Almost Wordless Wednesday

Saturday morning my MIL and I got up early to hit the New Haven Flea Market. My coworker told me about the market- she went last year and found North Face, Tiffany jewelry knockoffs, Ugg boots, etc. She did warn me that she heard the place got raided earlier this year so the merchandise might be a little different.

My MIL LOVES flea markets so we headed down, unsure of what we would find. I should have taken a picture, but it was rows and rows and rows of fake purses (every label imaginable- Coach, Hermes, Dolce & Gabbana, etc.), jewelry, clothes, music, rugs, etc. It was pretty impressive, despite the fact that some of it was repetitive.

Sorry about my manly-looking hands but I got these three rings for $1 each. Super cute!

I have needed a clutch for a while and this fake Burberry clutch fit my iPhone and was only $7. Score!


I have also wanted a light gray purse for a while and this fit the bill as it was only $10. It's not my favorite, but for $10 it works!

My favorite purchase was the moose hat. CP HATES it which means I love it. Ha! Actually I have been threatening to get a hat like this for a while....once I found one (only $8!) for an adult (they also other animals like a cat and a cow), I knew it was allllll mine.

I wouldn't head to this flea market every weekend but it was not bad. All four purchases added up to less than $30 which is a good day of shopping for me!

Do you own a piece of clothing that your significant other hates?

New trees

Earlier this summer, we received an advertisement from the Arbor Day Foundation. If we joined (for only $10), we would receive 10 free trees and 2 shrubs for planting (the trees you receive depend on your location in the country)! We don't have a ton of room in our small yard, but we have been looking for a tree for the front yard and we would love a nice shrub to cover up the concrete wall on the back of the garage....so we sent in the membership fee and promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to Saturday. What looked like a newspaper bag arrived in the mail with 10 dormant trees and 2 dormant shrubs. The instructions suggested planting them in a raised bed or garden for a year so that the tree doesn't have to compete against weeds. Because of our winter garden we didn't have any room for the trees in our raised beds so I decided to plant them in pots. I planted all of them in case some don't make it (if all of them end up surviving I will have to find family, neighbors, or friends to plant the leftovers!).

The dormant sticks

I am hoping that the trees survive the winter. I can either leave them near the side of the house (where they are now) or bring them inside to our sunporch. They will get more sun outside, but will obviously be subjected to the cold. If I bring them inside they will still get some sun (but not full sun) and will stay at least above freezing. Any thoughts on what we should do?

Meanwhile, this is what the trees will look like YEARS down the road....

Crapemyrtle

Eastern Redbud

Sargent Crabapple

Washington Hawthorn

White Flowering Dogwood

*I was not asked to write about the Arbor Day Foundation- I just wanted to get the word out!

Winter Storm Alfred

Winter Storm “Alfred” hit our town at 12pm on Saturday. CP and I were in the middle of trying to put up greenhouse plastic on our raised beds when the snow started. Afterwards we had lunch, ran a few errands and came home before the roads got bad. By 4pm, in the middle of doing laundry, our power went out.

The dogs when it first started to snow

The greenhouse plastic held up through the storm!

Out came the headlamps and hand-crank lantern we bought after Hurricane Irene. We grabbed bags full of wood to start the fire. Heavy snow mixed with the leaves still on our trees spelled disaster. Soon after we started to hear tree limbs crack and fall down to the ground- at least one every five minutes. That continued through Sunday morning.

Our street is a mess




At least the dogs are enjoying the snow (Sunday morning)

Buster's first snow (he LOVED it)!

The first two nights we slept downstairs on the floor in front of the fire in our sleeping bags with the dogs. Last night we decided to sleep upstairs in our bed because the low was only going to be 30 (only! Ha ha) and our backs were a little sore. CP was able to procure a generator from a coworker yesterday so we were able to save the hundreds of dollars of homemade food and CSA beef in our downstairs freezer. Work has power so I have been there the past two days. Going into work means the ability to take a hot shower and the chance to plug in my phone.

There are no estimates on when we will get our power back and my town looks like a war zone. Things could be worse though. We have tons of limbs down in our front and backyard from neighbor’s trees, but nothing hit our house or cars. It would just be nice to have power….and heat….and grocery stores/gas stations/ATMs/etc. open.

DIY Winter Greenhouse

With our summer garden almost finished (the only plants left- eggplant, leeks, brussel sprouts, swiss chard and hot peppers), a few weeks ago CP and I planted seeds for our fall/winter garden. With some plants still left in our raised beds, we had to work around them. No biggie (especially for things like carrots and beets) because with staggered planting, we then won’t have to pull the whole crop out at once.

So most of the seeds have come up and are starting to grow. We took down the Buster-proof fences in order to turn over the soil after taking out plants and I wish that we had kept them up because we have a bunny (bunnies?) that is eating some of the seedlings. Oh well.

Anyway, this weekend we started to erect our homemade winter greenhouses over our raised beds. For anyone interested, here are the basic DIY steps to do it on your own.

