Year 2 - Day 119 - April 30

I finished watching the Kennedys mini-series on demand today.  I started watching it last weekend when I had a couple days off for Easter and Mike was working, but didn't have time to watch TV for the rest of the week.  Today, Mike's off playing with friends so I had a few hours to lay on the couch and do nothing. 

It was fun to watch, who knows how much of it is really true though.  I had a hard time with the fake Boston accents - I think it would have been better to leave them out because I wouldn't have noticed them missing as much as I noticed how bad they were. With the hairstyle & clothes, Katie Holmes turned into Jackie quite easily.  I wasn't as familiar with most of the other actors.  I know there was a lot of discusson about how real the show was, leading to it getting dropped from a mainstream cable channel and getting pushed to "Reelz" which we don't even get.  Some people say it was dropped because of how fake it was, others argue that it hit too close to home and changed channels to hide it from more viewers.

Regardless, it was entertainment.  I thought it was odd that half of the Kennedy children were never mentioned.  They talked about how many kids they had, but the only ones we saw were the brother who died in the war, JFK, RFK, and a sister who institutionalized.  Really? A mini series about the Kennedys where Teddy isn't even on screen?  Weird.  Anyway, the person who wrote it was apparently of the mind set that RFK was the greatest person to ever live.  They painted him as the the good husband, brother, son, & father, all around hero and fixer of all JFK's (and Jackie's for that matter) problems - all the way to his dying breath. 

I'm sure it will win awards for Mini series ... so maybe that 20 minutes of the Emmys won't be so boring next year. 99% of the time I haven't even heard of the shows nominated in that category.

Year 2 - Day 118 - April 29

Full (obvious) disclosure - I didn't take this picture. :)  I was going to take a picture of the TV, but this one is widely published - I screen captured this one from the UK Daily News.

Ok, so in the hours between me stealing this picture from the news and getting around to posting, the world has caught on to the real reason this picture is awesome.  Hint - it has nothing to do with the bride and groom.  How hilarious is the 3 year old covering her ears and scowling?  She is going to be famous for this for the rest of her life.

I very strongly remember watching scenes of Charles & Diana's wedding.  This is confusing to me, because I would have been just a couple weeks older than 2 years old.  Maybe I am remembering tapes that were shown years later?  But I remember sitting on the couch in my old PA house watching a small TV next to the fireplace.  It seems odd to me that I'd be able to remember it that young.  Also, it was a morning wedding like William & Kate (Wikipedia is telling me these things, FYI, I don't have royal knowledge off the top of my head) and I'm pretty sure nobody would have woken me up at 6am to watch a wedding when I was 2 years old.  But for whatever reason, the memory is there!

Year 2 - Day 117 - April 28

I have spent every waking moment this week either teaching students or working on my portfolio.  Yes, I've known about this assignment since mid January.  But old habits die hard and here I was working my butt off at the last minute. :)  It was due tonight, and now my class is over.  It was not a "for a grade" class, but I got continuing ed credits and learned some things and met some people.  And who knows, I might actually work on the portfolio some more to get it past the "made for class" stage and make it useful.  Maybe. :)

But now I need to go to bed so that I can get up early and watch the Royal Wedding.

Year 2 - Day 116 - April 27

We took a trip to the vet today for the 2nd time in less than a week.  (This breaks our previous record of 2 times in 4 years.)  Since he's an indoor cat, I honestly just don't worry about it.  I found a lump on his neck recently and had it checked out last week.  The doc wasn't concerned, but updated his rabies shot while we were there.  Ever since he got the shot, he's been messing with the injection site & pulling out his fur in a larger and larger splotch, so today they asked me to bring him back.  I think he now knows the word "cage" because when I said to the girl on the phone that we'd be there as soon as I got him in the cage, he BOLTED.  It was pretty comical.  Luckily Mike had just gotten home from work and participated in the catching.  He would not come out of the cage once we were there, either.  He tried all kinds of acrobatics to keep himself in there. The trauma the vet & I inflicted upon him, coupled with a nose to nose meeting with a hyper pitbull mix who wanted to be Moose's best friend pretty much added up to the worst day of the poor cat's life. 

