, and generally had a fantastic time. Adam had to miss the dinner, but I brought him some smoked ham and a big pile of cornbread as a consolation prize. :)

Yesterday I spent about an hour on the phone with United and American Airlines. I became the human tennis ball, being bounced back and forth between each of their customer service lines, who each told me that it was the other airline's responsibility to take care of my unique situation. Finally, a tech support person with AA.com stepped up to the plate and solved my problem. Yet another reason why I am a loyal American Airlines customer, and why United deserves to be on the brink of bankruptcy.

The good news is that I have re-booked my tickets to New York, and I'll be heading up there the weekend of March 19th! I'm excited all over again. Plus there's a good chance the weather will be much better this time around. Cross your fingers!

I'm writing this entry from the wrong city. See, I'm suppose to be in New York right now. If all had went according to plan, I'd be finishing up my second day with Jessey and Olga, wandering about the city having a blast. Unfortunately, weather, timing, and United Airlines were not working in my favor this weekend. And after a cancelled flight, a missed flight, and six hours of waiting on standby, I finally decided to cash in my ticket and head home.

Thankfully I have a fantastic boyfriend who generously made the round trip to the airport no less than four times in the last 12 hours. And I have two wonderful friends in New York, who called me repeatedly while I waited to tell me they'd fly to DC if I couldn't get to them. So even after a very long day in a very hot airline terminal, thanks to Adam, Olga, and Jessey, my day wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Thanks guys. I love you. :)

(The picture is one I took today before I made the final trip home. Its from underneath the front eave of the Dulles airport main terminal. For some reason Eero Saarinen's architecture struck me more forcefully today.)

For your viewing pleasure, I've selected a few of the best pictures from Friday night... Click on a thumbnail to see a full-sized version of the photo!

The calm before the storm. I shot pics of our stash of coins and Mardi Gras colored drink umbrellas, while Lizzi prepared the hurricanes. Yes, folks, that is a gallon jug of rum!

During the festivities, everyone had a fantastic time. For some reason everyone wanted to be in the kitchen. Could it be because that's where the hurricanes were?!?!

After ordering pizza at 3am, most people got verrry sleepy. :)

I wish I had more good photographs to show, but I discovered a bit too late that my auto-focus was on the fritz. There are several very funny pictures that are too fuzzy to be any good. Hopefully Matt and Jason can pick up my slack with their cameras. :)

I've started to get ready for my trip to New York this weekend.. I'm getting my hair cut tonight (the receptionist informs me I haven't been in since November! Yikes!), and I've started checking weather.com each morning to see what the New York sky has in store for me. It looks like Friday and Sunday will be dreary (with yucky, rainy plane rides), but Saturday looks like it could be pretty nice!

So far the plans are fairly simple: Spend lots of quality time with Ms. Olga and Ms. Jessey; Incorporate some much-needed pampering at the acclaimed Jin Soon; feed creative appetites at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; feed real-world appetites at Lalo, Joya, and (I hope!) many many others; and feed consumer appetites by poking around fun boutiques in NoLiTa and the East Village. Can you tell I'm really looking forward to it!?!

This weekend went by in a whirlwind of activity and entertainment.. Friday's Mardi Gras themed birthday celebration for Jason and Julie was an all-out success. 30+ revelers crammed themselves into Jason and Cris' apartment for an evening of dancing, mingling, and picture-taking. In keeping with the party's theme, there were beads, chocolate coins, and the hurricane mix was flowing freely. I had a fantastic time, and even managed to stay awake until 4 in the morning! I took tons of pictures, which hopefully will find their way online this week.

The next morning I initially had strong urges for IHOP, but went instead for a big bowl of cereal and a nice walk around the neighborhood with Adam. The weather was unseasonably warm - we sat outside on one of the area's swinging benches asking each other, "What is this strange warmth we are feeling on our faces and arms? Why is the sky so bright? Where are our coats?" Later than evening we were joined by Julie and Geoff, and we all headed to PotBelly's for some of their excellent sandwiches and root beer.

