12.17.08

It seems a new post is in order. But I sit here with no good topics in mind. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming holidays and the time away from work -- only 2.5 days left! My Christmas shopping for Brian is done (has been for a while, but I just picked up the last item from the post office yesterday) except for maybe some stocking stuffers. Which, by the way, we finally got stockings this year! I've been looking for stockings for a few years and have never been very taken with any I've found in stores. I randomly checked out Pottery Barn a few weeks ago and found stockings on sale there! The ones I got are simple but nice (the red with ivory cuff velvet, regular shaped ones). And since I saved the money on the stockings themselves, I justified getting them personalized with our names. Makes good sense, eh? Anyway, I'm quite excited about Brian's gifts this year. But I can't tell you what they are yet. Other than those, I am started on the gift for my family member (we drew names this year) but not finished. I want to do some holiday treat making sometime before Christmas...we'll see if the motivation remains. Example: Last Saturday I planned to make cinnamon popcorn to accompany our Angel Tree gift. I got the recipe/instructions from mom -- even borrowed their Whirley Pop -- and bought all the ingredients. Sometime while reading in the afternoon, I fell asleep, and then never made the popcorn.

don't sign me up

Got this ad on my Facebook today. I admit my pearly whites don't really live up to that metaphor, but if this product will make my mouth look as freaky as this? No.

weekend play-by-play

My weekend was very full. Friday and Saturday Brian was in Nebraska, so those days are singular; Sunday is plural.

Friday
5:20-5:45 pm Arrive home from work. Change for the evening.

6-10 pm Serve at the dinner theater benefiting the local homeless shelter.

10-11 pm Go through mail, play Minesweeper before bed.

Saturday
6:45-8:20 am Wake up and get ready.

8:20-8:45 am Drive to Moundridge.

9-11 am Christmas Tea at Eden Mennonite Church.

11 am-1:30 pm Spend time at the farm watching the deer get butchered, eating lunch, trying the new massage chair, gathering Christmas decor.

1:30-1:50 pm Drive home.

1:50-2:05 pm Check out Five Places of Christmas at the Ad Building. Buy peppernuts.

2:15-2:45 pm Drive to Wichita.

2:45-8 pm Brave Hobby Lobby, the mall, and Super Target.

8-8:45 pm Eat supper at Felipe's.

8:45-9:15 pm Drive home.

9:15-10 pm Brave Wal-Mart.

10 pm-12:45 am Decorate for Christmas.

Sunday
9:20-10:25 am Wake up and get ready.

10:30 am-12 pm Church.

12:15-1:45 pm Lunch with mom and dad.

2-2:45 pm Jesse Graber's book signing.

3-3:50 pm Work on getting our Christmas tree in the stand.

4-6:15 pm Small Group.

6:25-6:45 pm Square up the tree in the stand. Much vacuuming.

7-9:10 pm Deutsche Weihnachten.

9:10-11 pm Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Ruth and Jesse.

Monday
7:06 am Wake up feeling in need of a weekend. Or at least needing to go back to sleep.

thanksgiving highlights

• Time off from work
• Family
• Turkey (my favorite holiday meat!), stuffing, some form of potatoes (mashed with gravy (personal fav) or cheesy potatoes (close 2nd)), pie (I got to try sweet potato pie for the first time this year — yum!), delicious rolls. Three times.
• Celebrating mom's birthday at Cheddar's
• Movie nights with Mark
• Thanksgiving dinner with three kinds of wine rotating through my glass
• Thinking about Christmas
• Actually going to the gym twice over break instead of just thinking I should
  
• Organizing the bathroom
• At 1am Saturday morning (this is following one of our big Thanksgiving dinners), Mark, Brian, and I deciding we're hungry, and devouring a frozen pizza and Oreos. Reminds me of college days.

party in the mods!

Friday was so much fun. Our friend Kate is currently a fill-in resident director for two RDs who were/are on maternity leave this semester. Friday night, Kate hosted a party in her mod! And, yes, she does have a whole mod to herself. She really only uses the lounge, the bathroom, the box for her bedroom, and room one for her kitchen. But if she wanted, she could have a whole sweet six-room apartment! :) We were warned in advance we could not fulfill any possible unfulfilled college fantasies of having a drunken orgy in the RD apartment, so it wasn't that kind of party (as so many of the ones I attend are... ... ...nor have I ever had that kind of fantasy). Kate had a nice selection of teas, some mixed nuts, and some tasty no-bake cookies. A good number of people showed up, and there was conversation and Catch Phrase. Once it was down to five people, Catch Phrase couldn't proceed as written in the rules very easily, so Kate, Brian, Tim, Bethany, and I set a goal of how far around the circle to get it (all the way, including the starting person a second time) plus two more people. Harder than it sounds, people. When we finally succeeded in our quest, it was just after 2 a.m. I think. We were pretty excited though. Someone said it definitely called for celebration cheese fries. Bethany and Tim left, but the other three of us did hit Druber's. I went to bed after 3:30, which is so much later than my usual bedtime.

cicada wing cookies

Last night, Brian presented on periodical cicadas to the junior high youth group from our church. It was great. I was already familiar with most of the information, and I still found it very interesting. He showed some of his awesome pictures (and a couple of my videos) by projecting them on our wall, and he played some neat recordings of his through our sound system. I did my part by making cicada wing cookies (not totally accurate representations by any means but still fun).

old.