Year 2 - Day 115 - April 26

Since we were rained out before vacation, today was our annual "Laps for Learning" activity at school.  The kids earned over $4,000 for Japan disaster relief in the form of pledges for running laps.  (Except it's not really pledges, because it'd be too hard to keep track of laps run and then collect money later, so it's just donations.) 

Note to self - even if it's cloudy, if you're wearing capris for the first time in months, remember to add your shins to the sunscreen procedure. Ouch!

Year 2 - Day 114 - April 25

This is the one piece of mail we got today.  It made me giggle, mostly because it's me that is (supposed to be) the house cleaner.  Wrong person, indeed!!!! :)

Year 2 - Day 113 - April 24

Today, I finished the trilogy.  In my opinion, the books went in decreasing level of quality.  Like many series, the first one started off strong, the 2nd one tried to be the first one with a few tweaks, and the third one was such a complete game changer that you wonder where it's going.  The second and third weren't bad, they just weren't as compelling as the first.  I get a little exhausted when allegory is beat over my head. 

I know they are making a movie, and many of the people cast thus far are not huge names which is probably a good thing...but I would love to see Tim Gunn be Cinna. :)

Year 2 - Day 112 - April 23

I'm about 3 years late to the party, but tonight I finally started the Hunger Games trilogy.  Hopefully I can whip through them because they're due next week!

I have googled much about them and I have turned my ears off when people talk about them because they've been on my to-read list for awhile and I didn't want to spoil anything.  So far, it reads like a reality TV show amped up a whole bunch.  I totally see threads of Rob and Amber and Survivor going on.  Mike says it's similar to a Japanese mythology story as well.  I guess by now, everything is based on something. 

I don't have too much more to read in this book, and then I have the others waiting for me...

Year 2 - Day 111 - April 22

For the last couple days on and off and for several hours today, I worked on my second bedroom transformation.  This is my new crafting zone - far away from the computer room & desk we've been sharing for quite some time.  Here's the transformation from their house to our guest room version 1 to what it looks like today.

Their Version (Their son's room):

Our first version (Following their footprint, because it made sense at the time)

I don't have pictures of the other half of the room, but that's because it's pretty empty with no curtains, just the shades that were left behind.

The new version: (The walls are still white - but the iphone camera changed the colors every time I turned my body.)

I have most of my things within reach of the crafting desk (it's small, but it'll work for now).  With the current layout I do have the Cricut & Big Kick on the other side of the room but that's ok.  The room is a weird shape - where the dresser & 3rd window live is the space left between the stairwell and front wall of the house.  The 3 windows are evenly spaced, even though these pictures wouldn't have you believe that.  We don't completely love the bed in front of the window, but the closet doors swing out, so it couldn't go between the windows and this was the only other option to give me the crafting space.  Considering people sleep in there less than once a month, we can live. :)

Year 2 - Day 110 - April 21

You don't need to come home with a hundred bottles of mustard to play your own extreme couponing game.

Turkey Breast : $14.44
Steak #1: $3.06 (On sale)
Steak #2: $2.96 (On sale)
Texas Toast: $1.74 (On sale)
Cortaid: $4.99

Total On Sale Savings: $4.97
SubTotal: $27.19

Reward Points for Holiday Turkey: $14.44
Cellfire coupon: $2 off Cortaid
Texas Toast Coupon: $0.50
Doubled T.T. Coupon: $0.50
Cortaid Coupon: $2.00
Cellfire Reward Coupon: $5.00

Total Coupon & Reward Savings: $24.44

Total Out of Pocket Price: $2.75

This doesn't happen to me very often. Our grocery store (Shop Rite) runs specials around holidays where if you spend $300 in a 6 week time period you get a free ham or turkey.  So that make the turkey free.  (I wouldn't buy a frozen turkey breast anyway, so it's a real reward.)  Cortaid must be hurting for business because they have high value coupons on Cellfire & they spit out from the catalina machine at the store - and it lets you use both in one transaction.  This way, it's cheaper than the brandex hydrocortosone cream.  And finally, Cellfire had a random award day today where you could win anywhere between a $0.50 and $5.00 coupon.  I got lucky and got the big one - that's why I got the steaks as a treat. 

We used the Outback recipe from the Top Secret restaurant cookbook & they were pretty tasty.

