Christmas 2008

Mark's mom from Tennessee, and his sister and nephew from Summerville, SC came for Christmas this year. His sister and nephew came up on Friday through Sunday morning and his mom rode back to Summerville with them. Above is our Christmas dinner.

Getting the Currier and Ives collection out to eat Christmas dinner on. Matthew, our nephew, has more energy than all of the adults combined.

Obligatory Family Christmas Photo.

Sprinkles resting on my lap. He doesn't know what to think with all of the company.

And of course, Wii may have a problem......My husband is enjoying my nephew's Wii game "Guitar Hero". But not as much as he was loving the Wii golf. I played some of the baseball game and actually did pretty good! It is fun, but can be addictive. I suppose Wii will be buying one of these in the near future.

Okay, so I ran out of boxes to wrap gifts in and had to go to the pantry and get boxes from food to use. It was really quite funny. Especially when my nephew unwrapped his and it was a box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. He said "What is it?" I replied, "It's cereal. I was told that you really like cereal...don't you?" He looked like he had just seen a ghost. I told him to open it up and taste it. Of course, there was a gift card for him inside.

Why Heating Pads Are A Fire Hazard

I left a heating pad on for about an hour in the floor on top of my NEW house slippers and came back to a melted heating pad and a burnt house slipper and burnt carpet. We're lucky that we found it before we left for work that morning. Can you imagine? I threw away that heating pad and bought one with an automatic shut off on it.

Random Bullet Points

-We had over the couple across the street for dinner Sunday night. They're really nice and we like them a lot. They are computer engineers and expecting their first child. We were too lazy to cook, so Mark went to Red Hot and Blue and bought baby back ribs, BBQ, and all of the trimmings to serve. Of course I wouldn't want to mess up the theme of "pre-prepared" so a store bought Hershey's Turtle Pie was dessert.
-Mark's law firm office party was at a country club where we had brunch on Sunday. It was much better than I had anticipated, really. A boy's choir was brought in to sing. Mark bought $20 in raffle tickets for some fund raiser they were having and he won two drawings totaling $100 in gift cards! Rarely does that happen!
-My husband has recently become a fan of cashmere. He went to a huge sale at Jos A Banks (his favorite clothing store ever) and bought a boat load of clothes on sale including two cashmere sweaters. He said "I could just sit around and rub these sweaters." Really, he got a great deal. He got about $2300 worth of clothes for around $700!
-I am getting fat eating all of these holiday treats people are bringing.
-I went back to spin class and did a little bit better. I went to "aerobics" this morning and pretty much sucked at that too. Either I am just horribly out of shape or I seriously am uncoordiated.
-I have to work this Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sunday. Then work Tues, Wed, and Fri of next week. Whew!
-We forgot to set out the trash on Friday and it is overflowing. We're having to set extra bags along the wall in the garage because no more will fit in the can. Trash guys don't come again until Tuesday. Great.

Fitness Challenge(d)

As part of my birthday gift (in addition to a great digital camera--have you noticed I've taken more photos lately?), I asked Mark for a membership to a gym. It is a more upscale gym with it's cleanliness, new equipment, large variety of classes, etc. There are only four or five of them in the Raleigh area and nowhere else. I figured if it were a nice gym, then I'd WANT to go there, right? Also, it was an absolute necessity that where I join have classes. I don't do so well going walking on a treadmill because I get bored and can just leave whenever I want. I figured that a class would force me to stay for the full 45 mins-1 hr.

So, I went. First to an abdominal toning class. I could only do about 10% of what everyone else was doing. Basically I laid there the majority of the time. It was kind of funny. I figured I should do some sit ups at home before I return to that class. That was HARD.

Next, I signed up for a spin class. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it does not mean that you spin around in circles in the room for an hour. You are on a stationary bike with a group leader and they work you to the bones. They turn the lights out in the room so everybody except the instructor is in the dark and nobody has to get embarrassed about only being able to do a small fraction of the work out. A-hem. I did about 20% of what everyone else could do and left after 45 mins. Sitting on that little seat was not very comfortable either. But I did get a really good work out as I was completely drenched in sweat at the end. I figured maybe I need to ramp up my cardio on my own before returning to spin class.