Supplies needed:
Winter seeds
Metal wire
Garden cloth
Plastic greenhouse film
Heavy duty wide tape
PVC piping
Garden staples
Scissors

Our experimental guide to a winter garden:

1. Buy The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman and read it. Coleman is an organic farmer in Maine whose farm produces four seasons of veggies. If he can do it in Maine, why couldn't we do in CT?
2. Buy winter seeds- there are a few seed companies recommended by Coleman (We used Johnny’s Selected Seeds).
3. Plant winter seeds before first frost.
4. Use metal wire from the Home Depot and shape it into a wicket (or really any shape you want). Push the metal wire into the ground as much as you can, but you want to leave 2-3 feet above the ground for the plants to grow.

Metal wire

Metal wire shaped like wicket

5. Drape wickets with garden cloth. Garden cloth (which we also used this spring to keep out pests/protect against the cold nights) can be found at a bunch of places, we get ours from Gardeners Supply. Rain is able to pass through the fabric while it also allows 85% of light to shine through (according to the website).

6. We then used garden staples to hold down the garden cloth. (See picture above.) Use them all around the structure to keep the cloth from lifting up and off the ground.

7. Next we took PVC piping and made hoops. In the spring we put 1 1/2 “ pipe into the ground at all four corners and depending on the size of the bed either one or two more down the sides. We then took 1” pipe and bent it to make the hoop.

PVC piping

8. Then, using the plastic greenhouse film (see picture, CP found it on Amazon) put up a sheet on the hoops at both ends of the bed. Using the big roll of tape (also found on Amazon), tape the film to the hoop with the tape located on what will be the inside of the greenhouse. Tape up most of the hoop, but leave about two feet at the bottom on both sides so that you can access the plants inside.

Roll of plastic and tape

9. Then take another sheet of the plastic film and drape it from end hoop to the other end hoop (make sure there is a little bit of overhang as you are going to tape the ends down to the plastic film already on the end hoops). Use tape to place about five pieces (per hoop) on the inside of the greenhouse to affix the plastic film to the inside hoops.
10. Make sure that the garden cloth does not touch the plastic anywhere around the structure.
11. Tape or somehow affix the plastic film to the wood all around the raised bed. You don’t want any wind to get in there.

Our first bed looks like this:

Not the prettiest thing, but hopefully it works!

We used a bungee cord to keep the plastic down on the left side. Because the top of the raised bed on the right side is flush with the ground (stupid sloping backyard), we currently have bricks holding down the plastic. We will probably have to do a little more once there is danger of freezing temperatures at night.

Coleman claims that we won’t have to water the entire winter. The plastic will keep the freezing temperatures out and as long as the cloth and plastic film don’t touch, the temperatures in the bed will stay right above freezing. Condensation from the cold outdoor temps and the hotter temps inside the plastic will help water the plants. Crazy huh?

This winter we have planted (the plants need to be ones that are hardier/grow in colder temps. They are going to grow at a slower pace, but according to Coleman, things like carrots are going to be very sweet because they do take a long time to mature):

Bok choy
Pak choi
Golden beets
Carrots
Kale
Spinach
Romaine lettuce
Asian greens
Swiss chard
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Radishes

So now that you have a bit of a primer, will you try winter gardening too?

Two years

Today is our two year anniversary! Looking back on our wedding pictures this past weekend made it seem as if we have been married 10 years and not two years. I attribute part of that to the fact that we were together four years and one day before we got married. To read up on our story, go here.

This past year has been....interesting. In last year's post I talked about all of the big decisions we had made since getting married. Buying a house. Trying to get pregnant. Deciding to get a second dog. A lot of those things have spilled into this year.

This year was making the house more "us". We still need to paint various rooms, but creating our raised beds in our backyard this past spring brought us a lot of joy (and fresh veggies!). We have other, more ambitious things that we want to do to the house (redo the sunroom, clean up the basement, organize the garage, etc) but my medical bills may keep those projects at bay for another couple years.

We obviously have continued to try to get pregnant...until I found out about my fibroid. While that "project" is on hold and my hope of getting pregnant before our second anniversary didn't happen, I (and we) still have hope that we will be able to get pregnant before our third anniversary. We have even talked about me putting off braces/my jaw surgery for a few months so that we can try IUI once my uterus has healed from the surgery. My jaw problem doesn't have an expiration date like my eggs do. Ha! Our hope is tempered, but we still have hope.

And then there is Buster. I am so happy we made the decision to bring him into our family. He has been a good distraction so that we don't have to be sad every month when I get my period. He was a HANDFUL for the first month and we had to do a lot of extra work with him to make sure that he was going to be a normal Berner in terms of personality with people and dogs. He still jumps. He still eats anything and everything on the ground. But he is a smart dog, learning tricks quickly because he is food motivated. I have to keep reminding myself that he is only 7 months and therefore still a puppy (sometimes his 70 lb body tricks me into thinking that he is older).

