22
May, 2007

delicious new restaurant!

a few weeks ago, two of my co-workers went to lunch and came back with rave reviews. they said it was this little hole-in-the-wall place that looked like it was still being renovated and still had the old sign that said “sacramento bakery” even though that wasn’t what it was anymore. now, instead of a bakery, they serve mexican food. mr. h-s and i are big fans of mexican food, and i’d had kind of a rough day at work today* so we decided to try this place out. we were a bit dubious when we walked in. the entire time we ate there, no one else came in. it does indeed look like it’s still under renovation (screw holes in the wall from the storefront’s previous occupant, etc.). they actually do have the name of the restaurant painted on the front windows now, but you can’t really see it until you drive up. here’s the kicker–the food is really, really good. i had a carne asada burrito (big enough to save half for lunch tomorrow, no filler rice, only $4.50) and mr. h-s had three tacos–pork, chicken, and carne asada ($2.00 each). they brought out two kinds of salsa–a smoky red salsa with overtones of mole (or maybe just chipotle? i didn’t have much of that one) and a delicious, bright green salsa with tomatillos, cilantro, and i thought it might have even had some avocado–but it wasn’t thick or creamy at all. the chips were fried corn tortillas with just the right amount of salt. i don’t know if i’ll ever go back to qdoba. so very tasty. and so very affordable. so very yum.

*we’re gearing up for the very busiest season of the year and within the last 2 weeks, i’ve learned that two members of my department are leaving soon. today i learned of a third one leaving soonishly and a fourth one who broke her foot and is out of commission for the next few weeks. aiiiee!

Posted in reviews, yum | 1 Comment
22
May, 2007

family reunion

i just got back from a whirlwind trip to oklahoma for our bi-annual family reunion. what a great time! everyone (oh, except for one cousin’s spouse who i still haven’t met yet and am convinced that he’s imaginary) showed up! we hung out at this posh ranch that one of my cousins works at. he’s a chef and, of course, he did all of the cooking for the weekend and it was awesome (just don’t ask about the fat content…). we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast one day and ribs and brisket for dinner (along with the best baked beans ever — even mr. happy stuff loved them and he’s really not into baked beans– and drooltastic cheese grits). it was so very, very nice to see cousins that i hadn’t seen in such a long time and to meet baby cousins (once-and-a-half times removed or whatever) that i hadn’t seen before and to get to cuddle with my new nephew some more. i had been asked to come up with some sort of “intergenerational activity” for saturday afternoon and so i tried my best to come up with an idea that wouldn’t make anyone groan too loudly. at the last minute, i was inspired by an article in the current issue of martha stewart living and remembered the klutz book “tricky pix” and went a bought a copy to take along. it’s full of great ideas of how you can take funny photos playing with perspective and other easy tricks to make really surprising photos (think one person standing far away and another person near the camera holding their palm out flat so that it looks like the back person is tiny and standing on their hand). i think everyone enjoyed the activity and got a kick out of the dvd slideshow i created to show that night. we also enjoyed some hymn singing together that night. all told, it was a very nice time and i was very sad when it was over. sometimes it feels like such a long time between seeing everyone.

Posted in spring, stuff that sparks a glow in my soul | 1 Comment
17
May, 2007

spring is here!

yesterday morning, on my run, i saw two robins hopping by, not more than 3 feet away from me. they didn’t get spooked and fly away when i got closer to them and i got close enough to really see the bright yellow of their beaks and the deep orange of their breasts. the singing was so loud and varied that at one point, i turned off my ipod so that i could listen. granted, i also then got to hear the airplane going overhead and the {beep, beep, beep} of some construction vehicle backing up, but i also heard a peacock from the zoo that’s near my run. one of the most interesting side effects of me discovering the free sound project is that i’m suddenly much more tuned in to the real sounds around me. i find myself thinking, “i’d like to get a recording of that…. if only [this terrible background noise] wasn’t muddling it up!” it’s sort of like when i discovered the concept of clip-art. i’ve been exposed to a way that i could “own” a sound and share it with others and so now i pay attention to sound, trying to find a really good sample.

spring also means spring cleaning … for some people. while my house doesn’t really show any signs of spring cleaning yet, i was very excited at work yesterday to receive a fantastic wire shelving unit on wheels (somewhat like this one) to organize all of my storytime supplies. for the last year and a half, i’ve been trying to work out the best way to organize my stuff and it just gets more and more sprawling and i get all sweary when i try to get to it. i’d ordered this shelf last week and it arrived yesterday and i spent the first two hours of my shift just getting the adjustable shelves the right height and getting stuff onto the shelf and then standing back and admiring the calm, zen-like appearance of my storytime stuff. apparently, my co-workers were equally excited about me finally organizing my stuff. :)

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11
May, 2007

i’m done, i’m done! {happy dance}

hmmm… you might remember that i’ve already done a post with this title, but…. it’s worth doing again! i just finished my last paper for my class and i’m now free (school-wise) for the summer. hurrah! it’s a little bittersweet because i’ve really enjoyed this children’s literature class i’ve been taking. but then again, reading a book a week on top of all the other reading for work that i have to do and my brain sometimes felt like a wrung out dishcloth. hooray for summer, hooray for reading books without having to write papers about them, hooray for maybe getting around to doing some of the projects around my house now or (gasp) maybe even finishing up my new pidoodle projects!