This is old news, but I just checked the email account I use for online registration, and this made me laugh. Some of you have probably seen this with your own name.

lars and the real girl

Since I don't know about what to post, here is a movie recommendation: Lars and the Real Girl. Some will say it's a good story about giving people time to work through things, but I think it's even broader than that. I think it reminds us that everyone — no matter if there's something big s/he is working through or if s/he appears "normal" — has his/her own version of reality, and it's important to be mindful of that in order to live well together. Watch it. It will take you through different emotions. It's funny. It's moving. It's good.

so nice to not feel dread or dispair

After the election, that is. So unlike the last two presidential elections. Hooray! It was so exciting to go vote, though my vote did not so much matter in terms of our state's electoral votes. I had some small hope that Kansas might Barack the boat and go in slight favor of Obama, but my hopes were way off. Stupid KAKE 10 gave me false hope for a bit: The first time local news came on after I turned on the tv, Susan and whoever reported and had a corresponding graphic giving Obama 72% and McCain 28%. I promptly let out a "Holy shit!" I calmed myself a bit by acknowledging that only 1% of precincts were reporting, but Holy shit! 72% for Obama! Only to have such excitement dashed when at the end of their reporting on local races, Susan and whoever came back to tell me, "Correction: We had our graphics switched. That's 72% for McCain and 28% for Obama."

The evening was only full of good news for the presidential race, and it was so exciting to watch this time. Unfortunately I was in the bathroom when it was announced that McCain had called Obama to concede, so I kind of missed the big moment, but oh well. McCain's concession speech brought tears to my eyes. There was the guy I respected back in 2003. I have long wished McCain had won the Republican nomination in 2000. I think the Republicans still would have won over Gore, but I believe we would have had a much better past eight years. As long as he hadn't found some other wack job to be his running mate... That aside, anyone think there's any chance of McCain being awarded a cabinet position?

Though it's been difficult to think much about anything besides the election and my strong, strong hope that Obama would win, in other news, I've had a couple of recent food successes. One: At an open house of a downtown business a while back, I sampled a very tasty mango curry dip. I bought a packet of the dry mix. This week I mixed it up to use — instead of a dip — as a spread, and have been eating turkey breast, alfalfa sprouts, and mango curry spread wraps for lunches. Two: I used a cup of my ill-fated pumpkin puree (I can copy the tale of that from a comment I left on someone else's blog if anyone's interested) to make penne with fresh pumpkin white wine cream sauce. I read a few recipes for cream sauces and merged a few to come up with this one. It was a tasty success.

Look, ma, no cats.

look who was a bat for halloween

omg, i'm a crazy cat lady.

nibbert!

Whenever I refill Nibbert's food container in her room from the large bag of food, I like to let her eat right out of it (she does usually eat from a regular bowl) because she gets so excited by the fresh smell of a just-opened bag of food and the sheer quantity of food that is poured in front of her eyes.

Just look at that scrumptious cat belly. It's so perfect for [gently] roughing up every now and then when she's being held in the infant position.

oh boy.

How did I get into this? I know. I know how I got into it. My mom was going to sing at my great-aunt's funeral, but then she didn't have anyone to accompany her, but then she asked Brian to accompany her on guitar, which is kind of perfect because my great-aunt liked to play the guitar, and then when they were practicing last night mom says to Brian, "Why don't you sing with me on some verses?" and Brian says, "Erin will too," and I consider that Brian is already doing a sweet favor of playing and that I know he's not too keen on singing in public, so I sort of agree. Sort of as in actually. I am not a singer. You all know this. I'm ok at singing melodies. Or I was ok at singing melodies. But I can no longer sing high enough to sing most melodies, so I try to pick out the alto. My ear is usually good enough at knowing when I'm not right, so I'm not really belting out wrong notes (more like just dropping out), but I'm not good at fixing it and making it right. Luckily my good husband is helping me try to learn it. It turns out since mom didn't have an accompanist at first and wasn't sure she would, she was taken off the funeral program, and we'll be singing during the sharing at the meal, which is good. (I think?) Oh, also good, this is one hymn that almost never fails to make me tear up. Good. This could be one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. Or maybe I'll just "lose my voice" tomorrow...

what i look like when i go to sleep

This is it. Right here. It is not freezing in our house; I just really easily feel cold. In fact, right now I am so. cold. So I've been wearing a stocking cap when I go to sleep. Sometime in the night I do actually finally warm up and end up taking off the hat, my socks (thank goodness, I loathe wearing socks when I sleep), and sometimes even the long-sleeved shirt I have over a t-shirt. I think Brian is quite amused by this. As he should be.