Some of the gang met up Sunday morning to take a day trip to Baltimore. Specifically, we were heading to the American Craft Council's Baltimore Craft Show! The large convention space was filled with hundreds of booths displaying fine jewelry, clothing, art, glassware, ceramics, furniture, leather, and woodcarvings. It really was fascinating walking down the rows and seeing what was being offered. Sunday was the third and final day of the show, and you could tell that a lot of the artisans were exhausted and ready to head home. But they were still gracious and informative if you asked them questions. I picked up several take-away cards, and hopefully I'll have some time to put up some links!

After we'd seen all the crafts we could handle, we walked over to the Baltimore waterfront, grabbed some ice cream, and sat on the pier watching all the people passing by. The weather, although it had cooled a bit, was still very accommodating. It was a wonderful way to end the day!

In general happenings today, things are gearing up for tonight's Mardi Gras party! I spent last night buying copious amounts of wine and cake at Costco, while Cris cleared out all of the chips, dip, salsa, veggie trays, cookies, and drink mixin's from her local Harris Teeter. We're expecting 40ish people to stop by througout the evening, give or take a few stragglers. Jason and Cris' place is going to be busting at the seams. If they are fit to post, you'll see pictures here later. :)

Our dinner outing last night to Silverado turned out to be a wonderful experience! We started out with some frozen margaritas, which were fantastic. Then we settled in for some amazing bread rolls. Some of us were already familiar with these bread rolls from our experience with Sweetwater Tavern, which is also run by the Great American Restaurant Company. These rolls are essentially doughnut batter baked into dinner-roll shapes and served with an herbed butter. It takes all the willpower you have not to eat ten of them and spoil your dinner!

Silverado is known for its fajitas and steak, so most of us went that route in our dinner choices. I had a perfectly medium filet mignon, which lasted about 15 seconds on my plate before I attacked it. For dessert both Adam and I had the banana pudding with candied vanilla wafers, sliced bananas, and chocolate sauce. Of course you can't really do better than the banana pudding/nilla wafer combination, in my book. But when a restaurant takes the humble classic and elevates it to a whole new level, now that's memorable!

For some reason the Scoobies were very camera happy during the evening's festivities. Matt has put up some of the pictures here. He's also just put up pictures from Monday night's birthday celebrations for Julie as well. Thanks Matt!

This, and many other quirky and strange titles can be found in the Warner Bros. Cartoons Filmography And Title Card Gallery, an online database of hundreds of cartoon title cards. I originally found this link on a font-junkie website (the progression of the type design is pretty interesting, I admit), but I'm really more entertained by the old cartoon titles..

You Don't Know What You're Doin'

You're Too Careless With Your Kisses!

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives

Plane Dippy

I'd Love To Take Orders From You

and many more!

Happy Birthday wishes go out today to Jason, who is now officially old. Julie's birthday was Monday, but she still has a few more years before she is old. Because when Julie's old, so am I. :) The gang is getting together tonight for a celebratory dinner at Silverado in Annandale. I'm excited to sample all the excellent food!

In other news, I'm quite happy to say that another CMU survivor has made the trek to the DC area: Geoff made the official move Monday and is settling into the Virginia Square area of Arlington. We went over there Monday night to welcome him, have some cake for Julie's birthday, and generally lounge about on his super cool Weisshouse sofa. :) We're so glad you're here, Mr Go!

I ordered my plane tickets yesterday afternoon for my much-anticipated trip to New York next weekend... I'm looking forward to spending time with Ms. Olga and Ms. Jessey, and of course sampling all the wonderful food and shopping that the city has to offer! I bit the bullet and grabbed a plane flight instead of a train or a bus this time around, and I'm already very glad that I did. Whatever extra I paid for convenience is also paying off in a markedly low stress level about the whole thing. There will be no hurried metro rides into the city, no painfully early car rides, and no monstrous parking costs. Just a quick one-hour hop!