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07
May, 2007

a little piece of heaven

part of today was spent outside, in my hammock, under my favorite crazy-patch quilt from my great aunt bes (to ward off sunburn more than cold), reading a good book and napping between chapters.

back to the real world tomorrow.

and i really should work on this one last paper sometime….

Posted in spring | 2 Comments
06
May, 2007

time for breathing

lately, it seems like the pace of life has ramped up a bit and i find myself madly rushing from task to task at work, barely able to keep everything together (this, by the way, is normal for this time of year and is only bearable because i know it will slow down…. sometime) and my home life has been a bit hectic too, with papers to write for class and weekends full of travel, visitors and/or work.
this weekend, my brain just decided to slow itself down and insist that i take a few moments to breathe. i did have to work on saturday, but i had off on friday, today (sunday) and tomorrow (except for class) and since i had no absolutely pressing deadlines, i’ve spent some time catching up on my blogging (both reading and posting–although 365 is still not caught up, it’s a bit closer than it used to be. this is hard!), just staring out into space, taking some pictures, and figuring out my new phone.
because of some job situation changes at mr. happy stuff’s work, we are changing phone plans and buying new cell phones. so, i had to change over all of the info in my address book and try to find a ring that wasn’t obnoxious. do you know how difficult that is?! on my last phone, there was a simple “ding!” that sort of sounded like an elevator and i think was meant to be a notification of voicemail or something, but i chose it as my ring. mr. h-s complained that it was too quiet and that i never heard it, but i loved it because it wasn’t too embarrassing if it went off in public and didn’t cause me to feel panicky if i wasn’t able to answer it in the first 2 rings. this new phone? not so much. even the innocuous sounding “chimes high” and “chimes low” when played in rapid succession for a ringer made me want to hide the phone deep in the couch cushions. so, my techie hero, mr. happy stuff, helped me search the internet for a new ring. and search. and search. take my advice–if you’re trying to find something similar, don’t ever type in “free ringtones” because you will get about fifty mazillion hits and all of them will be bad. trust me. as in, “we want to invade your computer with viruses and other bad things and in exchange, you get this free (awful) ringtone!” the majority of them insist that you need to have a pop song play from your phone every time it rings. maybe it’s just because i work in a library where obnoxious ringtones are painfully obvious–and annoying–but i just don’t think that there will ever be any song that i’d want to hear every time anyone tried to call me! and most certainly not anything by britney spears.
we finally began to be more successful when he started adding “.mp3” to the search string behind words like “bell” or “ding” (although, apparently there’s some pop song out there titled “ding”) and eventually, we came upon this wonderful website which i adore. on it, i discovered such gems as “bikebell” and “old telephone bell” which both make delightful ringers for my phone (i actually ended up choosing one of a tibetan singing bowl and editing it a little with loooooots of help from mr. techie stuff). i spent way too much time last night exploring different sounds on this site. i was enchanted by many of the “bird song” options and there was one that said it was from amish country that included a squeaky screen door closing and the clip-clop of horse hooves that was very nostalgic for me. poke around on the site for yourself. then, tell me your favorite sound!

Posted in spring, stuff that makes me smile | 1 Comment
04
May, 2007

freebies and surprisingly cheapies

a few more things i forgot to mention in the last post:

i’ve been having a great time transplanting some shared (free!) plants from friends. i put out a plea last year for mint or lily of the valley (two, very invasive plants that love to spread and frequently require thinning) and was surprised at how little response i got. well, i must have just asked too late in the season when people had already thinned. this year, i put out the same request again and got several enthusiastic replies and i’ve been happily picking up plants headed to the compost pile from people and transplanting them into my flower beds. in addition to 4 different kinds of mint and a very nice crop of lily of the valley, i also got a black raspberry start and a few chunks of some nice ground cover. the best part of free plants is that if they don’t work out well (for whatever reason), i feel much less guilty if they die. :)

the second thing i wanted to tell you was that we went shopping last week on a tip from a friend about a 75% off sale and while we were browsing, i saw a rubber doormat that looks surprisingly similar to the metal artwork i created last summer. i really wanted it, but it wasn’t marked down at all and i wasn’t sure i really neeeeeeded a new doormat. but, i still had some birthday money to spend, so i decided i could splurge. when the cashier scanned the barcode, instead of $20, it came up as $3.24! wow! that is pretty much my very favorite type of shopping experience. to have decided that i could maybe justify full price for something and then have it be on sale. for about 85% off! hooray!