What do I see for us in the coming year of marriage? One, possibly two surgeries for me. A trip to the Bahamas in December. A possible trip to the Dominican Republic for a wedding. Hopefully a successful fall/winter garden (more on that later). Going to the fertility clinic for an IUI this spring (hopefully we only need one)! But what I hope for most in the coming year is just that we are happy, no matter what life throws at us.

Love you CP.

Natural disasters

Hasn’t the East Coast had enough this week?

First it was the earthquake. I was sitting at my desk looking at the window (I’m on the 19th Floor) and I felt some swaying for about 30 seconds. I called over to my coworker in the next cube over, “Did you feel that?” She replied that it was probably just a large truck barreling down the highway. Ummmm no. I spent the rest of the day freaked out because my building is NOT earthquake compliant (buildings on the East Coast are generally not, but my building doesn’t even have a solid base- it’s hard to explain but I don’t want to post a picture) and I was worried that the puppies were completely freaked out.

Turns out that Buster didn’t react to it while at doggie daycare. A couple of the dogs freaked out and hid under things for about 30 minutes; I guess it didn’t even phase Buster. When I got home Fuzzy Britches seemed perfectly fine and ready to play with a ball in her mouth. Berners must be too stupid to be scared.

Now Hurricane Irene is heading towards NC and should be hitting CT around midnight Saturday night. Our governor, local meteorologists and newscasters are all stressing to take this storm seriously. I guess Hurricane Gloria hit CT really hard in 1985; unfortunately people were unprepared and without power for at least a week. I guess the state has more trees than in 1985 so downed trees and flooding are going to be the biggest problems.

CP and I have already started to find all of our batteries, find flashlights/headlamps, charge the camping lantern, find our camping water jug, find a bucket to put water in for the puppies, etc. Hopefully our local grocery store is not sold out of food easy to make with no power. We will gas up the cars today, buy more gas for the grill.

We were thinking of sleeping downstairs in the basement Saturday night in case the large tree in our backyard decides to fall down on the house (or any neighbors’ trees for that matter). We will have to watch water levels to make sure that the basement isn’t flooding. Otherwise, we can sleep in the spare bedroom on the first floor and if the tree does fall it would have to hit the second floor first.

*crossing fingers we are overreacting*

Knowing my luck this year though.....

Dinner club

Sunday night CP and I started a new tradition here in CT- a dinner club. Hopefully we can keep it going for a while!

A few ladies from the newcomer’s club decided at an event that we wanted to start going to dinner together (outside of club events). We started out with four of us going once a month, just the ladies, to a local restaurant. Some wine, good food and good conversation. A nice chance to spend some time with girl friends and for two of them, a break from kids.

At last month’s dinner I brought up the fact that in law school, we used to do a monthly cook-off with friends. We would decide on a theme (appetizer, soup, make something with beer, Indian, dessert, etc.), meet at someone’s house to eat and rate each other’s food. (One half of each couple was in law school- we are the epitome of competitive people.) We had comment cards and everything. It was always a great time and someone was crowned a winner at the end of the night.

The ladies LOVED the idea- except we wouldn’t make it a competition (booooo). So I offered to host the first one on Sunday. CP and I had been thinking about making lobster tamales recently so we went with a Mexican theme. One couple took appetizers, one couple took the side dish, CP and I made lobster tamales and fish tacos and another woman made margarita cake (the fifth friend couldn’t make it this month). CP and I also broke out our Margaritavilla machine to make mango daiquiris. Yum!

Everything was delicious! We had a few mishaps when CP ran out of gas on the grill to cook the fish and the mangoes for the drinks were a little too frozen in the beginning….but overall it went great. The puppies settled down quickly, the AC cooled the house down enough to keep the house comfortable, and everyone had a good time.

Unfortunately people are out of town in August so we are going to have to wait until September for our next “Dinner Club” but the theme is “Farm Fresh/New England” and CP has already offered to make clam chowder. He makes a mean clam chowder so I can’t wait!

Once again it was a nice reminder of how I am growing to love living here. It is still not out west but it is 10 MILLION BAJILLION TIMES BETTER than the small town we were living in up until a year ago.

Do you have potluck dinners or other events centered around eating with your friends?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

It is almost July so the garden is starting to get big! We have already finished the bok choy that we planted in late April and have seedlings popping out of the ground for a new row that we planted this past weekend! We also took out the bibb lettuce and romaine lettuce- we didn't get a great crop this year so we replaced them with green and red loose leaf lettuce.

Herb garden

Green pole beans. They are slowly climbing up the trellis. I think that they are going to take longer because they do not get a full day of sun.


Hot peppers already starting to grow!

Bush cucumbers flowering.

We have snap peas! The plants are already as tall as me (5'9")!

Cherry tomatoes. Can't wait to put these suckers in salads!

