An Expensive Day

I spent my day off running around getting ready for our wine party that we're hosting this weekend. Every year (or at least close to every year) we host a wine tasting. Each year has a theme, and this year, we are tasting the same wines but from different regions (example: Chardonnay from France, Napa, and locally grown) to compare the differences. The climate and soil can greatly affect how the grape comes out in the wine, so this is what we're looking to compare. I picked a Chardonnay, a Riesling, and a Merlot. Two french and one german. I wanted to do one french, one german, and one italian, but italian varieties, specifically Sangiovese, don't grow in this area. Anyway, I'm gearing up and doing a little research so I know what I'm talking about on Saturday.

If you're reading this and are planning on coming, I expect it's going to be a really informative year, if you pay attention. So I'm pretty excited about it.

I'll post some pics and let you know how it goes. BTW, the grape picture is one I took in Michigan last fall and the other is from our last party.

Isn't She Beautiful?

My Grandma. Tuesday is her birthday. Tuesday marks the day she has blessed this planet with her presence for 85 years. That's a long time, but what a woman to truly admire. She met my grandpa (that's the handsome buck, next to her) 66 years ago at a roller rink. She was there with a date (not my grandpa). Apparently, my grandpa did something right, because only 3 months later, on Valentines Day... in 1942... they got married. And just this year they celebrated 66 years of marriage.

Today we went out to Red Lobster, which is her favorite place to eat. It was just the girls, and it was nice to spend time together. Not only that, but it's quite remarkable to have 4 generations right there at the table, eating together. Here are some facts about the world in 1923, the year this remarkable woman was born.

Happy birthday Grandma! We love you very much, and I'm proud to be your granddaughter!!!

Crisis

I was having a blog crisis. I'm sure all of you who have been here before, and all of you who witnessed the change to Pepto Bismol will appreciate the different-but-not-really change. I wanted to incorporate something in my blog title that was significant to me, but in all reality, I just ended up screwing things up. I still needed a change, though, so I went from green (my favorite color) to this soothing blue and maroon motto...
Hope everyone is having a good weekend...

Weigh In Friday

I'm such a loser. Well, not really but lets just say a took a slight deviation from my 20 point per day weight watchers regimen... and it showed. I gained a whopping 3 pounds this week. At least I know exactly why. After a Saturday birthday party of standing around snacking on chips veggies and dip, chip dip, and other various bad-for-yous, Brian and I decided to celebrate V-tines day by going out to eat. At a very yummy, butter filled place. The kind of place where real chefs make real food. The true fact of the matter is that butter makes things taste better. So they use like, a lot of it. I'm sure the two martinis and the toffee cheesecake afterwards didn't help. This on top of the Ghirardelli chocolate squares I got for valentines day (who can resist that!!!) the box of chocolates brought in unanimously to work, a Valentine's Day visit to my friend Amy in Lafayette, then dinner out Thursday night; it was just at the point where I said, "screw it." I've been pretty good most of the time so far. I may as well just go on a total binge and get it out of my system. So that's exactly what I did.
While you're at it, check out Allisa's new blog... she's due with her 2nd TODAY and she's not in the hospital yet, as far as I know. Bring on the labor fairies... on think she's really ready for this to be over...

A Slice of Solar Powered Heaven

Brian and I are taking a trip out to Colorado in May in hopes of securing retirement property. Yeah, I know it's still about 17 years away, but we figured, why not buy now when it's cheap (cheaper, anyway), pay it off while we still have income, and live there when we are ready to leave the armpit.

Anyway. The only problem is that we'd actually like property that's NOT on a cliff (wouldn't matter if we did - that stuff costs like a million dollars) that we can put a few horses on, ideally. Well, that's not the only problem. The biggest problem is any property we can reasonably afford that's actually what we want is literally IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE. So in the middle of no where, in fact, that there is no power service there, and you're lucky if there's a silly telephone line in the area, too. Here is a picture of what we're talking about. This particular property is listed for $39,900 with an annual property tax of a whopping $6. That's no typo. Not bad for 36 acres, huh?

The real estate people say that "green" is the way of the future, and the people out here have solar powered homes and sometimes backup wind generation power. This is actually something that home builders are very familiar with out here. The nearest McDonald's is 100 miles away (I asked).