The gang met up last night to watch the final episode of Sex & The City at Adam's. And what an episode it was! In my mind it was the perfect ending. I was worried that the writers would write an ending that was, while creatively more respectable, less satisfying to all of us who'd followed the lives and loves of the characters over the years. Happily, we got everything we'd wanted for our girls: Carrie ditches the Russian and chooses Big; Miranda makes the last final steps to loving openly and unconditionally; Charlotte gets her baby; and Samantha and Smith finally tell each other their true feelings. We probably haven't seen the last of the ladies of Sex & the City (cross our fingers!), but the show, in this format at least, will be truly missed.

I have only two left turns to make during my commute to work each morning, and the worst is at the intersection of Fairfax County Parkway and West Ox Road. For the past three days, I've hit that light at exactly the wrong time. I'm coasting up the parkway, I see the green arrow up ahead, I pull into the (very long) turn lane, and it shifts to yellow just at the right time so that I can't make it across the intersection before oncoming traffic gets their green. Then I sit through what feels like the longest light cycle in the state of Virginia, waiting for my next turn arrow. Aarg.

Since Adam and I bought *way* too many strawberries for the Scoobie Valentine's Fondue Extravaganza on Saturday, I generously brought some into the office to share with my coworkers. So now I'm drinking fresh coffee and eating ripe strawberries. I think all weeks should start out like this. :)

I spent the majority of my President's Day off wandering through the National Gallery. I started off on the bottom floor of the main building, since I have typically only walked through the main floor. Small, intimate exhibitions were the theme of the day. I wandered through a series of examples of early French printmaking, including one incredible example of a life-sized print of the human circulatory system created for an early medical textbook. I found a secluded room filled with small wax and bronze sculptures, of which my favorites were (surprise!) the small replicas of Degas' young ballet dancer.

But I think my most prized find was even farther back in the depths of the National Gallery basement - a one-room collection of drawings and sketches by master painters. It was a unique window into the process and struggle that even the greats like Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Mary Cassat, Matisse, etc, all went through. You typically don't remember of these artists for their drawings (with the notable exception of Da Vinci, perhaps), which is why I really enjoyed seeing them. It sort of pulled the curtain back a bit, and showed that effort, struggle, and real work went into producing those final flawless paintings.

I stopped off for lunch at the Cascade Cafe that sits on the walkway between the main building and the East gallery. For a museum they had pretty good food, too! Then I continued walking underground to the east gallery, where I soaked up a very contemporary exhibit that had some Rothko murals, a couple of fun Warhol prints, and a wonderful, three-story, light-filled room showing off mobiles by Matisse and Alexander Calder.

It’s fairly safe to say I'm in a Rothko phase at the moment. I ended up getting a small print of one of his earlier works, as well as a postcard book with prints of 20 of his other paintings. I'm definitely seeing his influence in some of the painting I'm doing lately. I use the phrase painting lightly, however, because sometimes it feels like I'm doing nothing more than glorified doodles that happen to be in color and on canvas. But I'm having fun, and I have a few more things to hang on my walls now, so I'm happy. And hopefully so is Rothko, wherever he is. :)

The best thing to do after stuffing yourself silly with a delicious Valentine's Dinner is to have a Craft Day with the girls. And this is exactly what I did this afternoon! I met up with Julie, Cris, and Lizzi at Mosaic Makers in Clarendon. I picked out a clay flower pot to decorate. I have a problem of picking out huge projects and then not giving myself enough time to finish them, so this time I tried to exercise caution by picking out a small pot. My planning paid off! I was able to obsess over the tiles as much as I wanted and cut them into teeny tiny pieces before gluing them to the pot. I picked out a pewter colored grout to finish off the project, but I still have to wait for all the glue to dry fully. With the slight exception of the shrill, obnoxious chatter of several kids birthday parties, we really enojoyed ourselves! :) Pictures to follow.

Adam and I celebrated this morning with a festive breakfast at our local IHOP. It felt like half of Fairfax had had the same idea - the place was packed! But we got our seats, and I got the French toast I had been craving.. I also have a strange affinity for the IHOP Bottomless Cup of Coffee, so I got that fix in as well. :)

It a strange weather reversal, my parents are enjoying 4 inches of fluffy, white snow in the Big D this morning. They called this morning to report that the snow took down some transformers in our neighborhood and they are without power. More importantly, they are without heat. But as luck would have it, my house happens to have three functioning fireplaces! So Mom and Dad have been cozied up in the dining room. They pushed the dining table out of the way and dragged in some armchairs and a coffee table and are having a blast!