Zucchinis are flowering which means we will soon be inudated with zucchini (not a bad thing- grilled zucchini is DELISH).

Brussel sprouts

Mmmmm beets.

Carrots.

I am so proud of our garden right now. Other than a few of the herbs which we wintered over inside and the tomatoes we planted all of that from seed this year. We saved so much money buying $1.99 organic seed packets rather than buying already-started plants. We thought it would be a lot harder to do....but it turns out it is really simple. Yay!

Devastation

By now, you have probably heard the news that MA was hit with a tornado yesterday. Here in CT we had a tornado warning for part of the day but thankfully nothing materialized. The pictures of the devastation so close to home are shocking. Despite the fact that I am from the Midwest, my town was never hit by a tornado. I haven’t even come close to seeing one (again, thankfully). But here in MA/CT tornadoes are rare. It’s not like we live in Tornado Alley!



Video of the Connecticut River (and at least one car) getting sucked into the tornado.

I got nervous yesterday when a friend posted on my Facebook wall that tornadoes were located in central MA…close to where we used to live AND along CP’s commuting route. He arrived home safely but I’m pretty sure he snuck through one area just before the tornado hit. This morning he could see the devastation from the highway. So scary.

This morning I got into work and my boss was scrambling to get in touch with people that work in our office and commute down from Springfield, MA. One of my coworkers doesn’t have any power and a tree is down on top of her house. She was still a bit hysterical because she was finishing up at work yesterday when her daughter called, scared out of her mind, and told her, “Mommy, I can see a tornado.” My coworker yelled at her daughter to get down to the basement, but her daughter was so frightened that she couldn’t move. When my coworker got home, her daughter was still in the same room, hysterically crying.

I can’t even IMAGINE getting that call. The helplessness that you would feel in that moment as a mother.

Thankfully, all of my coworkers and their families are uninjured. Please keep the people in central MA in your thoughts….

Foodshare

Thank you all for your comments over the past couple of days. I have been feeling pretty depressed, but recognize that there is nothing we can do right now. We will just have to wait until later this month when CP goes in to the urologist.

There is always something that happens in my life that snaps me back into reality; a reality where yes we are having fertility problems, but at least we are lucky in so many other ways. The training that I went to last night did just that.

About two months ago I realized that not only was I not getting satisfaction from my 9-5 job, but that I really wanted to volunteer at a place that was making a huge difference in people's lives. After giving it some thought, I decided that I would try to volunteer at our local food bank. People are struggling to not only pay their mortgages and keep their jobs, but also to put food on the table. And food banks are a good way to serve that need.

So I went in and talked to the volunteer coordinator with one of my friends. After finding out our backgrounds, he immediately signed us up for the speaker's bureau. After a night of training (i.e. learning more about Foodshare) we would be able to table at community events and give tours of the warehouse. So last night we had our training.

I knew that the need for food was great, but I was amazed at some of the numbers they told us last night.

28% of food in this country is wasted- whether it is crops that aren't picked in time or food that is thrown out from our dinner plate.

In the greater Hartford area Foodshare helped 128,000 people last year. 50,000 of those people are kids, 10,000 are seniors. Those are staggering numbers because the greater Hartford area only has about 1 million people. That means over 1 in 10 people have hunger issues!

Foodshare, along with food banks across the country, doesn't give food out to people directly. They partner with local agencies (we have over 300) to get the food to those in need. They are the "middle-man."

My local Foodshare moves 16 TONS of food A DAY. Amazingly, just a $30 donation feeds one person for an entire MONTH. Most of the food is donated by wholesalers, the food industry and farmers. Local food drives do not supply the food banks- that food makes up only 3-4% of the food eventually given to the partner agencies.

Aren't those numbers jaw-dropping? And this is in Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the country. Think about places like Michigan, Nevada or Ohio with their high unemployment rates.

So yes, while certain aspects of my life aren't going well right now, CP and I are lucky in that we do not have any food insecurity. But there are millions of people out there that are struggling. And a donation to your local food bank or even to Feeding America could make a huge difference. So instead of giving expired cans of food away at the next food drive, consider making a donation instead.

Or volunteering! There are tons of different ways to help your local food bank. Speaking to groups, helping sort food (I sorted bread last week for 2.5 hours and burned 800 calories! So not only are you helping the hungry, but you are losing weight at the same time!), helping the warehouse with administrative tasks, etc. Coming up in a few weeks here is the Walk Against Hunger...you could raise money for your local walk and also burn calories by walking! A win-win!

(And now I feel like I sound like a Foodshare commercial or something. Ha!)

I came home last night excited about the opportunity to help others. I look forward to more bread sorting in my future and speaking about the hunger issues in CT at events. :-)

New gym

The three-month gym Groupon that CP and I used to get through this harsh CT winter ran out last week. I have been running more outside, but still enjoy doing strength training and other cardio indoors, so we went on the lookout for a new place. CP thought about staying on at the Groupon gym, but I wasn’t a huge fan. It was a smaller gym which was fine, but there were only three treadmills and one looked like it was from 1980. EVERYONE loved using the treadmills so it was sometimes hard to get a workout in.