That sounds lovely. I just don't know how "back to the basics" I'm ready to go. I mean, you have to really be self sufficient to be out here. Want groceries in February? Hop on the ol' snowmobile and look for your driveway.

Actually, it isn't that bad (according to a local) but it has been this year. Wow, I'm rambling. Anyone know of other real estate out that way that looks (and costs) like this?

Fun Is The Word

This past Valentine's Day, since my valentine was protecting the safety of others, I spent the day with an old friend, the kids, and her family. We'd been talking about going to the Children's Museum for a while now, so finally, we got there. The kids had so much fun, and it was a great time of year to go, too, as everyone has a little "cabin fever" from being inside so much.

I'm posing a few pics. The best part of the whole trip was that everyone was completely exhausted (including the grown ups) by the time we got home, and they slept like logs all night.

Even more, we only spent a few hours there, and hardly even scratched the surface as far as seeing what there was to see. I'm excited to go back. I was very impressed with the place. You'd think they built it just for kids or something...

What a Deal!!!

I think since these are "coming soon" I'm gonna run down to the local Best Buy and reserve my copy. What a really great deal. Literally, only 25% of WHAT WE PAID FOR THE ENTIRE HOUSE!!!!!
WHO BUYS THIS STUFF??????
Whats really cool is read the one review of this product (made before it's even available - and clearly by a man...). That's what I say about my kids, not my TV...

Weigh In Friday

It's Friday (at least for a few more hours) and I actually did weigh in this morning. To my surprise, I lost another 2 pounds, which puts me within 6 pounds of my target weight. Yay! For a few weeks there I didn't gain, but I didn't lose either. I was pretty sure I just really needed to start exercising to give my body that extra boost to get over whatever rut it was in. Turns out, this past week I ate a little more than I had been, and I ended up losing. I'm wondering if it was just my body telling me, "Hey, we're starving here... how about a little food?" Not that I was starving myself, but maybe I was just trying too hard. I feel like I'm too close, and I am hell bent to see 135 register on the scale, with me standing on it.
I'll update the end of the weeks events this weekend. I'm going to chill for a while, since I worked for like, a million hours today...

Boiler Up!!!

Not that I'm a huge college basketball fan or anything. We got the gracious opportunity from some friends of ours to attend the Purdue v Michigan State college basketball game in W Lafayette the other day. With 4 of us and 4 tickets, it worked out really well. Brian and I usually just go ourselves and enjoy some time at the ol' Alma Mater, but this time we just decided to make a quick trip down and back and take the kids. I figured, the sooner they realize they are Boilermakers, the better. :P... is that wrong?
Anyway, Vincent (without guidance from his father - per him and his father) liked the cheerleaders the best. He told me, "They're pretty."

Jade, on the other hand, liked yelling at the refs for bad calls the best. We had one of those yell at the refs guys next to us (you know the kind...) and every time he'd "dispute" a call, she'd stand up and yell and point her finger at the ref.

The kids had a ball. The crowd was roudy, it was loud, there was a lot of action, and they were totally into it.

They were really good and even cuter than in these lousy camera phone pictures. I'm glad we got to do something like this as a family... and that everyone is finally old enough to actually be able to enjoy it...

What Is Wrong With People

Since I'm up early, I figure I'd take you all down with me...
I saw this article as I was checking the news this morning. I heard about it before, maybe I'm just in a mood right now that it bothers me more than normal. I dunno. I just sometimes can't figure out what makes people so nuts.

Pleco blah blah blah

Brian got the dead pleco thing out of the fish tank. Get this. He came into the kitchen after I told him what he was going to do. He opened the utensil drawer - the one with all the spatulas and ladels and stuff. Incidentally, this drawer also contains the tongs.

So, he proceeds to get the tongs out and use them to remove the dead pleco thing. And you thought I was grossed out before. Yeah, those will just remain in the dishwasher for about 7 cycles before I'm convinced they are devoid of all dead fish junk.

We have a new pleco thing. This one is actually kind of cute, but that's probably mostly due to the fact that its only about 1-2 inches long and very small, unlike the dead one. In addition to the pleco thing, we also bought 4 more fish, one of which I discovered after I got it home and released into our tank, is blind in both eyes. This is strange and coincidental because a lady at the horse barn, for reasons I can't remember now, just was talking about a 20 year old double blind fish. I think it's the same kind of fish too.

So I still have a fish dilemma... what to do with the blind fish. I kind of feel bad for it because if I take it back, what are they going to do with it...