sunday, sept. 28

This is reaching back in time a bit, but I want to post about it. As part of our church's 50th anniversary celebration, it was decided we didn't want to purely focus on ourselves and how great we are (though there was plenty of that type of celebrating too), so a service day in the community was planned. What a great idea. It was set up as a morning session of service, an afternoon session of service, and then faspa followed by a worship service in the late afternoon/early evening. We actually missed church on the sign-up days but were called to fill open slots. We spent the afternoon at Kidron Bethel visiting people who don't get many visitors. The first three people I tried to visit sent me away! And then the next person wasn't in her room! I was beginning to feel like a real failure. When I got to the fifth person's room, she was there and was someone who couldn't really hold a conversation but who liked to talk, so I mostly sat there and tried to decipher what she was saying and respond appropriately. A few times she seemed to respond directly to what I had said, which made me happy. Since it was a low pressure interaction and since I had struck out so many times previously, I stayed with her quite a while. The last person on my list was a man, but only his wife was in the room. Instead of telling her, "Oh, I'm supposed to visit your husband," (which seemed rude), I stayed to talk with her; it was a blessing. She was one of my grandma's friends when she and her husband still lived in assisted living and seemed so happy that I was there to visit with her. Neither she nor her husband nor I could see why they had to be living in healthcare now: they can walk, dress themselves, feed themselves, seem of very sound mind. It's kind of sad. And she said it's sad to have to live there and see so many people who need so much help with everything.

That got a lot longer than I intended. So that's where we spent our service day. Other projects included painting the entire public swimming pool, painting basketball court lines at public parks, planting/landscaping for several outreach organizations, working at MCC, cutting out supplies for public schools, and probably other services I'm forgetting. The faspa was good, and the service was probably the most meaningful of any I've been to in a long time.

I hope we do more service days. Quarterly would be nice. The church wants to figure out how to attract more young people? I think this is a great way. Tangible works that help others. Plus, you build community within the church too by working alongside people you may not otherwise talk with often.

EDIT: I meant to also include that 144 people participated. I believe our membership is 300-something, and our "regular attenders" number around 220? 250? So pretty great participation. Good job, Faith!

debate, wedding, phones, cleaning, pizza

It was a full and fulfilling weekend.

Friday, we went out to La Campanita with Melanie and Jason and then enjoyed watching the debate at our house. And enjoyed the liquid treats they provided. We are greatly anticipating the VP debate this week.

Saturday morning we went to my uncle's outdoor wedding. The weather was beautiful for it. This is my uncle who was married to my dad's younger sister who passed away two years ago. We are very happy for him, but it feels a bit bittersweet, not knowing how much we'll see of him in future years. It was so nice to be included in this celebration for him.

I'm currently frustrated with cell phone providers. Let me get the phone I want and the plan I want. Grr.

This was a banner weekend for us for cleaning. We got some of the basics done Friday before we had company (floors, dishes, bathroom). Sunday we tackled our pile-o-mail. We have a pretty bad habit of piling all of our mail on our couch and never doing anything with it. This pile was super huge. I finally got some organizational tools to help us with our mail (I hope), and we sorted our humongous pile. It's a three-drawer shelf thing -- want to give your input as to what the third drawer should be for? One is for "Needs Immediate Attention" and one is for "Burn" (some people shred, we burn in our backyard). What's the third? I don't want "File" because then it will just never get done; I think filing should happen right away (if we had a filing cabinet, that is. So we're kind of stalled out on that, but we have a box of "To Be Filed," so we don't need a drawer.) There's also a smaller two-drawer system above it -- one drawer for Brian's receipts (I generally throw all of mine away) and one for my medical receipts so they're gathered for turning in for my flex fund.

Saturday night we made pizza again finally. I really like making pizza. This time, into the dough I added sundried tomato paste, oregano, basil, and minced garlic. It sure was yummy. We topped with pesto, canadian bacon, olives, mushrooms, baby roma tomatoes, and a bit of fresh mozzarella and shredded Parmesan. Mmm. Next time I will add even more of the sundried tomato paste and garlic into the crust. This was my first time to try adding anything into a yeast dough, and I had no idea if it mattered when you do it or if there's anything to know about adding things, and I was afraid it wouldn't rise. But it did. Now I'm really looking forward to the leftovers for supper.

one year later

Here are some of the pictures I mentioned in the last post.

we went to the zoo

To celebrate Brian's birthday (yep, it's in May...yes, we are the world's greatest procrastinators), we went to the zoo on Saturday. The Sedgwick County Zoo, which is the 13th largest zoo in the country. We hadn't been there since with the Math Club my soph or jr year of college and a lot has changed since then. I was really excited to see all the new exhibits (new gorilla habitat, new chimp/orangutan habitat, new penguin exhibit), and I was not disappointed. First we watched an elephant demonstration that was quite impressive. I would love to have a few elephants. I love that they are a social species and so incredibly smart. Then, we wasted a bunch of time at the river otter demonstration because apparently they just canceled it and didn't bother to inform their waiting fans, and then we saw penguin feeding. The little Humboldt penguins are so cute and mighty fast under water. In between those demonstrations we saw the exhibits mentioned above, the reptiles/amphibians, the jungle, and the South America and Australia exhibits. I was tuckered out after our four-and-one-half hours there.

