Good ol’ bullet points

• I got a strawberry augua fresca at a street fair on old Rt 66 and it’s my new favorite drink. I’m pretty sure it’s water, crushed strawberries, and sugar. Delicious.
• If the past two churches we’ve visited have been any indication, the Presbyterian church (USA) will be approximately 1/8th its current size in 15 years.
• We had a house inspection on Friday. There are a few minor issues that we hope the sellers will either fix or give us the money that was written into the contract to fix potential problems. Septic, well, and insect inspections are supposed to be this week. I’ve been refusing to think about this house as ours, because that way if it falls through I won’t be disappointed, but soon I’m going to be unable to suppress the excitement.
• Apparently you need to have 3 sources of credit to get a mortgage. We both have really great credit ratings (from one card each), but that’s not enough. We’re having to get letters from our landlord and auto insurance provider to count as credit lines. So we should have made our lives more difficult by getting more than one credit card therefore increasing the chances of forgetting a payment, or we should have lived outside our means by leasing a car instead of driving old beaters, because that means that we are more responsible and credit-worthy. Seems to me that something’s wrong with that picture.
• Our stuff is getting moved out of Cleveland tomorrow, and Ken’s BMW is getting picked up on Tuesday. I cannot wait to be re-united with my bicycles and have a few more clothes available so I’m not continually doing laundry. But that’s all I miss. Guess we don’t need too much stuff!

Weekend re-cap

I had a very productive weekend. That is what I like in a weekend: productivity.

We:
Made (mostly Ken here, but I helped) and cleaned up from a BBQ for the whole department
Cleaned out (and vacuumed!) the car
Topped off various vehicle fluids
Re-insulated the car’s exhaust hangers
Swept the garage
Stuffed the cats into their carrier for acclimation twice.
Did all the normal weekly stuff: cat boxes, laundry, bathroom, kitchen floors
Returned a non-functioning item to Walmart (on bicycles, so that counts as exercise!)
Fixed my laptop cord by soldering two broken ones together (all by myself!)
Played music for church with friends
Made food – BBQ on Friday, steak and eggs for breakfast Saturday, biscuits and gravy for Easter breakfast at church, angel food cake, mushroom risotto, candied yams, asparagus, fruit salad, ham, and some teensy lamb chops for Easter dinner.
Went for a walk (sorely needed after all that food)
Watched the rest of 30 Rock Season 2 which needed to be returned to the library.
Listened to the tail end of Anne of the Island while looking at pictures taken by sewer/subway explorers. Weird combination of activities, I know.
Talked to Mom on the phone about their trip to come visit (Which is in only 2 weeks!!!!)

Not bad.

Up this week:
Preparing bikes for a bike-camping trip (I got ridiculous new bar-tape for my bike, and I can’t wait to see how silly it looks with it.)
Maybe packing a few boxes?
Dinner with our roommate
Cutting Ken’s hair? It is getting a bit ridiculous…
Orchestra on Thursday (if I get tickets).
Heading to Pittsburgh to go bike-camping!!! Hope it stops raining.

Catching up

Hello.

I am, in fact, still living. Actually, that’s really the problem. I’m too busy living to have time to do the blogging thing.

Quick catch up on the past several weeks:

1. We had a lovely backpacking trip and I didn’t freeze to death or become overly wet.
2. The weather finally cooled down so that it’s only above 80 occasionally. I love it.
3. Ken bought me about 50% of a 1960s road bike. It was a surprise and I didn’t believe him then I felt like a jerk.
4. I have ordered all the necessary parts for said road bike and it’s wonderful because I’ve been getting a package every day!
5. A huge swarm of bugs descended on Cleveland and collected in my house every night for two weeks. I must have vacuumed up about a thousand of them. I thought I left the bugs behind when I moved away from the river.
6. We had a congregational meeting and the church isn’t doing as badly as it could be.
7. We went mountain biking two days in a row, anticipating racing in October. All was well until Ken caught a root wrong and went over the handlebars and landed in a patch of poison ivy on a particularly nasty switchback. Nothing seriously injured unless you count a very sore and bruised shoulder and needing to purchase a new helmet.
8. After all that I found out the other pianist on church can’t play on that particular Sunday in October because her son is getting married, so no racing for us. What sort of an excuse is that? Why do they make these local races on Sunday mornings anyway? Dumb.
9.While mountain biking (an hour from home) the car ran out of electrons. Limped to Walmart for a new battery, then spent the rest of the week rebuilding an alternator and trying to install new control arms.
10. I found out my friend is pregnant and am overcome with the weirdness of it all. There will be a baby interrupting our lovely rides together in the spring?!?
11. I talked to my sister for the first time since June.
12. We went self-guided white water rafting in Pennsylvania and that will definitely have it’s own post because it was an EXPERIENCE.
13. I have since been scouring Craigslist for a kayak. Anyone have a Wavesport Diesel 65, spray skirt, and paddle they’ve been wanting to unload?
14. Last night was designated for cleaning because the house is more of a disaster than it has ever been before, but those plans were scrapped when one of Ken’s friends called and asked if we wanted to go sailing. Let me tell you, Cleveland has never looked so beautiful as it did from a 25 foot sailboat by the light of the almost full moon. There was a nice steady breeze – really too much for the boat, and it was a balmy 80 degrees. It was amazing. Don’t think I want a boat like that though.
15. Yesterday I tried a scaled down Crossfit workout for the first time. I have a feeling you’ll be hearing about this topic again.
15. Tonight begins the annual baking of THE CAKE. I thought I’d posted the recipe I’ve been using for Ken’s birthday cake, but I can’t find it in the archives. It’s one that ought to be shared, so maybe I’ll do that. Don’t count on it though.