Because I had just signed up for the half marathon training program, I was thinking that I would hold off on joining a gym until after the race in June. But CP still needed a place, so I went with him to visit the closest gym to our house. I wrote about this gym before we moved into our house because I thought that it was so cool that they have water bikes and water treadmills. CP and I never ended up signing up for it though because we were trying to save money.

So two nights ago CP and I toured the facility. They have a large lap pool kept at a cool temperature that had at least 10 lanes. The two local high schools use it, which may mean it would get busy over the winter, but their seasons just ended so we wouldn’t have to worry about that for a while. In addition, there is another large pool that is used for lap swim, swimming classes and kids play. It is heated for seniors and kids (aka the pee pool). In addition to the two large pools, there is a huge hot tub and a workout facility with treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, weights, Bosu balls, etc.

As soon as we saw the place, we were sold. It was only a few dollars more to do a family membership instead of just CP so we decided to add me to the gym too. I was psyched.

Despite being tired all day long at work and having to sit through an all-day training, I was ready to head to the gym after work last night. It wasn’t too traumatizing to put on a bathing suit (although I did have to make sure that it fit before leaving the house), but I hoped that no one was looking at my thighs too much. I ended up doing 45 minutes in the lap pool. It was a combination of running, kicking while using the kickboard and a few laps of breaststroke/backstroke/sidestroke. Quite a nice workout, but I have no idea how many calories I burned because my bodybugg can’t go into the water. :-(

CP used to be a swimmer in high school so he is really excited to have such a nice pool. They even have a Masters team, so maybe he would sign up for that once he got back into swimming shape? He is also going to have to help me with my strokes. I thought that my swimming strokes weren’t that bad, but according to him, they are totally wrong. CP trying to teach me is either going to be a good idea or a terrible, awful idea. We’ll see!

Doggies

This past weekend CP and I headed to the CT Dog Show. Have you ever seen the movie “Best in Show”? That movie and the characters were pretty much spot on.

We didn’t go into the weekend planning on going to the dog show. But on Saturday afternoon I spoke to the CT Berner breeder to set up a time to meet with her. Not necessarily an interview for us to be puppy parents, but a chance to get to know us and make sure that we are good doggy parents in general. She mentioned that a couple of her Berners were going to be in the show on Sunday….we thought it might be a good opportunity to suck up, I mean, meet her.

We arrived not to find stadium seating as we were expecting, but plastic fencing to mark the borders of seven different “rings.” Seating was on the floor or camp chairs that you had to know to bring in advance. This was clearly not the Westminster Dog Show. We ended up standing the entire time. Mostly because dogs would pee/get so excited they would accidently pee wherever they were. So it was just safer to stand. :-)

Away from the fencing was the “prep” area. Dogs of all sizes, colors and breeds had their nails cut, their fur cleaned and then dried with a hair dryer. The poodles looked especially ridonkulous. It was crazy.

Picture found here

We focused on the bigger dogs- there were some adorable Great Danes, Great Pyrenees and St. Bernards, but we were (of course) partial to the Berners. We did find a new, very cute breed at the show- Leonberger. Ever heard of them? Adorable.

We didn’t quite know what was going on with the judging stuff, what they look for, etc. but one of the Berners wasn’t too happy when the judge had to feel his balls. Ha! We watched the agility stuff for a few minutes too- it was young dogs taking commands from owners. It included a jump over a fence to retrieve a toy which was adorable! Although the dog show stuff is not of interest to me, the agility stuff I could watch again.

Anyway, so we ended up meeting with the breeder and talking to her while watching her dogs compete. Luckily she was not over the top crazy as some of the other owners at the show. And our “interview” went well- she deemed us good puppy parents! YAY! So the next step is waiting for her current female to give birth (in about 2-3 weeks). She was in the process of breeding another female that weekend too, so if it doesn’t work out with the currently pregnant female, then there will hopefully be another litter in about 9 weeks. :-)

In the past month we have run into two Berner puppies- one at our beef CSA farm and the other at the dog show. OH MY GOD THEY WERE SO ADORABLE. I seriously wanted to steal them. Seeing them made me even more excited for the new puppy that we are going to have in just a few short months!!!

Recent happenings

I haven’t forgotten about this little ole space of mine on the interwebs….I just haven’t had much time to write! Here’s a little slice of what has been going on my life recently:

*CT drivers are the worst. We haven’t had any more snow recently, but the PILES of snow are still on the road. With the decreased number of lanes in and around our town and the city that I work in, drivers continue to break laws. Running through red lights (blatantly) is really annoying- especially because as a pedestrian, I don’t want to get run over as I am trying to cross the street. I understand that you are frustrated that you have been waiting at the light for 10 minutes in hopes that traffic in front of you would move enough, but if you just wait one more light cycle then you will get through instead of putting others at risk.