On the other hand, I only was willing to pay $10 for a stupid fish that was going to be interesting to watch. I guess it can be considered interesting to watch the blind one swim into the plants and other fish and stuff, I was just hoping it would intereact and swim around with the other fish. Maybe I'll tell them I'll keep the blind one, I just want another to satisfy my need for my fish to be part of a little community. I'll convince them it will be in the best interest of the fish. Hell, if I can convince someone that I believe it was a good idea to __insert crime here__ I hope I can convince a 16 year old clerk at PetSmart that they should just give me another fish.

I'm Totally Grossed Out

Alright, I'm like really grossed out. I don't know why this is bothering me so badly, but it is to the point that I feel like I need to blog it to ease the pain...

As many of you know we have a fishtank for the kids. A few years ago I placed a 1-2 inch plecostomas in there to eat up all the poo and extra food and stuff. It thrived, and within a short time, this thing was like, 6 inches long. Definitely bigger than anything else in the tank. What really bothered me about it was that whenever I took the fish out to clean the tank (mind you, which wasn't very often), this thing actually had weight to it. I'd stick the little net thing in there and scoop it out (after scraping it up the side - they stick to the sided of the tank) and it would be truly heavy. Ewwwww. Then if it flipped around in the net............ uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh!!!

I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. Last time we cleaned the tank I made Brian take it out cuz I just can't handle it. Maybe I should call this guy... woah.

Well, this morning (I just about typed "this smorning" - duh) as I was doing my rounds, I noticed the old plecostomas looked, well, lets say, unwell. Actually, it looked quite... dead. I don't know what to do. If I even go in the room I'm gonna barf. Brian is sleeping because he worked last night and probably wouldn't really be pleased with me waking him after 3 hours of sleep to remove the dead plecostomas. There is NO WAY I can do it. I'll never sleep again...

Will someone please come over here and help me so I can go back in my living room?

OK, I Promised

Here's the update I promised you, complete with photos of things that have been significant in my life in the past week or so...

First up is Vincent's new found ability to actually draw things, and not just lines and scribbles and random bits and pieces... for a long time he only wanted to draw doors and tractors... don't ask me why. I think one of the main reasons I had kids was so that they could draw pictures of people that were heads with arms and legs. I have always thought that was the cutest thing in the whole world. It's not just my fascination... google it... there are tons of articles, most more scientific than I care to read, about why kids do this. Anyway. Here is Vincent's most recent family portrait, along with his friends Liam and Breanne. He appropriately titled it, "Breanne and Liam came to my house to play." I love it.

I think I'm actually going to frame it. In other news. Here's a pic (from my camera phone) of my new desktop. The screen on the right is on a turntable, so I can put identical things on the screens, and turn it so someone sitting across from me (hopefully a paying client) can see their pictures and any editing I am doing in real time. Pretty cool, huh? I'm probably way behind the times, but I'm totally stoked about this dual screen setup thing. Now, for what's been truly eating all of my time. I've become pretty handy in photoshop, mostly learning by default... kind of a sink or swim thing. This is a picture of a friend's car. He wanted me to take a picture because he is in a car club and they are making a calendar of all the members' cars. I included a "before" and "after" I'm not totally done with the editing. I guess one could say this is a "rough edit". It's a start though, and I think it looks pretty cool.

And Nobody Even Called...

I haven't posted in over a week. Now people. I didn't even get one single solitary phone call to check if I still existed. Believe it or not, that was actually questionable as of a few days ago. I had a range of illnesses, back to back. None terribly horrendous, nonetheless, they were seemingly endless. I'm on antibiotics now, so hopefully it'll be enough to push me over the edge to getting better-dom. I lost my voice (my real one) last week which seemed good enough reason to not post either. I figured since no one could hear me in person, why should they hear my cyber-voice?
In all reality, I have just been way busy, when I haven't been trying to sleep off the plague. I didn't think this photography thing was going to be such a big hit and it has kept me up quite late as of recently. I really need to get Brian trained on file management and basic editing... because at this point I definitely can't afford an actual employee. I'll post some interesting pics tonight, after the monkeys are in bed.
Vincent has some really cool artwork, I have a few pictures, and also a new one of my new high speed client-proofing friendly computer setup. Stay tuned.
Oh yeah, It's WFMW tomorrow, too....