Joyous News!!

Congratulations to Angie and Andrew on the birth of Evelyn Marie! I am so excited to meet her and share in your joy!

Matt left for softball camp early this morning. I half-awoke to say good-bye and then slept for a couple more hours. Berkeley and I went for a walk and then I headed out for the day. I'm at work right now and have a couple things to get done and plan to meet Sarah and mom for lunch in a little while. It is nice to have a day without too many specific plans.

I plan to spend this evening alone in my house just enjoying the solitude. Sarah is coming over tomorrow with desires to learn how to back a pie from scratch (crust and all) and scones. She also mentioned desires for chicken pot pie, but we may put that on the back burner until the weather is more appropriate. She shared with me a recipe for brownies made with Guinness that we may be trying. My co-workers will likely enjoy the fruits of our labor :)

I am out of town the next three weekends (KC, then Springfield, then STL) and August is sure to fly by with something to look forward to every weekend.

Resolutions

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to begin blogging more.
I even set a goal for myself that I would blog at least three times per week.
I thought this seemed like a reasonable goal.

Apparently not.

So I decided that before I get halfway through the year without blogging, I should get a start on that resolution.

On the subject of resolutions, I have also decided to get back on the weight loss kick I was on last summer. I have realized that my life is just far too out of control from January through mid-April to be too hard on myself about losing weight. I'll be happy with maintaining through the craziness that is interview days and file review time. Now that it is summer and my work life is much less crazy, I'll be returning to my weekly weigh-ins in Tuesdays because that seemed to work really well last time. I have hired a trainer at the gym Matt and I joined a few months ago, and I am committed to reducing my portion sizes and focusing on more fruits, vegetables, good proteins, and whole grains. I am trying to shed processed foods, and junk from my diet. I will always have weaknesses (salt for me), but I can learn how to control them.

We enjoyed a fun-filled and very busy weekend. I joined my friend and co-worker Mackenzie for some sushi at the Urban Wine Company and then sat in the THIRD ROW for a performance of Wicked! It was phenomenal! Amazing show, incredible cast - I would have watched it twenty times if I could have!

Saturday we enjoyed a nice trip to the farmer's market for tomatoes, salsa, cottage bacon, and ciabatta roles - YUM! I love, love, love the farmer's market. After we walked around, made our purchases, and enjoyed a gorgeous spring/summer morning, we met up with Pell and Bren for a trip to the Urban Wine Festival (hosted by the Urban Wine Company - are you getting the weekend theme, here?). We were able to taste several different wines and enjoyed more of a gorgeous day. Our day of fun did not end there though - we enjoyed a late lunch at M's Pub (yes, I had to have some lavosh!) and then headed to Lincoln for some Ivanna Cone and to watch my friend Michelle compete in a women's rollerderby match. I can honestly say it was my first rollerderby match - and I am very thankful that they included a demonstration of how it all works prior to the start of the match. Those girls are viscious! There was one girl taken off on a stretcher during the match and Michelle told us that two girls on her team are out with broken legs, and one is out with a separated shoulder - all caused by roller derby! Michelle's team did not win, but it was a unique and interesting event to attend.

We hosted a small gathering at our house last night and had a great night celebrating the beginning of summer with friends and family. Matt made some homemade ice cream (vanilla and maple-grapenut) and we grilled hamburgers, chicken, and sausages and everyone brought something to share! Fun times!

My camera is out of commission at the moment so I don't have any photos of our fun weekend to share :(

Wonderful

The wonderful smell of homemade banana bread in the oven is filling my house right now. Matt and I had some bananas that had moved beyond the edible point so I whipped up some banana bread for him while he was at the softball coach's meeting tonight. I'm not a huge fan of banana bread, but the smell filling my house right now is pretty incredible. I'm excited to see how the recipe turns out because it is a new one and I was intrigued because it includes plain yogurt. I guess we will know soon how it turns out.

I stayed home from work today. I woke up at about 4am this morning and felt like I was going to be sick. I never actually got sick, but I still wasn't feeling 100% when my alarm went off at 6am. Stephanie is 38 weeks pregnant and we have an agreement in our office that we will not come to work if we are sick, so I called in. The last thing I want to do is give Stephanie the stomach flu or something like that. The good news is I don't think I have the stomach flu, but I still don't know why my stomach was so upset in the middle of the night.

Matt and I spent Friday night watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We decided to enjoy some Chinese food to keep with the theme of the evening and then spent the evening ohhing and ahhing over the opening ceremonies. I'm a huge sucker for the Olympic Games and I usually enjoy the opening ceremonies even though some people find them boring. Friday night's ceremonies did not disappoint. The Chinese put on a wonderful show for the world and it was fantastic to see all of the athletes together for the Olympics again.