The other, even more frustrating thing? When drivers see the green light and coast into the intersection, despite the fact that traffic in front of them is probably not going to move enough…therefore blocking the intersection once the light turns red. This happens in EVERY.SINGLE.INTERSECTION near work and I have yet to see the police do anything about it. It makes me want to scream as I try to get on the highway to get home.

*CP and I went skiing the day before the Superbowl and had a great time. According to the Bodybugg, I burned 1400 calories while on the mountain! CP wondered why we weren’t thinner when we lived out west and went skiing a lot. My answer? We ate out too much. :-)

*Skiing was great, despite the fact that we got up at 5am to head to VT. After a long day skiing and then driving back to CT (with some dicey weather on the drive home), we arrived home to find FIVE LEAKS in our house. The 80 inches of snow that we have received so far this year finally got the best of our house. A leak in the sunroom, two in the basement and then two windows dripping water into the house. FUN! All we could do is put buckets and towels under the leaks that night. Not sure what we are going to do about it, but we probably have to caulk and seal the windows up at some point.

*A good friend from college’s sister was diagnosed with leukemia. The whole family went in to get tested for a possible bone marrow transplant. My good friend is the closest match so as soon as her sister is done with chemo, she will be donating her bone marrow. I guess that I wasn’t a match, but will be crediting my next blood donation to her sister. If you haven’t signed up for the Bone Marrow Registry and are able to donate, will you do it today?

*The Republicans have decided that NPR and PBS are not worthy of funding in their new budget. Think that is ridiculous? Sign the petition here.

*This past weekend CP and I headed out to dinner with some new friends from the Newcomer’s Club. We had a fantastic time with them, laughing, drinking and eating decadent things. The wife and I have been meeting up quite a bit because we work close enough to have lunch together, but it was nice that our husbands also got along so well. All four of us were hurting the next morning though- unfortunately for them, they have three kids to deal with so their Saturday recovery was probably a bit worse than ours!

There is more, but for now, time to get back to work. What’s new in your neck of the world?

Happy birthday to me!

Today I turn 32. After work tonight CP and I plan on heading out for a lovely dinner at the highest-rated restaurant in our town.

My outlook on this 32nd year is hopeful.

The more people talk about feeling happy with themselves in their 30s, the more that I agree. Despite being unhappy body-wise with myself right now, I have fewer doubts in the rest of me (other than the nagging doubts of running a half marathon next year I talked about yesterday).

CP, while sometimes frustrating, is an excellent husband. Although last Friday he did let me know that he hid my present somewhere in our house and if I found it before today I could have it early. I have checked drawers, closets, and everywhere inbetween and couldn't find it. He thought it was hilarious. Jerk! But as I say jerk, I think that it is hilarious that he hid the present.....so I can't be too mad at him. :-)

I have great friends and family. In addition, I have already met some great ladies through my town’s Newcomers Club and feel that the friendships that I have started will continue to grow.

Despite the lack of anything growing in my belly yet, I am hopeful that our luck will change soon. If nothing happens, at some point we will head to a fertility specialist to find out if there is something wrong. If there is? Well, I guess we will plan a grand vacation (Galapagos maybe?) and hope for a miracle.

Work? Well, I wish that work was better, but for now I am happy to have a stable job (and a promotion/pay increase that should be coming at the end of this month!).

Our house is great. I love painting and making it ours. It was a great decision to move to CT. Despite the house purchase, our debt load is growing smaller. CP’s car will be paid off in two months and then we can put even more money towards credit cards and student loans.

Fuzzy Britches is healthy, despite being almost 7 years old. We haven’t gotten the puppy playmate for her just yet, but maybe that too will come in this next year.

Yep. This could be a very good year.

Have you entered my CSN Stores giveaway yet??

One year

On Sunday, CP and I will have been married one year. It seems like our first year flew by!

People often ask if I feel any different now that we are married. I answer honestly- that it really doesn’t feel different from when we lived together before marriage! I do have two lovely rings that I still look at in amazement. I love checking out CP’s left hand and seeing his ring on his finger.

We bought our first house together. While a bigger mortgage than what we were paying in rent in MA means less “free” money every month, my shorter commute has done wonders for my moods when I get home. The availability of more restaurants and the variety reminds us of the bigger cities we have lived in before. And the possibility of meeting people our age through a “new to town” club makes me happy.

We recently made the decision to get a Fuzzy Britches clone puppy. We found a breeder in CT that just had puppies last week. She already sent pictures (Kate- don’t worry I am not posting them yet) and every puppy is adorable. We hope to be able to take FB to meet the puppies in about three weeks. That means we could have a puppy at home with us around Thanksgiving. Yay!