This is not, perhaps, the most interesting post of all time.

Friday night was supposed to be the last chance to beat one of my favorite people in Cleveland at Risk, but he didn’t show up to his own party, so I just ended up loosing Risk to a new guy who goes to my church.

On Saturday Ken and I went out to Reagan Park in Medina and did some mountain biking. There was an unfortunate incident with a piece of barbed wire and then me forgetting I didn’t have car keys and a break for dinner, but all in all it was a good ride. After riding we headed out to Blossom for a Canadian Brass concert. I loved every second of it except for a few during their excerpts from Porgy and Bess. Gershwin isn’t my favorite.

We got out to the car to discover that the exhaust mount had snapped off. Thank you Cleveland potholes. Ken tied it up with some nylon rope, which he proclaimed wouldn’t melt when I asked. Sure enough, 10 miles down the road on the highway we had to pull over because it had melted through. I found some wire in the back of the car and he wired it up by the side of the road in what must be the only dark place in north eastern Ohio.

Sunday was the usual church, although I had to get a ride with my friends who are moving out of state this week and therefore will no longer be available for last minute rides. I am going to have to set up a car breakdown hotline with the other pianist at church, because it happens often enough.

On Monday evening Ken fixed the car while I helped my friends pack for their move across the country.

On Tuesday my experiment I’ve been working on for weeks was a miserable failure, then I installed the new wiring harness in the car for the new head unit (CD/radio/mp3 input) that I got Ken for his birthday. It appeared to work fine, but after I unplugged it (The center console is getting completely replaced, so I didn’t actually install the new part) something shorted and it blew the passenger compartment fuse. Guess I know what I’ll be doing tonight.

I had a crazy week and my cat is seriously ill

I’m back!

I got the Sony reader and I absolutely love it, although I have barely had a chance to use it.

I ended up not going to VBS on the last night because I had a work meeting at 5:00. Sadly, that was pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened to me, because I DID NOT WANT to go to VBS and miss out on most of the camping trip with friends I had planned.

I didn’t race in the triathlon, which was really sad, but I did have fun camping and riding road and mountain bikes with friends.

I picked up a little bit of poison ivy while mountain biking – not surprising as the entire state park is pretty much carpeted in the stuff. Ken, however, picked up some poison ivy then proceeded to scratch mosquito bites and random places on his body, so he’s covered in big nasty rashes. I feel a little bit bad for him, but maybe next time he’ll listen when I tell him not to scratch so much…

The Eiseman Materials Camp was ridiculously intense – much more work than had been advertised to us – but also ridiculously fun. I haven’t been that exhausted while having that much fun since I was in high school. On some days we were at school from 8:30AM to 9:00 PM with a meeting at the hotel from 10:30 to 12:00. Besides meeting and becoming friends with the mentors and kids, my favorite part was a tour of the Conn-Selmer factory where they make all the brass instruments. Turns out that all the major brands of brass instruments in the world that aren’t Yamaha (Conn, Selmer, Holton, King, Benge, and more.) are made there. I didn’t pipe up and say that I have a Yamaha horn… Those instruments are definitely hand crafted. There’s a good reason they cost so much.

We stayed at the hotel with all the kids and mentors, so I wasn’t home all week. I shared my king-sized bed in blissful air conditioned comfort with another girl (what a sacrifice). However, poor Cosmo went on a hunger strike and when I finally payed attention to him on Saturday, he was not doing well. I bought new food and he’s been eating it in small quantities, although he has thrown up a few times. He also seems more lively than he was, so I’m hoping his appetite continues to pick up and I don’t have to take him to the vet.

A list of newsworthy and not so newsworthy things

My knee is smaller and the bruises are fading, but it’s still painful. A triathlon this Saturday seems unlikely. It would probably heal faster I hadn’t spent the entire weekend on my feet preparing for VBS.