Also this weekend, we buckled down and spent all of Friday evening writing our wedding thank-yous. Like I said, world's greatest procrastinators. Put us together and trouble. So those of you thinking we are not grateful for your gifts, you just wait. We are! We always have been! We're just bad.

Yesterday, Brian's parents had us and my parents over for an anniversary celebration. They outdid themselves on a very nice meal, including homemade frozen custard, and we broke out the wedding cake they preserved for us. It's actually pretty tasty. We walked out to the pond, and I put Brian through some "one year later" pictures on the bridge, amongst the sunflowers, and under the willow where we were married. We wrapped up the evening by watching our wedding dvd (with much fast forwarding through the sermon...).

becoming mr. and mrs. smith

This weekend we were fortunate to be able to make the trip to Sioux Falls, S.D., to celebrate Kelley O'Reilly's marriage to Michael Smith. We left Friday evening, and Larry and Kathy generously let us stay at their house overnight. And even though they weren't there, they kept us well stocked with snacks! Such great hosts. Saturday morning we left for Sioux Falls, and I slept through the entire state of Iowa. Brian's always such a nice driver, and this trip I didn't even get behind the wheel! We arrived early enough to go poke around in the park where the wedding was supposed to be (it was moved to a church because of weather). The wedding was really nice and small; I liked the readings and what her dad had to say. The reception was at a swanky cafe downtown, where I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious hor 'devours, dinner, and cake. We got a great table with fun people. Bethel grads who I don't know all that well, so it was fun to spend a little more time with them (Dan Graber, Lacey Graber, Liz Rempel, Emily Smith Goering). Lots of laughs. We weren't able to join everyone at the bar after because we needed to get to Omaha where we were staying with my aunt and uncle, and we didn't want to arrive too late. I think my uncle might have already fallen asleep before we got there, but he was very gracious and a great host too. Sunday morning we left for home. (Sarah, we might have possibly driven through your town and not seen you. I was going to text you: Bake me some cookies--I'm coming to town, but Mark's phone screen was broken and he would have had to call you to get the number so we kept driving which was for the best because as it was we only got to see Mark for ten minutes and only got to do that because he skipped out on seeing grandma before he left.)

Whew, that was a big breath to get that all out. I failed and never got the camera out of the car, so I have no pictures of the blessed event. Also too bad since Kelley and Michael are moving to Ireland (he's from there...don't you think they should have taken HER name?), and I'll probably never see her again.

And for those of you interested in this kind of thing, our new little car gave us just over 40 mpg on our trip. Good car.

we're excited

Two weeks ago, we were able to replace our car. Brian did some excellent searching and negotiating work, and we got just what we wanted and we love it. It is pretty exciting to have a brand new car. I've never before purchased a car with miles on it in the hundreds, much less one below one hundred! Since we didn't order it from the factory, we didn't get to choose our color. Given that this was the only one on a lot in a 500 mile radius, we were happy to take whatever they had! We were both pleasantly surprised at the color when we pulled into the dealership. Even more so since it wasn't a color we would have picked purely based on the catalog. And I have been doing pretty well with the stick shift, if I do say so myself.

unexpected

Yesterday afternoon Adam Akers came into my office: "I have something for you." And what did it turn out to be, but this picture. From our freshman year. Found on the second floor of Goering Hall (for those not familiar, this is a dorm that hasn't been in use since our freshman year, which was nine years ago). Crazy.

sad update

Tiny little Toonces died on Sunday. :(

are you still talking about john mayer?

A byproduct of the funeral is that all of the cousins were here! Our family does get together pretty regularly, but cousins are spread out, so it's not too often that everyone is together (missing this time was only one in-law). I wouldn't say I know my cousins extremely well — especially some of them — but I do enjoy getting together with them. The evening after the funeral we had our first real cousin bonding time in the adult years. The two not-yet-21 cousins didn't come and a couple of the in-laws stayed behind with kids, but everyone else was there. It was a blast. We had a waitress who made things interesting, some interesting drinks were delivered to the table...like Mark's White Russian, which had a vodka : Kaluha : cream ratio of about 1:1:12...and also some very scientific discussions about the aluminum bottle. A lot of laughs. Good times.

All cousins.