So, I showed up the next day for Step class. The group looked more my age and also a few folks in their forties. I mean, how hard could it be. You have a step and you go up and down on it, right? Wrong. It was like some complex dance routine with a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader leading you while bouncing (yes, BOUNCING) up and down off of this step. I nearly fell off of the step numerous times and left the class well before it was over. If you are not fairly coordinated, you could seriously injure yourself in this class.

So, here I am. I'm slowly working my way through the classes at the gym, checking them off (as to not to return anytime soon) one by one. There are still more I am going to try. I just haven't done any serious exercising in quite some time and need to build up to it to be able to participate in these classes.

Today it hurts to even turn around or laugh. I am so sore in every part of my body. Especially where I sat on that hard, itty bitty seat on the bike.

Christmas Decorations

I wanted to document our Christmas decorations and new furniture for later printing of a scrapbook, so here are many photos of what we've done.

We decorated the outside very simply with one plain wreath hanging from a red ribbon on each of the front downstairs windows. Mark put a spotlight outside and it really looks good at night!

Our entry hall. Come on in!!!Living Room. We got a real tree again this year. A Fraser Fir. It sheds very litte. So far.The bannister decorated with live greens and real lemons. I was trying to be all Martha Stewart.A close up. Really, this takes longer than it looks like it would. I was quite surprised.I even strung fresh cranberries on top of the live greens for the mantle piece. I added some oranges, lemons, and pomegranates (sp?) to the mantle.Here's the sofa that I have just been having a stroke to get delivered. The velvet is incredibly SOFT. Awesome to lay on. I picked a different fabric when ordering the throw pillows though. So far I don't regret it and think that it ties into the chairs we got very nicely.And the chairs. They have little rollers on the front two feet of each chair. Also, nailhead trim. And guess what: they recline!!! And totally don't look like it!An antique piece that we bought to put the tv on. See the little stand on top with the cable box and DVD player under it? Mark MADE IT!! Yep. And it matches absolutely perfectly. Totally looks like it is supposed to be there.
The only gifts we've bought so far. Thank you Crabtree and Evelyn for running a 20% off sale!Our new breakfast set. SOLID WOOD TABLE that is so heavy I can hardly move it. There are two very large leaves that go in this that seat 8-10 comfortably. I don't think we'll ever use them though because they're entirely too big for the space!

And alas, all of the Christmas treats I have been hard at work on this weekend.

A few things I have learned.....

.....while making holiday treats and decorating for Christmas.

1. Fraser Fir trees do not shed as badly as Scotch Pine trees do.

2. Decorating with live greenery and live fruit is not as easy as it looks like it would be.

3. Wax paper and parchment paper are NOT the same thing, and cannot be interchanged when baking.

4. You cannot bake with wax paper in the oven. It will catch on fire. (Ask me how I know this.)

5. Do not wait until you're getting tired to start dipping candy in almond bark you have just melted. The almond bark won't re-melt properly. (Ask me how I know this too.)

6. I probably won't make cookie cutter cookies again. It took about six times longer to make them than if they were just round cookies. And a few gingerbread men ended up being amputees by the time they were packaged.

I spent all day Saturday and most of today making treats for our neighbors and a few others. I am not sure but I think I baked around 6 dozen cookie cutter cookies--and iced them ALL, 3 dozen chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, 1 dozen mini pound cakes, 2 dozen lemon pound cake mini muffins, 6 dozen pretzels dipped in chocolate, 2 dozen ritz cracker and peanut butter dipped in chocolate, and a tray full of rice crispy treats. And yes, I sampled everything. A few times. You know, just to make sure it was good. Mark helped me tie up and package all of them. Now they are sitting on our kitchen table waiting to be delivered tomorrow. I just don't have the energy to do it today!

Personality Types

Ever heard of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test? Well, you should take the test if you haven't already. It is absolutely amazing how dead on the results have been for Mark and myself.

I am an ESTJ and Mark is an INTJ. (click on the links to read about each and at the bottom of each page you can click on more info regarding careers, relationships, etc.)

If you want to take the test, click HERE. And you have to let us know what your results are and if you think they fit you well or not. I'm interested to hear from you. After you take the test, click on THIS link to find out more about your personality type.

Turning 30

Today marked a new phase in my life. My thirties. Sheesh. Where did my twenties go?

