Happy Birthday to me!

As of today, I am officially in my "late twenties". Kind of scary. I spent the day napping, reading, watching the Democratic debates on TV, and just generally relaxing. My Mom and Mark sent me flowers, which was really sweet of them. Flowers make me happy.

Back home

OK, so I am back home now and not in Baltimore. It's a long story, but I think it all worked out for the best. I will say that if you ever want to rent a car, do NOT use Budget. Haha, I know I'm being vague, but it's just too long a story to get into it. If you want to know more about it, e-mail me and I'll tell you. At any rate, I am happy to be home. Going away is fun, but it's always so nice to come home to Steph, the animals, the house, and my glorious bed! I love my bed. Here is a picture of our key rack, which I bought from Anthropologie on clearance about two weeks ago. I thought it was a good homecoming picture.

(Wednesday January 30, 2008)

Leaving Cooke Rd.

On Tuesday morning, I left Andrew and Chad's house. It was sad! I had such a good time with them. Their house is absolutely adorable and I love their neighborhood. There are all these gorgeous, huge sycamore trees lining the street, which are apparently a real pain to have in your yard, but to they look pretty to me!

(Tuesday January 29, 2008)

Chad and Andrew are breakfast elves

While I was asleep this morning, Andrew and Chad made breakfast. It was delicious. They have both been such wonderful hosts and I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay! I am sad to have to leave tomorrow morning.

Loop

We spent Sunday in Center City. We had lunch in the "gayborhood", walked around, went to a few design stores I wanted to visit, and did some shopping. One of the stores we went to was Loop, a yarn store. It was awesome. Here is some of the great yarn they had displayed.

(Sunday January 27, 2008)

Witch Hazel

The reason I came to Philly this weekend as opposed to any other weekend is because I wanted to see the Witch Hazels in bloom at the Morris Arboretum. So today we went to the Arboretum and it was amazing. We all took SO MANY pictures. Seriously, it was kind of ridiculous, but a lot of fun. I want to come back in the Spring and take pictures of the cherry blossoms. The Witch Hazels were everything Andrew and Chad said they would be and more. And making our stroll through the winter gardens even more enjoyable was Harry, an amiable cat who followed us around the entire time. He was such a cutie and made me miss my kitty babies.

Afterwards we came home and Chad and Andrew made an amazing meal. Andrew's parents, his sister, and her husband, Matt, joined us for dinner. It was hilarious and a great time. I want them to adopt me! It's about 2am now and I'm about ready to head to bed, but before I drifted off to sleepy land, I managed to post all the pictures I took today to my Flickr page. Check them out-- they range from pretty nature photos to hilarity at dinner this evening.

(Saturday January 26, 2008)

Philly Cheesesteak

I couldn't come to Philadelphia and not have a Philly Cheesesteak! Here is Andrew loading up his cheesesteak with ketchup. I had a chicken cheesesteak and it was absolutely delicious.

This morning we went to H-Mart (an incredible Asian grocery store), did some more shopping, and bought a ton of wine to drink over the weekend. Now we're back at the house and we're going to make cookies for our cookie party tomorrow night.

I've already posted some of the pictures from the trip on my Flickr page, so you can check them out.

Packed and ready to go!

Yesterday (Thursday), I flew to Philadelphia to visit Andrew and Chad. Here is my suitcase in the kitchen, all ready to go. I brought this book on hand dyeing yarns because I know Chad is also interested in fiber arts. On the right are two little gifts I got for Andrew and Chad.

My flight was uneventful, although I sat next to this complete weirdo. He was this 40something guy who was listening to Chumbawumba and kept asking me things like he was my butler or something (did I want my light turned on, did I need a pen, did I want a mint, etc). I like to be left alone on planes, what can I say. I'm there to fly, not make friends. Haha.

After I got in, we went to a diner in Manayunk to get a little midnight snack. I miss diners so much-- the huge menu, the neon lights, the cases of desserts! I don't know why there aren't any in Nashville. Weird.