Applebee's crew.

grandpa pete

A week ago Sunday (17th), my Grandpa Pete passed away. It's one of those times that it's sort of a blessing since he hasn't been doing well for the past year. Even though it kind of felt like we lost Grandpa a while ago, it's still sad that it's final. He just turned 89 the day before he died. I always hate when I read obituaries of people who died one or two days before their next birthday, so I'm glad it was in this order for Grandpa! Plus, I hear he had a pretty good celebration with Grandma and his sister, so that's a nice last memory for them. The service was really, really nice...I usually don't have many feelings one way or another on services, so that says something. The pastor asked me right before the service — and I mean just as the family was gathering to enter the sanctuary — if I would read the grandchildren's memories (the original plan was for the pastor to do it) and I said I would. Even though I didn't make it through without crying, I'm glad he asked me to do it and I did. The family had some good bonding the night before at the funeral home when, after visiting hours were over, Mark broke out a cooler of Schmidt beer in the back of mom and dad's minivan and we all toasted Grandpa. Unfortunately some of the family had already left, so it wasn't all of us, but it was good times. I don't have the group pic, but here's this one.

tiniest kitten ever

Brian's aunt rescued an abandoned kitten from where she works. Yay! Brian got to see it when he went cicada collecting there, and when he told me about it, I was definitely, "Email her and ask if I can come see it!" So we went the next day, and they even generously fed us supper. Mmm. Since I didn't grow up around many animals, this is the tiniest kitten I've ever held. So precious. He/she? didn't stop moving the whole time I was holding him except just before we were going to leave, he fell asleep. Little buddy. Here are a couple of pictures. Unfortunately earlier in the week I was messing with my camera under the influence and failed to return it to its usual flash setting, so the pictures of kitten night didn't turn out as well as they could have. Mary's hands are the ones in the feeding pictures, and she's a petite woman, so you can imagine how small the kitten is. He's about two weeks old in these pictures.

fashion report

After hearing a fall fashion report on the radio yesterday, I decided there are about two things I might adopt: the velvet jacket and the purple handbag (this is not specifically what's in -- what's in is the color, but I thought a handbag might be nice). Maybe a jacket like this, but I'll most likely spring for this one. This handbag is pretty cute, though I'm not sure if the tassels are me. It's pretty much at the limit of what I would spend on a handbag, but this one caught my eye too. In reality, I will most likely see what Penney's has to offer! And, actually, I want my next purse to have only one handle and a zippered top, so that will be part of my next shopping goal. Also, I accidentally discovered the Crocs of handbags.

my, my, my

title has nothing to do with my post; I just noticed that all of my August posts started with an "M" and when I thought of "M" words, "U Can't Touch This" for some reason popped into my head. So I went with it.

I know I don't tell you often enough how much I like Pioneer Woman, so I wanted to share that we made this recipe for company on Sunday, and it was A. Maz. Ing. And easy (if you do it in a crockpot like we did). So good. Mark, this is what you have to look forward to next Monday for supper! (At least that's the plan.)

music hits me so hard!

miracle treat day

Not to be confused with the official Miracle Treat Day, which was yesterday and which we did participate in, we named a particular day last week miracle treat day after seeing the name on our DQ cups and having no idea what it actually was. This is our story.

We went to an area DQ one day last week for cool treats. I was pretty sure I was going to get a Peanut Buster Parfait, but the advertisements I've been seeing for the Girl Scouts Thin Mints blizzards kept tempting me. Odd, you might think, since I don't really like mint chocolate. A combination of things led to my temptation: 1. I do, strangely enough, like Thin Mints; 2. I like mint ice cream; 3. it is precisely my dislike of things that sometimes makes me want to try them. As much as I wanted to try it, I was pretty sure I didn't want a whole Thin Mints blizzard. So I decided I would see if there was any way I could get a sample. What the heck, right? I asked, and the guy was like, "Sure" and proceeded to make up an entire small Thin Mints blizzard. I thought maybe I had inadvertently ordered one by asking for a sample, but, no, he just gave us a small blizzard for free. We each tasted a spoonful, ordered what we really wanted, and put the rest of the Thin Mints blizzard in the freezer for the next day. Miracle Treat Day!

market street

In my post about Wichita Falls, I forgot to mention our visits to Market Street. MS is a cool grocery store close to Mark's apartment. It has a wide selection, some bulk goods, a large deli, a coffee shop, nice kitchen wares section, and a good wine/beer area. I think Mark likes to hang out there sometimes; I would too. My biggest excitement was that it carried two coffees on my Amazon wish list, so I could just buy them there! They also do milk in glass jars, which I love.

mhs class of '98!

At the end of July, Brian had his 10-year class reunion. I never disliked going to a 1000-student high school, but I do think a small class is pretty cool. His was a class of 36 (the exact number I learned from a trivia game played at the reunion). There are some pretty cool people in his class, and I know a good percentage of them from college, so I had a good time. Perhaps even more fun than I might have at my own next year, who knows? :) If I go. So the only pictures we got of the night were of this awesome double rainbow. The pictures don't do it justice, but you could see the full double rainbow, which, in my experience, is pretty rare. Oh, wait, we did get a person – Lindsay, sporting one of the sweet alcohol-themed prizes from the trivia game.

wikka, wikka, wichita...falls

The second weekend in July, the fam went down to Tejas to visit the bro. We ate a lot of food. Mark gave us a great tour of Alcoa, and we did not try to steal any secrets to sell to other countries. We also walked around the lake, laughed at the fake falls, and watched some real nutsos on Trinity Broadcasting Network.