We made the decision to try to get pregnant. While that hasn’t worked out so far (as and of this morning, we will have to try again next month *sigh*), we are trying to have a good attitude about it. No crying. No yelling. No tense conversations. While I hope that our family dynamic changes in a big way during the next year of our marriage, I know that we will survive if it doesn’t.

CP, I know that you don’t read this, nor do you know about this blog (thank goodness), but I love you from the bottom of my heart. Here’s to our future and the adventures that await us!

Away again

Why pay our mortgage when we are never home? :-)

This weekend we have a busy lineup. Tonight we are headed to Springfield, MA to see Anthony Bourdain (of “No Reservations” fame).



We love watching his show on the Travel Channel so we are hoping that his show will be interesting. I guess he is going to talk about his new book and then answer questions? I’m not sure what we paid money for, but I’m expecting adult language and funny stories. Hopefully CP will we able to think of a good question to ask him.

Tomorrow morning we will leave bright and early for NJ. My aunt and uncle live down there and have recovered my late grandmother’s couch for our new house. They are also having a cider party so we will have some fun making apple cider and then we get to take some home! :-)

I am excited to see my Aunt, Uncle and hopefully one of my cousins, but we are missing out on a lot of things here in CT this weekend. The Newcomer’s Club that we joined (same club that had Bunco on Weds night) is having the fall Kick-Off Party tomorrow night. CP and I would have been able to walk to the house because it is fairly close to ours. There will be other events though so I am not too bummed.

Also, we just found out that one of CP’s friends from his fraternity will be down in our town this weekend. It is such a small world story. The house two doors down from us has been nicknamed “the Party House” because they often have a bunch of people over in their backyard hanging out on the weekends. CP and I have joked that we need to make friends with them. While on a walk with Fuzzy Britches earlier this week we ran across some other neighbors farther down our street and they were able to place where we lived because of our proximity to the “Party House.” Turns out CP’s fraternity brother went to HIGH SCHOOL with the guy (he owns the Party House with his fiancé) and will be down partying with them this weekend. So we are missing our chance for our “in” to the Party House, but maybe the introduction will be made sometime in the future.

Do you guys have any exciting plans this weekend?




*By the way, yesterday was my 500th post! WOW.

First event

Last night I had my first event with our town’s Newcomers Club.

Turns out, Bunco was a great way to talk to many different people while still having a game to focus on. I wasn’t necessarily nervous to show up at some random person’s house and meet a bunch of ladies that were complete strangers, but I did think about what I was going to wear. I didn’t want to overdress for the event, but I also didn’t want to walk in looking like a shlub.

Thankfully there was wine so I grabbed a glass of white and started introducing myself. All 12 ladies were really nice and it seemed to be a mix of people that had been in the group last year (and were on the board) and people that were new. I talked to one woman about the free Fleet Feet Runs that happen every Wednesday night out of the store in the center of town. As long as I am cleared to run after my doctor appointment tomorrow (for heel pain in my right foot), I should see her there next week.

The women were all fairly close to me in age, with most of them married with kids. At one point a group of four that I was in discussed that they all had in vitro fertilization in order to have kids. Wow. That was quite a shocker- also sad that so many people these days are not able to conceive the natural way. During that conversation, I admitted that CP and I haven’t had any luck so far and the minute it came out of my mouth, I felt awful. I mean, CP and I have discussed how we want the fact that we are trying to be something only we know about (other than me telling you guys since he still doesn’t know about the blog). Was I trying to gain sympathy points with these women? Was I trying to open up to get to know these women better? I wouldn't consider myself an over-sharer, but I am more of an open book than CP. Whatever my reasons were, I feel guilty that I blabbed about it. Here’s hoping that one of the women doesn’t say something about it in front of CP if we are ever at an event together.

Other than the slip of my tongue, I had a fun night with strangers (and I won $30! Woo hoo!). There is a kick-off party on Saturday night that CP and I are not going to be able to make, but I hope to make another event soon. A woman on one of the committees was even trying to get me to join it to help plan events already!

So no crazy pants people so far. :-)

Disasters

From weather.com

Today I woke up to a cloudy sky, but currently the sun is trying to peek out from the clouds. It isn’t scheduled to start raining here from Hurricane Earl until 2pm or so.

So far in my life I have yet to be near a natural disaster. In the suburbs of Chicago we heard about tornadoes, but I didn’t have any close calls. The floods that occurred along the Mississippi River happened far, far away so that wasn’t a concern either. We did have one earthquake along a fault in southern IL when I was growing up. My best friend at the time SWORE that she felt it, but I think that we were too far away and personally didn’t feel a thing.

For my years in Philly I also didn’t have any problems. I remember being at work and one of my coworkers couldn’t reach anyone in his territory (North/South Carolina) because everyone had been evacuated. I think that was Isabel. But again, no tornadoes, no floods, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, etc.

After moving out west I encountered the same thing. Sure there were tornadoes east of us, but for the most part we were safe because of the mountains.