(Thursday January 24, 2008)

Milestone

Yesterday I reached a big milestone. As of today, I have gone one month and a day without drinking any soda. Not only that, I've also had 8 glasses of water a day for one month and a day. Pretty sweet. You have no idea what a big deal this is for me...I've been addicted to coke (not the drug, fools!) for a long long time. I remember, in 5th grade, my best friend and I wrote a poem called "An Ode to Coke". I wish I still had it...I'm sure I'd get a great laugh out of it. All I remember is that it involved a never-ending fountain of coke, along with a stream. Pretty sick.

Also, I feel that I should point out that I don't usually drink bottled water. I bought this because I was thirsty and in the car.

Cuteness

On Thursday I'm going away for 9 days, so I've been obsessing over the animals even more than usual. This morning when I woke up, I found Louis sleeping on a pair of Steph's sweatpants. When I came home in the afternoon, he was still there. I suspect that he didn't move all day long. Awww, I'm going to miss the animals so much while I'm away!!! I'll miss Steph too, of course, but at least I can talk to her on the phone.

(The mist you see above him is coming from the humidifier)

(Tuesday January 22, 2008)

Destruction

I got this toy for the dogs on sale at Petsmart. Do they know that Christmas is over? I think not. It's already been massacered and I am going to have to trash it. They always shred the pieces of rope into tiny little bits and pull all the stuffing out of toys. Of course, this kind of destruction is preferable to the kind I happened upon this evening-- I walked into my study and saw that Beignet had chosen to chew the covers off some of my hardback books.

(Monday January 21, 2008)

Cheese!

I love cheese! On Sunday we did some shopping and we also stopped at Whole Foods to buy some stuff to make dinner at home. We got some yummy cheeses to have as appetizers. I was able to find a specific goat cheese that I had weeks ago at Margot for an appetizer, which was exciting. I think we probably always have some sort of goat cheese in the house because I love it so much.

(Sunday January 20, 2008)

Yellow Vespa

I have a thing for Vespas. I think they are cute, but sexy too. If I lived a more urban lifestyle, I would absolutely have one. On Saturday night we went to 3 Crow Bar in East Nashville. On our way out, I spotted this yellow Vespa parked next to the bar. I love the color.

(Saturday January 19, 2008)

Hello Kitty manicures for all!

Nicole came to visit us for the weekend. She flew in on Friday and left on Monday afternoon. Of course, she came bearing gifts for us both! Steph loves Hello Kitty, so Nicole got her this Hello Kitty manicure set. It even comes with a dryer! Very exciting. On Friday we went to Rumba for dinner and mojitos. After that, we were pretty tired, so we went home, watch some Harry Potter, and played card games.

(Friday January 18, 2008)

Fingerless Mitts

Steph's latest knitting creation, in progress. She has one mitt finished and has about 2/3 to go on the other one. The yarn is handspun and hand-dyed wool; the color is acorn forest. This is one of many yarns I bought Steph over the holidays. If you are looking for great yarn, check out KnittyDirtyGirl's shop on Etsy-- I got this and a bunch of other cool colors from her.

Turkey Butt

...not as tender as turkey breast. The wild turkeys that hang out in the backyard never cease to amuse me. They are painfully stupid, but fun to watch. The grey one is new to the pack (herd, flock, pride...what is the correct term for a group of turkeys?). Did you know that turkeys can fly pretty high? They can and they do. For giggles I often let Beignet out to chase them back into the woods. They go nuts and fly up into the trees. I'm pretty sure they live in the woods behind our backyard because they seem to mostly frequent our property. Ah, rural Southern life. It's quaint, but I think that when Steph finishes grad school at Vanderbilt we'll be ready to move somewhere more lively...like Austin or Seattle or something. I'm pretty sure I require too much living space to be able to live in New York. Oh well, I can always go there to buy things, which is really the best reason to be there anyway.

2nd book for January

I made a grand total of 20 resolutions for 2008-- some big, but most pretty manageable. One of those resolutions is to read at least two books each month. Sometimes I'll read 10 books a month, but then months and months will go by where I read nothing at all. This will be my second book of 2008. I've read a few of the short stories and so far I'm not too impressed, but I'm willing to wait it out and hope they get better. If you have any books you think I absolutely must read, please let me know! You can e-mail me or send me a message on GoodReads or something.