Year 2 - Day 109 - April 20

After getting 2 estimates, we picked a tree trimming company.  They were tenatively scheduled for Friday but called this morning to say they could come today instead.  (I was happy about this, because it means my Friday is now wide open!)  A huge team of people showed up & they worked on all 3 trees at the same time.  Here's the guy climbing in the big tree.  With a chainsaw & other nifty tools that made lots of noise we quickly went from this to this:

And then a little more chopping brought us to this:

Our sad little naked tree.  We got all the diseased parts cut off and the leafy overhang that was growing out of the broken branches.  There are still some leaves, but I bet it'll take a fraction of the time to rake next year. :)  It makes the pine trees in the background look like they're growing!

Year 2 - Day 108 - April 19

We are finally caught up with "The Killing" on AMC.  We had heard about it, but it's on late Sunday night so hadn't caught any of the episodes.  We watched the first 3 on Demand and then DVR'd this week's episode.  It's really, really good.  The basic premise is that it's a murder mystery, but really it's a character study.  I didn't see the AMC Zombie show, but I do love Mad Men which is also more of a character show and I *love* Parenthood on NBC which is also set up the same way.  Rather than huge outside events taking place, everything that moves the plot forward is character based.  Best part about the Killing is that Mike likes it too. :)  We pick up on different clues which is interesting, too.  Good stuff.

Year 2 - Day 107 - April 18

Today we did the other side of the house!  It was a little more challenging because even though the bed is smaller, it slopes down towards the left.  We decided to transplant the "Christmas Tree" to the end because it's going to get much, much bigger and didn't have space to grow where it was previously planted.  The three small ones match the three in the back on the other side.

The mulch is a slightly different shade of tan/brown because it's a different brand ... but I'll live with it.

I haven't been this physically exhausted in a long, long time.  It was really hard to work all day and come home to do physical labor!!!!

Year 2 - Day 106 - April 17

Another weekend, another day spent working outside.  It was really windy, but it was also really sunny so that helped.  We spent a long time with the landscape designer at a local nursery talking about what we had decided we liked and what we wanted it to look like when it was "done."  (5+ years from now)  We picked out 3 different types of bushes and then we're going to transplant a rose bush we have elsewhere in the yard into the mix.  (We think.  We may just get a new one that is tiny like the others. Decisions, decisions!)  She helped us figure out how to place them to look "random" yet neat & organized.

There are a couple empty looking spots right now, but that's for the rose bush and then the perennials.  They are SO SMALL!  In the pots when we were placing them, we thought "Oh, they're not so small afterall."  But then when you put the roots in the ground, you lose a foot in height. :)  The back ones are just going to be green and will eventually grow to make nice shrubs.  The three lighter ones are green/red/orange and will have pink flowers.  (They're called Double Play Big Bang, which I think is awesome.)  The one that is a little taller out there by itself is a Boomerang Lilac which is going to be my favorite,  I think.

Go, go, gadget growing season! :)

Year 2 - Day 105 - April 16

It's a major award!!!!!

Today, I got a package in the mail.  I wasn't sure what it was, but could tell through the wrapping that it was probably a book.  Being a librarian, this isn't unusual, but I couldn't figure out what it would be.  First I pulled out a piece of paper announcing "You're a winner!" (Duh. #winning!) It went on to explain that I won a sweepstakes sponsored by Lysol. (Insert joke from hubby here - You smell bad & are dirty! You win these things to make yourself clean!)

Apparently, back when I was pregnant, I entered a sweepstakes with one of the mailing lists I was on for coupons for new and soon to be moms.  I won this lovely book from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

We just laughed, because what can you do?! :) 

This marks the second time in my life I have won a sweepstakes - the other was a random drawing at Orioles Fan Fest for season tickets to Six Flags.  (As useful as this book, as I am scared of rides - I believe my brother used them) :)

Year 2 - Day 104 - April 15

Once baseball season starts, at least in the beginning before the Orioles completely fall apart, there is always something to watch on TV.  We watch a lot of baseball.  In general, there's a lot of sports on in this house year round, but baseball is the only one we both like! :)  I even got to watch "my" team during my Yankee years because they are on National TV regularly.  I don't follow them as much anymore now that Mike retired, and I'm putting a lot of effort into trying to care about the Orioles this year.  In Buck we trust....

