Thievery!

We had a breach of security a few weeks ago. I forgot to post about this earlier, but I took pictures (for the non-existent police investigation) so I thought I'd share a few.

The break in happened in the middle of the night. Of course our car was the only one broken into in the whole lot! They broke our window, ripped out our stereo, and stole a bunch of (monetarily worthless) stuff in the middle console. LAME!

It happened on a Friday night/Saturday morning, which is lame, because most window replacement places are not open on Saturdays. This is our only vehicle, so we had to get it replaced ASAP, because we needed it for church on Sunday, work on Monday, etc. Luckily, after much calling around we found a place that could come out that day, and not charge us TOO much.

We still haven't gotten the dashboard repaired, but a friend of ours from church "knows a guy" who can get the parts for us, so he's going to help us out with that.

We were very annoyed by this whole experience. My car was broken into about a year ago, so this is the second time in a year we've been through this, so while we knew what to do about everything, it was still obnoxious. In Columbus, you just report the break-in on-line. On-line! Can you believe that?! They don't even come out to take a look at it or anything. Ridiculous! Plus, the stupid thieves ripped out our whole dash! Take the stereo, just leave the dash board intact, please?!

Also, I got a piece of glass stuck in my hand while trying to clean it up, and still have not gotten it out. The skin has now grown over it, and it is pretty much a permanent part of my being. So yeah, VERY annoying.

All in all, just a VERY LAME experience.

(I promise a more up-lifting post will be on its way!)

Confessions Part II

Some things that intimidate me:
1. Cooking large hunks of meat. For example, Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas ham, roast, etc.
2. Baking artisan breads, especially ones that require any sort of starter.
3. Sewing anything other than a straight line, or anything that could be messed up without exact measurements.
4. Standing up in front of people to do anything. (examples: directing music, giving a talk)
5. Making small talk with people I don't know (or with people I do know, for that matter).
6. Driving strange cars in strange places. Or just driving strange cars. Or just driving in strange places.
7. Women with skinny jeans, Ugg boots, over-sized purses and large sunglasses (and men with those things, for that matter.)


I started to make a list of things that do NOT intimidate me just now, but I could only think of 2 things, so I got discouraged and stopped. For the record those 2 things were:
1. Waiting until the last minute to write 10+ page papers. (EASY!)
2. Baking (with the exception of #2 above).

Operation: I Will Never be a Hoarder

Last week, Ben's brother, Phillip, introduced us to Hoarders, a show on A&E (first season available instantly on Netflix) all about, you guessed it, hoarders. You know, those people who keep absolutely everything, including trash, rotting pumpkins, really old food, and cats. Like, 40 cats. Plus some dogs. Plus a bunch of dead cat skeletons because they have so many cats and so much stuff, they can't keep track of them. Yeah, that kind of hoarding.

Needless to say, we were horrifyingly fascinated and watched three episodes in a row. And then I watched another two by myself. Thanks a lot, Phillip.

This week, operation eliminate-all-my-possible-hoarding-tendencies has commenced. So far, I have organized the pantry, and am finally organizing my sheet music binders. I anticipate that my next project will be our closet!

I will never be a hoarder, I will never be a hoarder, I will never be a hoarder!

These are my confessions . . . .

1. Okay, so obviously, the first confession has to be that I like Usher. Yeah and Burn are two of my guilty pleasures. What can I say? I'm hard like that.
2. Along those same lines, I saw Jay-Z and Eminem perform on Letterman a few weeks ago, and I LIKED IT!
3. I really only have enough will power and self control to work on one thing at a time. For example, if I'm trying really hard to control my blood sugars, my other goals of say, exercising more, or eating less junk usually go out the window. Seems counter-productive, right? Welcome to my world!
4. I'm fascinated by disaster movies. I could watch Twister and The Day After Tomorrow every day of the week. I even like the cheesy made-for-TV disaster movies.
5. I've probably eaten chocolate at least once a day for at least the past 8 years. There may have been an occasional day here and there where I was trying to give it up. But, I really don't think I've ever gone more than 24 hours. Yikes.

So, that's all I could think of right now.

You can certainly expect a Confessions Part II some time in the future.

" . . . . and I don't know what I'm gonna do wit out my Boo."

Busy Busy & New Mex.

We have had quite a busy month and a half! First, we had a friend of ours, who was feeling a bit under the weather, stay with us a couple of weeks. Her husband has been out of the country for school, and she was not feeling well, so we invited her to stay with us for a bit.

Then, we had an AWESOME, if too short, visit from C. Burns. You're jealous, I know. Sadly, she is now living closer to most of my readership than she is to me, so now I'm the jealous one! Bah!