As a Olympic junkie I've been pretty attached to the television for the last couple of days. However, a DVR is an Olympic junkie's best friend - as long as you can keep up with watching. The US women's basketball team played during my workout on Saturday morning (beating China handedly) and I tried to stay caught up until I picked up my mom for some shopping on Saturday afternoon. I was in desperate need of a new work shoes - both winter and summer and I managed to find a pair of each at Yonkers on Saturday and only spent $55! I found several items at Pottery Barn I could have purchased on the spot, but held off for the time being.

After shopping I came home, watched a little more of the Olympics and then Matt and I headed to Becky and Dan's for their annual fiesta. It was a little tamer this year that it has in the past and we had a great time chatting with them, Becky's mom and playing with Josie - their chihuhua who was absolutely thrilled with all the people at her house (insert sarcasm here). Poor Josie. Interestingly enough - it was the tamest fiesta I have been to, but apparently the cops paid them a visit after we left. Isn't that how it always goes?

Yesterday, my family attended Flip's memorial service. Flip's wife Kathleen, his daughter Rachael, and sister Phyllis all traveled up from Kentucky for the service and it was nice to see them. Ron's brother Richard also attended and while I've heard many stories about him, I had never met him before. We got the chance to laugh and share stories about Ron and his life. And, as would be fitting, we ended the evening at Pizza King in CB, which was Ron's absolutely favorite. I don't think he ever returned to the area without visiting Pizza King.

Matt and I are currently wtching the US Mens' Gymnastics Team in the team competition. Holy Cow! They totally rocked it on the high bar! I love when the underdog succeeds!

Weekend Recovery...

My houseguests have left and I have finally recovered from the weekend and have time to update. I got up early on Friday morning and headed for some pampering and a pedicure. It was absolutely wonderful. I have extremely ticklish feet and some parts of a pedicure are torture for me, but the scrubber that the girl I go to uses is really gentle and doesn't tickle at all. So, it was an hour of pure relaxation and a great way to start my day. Then I headed to HyVee, grabbed a decaf, non-fat iced caramel macchiato, and picked up all the items I needed for my salad and dessert for Friday night. Well - everything except for a yellow pepper, which looked horrible at HyVee so I had Matt pick one up for me at Target.

I spent all of last week craving chocolate pecan pie (which is strange considering that I had never had chocolate pecan pie before) so I decided to give it a try for dessert of Friday. The recipe for the pie was fairly easy, but I wanted to try making homemade pie crust for the first time. I checked several different recipes before finding one I felt comfortable with and gave it a try. I found it to be easier than I expected and will likely never buy pie crust again. The crust turned out flaky, buttery, and really good - and the filling wasn't bad either. I also made lemon bars and Matt made homemade vanilla ice cream. I was really excited about trying a salad recipe I found with lettuce, red pepper, yellow pepper, onions, artichokes, blue cheese, and a really good viniagrette dressing. It turned out really well and I'll definitely keep it on my list to make again. The artichokes and blue cheese made a really interesting flavor combination.

My mom's birthday party was a big success. It was a fairly small party, just my family, the Hoodys and the Witters. Matt's parents decided to not attend so Matt and his brother came over for a little while, but left before we ate. Brenda got her new fridge delivered about 2.5 hours before everyone was scheduled to arrive. Her old one had slowly been losing the ability to keep cold. Brenda felt that the situation was likely aggravated by the fact that they lost power in the storm in June and the fact that their fridge was over 20 years old. I headed over early to help her set up as her afternoon was a little topsy-turvy. We enjoyed great food (including fabulous bruchetta from a local Italian take-out place that I will be visiting soon!), with great friends. I didn't arrive home until almost midnight!

We got up early on Saturday morning and headed to the Farmer's Market with Matt's folks. I don't know what they really thought of it, but I enjoyed it as always. I picked up some fresh sweet basil, fantastic tomatoes, green beans, and we picked up some of the pre-made enchiladas that we love to keep on hand because they are easy to warm up when we don't feel like cooking. We grabbed some breakfast at the Parthenon. I had an elephant ear that was perfect - flaky, sweet, wonderful. I also enjoyed a fantastic cup of homemade root beer.

The farmer's market was really our only excitement during the rest of Matt's parents visit. We cooked them dinner on Saturday night and my parents joined us for dessert. Then we took them to Summer Kitchen Cafe for a great Sunday morning breakfast. They left soon after breakfast and then my mom, Sarah, and I took my grandma to see Momma Mia! It was a cute movie and I think Grandma enjoyed it.