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02
May, 2007

so many happy things!

wow. the last few weeks have been an utter whirlwind. here are a few of the highlights to catch you up:


mr. happy stuff and i went to chicago for a little more than 24 hours to celebrate our 7th anniversary. our favorite bits were dinner saturday night at frontera grill, which was amazing (if you love mexican food and if you’re willing to wait for a table and if you’re in chicago and it’s not sunday or monday, you must try this restaurant. i’m still drooling.), an impromptu game of chess at a used bookstore while waiting to eat (i am terrible with strategy and logic, but have no qualms about losing, so i make a pretty satisfying chess opponent), a visit to the giant silver jellybean sculpture sunday morning (see photo above, taken from underneath the sculpture–we’re on there at least 5 times. click on the picture to see it bigger.) and the other fun, kinesthetic artwork in millennium park, a visit to the art institute (haven’t been there since college) where i discovered a new artist to enjoy–charles demuth–who was apparently from lancaster, pennsylvania (a fact i discovered after deciding i liked his artwork). here’s one of the pieces of his that i saw and liked. It’s called “spring” and depicts design samples from a spring line of wallpapers and i love the irony that “spring” doesn’t depict nature, but instead man-made design. then, we took a long trip to ikea and bought supplies to build an island in our kitchen. amazingly, they fit into our vehicle (including the 6 foot long countertop) but we couldn’t see each other on the ride home because it came nearly all the way to the front and created “private cubicles” for each of us.

other happy things since then:

i’ve enjoyed watching more things bloom in the flowerbed my sister created for me last summer–

i have also enjoyed the generosity of church friends who have been willing to share plants with me. i now have a mint patch and a bunch of lilies of the valley. i’m looking forward to them taking over. i picked wild violets in my yard last weekend–a whole handful! they smell soooooo nice.

i only have one more paper left to write for my class (woo hoo!).

last night we went grocery shopping and i used the grocery bags that i’d gotten as a birthday present from my friend who visited a few weeks ago. normally, when we get done unpacking a big grocery trip, we have somewhere between 12 and 20 plastic bags to figure out something to do with. we filled up the four re-usable bags and asked for whatever didn’t fit to be put into plastic bags. when we got done unpacking this evening, we had three plastic bags. wow. and if the bagger had been a little more tight with his packing, we probably could have gotten by with no plastic bags. we are sooooooo using those again!

it’s been too long for me to remember much more than the highlights, so i’ll leave you with just what i’ve been able to remember. hope everyone’s having a wonderful spring!

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20
Apr, 2007

first bloom


this evening, mr. happy stuff opened the curtains downstairs to reveal a blooming daffodil! my first one–hurrah! and all thanks to my wonderful sister who flew up here last fall just to plant bulbs for me (and also so we could shop for maternity clothes for her…. and also because she wanted to travel…. but mostly because she likes digging in the dirt more than i do–don’t get me wrong. i have nothing against a little dirt-digging, but usually, i’d much rather be sewing or reading or eating…)

i also found some garlic mustard in my yard. from afar and when it was shorter, i’d thought it was a big patch of violets, but as i walked past it today, i realized that it was the dreaded, invasive weed that it was. the nice thing about garlic mustard is that it is so incredibly invasive that you cannot procrastinate pulling it up or you will be extremely sorry. in fact, i will probably be sorry that i did not more thoroughly eradicate all of the roots, but i was just madly plucking stems, trying to ensure that none of the seedheads came to bloom. but back to what i was saying–because you cannot procrastinate the pulling of garlic mustard, you have to drop everything–your homework, the church newsletter you’re supposed to be editing, the suitcase you’re supposed to be packing, the blogging you should be doing–and just get your hands dirty, yanking those suckers out. it felt kind of good.

Posted in spring | 4 Comments
16
Apr, 2007

a houseguest!

my guest room gets waaay too little use, so i was thrilled when one of my very good friends was able to come and visit me all weekend. we went thrifting (lots) and she helped me envision a patio design for the backyard that looks awesome. very inspiring! maybe this summer we’ll get around to doing some work outside the house…. maybe. why does outside the house have to be so darn expensive? she also helped me out with some paint color ideas for the outside of the house.

also, i’m thrilled that today’s weather was so awesome. there’s nothin’ like a week of 30 degree weather with snow to make you loooooove 40 degree weather! (i think it may have gotten up to 60 today. i had on shorts!)

my lovely husband put up the porch swing this weekend and we also grilled dinner on saturday night. aaahhhhh!

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