At Fat McBride's steakhouse

This is what we look like two months later. Also during this time, Mark turned into three-hole-punch-Mark.

The fam, post-Messing-With-Texas

on july 5, luke and sarah got married

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the mod reunion/tine's birthday/wedding weekend. All can be viewed larger by clicking on them. Which you might have to do if you want to read the few captions.

good idea/bad idea

Good idea: Refunding your customers for products they don't want
Bad idea: Not looking in the boxes they bring in

I had some stuff that didn't fit/came too late to return to Target. I printed off my receipts, loaded up boxes, and went to the store. I set two mailing boxes down on the counter, handed the customer service person my receipts, and requested a refund. Not once did she ever look inside the boxes or even pick them up to see if there was anything inside. I guess I could have taken empty Target mailing boxes in and come out with free cash. This refund was in excess of $130. Luckily for them, everything I was refunded for actually was in those boxes. But really, Target? Really?

i was reminded

Of another best story ever. It also makes me tear up.

my mom sent me this

And it is the best story ever. And it made me cry.
More info here if you want.

just one thing to love about the parents-in-law

Last night I tagged along as Brian went to help burn fields. This was the amazing supper we had that makes me drool inside a little just to think of it: green beans (from their garden), potatoes (from their garden), cucumber salad (from grandma's garden), deviled eggs (from their chickens), fried chicken (not from their chickens, but it could have been...I think I forgot to do a chicken butchering post a while back, oh well), rhubarb crisp (from their garden). What a treat!

P.S. I do not love my parents-in-law just for their food.

hchs

I know it's not much compared to the job some of you do, but we did another seven-hour shift at the homeless shelter earlier this week, and there were some interesting stories. I don't think I feel right expounding on them here on the interwebs, but part of my night included a police officer approaching me and saying, "I'm looking for Erin." Thinking it couldn't possibly be me but aware that no one was staying there by that name, I stuttered out something like, "Like a volunteer 'Erin'?" "Yep." "Well, that's me."

cars and chiggers

Yesterday we finally began our search for a second car. Fun times. At three different dealerships, we tested an '05 Toyota Echo, an '08 Honda Fit, and an '08 Toyota Yaris. The Fit is pretty much the cool kid on the block. Seriously. If we do go the new car route, we will most likely get a manual transmission for cost savings. Which equals interesting times ahead for this gal. I should probably get one of those "Student Driver" magnets.

Harvest also brought me many, many chigger bites. I'm guessing the pedicurist today will take one look at my ankles and refuse to service me because it looks like I have some contagious rash. At least the itch is finally starting to subside.

Wedding weekend! Whoo! I'm very excited.

harvest '08!

I love harvest time! I suppose I can unabashedly love it because I don't have to put in long days, do any work, or be stressed about it, but you know. Unabashedly might be too strong a word since my allergies definitely hate it. The two nights I was out, I came home with extremely red eyes, and my sinuses have not been the same since. But I still love it. This year's harvest was very successful/fruitful, which always makes for good feelings. Last night I got to move the tractor with grain cart a short ways in the field (not by myself, but I was at the wheel); this was very exciting for me. I would love to someday be able to actually help out (more than moving the pick-up and helping with meals), but it's not a world I grew up in, so everything is quite foreign to me. For now, I ride along, and it is a blast. A scary thing happened Monday when I was out. It rained a lot at the end of last week. Things had dried enough to cut most places Monday, but it was still wet enough that they weren't parking trucks in the field. Even so, potential disaster struck. The trucks were parked on the road, and the edge of the road under one of the trucks gave way. The truck was at an amazing [-ly bad] angle. The bottom of the low side of the truck was actually sitting on the ground. It could not be pulled out with a 4WD tractor even. The truck was full, so the men put in some very hard work scooping wheat out the back into an auger hopper. This made me quite nervous since, if the truck were to go over into the ditch, I'm pretty sure things would not have turned out well for the guys in the back of the truck. Luckily everyone was ok, the grain was saved, and the truck was able to be pulled out after the bed was emptied some. The truck even drove just fine after it was pulled out! Amazing. While it was a terrible situation, everyone was thankful it turned out as well as it did.

breads

For a long time I've wanted to be a baker of breads but have been intimidated. I'm still intimidated but after working with them in a limited fashion when I was kitchen help at Camp, I found a bit of courage. This week I used yeast for the first time. Monday night I made pizza crust! It was yummy. I don't think I added enough flour to make working with the dough as easy as it could have been, but the end product was great. The next night we had spaghetti since we had some Italian-seasoned meat left from the pizza project. So I thought I'd try bread sticks. Since the pizza crust recipe was out, and I'd had some experience with it, and I also wanted to try to improve on it, I just made them with that recipe. I realized it probably wouldn't be as good for bread sticks, and the texture of them ended up more toward soft pretzels than softer, lighter bread sticks, but they still tasted good. I'm thinking of attempting deerocks on Saturday. And, yes, I am quite pleased with the clever name I came up with (we have a lot of deer meat that needs to be used).

not vacation

Though I did take vacation hours to be able to do it. Last week I volunteered in the kitchen at Camp Mennoscah. I got there late enough that Olivia put me up in the Retreat Center for my first night. There was a time I would have resisted such surroundings at camp, but I thoroughly enjoyed my private room, private bathroom, private shower, and private AC. Here I am in my swanky abode (I am amazing at the self-portraits, as you will see later in one of my vacation posts).