Work has been crazy the past two days. I've received more emails than I can keep up with and I am trying to get everything set for travel this fall. There are just not enough hours in the day. I'm hoping to get completely caught up tomorrow, but I will likely have to shut myself in my office to make that happen.

The start of the weekend...

We had Stephanie's office shower yesterday afternoon at the Twisted Fork. The decor was very eclectic - an industrial ceiling, chandeliers, and animal heads hanging on the walls. Dayo did not make it to the shower because he wasn't feeling well yesterday so Kim told him to stay home and not risk getting Stephanie sick in her final weeks of pregnancy.

We ordered drinks and appetizers to share. The menu is also very ecclectic - we shared fried dill pickel spears, a cheese plate (with goat, sheep and cow cheese, with apples, pepper jam and candied walnuts), and dippin shrimp - which were shrimp in buffalo sauce served with chunky blue cheese dressing. They were served in a martini glass - so much fun!

Kim and Mackenzie both ordered fun drinks. Mackenzie is a big fan of Bloody Marys and Kim got a passion fruit margarita.

Yes, Mackenzie's Bloody Mary was served with a dill pickle spear on top.

We gave Stephanie a Vera Bradley diaper bag. She mentioned at one time to me that she would really like one and I was fairly certain she would not spend the money to buy one for herself.

We had a small scare yesterday because Stephanie did not feel well all Thursday night, and sometimes that can be an early sign of labor. She has had some complications in her pregnancy and her labor will be complicated because she is taking blood thinners that she has to get out of her body before she goes into labor. So, if she is in labor, she needs to know ASAP. But, her sickness disappeared so hopefully it was just a bad reaction to something she ate. We are all excited to meet Alice, but I think Stephanie would like a few more weeks before she makes her appearance.

We shared dessert - a s'mores brownie - which was divine!

Matt and I enjoyed a quite night at home last night, except for a walk we took around our neighborhood once it started to cool off a little bit. We ended up heading to bed early, and I got to sleep in this morning. After heading to the gym for a bit, I took off to do some shopping for Matt's birthday. Sometimes I really struggle with knowing what to get him, and this birthday was defintely one of those times. I wandered around for awhile, managed to figure out a gift for him (a giftcard that I know he will use) and ended up finding a couple of items for our kitchen. We had received a giftcard to Pier One and I usually like to find something special to use a giftcard for and had not found anything spectacular at Pier One in awhile. However, I did today - found glass containers for my kitchen counter to hold flour, sugar, tea, etc. I plan to get them set up tomorrow and will definitely take a picture when I get them set up.

Matt and I watched the Cardinals game tonight - a 5 hour, 14 inning marathon. The Cardinals ended up on top, which is great because they had lost their last five games after sweeping the Padres starting the second half of the season. Hopefully this changes their path for awhile. Chris Carpenter is supposed to get a start this week!!!

I'm exhausted today so my post will likely not be too long. I had a terrible case of insomnia last night and definitely remember 1am coming and going before I finally fell asleep. Needless to say, the 6am alarm was not very welcoming.

I'm not sure what caused this as my weekend was pretty calm. Matt and I went out for Date Nite on Friday. We decided to eat a Granite City, one of our favorites when we lived in Lincoln, but we had not yet been to the one here. The menu is different and my favorite salad, the buffalo chicken one, is gone. I had to settle for a dinner salad and a cup of Cheddar and Ale soup. Matt really likes their Chicken Parmesan and must have been craving it because he didn't even look at the menu when we got there.

I went to work out on Saturday morning then met a friend for lunch, shopped for a baby gift, and went to the baby shower. It was incredibly hot out on Saturday - we defintely experienced a typical July day in the midwest.

Matt and went to see Hancock on Saturday night. I was aware of the basic plot of the movie, but was surprised by the direction it took. I won't give any more away, but I thought it was good. It is funny, serious, and a little dark at times.

We had family dinner at my parent's last night. Jim and Matt were both missing so we invited Grandma along. We enjoyed my favorite Cajun Shrimp and had pound cake, peaches and ice cream for dessert - the first good peaches I have had this year. We also pulled out old family pictures and had a great time looking through them.

Although tomorrow is Tuesday I will not be posting my new weight because Mackenzie and I will be at the Dave Matthews Band concert at the Qwest. I have never seen/heard DMB in person and I am really excited. However, I checked my weight tonight to see where I was at, and I am expecting a good number on Wednesday when I check in!