Well, I had a really great day! I just hung out and watched television for a couple of hours this morning and then got dressed to go to a short meeting. After that I drove to Mark's office and he took me to a great Thai restaurant (which I LOVE) for lunch. I then decided to get a haircut which has been way overdue. When I got home the doorbell rang and I had some beautiful flowers from our wonderful friends from Memphis, the Hoffmans. (Thank you, guys!!!)

I then proceeded to clean my entire downstairs. No idea why I was in that mode. Mark came home with an AWESOME peanut butter and chocolate cake from a bakery that the firm orders from. It had Reeses sprinkled all over it. Mark said "We'll see if we go into a diabetic coma tonight."

We ran some errands tonight and got some garland and wreaths and a ton of other Christmas decorations. We plan to get our tree tomorrow night and decorate it this weekend. And oh, yes, I will post many photos! :)

Thanks to everyone for all of the emails, phone calls, and flowers. It really was a very special day.

The dining room is almost done!

Here is a photo of the dining room. We lack one painting on the wall to the left and then changing the chandelier to something different. I have a chandelier that was in my parents' house that belonged to my grandmother that I want to use. But right now it's lost. I'm in great hopes that it will turn up soon.
The curtains are silk and Mark and I made them. Yes, we MADE them!! We put black out lining on the back and I am very happy with that. The hardware is by Levelor from Lowe's. They only took maybe 2 hours to pin up, sew and hang. We will NOT be trying Roman shades again like we did in Memphis. That was a nightmare.
The buffet was a killer deal from an antique store in Concord, New Hampshire when we lived there. It is solid mahogany and six feet long. The dining set (with the exception of the parson's chairs on each end) was bought at an estate sale in Germantown, TN when we lived in Memphis a few years ago. The painting was bought at an art store in Hot Springs, Arkansas and the two buffet lamps were a Christmas gift from my parents. So, that's the scoop with the dining room. Now we're just needing to finish up those two things in there and then we'll be ready to complete another room!

Scenes from Thanksgiving 2008

Here are some photos from Thanksgiving. We had a very short, but wonderful time with family. Only a couple of days were they here. We hope they will visit again soon.

Here is a delicious apple pie with caramel sauce and also an apple galette.

Here is my slave labor. Ha, I kid. Mother and sister in law peeling potatoes for our meal.

Enjoying the feast. Notice that we even used our chaffing dishes and the buffet!

And ending the day with some apple pie and delicious Gevalia coffee that my brother and sister-in-law brought us.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

My parents, brother, and his wife are coming to visit us for Thanksgiving. They'll leave tomorrow and arrive late tomorrow night and stay until Sunday morning. We're very excited to see all of them. We'll be celebrating Christmas and birthdays at that time too since we won't be going home for Christmas (due to my work schedule).

For Thanksgiving, we have our new chaffing dishes out and ready to go on the buffet. I bought two 10 pound turkeys and Mark will cook them. We drove all over the place trying to find FRESH bay leaves, thyme twigs, sage leaves, and some other stuff. I sure hope it turns out well because the spices alone were more than each turkey cost individually! We had previously decided to outsource our Thanksgiving meal to HoneyBaked Ham, but we had my family make big requests for the delicious turkey Mark cooked last year. So, he's gonna do it again. Our sides we plan to make are green bean casserole, creamed potatoes, carrot souffle, and creamed spinach. Dessert is an AWESOME apple pie that I made last month from Southern Living's November issue. It took a bit of time to make, but was totally worth it. Also, I'm gonna make a sweet potato galette. That will be a first and I hope it turns out well.

We have been quite busy lately with home renovation projects. I keep holding off on pictures because I want a finished product photo of the before and after. We seem to be doing a little dab in each room at the moment so nothing is completely finished. But Mark has made those boxes like the one in the post below above the window, all above the fireplace too. He's not done yet, but it is looking really good. Also, we're painting our cabinets and the island we painted last month. I ordered new hardware and we've put a few pieces on one section of cabinets. We chose an antique white so it's not super gleaming white.

I promise photos soon. If nothing but of the new furniture. At least that is complete.