Tonight Adam and I join the Scoobies at Matt and Lizzi's place for a Valentine's Day Fondue Extravaganza. Well, ok, I made that title up, but we are having three different types of fondue! Cheese, coq au vin, and dark chocolate. We are responsible for bringing all the things that get dipped into the chocolate, so later this afternoon there will be a trip to the Harris Teeter for strawberries, marshmallows, pound cake, and cookies. Mmmm. :)

Craft stores are dangerous, dangerous places. Especially if you enter such a place with crafty mind and an empty credit card.

This afternoon I wandered over to our local Michael's on my lunch break with the vague goal of finding supplies for candlemaking this weekend. I walked away with supplies for candlemaking AND more painting, and about a hundred new ideas. I shouldn't be allowed in that store! Its like a disease that can't be stopped. :)

The sad thing is that Michael's isn't even that cool of a craft store. After about the first ten minutes you start to get a dizzy headache from the overwhelming stench of dried flowers and potpourri, and your eyes start to hurt from looking at the wall of flourescent Easter basket supplies that you have to pass to get to the supplies you want. Even if I wanted to linger in the art supply aisle, I physically can't take that store for more than 30 minutes.

Imagine how much more dangerous it would be if I actually had access to a classy and tasteful craft supply store! Look out, Kate's Paperie! ;)

• Sleep late
• Laze about
• Enjoy fireplace
• Eat lovely food

If I actually had hardwood floors or a garage, I'd probably own some of this stuff by now. Its called InterfaceFLOR - modular carpet tiles that come in a variety of colors. Not only are they inexpensive, easy to rearrange when the mood strikes, and easy to clean when disaster strikes, but they are made of corn and completely recyclable. How cool is that!? You can buy them in a whole range of colors, textures, and styles, and the website has tools to pick out patterns and sizes. You don't need a professional to install them, and when you move to a new apartment or house, just pick up the tiles and take them with you!

I am so used to waking up at 7am that I am now incapable of sleeping late on weekends, and this Saturday was no exception. I woke up, worked out, ate breakfast, and took my shower - all before 8:30am. After fruitlessly attempting to relax and be lazy, I hopped in my car and headed into Old Town Alexandria.

My goal was to poke through the galleries of the Torpedo Factory Art Center, but I arrived a bit too early. So I wandered across King Street to Starbucks and procured myself one Tall Caffe Mocha, which I took with me on a walk along the Alexandria Waterfront.

I spent some time watching the ducks on the ice in the marina, and I observed a funny phenomenon - ducks slip on the ice just like we do! They did it in sort of a pattern. Waddle, waddle, sliiiiide. Waddle, waddle, sliiiiiide. Rest, then repeat. This entertained me for a few minutes while I finished my coffee.

Once inside the Torpedo Factory, I started on the first floor and worked my way up to the top galleries. For the most part I wasn't very excited about what I saw, I'm sad to say. There were a few amazing shops along the way, but for the most part it was a lot of amateurish watercolors and oil paintings featuring such tried and true subjects as the national monuments, pets, and lots and lots of hearts in preparation for Valentine's Day.

My secondary motive for visiting that morning was that I still had a bit of money left on my Art League gift certificate (from the ever-handsome and always charming Mr. Baldwin for Christmas last year), and the Art League supply store just happened to be open on Saturday. :) So I wandered through the tiny room like a kid in a candy store, picking out paints and pre-stretched canvas.

I spent the rest of Saturday blissfully painting away in my living room in front of a roaring fire. ;)

Last night Julie, Adam, and I watched the latest Sex & the City episode on Adam's telly. Its definitely getting harder to watch that show as it nears its end. They keep showing these emotional retrospective ads spliced together with tear-jerker music.. You can't help but get choked up! Thank goodness for TV show DVDs. Friends and S&TC will never be gone as long as we have them!