I'm headed to bed - let's hope that tonight is a better night than last night!

Weekend Wrap-up

My mom and I attended the morning session of the swimming trials on Saturday. We watched 10 heats of the Men's 1500 meter. Just so you know, the world record for this event is 14min. 34 seconds - so we spent about 2.5 hours watching swimmers swim back and forth across the pool. Regardless, I loved it. My mom and I ate lunch downtown and then walked around the Old Market for awhile before meeting up with my dad and Matt for the evening session. We were able to see several great races including the finals for the Men's 50 meters. Very exciting.

I got to sleep in on Sunday because there were not morning swimming events which was great because I was up early both Friday and Saturday to get down to the Qwest. Matt and went to work out, watched a little bit of the Cards/Cubs game and then headed downtown for dinner at Jim's before we headed to the final night of the trials. We saw an exciting Women's 50 meter race in which Dara Torres won, set an American record and qualified for her 2nd event in her 5th Olympic games. Amazing! The Peking Acrobats performed after the show - which was incredible to see. It was actually the second time I have seen them as the performed at Truman when I was a student there.

Work has been busy the last couple of days. My email has been fairly out of control lately, I have an event I am planning next week that requires alot of details and a creating a 2 hour presentation from scratch, and I'm trying to prepare for travel this fall. I'm excited to travel again especially because I've already been through it once. It is alot easier to make plans (plane, hotel, car, etc) when I know what I'm getting into.

I've decided that it takes about three days to become comfortable with a city. I think that Matt and I finally feel today like we have a little bit of a clue about where we are going in this city...and we leave early tomorrow morning. Ironic, huh?



We got going pretty early this morning and headed downtown. There isn't much available for breakfast around our hotel besides Starbucks and fast food so food was on our minds the minute we got off the MAX. Luckily we quickly found a Rock Bottom Brewery. I first ate at a Rock Bottom Brewery in Indianapolis last fall when I went to NACADA and really liked it so I was excited to see one here and I knew that Matt would like it. The atmosphere is really nice and we enjoyed just being able to sit for a little while - I think we both felt like we have been go-go-go since we got here. Rock Bottom Brewery has the most fantastic pint glass sundaes made with Starbucks Mud Pie ice cream, homeade Stout Hot Fudge, chocolate wafers and candied walnuts = heaven in a pint glass. We shared.

After lunch we walked around downtown for awhile and the headed up to the Nob Hill area of Portland which has everything from local boutiques to large nationwide stores like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma to restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses. It was a really neat area and actually just up the street from where Alice lives. I shopped at a store called SameUnderneath and found a couple of fantastic shirts that I cannot wait to wear. Amazingly we got to meet the owner and the clothing designer while we were there! They are completely down-to-earth genuine people. Take some time to read about their products - it is made out of bamboo and is incredibly soft and comfortable.

It started sprinkling while we were shopping so we caught the streetcar back to downtown and stopped at a pub called Henry's Tavern - where they have over 100 beers on tap! It was incredible to see. Matt enjoyed a Honey Orange Beer while I opted for a Mojito that was made with pineapple juice - delicious!

We headed back to our hotel after finishing our drinks and relaxed for awhile. We both spent a little bit of time doing some research for out trip to Seattle tomorrow. I've heard so many good things about it - I cannot wait to see Pike's Market and the Space Needle. I've also heard the drive up there is beautiful and I am excited to experience it!

It is strange that everyone here complains about this weather - it is either too hot for this time of year, too cold, they are tired of rain or it is too humid. Matt and I offer them so sympathy as we have loved the weather here. Saturday was cool and rainy, but we thought it was such a nice break as we have not seen rain and cool weather in Nebraska for quite some time. And I can't hardly feel the humidity here as it is nothing like the 100% humidity we have in the midwest sometimes.

I stopped by work for awhile this afternoon for some peaceful work time before my busy week begins. This week shouldn't be too bad, but I have training for at least half a day 4 out of 5 days this week so I won't be able to get much quality work time in. I actually love working when the office is quiet - I feel so accomplished!

Anyways, my point was to mention that wall of our office is only windows, which is great for getting a great view of a beautiful day - unfortunately, those floor-to -eiling, wall-to-wall windows also face west, which means that post-noon everyday it really starts to warm up in here...especially in my cubicle because I face the windows. The last time I checked our thermostat said 85.5 degrees..I'm sure it is warmer on my side of the "wall" (the partial wall created by our cubicles). Let's hope it cools down by morning!! Oh - yeah - forgot to mention that the university practices energy efficiency and turns off our AC every weekend and evening.