Living Room Phase I

Before:

After:
We painted the wall a "Sandstone Cliff" and also put up some double lined silk drapes that are supposed to pool on the floor more than they do. But I got them 120 inches long and really should have gone longer. They're a gol and neutral/cream color. Notice above the window there was such a huge blank space, so Mark build some "picture frames" for the wall. We saw them in a lot of French decorating books, so I suppose this is going to end up being a very "French" themed room. We'll put more of the picture frame boxes above the other window and also the fireplace. It's just taking a while to get everything done here! But we really love doing home improvement projects.

Last night we went to one of Mark's firm get togethers. They rented out the Museum of Natural History and we went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. I had no idea what it was and had to google it before we went there. It was quite fascinating to see actual copies of Genesis and Exodus. They said it would take about an hour and a half to go through, but we did it in 35 minutes! They had food afterwards, but we skipped out and went to this really nice French restaurant that one of the other attorneys Mark works with had recommended. We hadn't planned to go there, but when we went in we figured since we didn't have a reservation we wouldn't be seated, but they had one table left for us!! Yay! It was absolutely delish! Mark had a prix fix four course dinner with the best fillet he had EVER eaten. I had a artichoke, pesto, ricotta tart with wild mushrooms and watercress salad. It was sooooo good. Even Mark liked it too. We headed home after that. So full we could hardly sleep.

Friends

Sprinkles and Miss Marble are getting along so much better now. I mean, there's still the occassional hissing and spatting, but overall it's at least an 80% improvement. The one with them asleep was taken last night. Mark missed their bonding moment as he was whisked away at the last minute to Philadelphia just for one night to meet with a potential client. He got back this afternoon on an earlier flight. We went and bought some silk drapes for the living room windows and also bedroom windows. I have to go to Lowe's tomorrow and get the hardware so we can hang them. I'm anxious to get them up. Also, the sofa, dinette, and bar stools that I ordered nearly two months ago should be arriving this week, hopefully.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Just a few random bullets since I'm working today and don't have access to post a picture.

-I'm at work today and am betting that I'll have very few pediatric patients after 3 p.m. I should have dressed up today!

-There is a Picasso reproduction in my clinic office. I had an elderly patient come in yesterday and asked me if that was something my child made. I tried not to laugh, but couldn't help it.

-We visited a church here in Raleigh, but I don't think it's the right fit for us. We'll keep searching.

Well, off to see patients. Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Come on over and have some coffee and a muffin with me

I made some apple cinnamon muffins and they were easy and delicious. I would give you the recipe, but I substituted so much stuff and played around with it that I can't remember now what all I did! I was just plain lucky that it turned out well. Mark has been gobbling them up. He likes apple stuff, which I'm usually not too crazy about.

Mark went with me for a nearly ten hour round trip back to D.C. to the dentist. I had my replacement crown done and I am finally DONE with those unethical people. I will research a little harder before choosing a dentist here. I still have a good bit of work left to be done with two more crowns. Both are old work that has "leaked" after many years.

Did I sleep through fall? It's suddenly gone from warm to terribly cold. I love fall weather where a light jacket is all you need. But the past few days I've been needing my winter coat and gloves.

I'm on call tomorrow, so if I don't get called in I'll be tidying up around the house. I have so many things to photograph and write about. The most frustrating is that I still detest the camera that I bought last year and my home desktop computer has bitten the dust. Again. Except this time I think it just lost it's ninth life and won't be coming back. Maybe my husband will get me a new laptop for my 30th birthday coming up. Or a new digital camera. (Did you get that, honey?) I'm using his work laptop at the moment. I'm sure he's tired already of me stealing it from the moment he walks in the door.

Well, off to eat a little snack before bed.

The Fruits of our Labor

This afternoon it was less cold outside, so we decided to do a little bit of yard work. We emptied out the front rain barrell on our lawn (still haven't figured out what's wrong with our sprinkler system). We used some of the water out of the back rain barrell to water the roses.

I made some flower arrangments from our current crop. There are a lot of long stem red roses about to bloom in the front. Those are fantastic for bigger vases.

And there you have it. Thank you Jackson & Perkins!

P.S. This is the new patio set we bought back in August. I am loving it. It's heavy as can be, which is a plus. I think I am going to let it weather naturally instead of applying teak oil twice a year.

Parents Visit

My parents are here for a visit while my mom is on fall break. We've had a good time. Mainly they've enjoyed spending time at our home and running errands with me. Today we went to Raleigh's Museum of Natural Science. It was really nice and an excellent place for kids. They had a lot of independent little stations set up by the EPA, Duke, NCSU, etc. for chemistry experiments and such. It was totally packed. And best of all....FREE!!!