There are five children at VBS. There are seven adults running the thing. I have spent countless hours preparing for it. I’m going to spend at least four hours a day on it for the next week. Somehow I’m not sure it’s worth it. What parents wouldn’t want three hours of free babysitting every night for a week? My guess is that the advertising was not properly executed. I am somewhat disgruntled.

I ordered a Sony Reader. It might ship today. I am very excited.

I haven’t written much about our former roommate and how we asked him to leave and why we asked him to leave and how nice and clean the place is without him because it’s possible he could read this. There was some angst and drama. However, he’s gone now and our new roommate moved in this weekend and so far it has been a delightful experience. I feel like a butthead because I’ve been gone constantly and will continue to be gone for the next two weeks so I can’t help her fit her stuff into the kitchen and bathroom. Oh well, I’m sure we’ll manage.

Work proceeds slowly. Data processing is not my favorite thing in the world. It’s not my least favorite either though, so that’s good.

It turns out that there are things worse than moldy cat poop. Cat poop that’s full of maggots is MUCH more disgusting. Shudder.

Cleveland finally gave us a break from the terrible summer weather last week. There were several days when the temperature didn’t get much above 83, the humidity was actually a reasonable level, and the temperature actually dropped at night! I hope we’ve seen the last of to 90+ and humid. Ken says that this summer is good for me because if I get a job offer in the area next year I will remember it and turn down the offer in a nanosecond.

I listened to Are you there God? It’s me Margret on Friday while doing some data processing and I hated it. Ugh. I got a nice graph of my 64 data sets out of it though.

Before I fell off my bike and all my dreams of winning triathlons were ripped to shreds, I had a revelation about why I don’t do enough biking. I love riding my bike, but the whole time I am subconsciously afraid I’m going to get run down. Every 2nd time I drive somewhere in the CAR I almost get run into by somebody who isn’t paying attention. If they can’t see a BMW, how are they going to be able to see a cyclist?

West Virginia pt 2

The rafting itself left a little to be desired. We were told the rapids ranged from class II to class V. I’ve never done anything bigger than a class IV, so I was pretty pumped/terrified of a class V. Well… Apparently the DNR’s definition of class V is different in West Virginia than in Colorado, because I’m pretty sure that nothing even approached the level of difficulty of the class IV’s on Clear Creek. The water level was fairly low, and our guide expressed her own doubts about the ratings of the rapids. It was still fun, but it would have been better advertised as class III-IV and below I would think.

Despite me thinking the rapids were kinda pansy, I did almost fall out of the raft a few times, and on one of those managed to jam my finger into something. As a result, my right index finger swelled up to twice it’s normal size, and is currently a lovely shade of purple. I think my favorite part of the trip was the big boulder we stopped at to jump into the river. The actual act of jumping from 20 feet up didn’t scare me, but once I was in the air it was terrifying. Weird.

I don’t have any pictures from rafting because I’m cheap and also because when Ken jumped off the rock he foolishly went down deep and caused his inner ear to explode, or whatever happens, so I stayed and debated taking him to the hospital instead of going to the bar for free drinks and to watch our videos and order pictures. Thankfully, the Ibuprofin finally kicked in after an hour and he was able to go to get our dinner. Ken’s steak was gigantic and delicious, and I should know better than to order salmon in a landlocked place such as West Virginia. Oh well, it wasn’t horrible, it just was not very good.

On Sunday we filled the cooler up with ice at the local Walmart and I scored a ironing board for $2 (No more ironing on a towel on the floor. Yeah!) then we went on a hike along the top of the gorge. In the 70s they built the tallest single span bridge in the world over the gorge. It is a thing of beauty, and it remained the tallest/biggest/whatever until just a few years ago. My picture doesn’t really do it justice, you should google New River gorge to see nicer pictures and pictures of people base jumping off of it.

We had to hurry out at noon in order to get back to Parma so I could play piano at evening church, so we sweltered our way all the way up to Akron where my phone finally had T-mobile reception, only to find that the evening service was canceled for something they knew about last week. I’m usually not one to be angry, but this totally pissed me off. The thought that I had rushed out of a beautiful place about four hours earlier than I would have otherwise to drive during the hottest part of the day just to play piano for the six people who show up at evening service only to have it can canceled for something that should have been announced at church last week was unbelievably irritating. However, we made lemonade out of the situation and went to sink some heat into Lake Erie instead of going straight home to the hot house.

Anyway, all in all it was a great weekend and I would love to go back to West Virginia and see if I can get my paws on a kayak, bring the mountain bikes, and make an awesome week of it. Alas, this will probably not happen because I simply don’t have time and I will hopefully be leaving this part of the country in about a year, but if I do get the opportunity I’m jumping on it.