I cooked Thursday breakfast through Saturday breakfast, and I had a wonderful time. And I ate way too much. All breads/baked goods (and almost everything else) are made from scratch...my favorite. It was totally exhausting – I was in the kitchen from 6/6:30 am - 9/9:30 am, from 10 am - 1:30/2 pm, from 3 pm - 7 pm, and again from 8/8:30 pm - 10 pm. Pretty much every chance I got in between those times, I was napping, even if I only had 10 minutes. Sleep-y. I did skip some nap times to make ice cream with Olivia, go to the pool with Olivia, go to the post office with Olivia, and go to campfire. I also managed to finish a book I'd been anxious to finish since vacation. I had just a great time. I'm planning to go back to volunteer next week too. Here's everything [I can remember] we made in that short time I was there:

• coffee cake
• little smokies
• mashed potatoes with roast beef gravy
• corn
• I do not remember what our lunch dessert was
• taco salad
• kolaches
• verenike casserole
• zweiback
• green beans
• peach cobbler
• bierocks...I got to brown like 25 lbs of ground beef at once, plus fill them!
  
• pudding/Oreo dessert
• cinnamon rolls
  

catching up

Good day. I've been on vacation for a while, but before I get into all of that (and it may not really be "all of that" since I didn't take notes along the way of what I wanted to blog about), here are a few pre-vacation events.

The week after we were in Pittsburg, we took off a day and a half and went to Manhattan, Topeka, and Lawrence. Brian spent some time doing cicada research at both K-State and KU, and I spent some time hanging out in the university towns drinking coffee, reading, and walking around. It was great. It was surprising how just a short break felt like a big break when one has not had a vacation in a while. When I was in Lawrence, I met up with a high school pal for lunch and a driving tour. It was fun to catch up with her after being out of contact for a number of years. Dave and Shelley hosted us in Topeka, and it was fun to hang out with them, finally visit them before they moved from Topeka, and be entertained by the antics of their cat.

The weekend after that, we were back in Manhattan and Topeka, this time for graduation ceremonies. Brian's cousin-in-law Jen graduated from K-State and had a lovely reception at a camp afterward. After a yummy Indian dinner, we headed to Washburn for Dave's graduation from law school. This was a first non-undergrad ceremony I had been to, so that was interesting. Here's a pic; I'm sure you can tell several cameras were trying to get the shot at the same time.







Washburn Law hosted a sandwich/cheeses/fruits/wines/beers reception following the ceremony, and that was awesome. After the long day it had been, I went immediately for two glasses of wine and downed them like Kool-Aid. Yep, classy.

The next week, I had the opportunity to catch up with another high school friend. I had not been in any contact with him since h.s. graduation, so I enjoyed catching up with him too. Ah, the wonders of Facebook. Unfortunately I failed to get my camera out for either of these reunions.

interesting statement

A guest on npr's Day to Day had this interesting take on the Democratic hopefuls:

"Clinton is the better candidate, but Obama is the better movement."

To overuse the word, I found this interesting to think about. For additional context, the opinion of this guest is that it's time for Clinton to drop out of the race.

down in the pitt

One of the exciting weekend trips we took this month was to Pittsburg to FINALLY visit Mark. We got in late Friday night and took in some delicious fried portobellos at Chatter's. Saturday morning, Mark cooked a yummy breakfast for us, and then we went to Big Brutus. It was my first time to see this beast, and a beast it was. Pretty much every new thing we saw was responded to with, "It's so big!" Because it just is. It's so big. I wish it still drove around. Here we are with one of the tracks and in the bucket, a nicely coordinated pic of Mark jumping inside the bucket, and a shot of the whole thing. I recommend a visit if you've never been. We were lucky enough to be visiting on Mark's birthday; he put on an amazing barbecue of various smoked meats (some in homemade marinades) and other great eats. I was also excited to see Sarah! and finally meet Colby. They are cute. I think this sibling shot turned out particularly well.

intercollegiate bowling championships

A while ago (I couldn't believe just how long ago when I looked at the date on the tickets), we met Alissa and Jon for the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships. We got to see the Wichita State men's team bowl a round (they later ended up winning the championship). Brian and I had a brief, brief foray into bowling a few years ago (until we realized we just weren't getting any better), and sometimes when bowling at Northrock we'd see WSU bowlers practicing, and they were so impressive, so it was fun to see an actual competition. Also, I wasn't expecting the crowd response that there was — just as loud and rowdy as any other sport. WSU had a large — supportive and respectful – crowd, which was pretty neat.