Tomorrow we hope to go on the tour of homes here and get some decorating ideas for the house. My cousin, Jenna, who lives in Raleigh and teaches at a local private school is supposed to come over for dinner. I can't wait to see her! It's been soooo long.

Appliance Review Part One: Bosch Dishwasher

I really enjoy reading other people's posts about things they buy or try and what they like and dislike about it, so I thought I'd give it a whirl as we're redoing a lot of stuff around the house.

Exhibit A: The Bosch dishwasher.
We've had this for about three weeks now, and there are definitely things that I like about it. For one, I like that it's buttons are concealed in the top where you can't see them unless you open the dishwasher. I also like the stainless outside and stainless interior tub. It has an adjustable rack in the top that can be moved to three different levels, which has allowed me to wash many things that were not possible in other dishwashers I have owned. It's also extremely quiet. This is a big plus since the kitchen opens into the family room somewhat.

But there are definitely features that I dislike about it too. For one, it does not have a built in food grinder. So, you have to clean the filter in the bottom out yourself. I have been checking after each load and it hasn't needed it so far. Another thing is that it doesn't clean nearly as well as my KitchenAid dishwasher did. Maybe I'm just not loading it right. Which leads me to another feature: the bottom rack. There are fewer horizontal and vertical bars in the bottom, so you can't stick a drinking glass in the bottom rack to wash if you needed to because it would fall right through. The other thing is that when it's done, it beeps. And beeps. And beeps. So, I can't turn it on before I go to bed-which I frequently do, unless I want an alarm clock going off about an hour later. There's no other way to check to see if the load is done unless you open the door and see the light that indicates that the cycle is complete.

We didn't go with KitchenAid again because the previous one that we owned which was practically silent, suddenly had this horribly loud grinding noise after a few months. The technician came out and couldn't find anything wrong. We also had been set to buy the Fisher and Paykel dishdrawers as it was supposed to save water, etc. But the reviews were not very good, so that went out the window. Bosch had gotten the best reviews. So, overall, I'm glad that we bought it and no dishwasher is going to be perfect.

Happy Birthday Leslie!

Mark's mom and brother (Leslie) came for a less than 24 hour visit this weekend. They dropped off the Adirondack chair that Leslie made for us for Christmas a couple of years ago. We had an early 42nd birthday party for him too. We drove them around showing them RTP where Mark works and then went to a church this morning that we'll never go back to I'm sure because it was so incredibly far away...but it had the earliest service time. There wasn't much time to do much else though.

We spent a great deal of time on the yard this weekend and are having a lot of trouble getting our underground irrigation/sprinkler system to work. I guess we'll have to end up calling someone to come out and look at it. We were trying to water our yard with our rain barrel water and I was taking some from my watering can over to the little area between the sidewalk and the street. The area around the stop sign looked awfully dry so I was watering that area when I heard someone yell "The sign, it doesn't grow at all!" Our neighbor, Pete, was in his yard and laughing at how it really looked like I was watering the stop sign. I guess it did seem funny. I ended up cutting all of the blooming roses off of the rose bushes and with some help of the boxwood as a filler, I made three large arrangements in vases.

I work this M, Tu, Wed and then my parents are visiting Wed evening through Monday morning (when I have to go back to work). So, I'm sure I'll be posting photos from their visit as well. I will also write a follow up on the politics post, but things are so crazy busy right now, that I just don't have the time to sit down and do some thorough research. But I'll try my hardest to get that up. Have a great week, everyone!

FOUND!

I found Miss Marble (left) in the storm drain when I went for a walk the other morning. Apparently she is there by her own choice. We think she was living in a storm drain where we used to live and maybe when she gets scared she goes back to what she knows: the drain. She stays right there everytime we go to look. She doesn't like staying in the house and has been keeping us up all night wanting to go outside. So when Mark got home yesterday he let her out. Now she won't come back in. I suppose if she gets hungry enough she will.

Also, the above is a chair and ottoman that we found a good deal on here. It's one of those that doesn' t look like it reclines, but it really does. We also finished painting the one green wall in the living room and will start on one of the guest bedrooms today. I'll post some photos of it all either tonight or tomorrow.