A Christmas Miracle

Our house is at least a century old and probably older.  We love it, but it definitely has its challenges...for instance how there are no closets, how there is no central heating or ac, how we don't have a dish washer or washing machine, how there is no shelving space, how most of the outlets only have two sockets instead of three, and oh yeah how those outlets seem to appear in random spots so you have millions of cords weaving around the entire house...but all of these seemingly inconveniences make me love this house so much more because they usually become puzzles to solve or creative projects.  Plus, a lot of the things I listed really aren't that big of a deal anyway.  The heating system seems to work pretty well so far, we haven't dealt with the ac issue yet, we do our laundry once a week at Tanner's parents, having to actually wash our dishes by hand has made us cleaner overall, and no closets or shelving space has made us actually sort through all of our random stuff, making our house more organized.  But the outlet problem never ceases to be an annoyance, especially in the kitchen and living room.  I feel like we have SO many extension cords and power strips.  We even have to plug the toaster oven into an extension cord across the kitchen to use it.

Last night we were setting up our Christmas tree and as you can now imagine, I was thinking about which extension cord and outlet we should use - or if we were going to have to buy another extension cord - just to plug in the Christmas tree lights.  That's when the miracle happened.  We moved the armoire we keep in the living room a little to the right to make room for the tree and voila! there was an outlet I've never seen before.  No need for an extension cord at all.  Picture evidence to follow.  

example A: toaster oven connected to two
socket extension cord.

example B: giant power strip connected to
hundreds of cords.

final product/a christmas miracle - no

extension cord needed!

tired&sleepy husband on a snowy sunday

Happy (early) Christmas season to all!

please alway parking here more better

I found this hilarious note as I was "cleaning" today and I meant to blog about this (shhhh) months ago.  For some reason I had left my car at Elizabeth's house overnight, which is only 5 or 6 blocks away from our apartment, and when I woke up the next morning, I realized what I did and had to practically run over to her house to make it to class in time.  When I saw someone had left a note on my car - which usually entails something nasty and rude - I felt annoyed, until I actually read it, after which I couldn't stop laughing.

I guess I did a bad parking job.

Vegas 2010

This past weekend we drove to Vegas for Gus's first birthday party, and I cannot believe it was only one year ago that we drove down on a Saturday morning for a very short 24-hour trip to meet him for the first time.  When did the years start going by so fast?  Maybe I'm getting old.  Anyway, it was an especially fun trip because we got to hang out with Johnny & Heather & Eliza, Vicky & John, Azy's mom - Allison, and of course Chris & Azy & Gus.  And of course, no trip to Vegas is complete without losing a little money to the roulette table and being hypnotized (i.e. attempted to be hypnotized) by a street hypnotist on the strip.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of those events, but I did document Gus's party, which was way more fun anyway.

Gus and his birthday cake that he was so nervous to touch

so fun to see Johnny&Heather

Birthday boy and his family

Eliza wearing her dress that she refused
to take off all weekend - so cute

Tanner and Gus

Gus and Eliza both distracted with something over my head

no birthday party is complete
without party hats

And not to steal Gus's thunder - but it is November 11th - which means a happy happy birthday to Vicky!  Check out her birthday post on Carly's blog here.

i am a chronic "loser" of things

Today was freezing and I think it is only going to get colder.  When it gets really cold, my hands and feet shrink, kind of like the wooden doors in the house I grew up in.

Tonight at work, I kept noticing that my wedding ring was sliding around, but I didn't think much about it until I realized it wasn't there at all.  I had just dropped off a check to a table of three (high maintenance) girls and when I felt for it as is my habit, there was nothing there.  Of course I could not remember the last time I had noticed it on my finger, all I knew was that I definitely wore it to work.  At first I was pretty optimistic about finding it - especially with the help of the other waitresses - but after digging through all of the disgusting trashes (seriously disgusting...wet wipes, used napkins, slurped on edamame, old stinky fish....) and sorting through the linen bag with still no luck, I started to feel panicky and on the edge of tears.  Now, I'm the first to say that a ring is just a ring, but it really has come to mean a lot to me and I felt sad thinking I would never have the original ring Tanner asked me to marry him with.

The restaurant was all swept and there was still no sign of my ring.  I knew it had to be in the restaurant somewhere, but I started to think I had missed it in the trash and the thought even crossed my mind that one of the girls from my table had to have taken it, even if by accident (silly me).  Finally, my last table - a party of eight - left and as I was bussing their table, I started to stack the little soy dishes onto the kids meal bento box and guess what I find sitting among the crispy wonton chips?  Yes - in the kids meal, there it was!  I was really surprised the kid - who was probably 8-10 years old - didn't see it mixed in with his food and I'm really glad he didn't accidentally eat it.  But seriously, I don't understand how no one saw it.

In case you didn't know, I lose things all the time.  Mostly my keys and an occasional article of clothing, but I am pretty used to losing my stuff and Tanner is pretty used to me texting him in the morning freaking out about not being able to find my stuff.  Well, the other day I was on my way to school and I was looking for my debit card to bring with me to campus so I could buy myself lunch.  I was nervous because when I looked in my wallet, my license was gone too, which caused me extra stress knowing I would need it to get to Iowa in a couple of weeks.  So I came home from school early because I develop ulcers over things like this and I was texting Tanner about it the whole time.  I felt like I looked everywhere - every pair of pants that I own, every jacket, every purse, in the couches, and I couldn't find it.  Tanner walked in the door a little while later while I am still searching and he lifts up the mail sitting in the little basket we keep next to the front door and my license and debit card are of course plain in sight.  He threw them on the floor laughing and I ran into the kitchen covering my face because really, I felt sheepish! (sheepish is my new favorite word, right tanner?)

Well that's about as exciting as it gets on a Monday for me and Tanner.  I guess the moral of these stories is don't have me watch anything important for you - except you Elizabeth - I promise I take great care of your clothes!