Oh yes, on an unrelated topic, my ear will be fine. Oh happy day! No surgery!

A tale of woe...

On Saturday morning my right ear started hurting. It felt like my ear was full, like I had a head cold, only my head and sinuses felt fine. I figured maybe I had some wax in there, so I cleaned it out, using a Q-tip. Now, I know you're not supposed to clean your ears that way, but that's the way my Momma taught me and I am a creature of habit. Well, that only made it feel worse. Then I thought maybe I had some water up in that sucker, so I used my swimmer's ear drops. No go. Well, my next idea was to do nothing and wait for it to get better. This is usually the method I choose when it comes to issues of health.

Steph hates this quality in me, but I tend to dismiss her when she chides me to go to the see my PCP. I feel like Steph knows too much about healthcare for her own good and at the drop of the hat she wants to medicate me and diagnose me with such and such disease. Today she finally convinced me to see someone about this ear issue. Well, it turns out that my ear was compacted with wax because every time I use a Q-tip I just shove the wax further and further down into my ear canal. They couldn't even see my eardrum when they looked in my ear. So after flushing out the wax, they were able to see that my eardrum is perforated. Now, when I say "they" I do mean they, because not only did the NP look in my ear, but Steph insisted upon doing it as well. I was like a walking freak show to these two. They kept saying things like "Wow" and "This is bad". It was very unsettling. Tomorrow I have an appointment with an E.N.T. specialist because I may need to have surgery (thankfully outpatient, but still...scary) to fix this problem.

Moral of the story-- DON'T clean your ears with Q-tips!!!!!

What does this have to do with today's photo? Well, I took a picture of the gunk they flushed out of my ear. Why don't you see this photo on the page? Umm, it's seriously disgusting and I don't want to subject you to seeing it if you don't want to. BUT...if you're interested in seeing my ear refuse, dear reader, you can click right on over here. I know it's gross, but I just couldn't resist. Besides, I didn't take any other pictures today. Enjoy!

Zucchini & Chicken Pizza

It may have become clear recently, given all the recipes I've posted that include zucchini, that zucchini is one of our favorite vegetables. Of course it's best when it's in season in the summer, but I will eat it any time of year. Tonight Steph requested a pizza, so I made this one with zucchini and grilled chicken. I was trying to recreate the pizza we love so much at Bertucci's, because sadly Bertucci's doesn't have any locations in Tennessee.

Woot Woot

Most of you know how I love owls and how I love stamps, so it was only a matter of time before I got an owl stamp! Isn't he adorable?!?! Look forward to letters and notes stamped with this cutie!

For all your stamping needs, I highly recommend that you visit Sideshow Stamps.

(Saturday January 12, 2008)

I heart mail!

It's such a small thing, but I love getting the mail in the afternoons and then sitting down and looking through it. It's a quiet time and a part of my daily routine that brings me great pleasure. I especially love when there is actual mail and not just junk mail or bills! Today I not only received the latest issue of Craft magazine, but also a gift and a card from Erin. She made me a beautiful necklace that I am wearing right now. Perhaps I will post a picture when I am having a better hair day. :-)

Thanks, Erin! I can't wait to see the entire Morris-Joslyn-Palmer clan in two weeks!

Mushroom Barley Soup

We made another soup recipe with the slow cooker. This time it was Mushroom Barley Soup, which we served with multi-grain bread and goat cheese. So good, especially on a rainy day. Next time though I'll add more carrots because I really enjoy carrots and I felt like there weren't enough.

(post for Thursday January 10, 2008)

Going bananas

Steph has the funniest, most adorable monkey slippers. She bought them last year from Target. I am convinced that Target is the best big-box store there is. Seriously, they have everything there and a lot of it is really nice stuff. Steph always has to have warm slippers, whereas I prefer my feet to be free and unencumbered.

Debacle

For Christmas, one of my gifts was this Diana Lomography camera. What I did not realize is that it would be impossible to find 120 film in Nashville! I went to 3 stores, including Wolf Camera, trying to find this film. Finally I gave up and ordered a stash from Amazon, which arrived yesterday. As you can tell, this process is moving rather slowly. This evening I had planned to go and take some pictures, but it was pouring, not to mention the fact that it took me about 15 minutes just to figure out how to load the camera. I'm hoping tomorrow evening will yield better results. Once I finally take some pictures, the next step will be trying to find someone who develops 120 film. I may need to end up sending it out somewhere.