So I went home and it was eventful part 4

We have at last come to the last part of this joyful vacation: Sunday and Monday

Before church Sara modeled our awesome bridesmaid’s gifts. I didn’t even know that bridesmaids got gifts, but I love wearing my turban thingy around the house after my numerous showers.

Sunday after church and a potluck for some reason we went to the park with the gardens. I’m not sure of the reason, but we did. I fondly remember that it was chilly. I haven’t felt chilly since. Here’s Bekah and Benjamin among the roses.

These next two are I think my favorite portraits, if I may be so pretentious as to call them that, from the whole trip.

After we finally got back that afternoon we played a nice game of Yukon Gold Rush where somebody (I think it was Robert?) proceeded to thrash the rest of us soundly with their mad dice rolling skilz.

Sadly, there end my photos. I didn’t get anything of my dinner at Ken’s parent’s house or our cherry picking trip on Monday morning or our very long but lovely canoe trip Monday afternoon that made my shoulders ache even though I only paddled for about half the time. Then on Tuesday we spent all day in transit and only arrived in Cleveland about 2.5 hours later than expected, which may be a new record for nearly on-time arrival. I came back to ridiculous humid heat, a basement in which every single item was molding, and evidence that the cats had destroyed several screens and spent most of the week running around outside, although neither my roommate or the guy I was paying to feed them said a peep about it. My life is rarely boring.

And now my mom shames me into blogging

You know it’s been too long since you’ve posted when your mother calls you up (On the phone, of all the antiquated contraptions!) to find out if you’re still alive.

Ahem.

Life has just gotten busy what with class, research, working out, going to Washington DC, reading books, working on VBS, experimenting with my new breadmaker, flexing my biceps to see if they’ve done any growing yet, scooping cat poop, and remaining trapped in the cycle of finally putting away all my clean laundry off of my floor only to replace it with more laundry. It’s a disease.

But I’m back now! So watch this space. I expect I’ll probably be posting in another 19 days…

A long post about very little

Lots of snow

The past couple of weeks in bullet form:

• It snowed a lot last weekend and it was highly cool.
• I made the best granola I’ve ever made. The secret is to include the magical ingredients: A handful of walnuts, a cup of whole wheat flour, and molasses.
• I have faithfully been keeping up with my strength workouts and am enjoying actually being able to increase the number of fake push ups I do and the amount of time I can hold a plank.
• I made homemade yogurt, which sounds really weird and in fact Ken refuses to try it, but is actually amazing. It is A Very Good Thing that Ken won’t try it because then he’d like it and devour my hard work in a matter of days. Or hours. It’s a little thinner than store-bought US yogurt, but it reminds me almost exactly of the stuff we put on our cereal in Denmark. Mmmm. And it’s about six times cheaper too!
• I may be little overly excited about the yogurt.
• I got very angry with NBC for their stupid online Olympics policy. They would only let you watch the current streaming content if you have cable TV. If you have cable TV, why would you need to watch the Olympics online? The only people who really need to watch the Olympics online are people like me, who don’t even have a freaking digital television receiver! Of COURSE I don’t have cable! Ridiculous.
• I decided my tendon issues in my foot are all better and started running again. Would you believe I only ran 2 miles in February? Shameful!
• It seems like research is proceeding at a ridiculous snail’s pace. I just reviewed all the things I need to accomplish before I start writing more papers and a dissertation (Not that I’m looking forward with great excitement to writing for months again, but it is sorta necessary for the whole graduation thing.) and it seems overwhelming. My goal is to start writing at least one paper in September, and have my dissertation well started by December. Yikes!
• I’m considering volunteering to teach Sunday school. I have suggested that we do family Sunday school and nobody else who might be involved in the Sunday school program has any idea how you could possibly teach more than one age child at a time, while to me it seems perfectly natural. I wouldn’t mind teaching, except that I tend to be off trying to wring all the possible enjoyment out of the limited Ohio wilderness about every other week in the summer (when I’m not playing piano…) and we haven’t traditionally taken a Sunday School break in the summer. Perhaps things need to change.
• I am picking up a breadmaker tonight for $6. I love Craigslist.
• I spent $93 at Target last night. This is highly irritating because it’s not like I bought anything fun or exciting. Actually, I am excited about the cloth shower curtain I bought. It’s going to become curtains for the windows in the dining room so that we can actually have some light in there during the day instead of just leaving the blinds closed all the time.
• I finally went ahead and ordered a better tire for the snow for my Kona, which pretty much means that it’s not going to snow again this winter. I’ve been riding with a nearly smooth rear tire, which really is suboptimal when there is limited traction.
• Today it was sunny and it occurred to me on my ride to work that I couldn’t remember the last time it was sunny while I rode to work.