Year 2 - Day 103 - April 14

There's a vital component to taking a picture a day - HAVING A CAMERA WITH YOU!  For the first time in a long time, I completely forgot my phone when I left this morning.  (That's the down side of having a phone that needs to be charged on a regular basis.)  Perhaps if my charger wasn't plugged into a power strip behind a book & video shelf, it'd be easier to see it and therefore remember in the morning....

Year 2 - Day 102 - April 13

This is the big maple tree in our back yard.  It's nice that it is so big but it's in terrible shape.  I don't know if the old owners actually broke it or if they just didn't take care of it and it broke itself, but it needs serious help.  At first we were hesitant because of the shade factor, but now that we have been here a year we are well aware of the path the sun takes.  It's only early early morning that the sun is on the opposite side of that tree - the rest of the day the sun is in the front of the house.  So it's getting a haircut!  So are the two other trees, but they're just getting their bangs trimmed. 

Year 2 - Day 101 - April 12

Several weeks ago, we had nothing to watch on TV and came across "Throwdown."  In this particular episode, they were making fried green tomato sandwiches.  The details are fuzzy on who did what, but I remember one used thicker bread, one added bacon, they had different sauces/condiments, one added fresh tomatoes, and one fried his bread in bacon grease after making the bacon.

So tonight, when we made BLTs (minus the L, because it went bad, and minus the L on my side because why ruin a good bacon sandwich with vegetables) Mike decided to try the fry the bread in bacon grease trick.

His verdict: 2 thumbs up.  I didn't try it, it was just too much.  But after cooking an entire package of bacon and then his 4 slices of bread, there were only 2 tablespoons of grease left in the pan.  I think it's usually MUCH more than that.  (He didn't eat all 4, thank goodness!)

Year 2 - Day 100 - April 11

It was over 80 degrees today. Since I'm solar powered (true fact!) we were able to run errands and stop and get a snowball before going home to grill dinner.  (This is compared to winter, where I'm ready to cook dinner the minute I walk in the house and go to bed shortly after.) Our snowballs today represented most of the rainbow because mine was strawberry/orange/lemon and his was spearment/skylite.  (What does skylite taste like? It's blue, so I've never had it. Food shouldn't be blue.)

Year 2 - Day 99 - April 10

Today, we visited here

and talked to a nice guy about how to fix our hot mess of a landscaping job.  We discussed what we had, what we don't like, and what we're thinking we do like.  We didn't have measurements to give him, but we showed him a sketch of the shape of the two beds & we know that the front of our house gets full hot sun all afternoon.  He gave us some pointers and direction. 

So then, we spent several hours going from this:

To This:

Things we got rid of: sticky wild things by the windows, dead mums, lettuce looking bushes that were practically growing inside the sticky wild things because of the way they were planted, and other generic weeds.

Things we kept: mini christmas tree, crepe myrtle, and wild rosey type bush that we're undecided on, but don't completely hate so we didn't dig it up.

We have to take some measurements now and make some decisions about what is going where.  It's good that it's totally empty today because now we can get used to NOTHING being there, since when we plant the new things they're going to be super tiny & new looking!  We want some things that will be green year round, but we also want places for colorful things that bloom at different times.

Year 2 - Day 98 - April 9

Moving day!!!

Our friends moved into a new house today.  This is a lovely shot of the last layer of things in the truck we spent the morning packing.  There's a LOT of stuff in there!  After moving, we had stamping... it was indeed a busy day.

Year 2 - Day 97 - April 8

So, unless you've been living under a rock this week, you are aware that the government might shut down in a few hours.  While this is annoying and stupid to begin with, I read something on CNN today that brought it to a whole new level of annoying & stupid.

If the government does shut down tonight, the National Parks are included.  And not just the parks themselves - their websites as well.  This puts a wrinkle in my 4th grade lesson plans because we're in the middle of a project about the National Parks & are in need of information on those websites!  I have a couple books for each park, but they don't get beyond the basic facts & the kids get much more out of using the websites.