Brette and Kiki

The quality of this picture is really bad, but I only had my cell phone with me at the time. I had dinner at Gary & Dana's house tonight. They have 11-year old twins, Brette and Carson. The also have a 3 month old puppy, Kiki, an American Cocker Spaniel. Here is Brette with Kiki. After dinner the kids showed me how to play Guitar Hero and Pop Star. I didn't really like most of the songs on Guitar Hero, but Pop Star (which is basically karaoke you get points for) had a decent selection.

Sunday breakfast

Strawberries and blueberries with cottage cheese. Nothing extraordinary, but berries have been on sale at Publix all week, so we've been stocking up. And for out of season berries they really aren't too shabby.

Curried Zucchini Soup

I used my new crockpot for the first time today. I made curried zucchini soup and it was delicious. The soup was very easy to make. After what you see in the pot cooked for 5 hours, I put it in the food processor and voila! Crockpot plans for next week include mushroom barley soup. I think soup and some nice crusty bread is the perfect winter meal.

Cat love

It never fails to warm my heart when I see Winston and Louis cuddling together. Just look at them basking in the sunlight and grooming one another! Aww, it's so cute I can barely stand it. That blanket on the chair was put there one day when we were putting away laundry, but the cats like to sleep on it so much that we just kept it there. They usually sleep there together at night, while Beignet and Katie prefer to hog all the space on our bed.

News from the domestic homefront:

This is a picture of the stairs down from the kitchen and into the garage. This picture makes me so happy because there is actually a clear pathway between the house and our cars. Usually it is filled with empty boxes, muddy shoes, and paper recycling. Our garage had been a wreck for about 3 months, but today Steph cleaned it. Oh happy day! I feel like I have so much space when I walk out the door and I no longer have to worry about fire exit hazzards! Sometimes it's the small things that make you happy, you know?

And, come next week, even the trash and recycling you see to the right of the picture will be carted away with the trash! Squeeeee!!!

Because I always listen to Andrew!

We went to Barnes & Noble tonight because I wanted to pick up a book that had info on hiking trails in middle Tennessee. But, of course, being who I am, I couldn't just leave with that one book! I had to buy a whole basket of books and magazines.

After having a conversation with Andrew last night, I decided I needed to pick up ReadyMade, Craft, and Make magazines. I got subscriptions to ReadyMade and Craft for Christmas, but I can't wait 6 weeks! And when Andrew told me that he was going to make books out of his blog using something he saw in Make magazine, I knew I would need to have that magazine too. So hopefully these magazines will provide me with lots of fun project to do in the next few months.

I also may or may not have gotten some things for certain people who read this blog-- I can't say. Hmmm...

After B&N we went over to Dana's house and chatted with her for a few hours and played with her new puppy. Who can resist a soft and cuddly puppy? Definitely not me.

Lichen everywhere!

Today we drove about 30 minutes east of our house, to the Cedars of Lebanon State Park. We went on a 6 mile hike that was absolutely incredible. We saw enormous, deep sinkholes, hidden springs, lichen of dozens of varieties, birds, and of course, huge cedar trees. It was an incredible experience. Sometimes I forget how close our house is to absolutely raw land. It's like if you go west, you hit Nashville, but if you go the slightest bit east, you're in the middle of nowhere.

I took about 50 pictures, all of which I've uploaded to my Flickr page. You should check them out because they're pretty cool. We also made a video with my new Flip camera, but I haven't figured out how to upload the videos and work with them yet. So I may or may not post that later on tonight.


Steph in her little beanie hat. That hat is one of the first things she ever knit that wasn't a scarf. It was supposed to be a baby hat, but she messed up on the gauge. So now she wears it all the time.



Lichen! There were so many different varieties of lichen, greens and blues, prickly and soft and spongy. I can't even explain how different the landscape was from anything I've ever seen before.



The cedar trees were absolutely amazing! At times the forest was so dense that it felt like it was dark outside.