We ended the evening with a fun supper at Bangkok, which has the best yellow Thai curry I've ever eaten. It's a favorite place of ours.

personalized shoes!

I have a lot of things to update about, and I will someday. But in the meantime...
This website is so much fun, and I think I will not always be able to resist the temptation of buying a pair of shoes with my name on the back of them. Also, I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but was there a mod prediction something like "will create 'The Dream' shoe"? If so, I will dutifully fulfill this prediction and name my creation "The Dream."

meal recommendation

This is what we had for supper last night, and it was really, really good. And not very hard to make. It's one of those that smells good the whole time you're making it since you start by sautéing onions and garlic in butter and olive oil (the shrimp we got was already cooked), so the anticipation for eating just builds and builds. This is also a recommendation for The Pioneer Woman Cooks! blog. Not only do so many of her recipes sound amazing (this is the first one I've actually made), but I find it quite entertaining as well.

new!

Yesterday we bought a new loveseat. This is interesting especially since we haven't exactly been thinking about buying new furniture, and we went to the store and just bought it. Quite uncharacteristic. Though, that's not the whole story — the store is going out of business, so it had a really good price on it, and it was the only one, so we sort of figured if we wanted it, we should just get it. We haven't picked it up yet, but I'm anxious for it because it's the reclining kind, and I like to put my feet up.

spontaneous joy

Yesterday I was reading on the couch and saw a car stop in front of our house. We don't often have people drop by, and I didn't recognize the car, so I watched to see what their business was. Because I'm nosy like that. A young (7? 8?...I'm so terrible at estimating ages) girl got out of the backseat and started walking down the sidewalk. I wondered where she would be going since, if she were going to my neighbors', why wouldn't they have parked closer? Because I soon wouldn't be able to see her from my position on the couch, I went to the front door to continue watching unseen. I could see an older brother in the front passenger seat and dad in the driver's seat. The girl continued down the sidewalk away from the car and every now and then would look back sort of nervously, but with a smile. She came running back to the car carrying a pair of glasses. I thought perhaps that was the purpose — she had somehow dropped her glasses out of the moving car and they came back to try to find them. But instead of getting back into the car, she gave her glasses to her brother through the open window. And started back down the walk. Then her brother yelled, "Your jacket!" and she came running back and handed her jacket through the window. And back down the walk she went. More hurriedly this time. Still with the glancing back, nervous and giggling. Then she just went for it — right into my neighbors' sprinkler! It's an in-ground sprinkler system that shoots out a fairly focused, steady stream of water. It was with a laugh of pure joy that she backed up to one and squatted on it while it sprayed her. After that she ran back to the car, hopped in the back, and they drove off. She was fully clothed in jeans and a shirt the whole time. How much does that dad rock?

surprise of the day

So I ate lunch in the cafeteria today because we had an interview to do, and what were they serving but verenike with ham gravy! I was shocked, I can tell you. And it was not too bad.

yum!

It is always with my great anticipation that the MCC Sale comes around. The once-a-year Feeding of the Multitude meal I eat is probably my favorite meal of the year. So I look forward to it, enjoy it, and all of a sudden there's a whole year before my next one! Yes, I feel for those of you out there who love it as much as I but are unable to make it. The meal this year was no disappointment. On Saturday, we went back to try the barbecue chicken meal (that I never before knew existed), partly because Brian's parents were doing the whole thing with two other couples. We made the second trip to Hutch only to discover the chicken meal was totally gone. Good for the sale, bad for us. We heard reports that other food items were sold out as well, and Brian's parents didn't even get to try the chicken, so after they were done cleaning up, the four of us all left the sale and went out to eat in Hutch. Sort of funny how that worked out. Here's a picture of us working the new year's cookies. We got to do the mixing of the dough, which I actually found to be pretty fun.

it's ok, i'm a limo driver!

I've been delinquent about posting. Mostly because I really wanted a picture of something and have been trying to track it down. Alas, it is not to be found, and the object I want a picture of is under lock and key, so I can't snap it myself. I wanted a picture of this custom golf cart that BC has -- a six-seater (backward-facing rear seat), all logo-ed out, and an optional rain enclosure thing. It was a big deal to get and is only used for special guests. And. It's called "the limo." Seriously, the key chain even says "LIMO" on it. Well, the other day when we had a videographer on campus, I got to drive the limo. Translation: big deal. It actually was sort of cool, and I was nervous to drive it because I really didn't want to ruin it. Especially fun was when I needed to do basically a three-point on the sidewalk and didn't want to drive off the sidewalk because it was quite muddy. The plastic cover was on it, which is sort of goofy looking. Oh, and classes were letting out right then so a lot of people got to see me. A high school student from my church laughed at me, I think.