Then, I had to abandon my dear, sweet husband while I visited my mim (that's Erin for mom)! It was great to see my mim, but ever so awful to be away from Ben! Yikes! Luckily, we had Skype, texting, e-mail, instant messaging, and cell phones to keep us connected. I love technology! But not as much as Ben you see! Still, I love technology, always and forever. La la.

Here are some pictures from the trip to New Mex. Farmington is very beautiful! It sits right in this valley of sorts with bluffs on the side, with a couple of rivers running through it.

My mom is a librarian, and is obviously crazy about reading! This is the front plate on her car. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the library, because it's all kinds of awesome.

My mom took me to some nearby Native American ruins in Aztec, at the Aztec Ruins National Monement. VERY cool, and fascinating for a wanna-be anthropologist! This place was a thriving, sort of center point for Ancestral Puebloans in the area from 1100-late 1200s! Can you believe that?! All this was thriving while the crusades were going on in Europe! Crazy!

This thing that my mom is sitting near is called a kiva. They think it was used for spiritual or religious ceremonies, since modern Puebloans still use them in that sense today. It's basically this round-ish room that sits half way underground. There were big ones and little ones all over the place at these ruins. The one my mom is sitting near was smaller.

This site also had a "great kiva" that was restored by one of the earlier excavators and his team. Here is a picture of the outside, and then of the inside, with me in it.

I took a ridiculous amount of pictures at this place, which made me feel like a big nerd, but that's OK. It was really neat to see. It made me annoyed that we didn't learn more about this in school growing up. Maybe if I'd lived in the southwest I would have?

Any way, it was a good trip, good to see my mom, but it was oh so nice to be home again.

I just have to brag a little bit about my trip home: My plane from Farmington to Denver was half an hour late getting in. This left me with, oh, about 3 minutes to deplane in Denver, catch a train to a different terminal and board my plane to Columbus. I missed my little husband so much, that I was not about to let a little thing like a late plane make me miss my connecting flight! So, I literally sprinted, the entire way, from one terminal to the next, only stopping while I was riding the train to the next terminal, and I MADE IT!

As I was entering the terminal that my plane to Columbus was at, I heard them make the last call for boarding over the loud speakers! I almost started to cry and give up, I was so out of breath! But, I put on my game face, and did some awesome weaving through the crowds of people (shout out to Ben for teaching me the art of weaving!), and made it on that plane! Barely!

I was the second to last person on the plane! As I was getting on the plane, totally panting and out of breath, the flight attendant looked at me and said "You must have been running!". I was so out of breath I couldn't even talk, so I had to reply "My plane . . . (pant, pant), was late . . . (pant, pant). I was SO sweaty from running, and I had to pee REALLY bad, because I didn't have time to go in the airport, but the plane was about to take off, so I just had to sit down in my seat, which incidentally was the middle seat. Ugh! I'm pretty sure I smelled bad, but the two people on either side of me never said anything about it. Also, because I'm ridiculous, I didn't get out of my seat the whole 2.5 hour flight, so by the time we landed, I almost peed my pants. But, I did get to watch a great Queen Latifah movie on the way home . . .

Any way, it was SO worth the sprinting, the sweating, the holding it, the suffering through Queen Latifah acting, and even the sore calve muscles the next day, to get home to see my husband! I missed Ben! I missed this face!

More fun with Vegetables!

We have peppers! And LOTS of them! We have had to get creative to try to use up all of these green peppers, but it's been fun!

Also, we have a cute bunny living near our garden, or at least hanging out in the massive weed bush next to our garden. The picture is a little blurry, but you can just barely see him hiding behind that chicken wire! Cute! And, he is not even eating anything in our garden!

An Open Letter to My Migraine

Dear Migraine,

Here are some things I dislike about you:
1. You are the 2nd worst migraine I've ever had.
2. You force me to eat lots of chocolate and drink lots of caffeine. But this time, the medicinal benefits of those substances don't seem to be working, so basically you are just adding to the circumference of my thighs.
3. You are too damn persistent!
4. You are a tease. When I think you're about to be over, you come back with a vengeance!
5. You have horrible timing. Because the "Aunt Irma" time of the month isn't bad enough, you've got to come around and make a bad situation even worse.

Here are some things I like about you:
1. You will eventually go away. I hope.

So, yeah, Migraine. While right now it seems like you will be here forever, I still have hope that with enough caffeine, enough pain killer to kill a small pachyderm, and a few hormonal changes, you will eventually take a hike. I CHOOSE HOPE!!!!

Sincerely,

Erin