Cross your fingers - for my project, and for all those other things too. ;)

Year 2 - Day 96 - April 7

There are lots of checkmarks on our chart .... that means that Black Eyed Susan voting time is getting close! :)

Year 2 - Day 95 - April 6

We have both wanted to visit San Francisco for a long time.  We tried to make that last summers vacation, however, we had a free ticket and by the time we decided to take a vacation, there were no free flights available to SF or any of the surrounding airports.  This year, we booked early and nabbed them!  We are planning on making a giant loop....SF for a few days, down the coast for a day or so, and then a couple days at Sequoia/Kings Canyon and a couple days at Yosemite before completing our circle through Palo Alto & back to the airport. 

When I'm excited about something & can't really move forward but want to make a plan, the first thing I always do is hit up the library for books.  Well, now that it's 2011 I hit up the library's website for books & then show up at the drive through window a couple days later. :)  I sure hope that you don't live in my town & want to plan a vacation to SF in the next 2 weeks, because I have those books.  We have several styles of guidebooks to browse through - Lonely Planet, Fodor's, Frommer's, & Nat Geo.  We're pretty excited!!

Year 2 - Day 94 - April 5

You're Finally Here!!!!!!  Speaking of finally - I finally got my hands on Melanie Watt's new book tonight!  It's pretty good - I can't wait to read it to kids tomorrow!  They're going to love it. :)

Year 2 - Day 93 - April 4

Today I had 2 meetings after work.  While waiting at a red light to get to my first meeting, I found myself across the intersection from the apartment complex we lived in for our last year at UD.  It's probably owned by a different company now because the outsides of each building were redone.  When we lived there, we decided that the entire complex must reside on the black line that you see on maps to denote the Maryland-Delaware border. This hypothesis came from the fact that if you turned right out of the apartment, you soon came to the giant blue "Welcome to Delaware!" sign.  However, if you turned left, you had to drive a bit before you came to the "Welcome to Maryland!" sign.  See? We were obviously on the line. :) 

Year 2 - Day 92 - April 3

The best part of living in my townhouse was that I didn't have to cut the grass.  Since they used the same lawn mower on the whole street, we all shared "germs" (weeds) so I never worried about having the perfect lawn.

This neighborhood is a whole different ballgame.  With the exception of the one we inherited & one house with older residents, every lawn is perfect around there.  We spent a lot of $$$$$ buying the ingredients for what basically amounts to a 12 step program for the yard.  Top soil, weed killer, grass seed, fetilizer....(all to be used at different times) ... Wish us luck....a lot of luck.

Year 2 - Day 91 - April 2

Moments before this picture was taken, there were 2 hanging plants.  Kevin was talking with his hands and knocked one right into his lap.  He did catch it, and there was even minimal dirt spillage.  But it was pretty darn funny....

Year 2 - Day 90 - April 1

I left the house this morning (2 1/2 hours later than usual!) for a meeting & lunch with my MLLI group.  I planned this as a personal day a really long time ago, and was looking forward to it.  But it turns out that the day wasn't just for a meeting!  Mike's friends called & suggested we go bowling later in the evening.  Since I thought it was silly to drive all the way home and then back to Timonium, I first killed some time at Towson Town Center.  I was the only person there who wasn't rich and/or a Scandinavian nanny with a flock of children.  Most of the stores were empty with several clerks chit chatting with each other.

After getting my fill of rich people stores window shopping, I went to TJ Maxx down the street to do some real shopping.  They had all kinds of outdoor and garden items for great prices.  I got a pan to do pizza on the grill, some gardening gloves & tools, and an assortment of other items for bargain prices.

Mike gets out of work early on Friday, so we continued our time killing by seeing the King's Speech.  I read weeks ago about them re-releasing the movie with a PG13 rating to widen the audience, but was unaware that the changeover was happening today.  We realized we were seeing the PG13 version when one scene had some bad word dubbing.  It's kind of crazy that one scene with bad words can change a whole movie's rating, especially because the language in this movie was used for a purpose.  Excellent movie, I approve of its Oscar.

Finally, we met up with friends at Michael's for dinner.  I made the best decision ever with my dinner.  I wasn't starving since I had a late lunch, so I got the ceasar salad with the $6 filet add-on.  It was almost a whole steak!  I'm glad I didn't spend $30 on the actual steak.  We never ate at the restaurant for all the time Mike lived over there, but it was good.  Everyone enjoyed their meal, and we had a wide range of food between appetizers, salads, sandwiches & entrees.

Bowling was fun too ... we did duck pin because there was a shorter wait, and I didn't completely stink. :)