I'm trying to stay awake so I will blog.

I'm trying to stay awake as long as I can, because we have a gigantic line of tornado producing thunderstorms heading our way. Because Ohio is awesome, these storms will be hitting the Columbus area around 2am, right in the middle of when we're sleeping! Ben could sleep through a train coming through our bedroom, and I can't sleep without a fan on, which blocks out the noise of the tornado warning sirens. So, I'm going to stay up and watch the weather reports to make sure we'll be OK and so I can hear the tornado sirens if they go off. We live right next to a high school where one set of the city's sirens are located, so when they go off we can hear them nice and loud, unless we're sleeping! So, I'm trying to do things to keep myself awake, and blogging is on the list!

Here are things of note in the Carper household, in no particular order:

1. I have rediscovered Fresca. And consequently am making it my personal mission to drink enough of that sweet nectar to fully stock up our supply of emergency water storage containers.

2. We bought a car. Turns out we both have amazing credit (my credit score is one point better than Ben's--I'm just sayin') and we got a great interest rate on a loan through our Credit Union. And we desperately needed a new car. So, good credit + tax return + desperate need = New Car for the Carpers! It's a 2008 Ford Focus, it is a not-ugly color of green, and we love it. It makes the pot-hole ridden streets of Columbus much more pleasant to drive! And it has a CD player with an auxiliary port for our iPod. And apparently it has some sort of voice "sync"-ing thing that allows you to use your voice to have the car turn stuff on, or make calls on your phone. I don't think we'll ever use that. Now if only we can keep this car from being broken into, everything will be great! Knock on wood. Here is a picture of it. We've already driven it to Cincinnati and back.

3. We went to Cincinnati! We went to visit our good friend Mary Ellen (a former grad. school buddy) who now lives and works in Cinci. She has season tickets to the Reds games, and invited us down for a Saturday game. It was both Ben and my second MLB game EVER! They played the Pittsburgh Pirates, and WON! And there was even a GRAND SLAM during the game! It was freezing cold and a little bit rainy, but we had great seats and enjoyed all the classic baseball game fare like overpriced hot dogs and singing "Take me out to the ball game" during the 7th inning stretch. Awesome. Thanks Mary Ellen!

4. I might end up having up to 6 piano students in the fall! One of my fellow church members teaches piano, and has too many students already and wants to send some potential students my way. Yes, please!

And that's all for now.

I'm so tired. I hope I can make it until the storms pass . . . Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.