When an email was circulated around at work about the different ways we should prepare for Earl, I scratched my head in confusion. But wait. We aren’t on the coast and although CT is a small state we should just feel heavy winds and rain, right? Well, according to my boss, CT has a very large number of trees per mile for such a populated state. Which means that when a strong storm comes though- it doesn’t have to be a hurricane- power goes out, it is tough to leave your house because of fallen trees, etc. AWESOME.

Thankfully, Earl is weakening. We hopefully just get a lot of rain which the Northeast desperately needs anyway. Earl also brings nicer weather after he comes through- no more 90+ degree days!

So maybe we are susceptible to a few more natural disasters here in CT. We have already had two tornadoes in the state in the past few months. CT hasn’t had a direct hit by a hurricane in a while (Bob in 1991). With a major storm earlier this year we had some flooding in the southern part of the state. As with anywhere, we have earthquakes all the time, we just don’t feel them because they are small.

As a side note, after the Haitian earthquake CP and I were sitting in the car and he was telling me that NH gets earthquakes a lot. I didn’t believe him and found the USGS site to prove him wrong. Well, it turns out that he was right (damn it!). In fact there seems to be nowhere to hide from earthquakes in the US. But again, in most places they are too small for us to feel.

So I guess by moving to CT I have moved myself a bit closer to natural disasters? I guess I can count blizzards in natural disasters and I have been in some of those. But to me, a lot of snow is not as scary as some of these other things….

Do you live in a disaster prone area? Do you prepare for a big storm with water, flashlights and food or just scoff at the warnings? Do you have a natural disaster story?

Friends

We can all agree that moving to a new area is difficult as we get older. It’s not like school where a bunch of strangers are thrown together. It’s easier to make friends then as everyone is new. I haven’t switched jobs and none of my coworkers have suddenly gotten younger. But, there are lots of opportunities for me to make some new friends with a much larger town.

I now present to you my 10-point plan to make friends in my new area:

1. Put a post on Craigslist asking if anyone is interested in starting up a book club. I have already done this, but no one has responded (the CL board here is a little slow). But….I did find another girl who posted in a different section and we are going to join forces. Now if we could just find a few more ladies….

2. Join my town’s “Newcomer Club.” It’s a non-profit social organization that holds book clubs, new mom events, Bunco* and other activities for people new to town. I’m hoping that it is not a snobby Stepford Wife-type club where I won’t meet anyone fun, but I have already sent in my $40 and am hoping for the best.

3. Join Meetup.com and head to some events.

4. Try to get a happy hour going of all of the relative newbies to my job. There are a few of us under 40 so why not see if they are interested in hanging out after work? Now that I don’t have an hour commute home I am more interested in hanging out.

5. Get out and about as much as possible. Moving is difficult as you are unpacking for a while and thus inside your house, not enjoying the neighborhood. I have been trying to take Fuzzy Britches on nightly walks around our neighborhood (so far I have gotten a few waves from people driving by). I also went to a nearby park this past weekend. Fuzzy Britches and I ended up run/walking 4 miles and she got a lot of compliments (of course). :-) Because it is so close to our house I would love to become a regular there.

Okay so it’s not a 10-point plan, but I’m halfway there!

Anything else I should be doing?


*What the heck is Bunco anyway? I have only ever heard of it on the Real Housewives of the OC.

House

Yikes! I missed posting yet again yesterday because I was so busy with work! And guess what? I’m not going to complain because I have actually been BUSY at work. YAY! Here’s hoping this continues…and that CP puts our home computer together today before he leaves on a work trip for the next week. :-)

Thanks for all of the nice comments on our living room. We are really happy with the way that it turned out. Fuzzy Britches LOVES the new rug and wants to spend as much time in the room as possible. Speaking of the rug, a bunch of you asked where we got it. We found it at Bassett with the rest of our living room furniture, but we also found it at Lay-Z Boy (for the same price).

I hope to post more pictures of our house as the rooms come together a bit more. If you are interested in home tours, this lady has been posting them on her site and they are fun to check out!

In other house news, CP’s mom got us a fantastic (and way too expensive) housewarming gift. It is this rack from William Sonoma.


We have a few copper pots from wedding gifts and some other things that we can display, so we are going to put it in the corner of our kitchen. I haven’t taken a picture of our kitchen with my oh-so-amazing Blackberry camera (ha!), but here is the picture from the MLS. The kitchen won’t change much from the picture as we are not spending the money updating a kitchen that is already AH-MAZING. (I'm a little biased)

So many cabinets! Very cool blue and white tile for the backsplash! Stainless steel appliances! Gas burners! Cherry cabinets! Granite island! Needless to say, we are in love with the kitchen.

And because we are not planning on changing the first floor bathroom, here is the MLS picture of that too:

Currently the bathroom is a bit bare. We really only have white towels in it (nothing on the walls yet), but I like the clean look of it. It is also REALLY nice to have a second full bathroom. Any guests we have will have their own bathroom (the guest bedroom is right next door).