Thank Goodness It's Friday

Michael comes back into town tonight since he went to Houston on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to his return. We are going to play some board games this weekend to try and keep busy without having to leave the house. Since we don't have any money to spend and the weather is too cold to do anything outside, I think we will try to make the best of it inside. Maybe I'll make some homemade hot chocolate or something. I used to do that as a kid in the crock pot. I'll have to find a recipe for that one again. It's been a long time!

With being alone the last couple days, I have accomplished a few things. On Wednesday, I broke down a bunch of boxes and gave them to some people that are moving and needed boxes. (The downside to this is now I have a room full of packing paper that will just need to be put into the recycling bin over the next few weeks until it is gone. It's a good thing we don't really go downstairs much because it is pretty much covered in paper.) I've cleaned up the kitchen and bathroom and put some stuff away that needed to be put "in it's place" (although I don't think I've found this "place", I just put them in "a" place away from public view). I even cleaned the litter box. I still need to vacuum, but I plan to do that here in a few minutes after I eat some dinner. So at least a little bit was done over the course of the last 3 days of me sitting in the house.

Yesterday it was so windy (and it was garbage day) that the garbage bins kept being knocked over by the wind. In addition, it was around 20 degrees. I kept having to run outside, upright the garbage cans and then run back inside. After the 4th time doing this, I gave up and figured, if I was at work then I wouldn't even have known about the situation and the cans would have stayed down the first time. I'm pretty certain some packing paper flew down the street which I feel a little guilty about, but I just didn't have any other alternative. In addition, I also put some broken down cardboard boxes out there and they kept flying into the street. I'm pretty certain I managed to keep them all on our property though until the recycling people came to get them.

Well, little Skore just jumped up on me and laid down so I think that's my cue to get off here and start paying attention to her. The cats are number one remember.

It's Tuesday

Right now I have vegetarian chili cooking in the crock pot. This is the second time in one week where I have used the crock pot my grandmother gave me Nov. 2007. And this is also the second time EVER that this crock pot has been used. I am exploring the realms of soup. I have never known how to make soup before, but being that I have time to learn, I am educating myself. I bought a 2 pound bag of carrots last week (let it be known that I do NOT like carrots but want to try making veggie sushi which typically has carrots in it) and I need to use up the majority. So, last week I made carrot soup. This soup turned out pretty good even though I don't like carrots. Michael even had a bowl of leftover soup the next day. I think we probably have about one bowl left which I will force myself to consume within the next day or so. Since it's been so cold this week, I felt that some chili is necessary to warm up our insides. So, I found a recipe this morning and put the ingredients in the crock pot for consumption later on this evening. We'll see if this one turns out well also. I deviated from the recipe slightly but I don't think my additions will be the failure to the chili. I also plan to make some homemade cornbread (I think I'm going to put some real corn kernels in it as well since I have some leftover) and I'm considering a spinach salad. If I do end up making the salad, I think I'll make a mustard vinaigrette to go with it. It will be a complete meal straight from Kristen's kitchen.

This past Sunday we went to see West Side Story at the National Theatre in D.C. The performance was good, and the singing was wonderful, but I didn't like the director's version of the play. He made all the conversations between the Puerto Rican's to be spoken in Spanish. Although this does make the play more realistic, it takes away from the show when you don't speak that language. Even though I knew what was going on, I still came away from the show unfulfilled. Also, they updated the play a little making it feel more in the current time, but I didn't appreciate that either. I say, if you are going to do it, do it like it was written in the time frame it was written. I still enjoyed the day in the city. Afterwards, we went to an early dinner at this restaurant called Chef Geoff's. It was really good. I had the asparagus risotto balls for an appetizer and the butternut squash ravioli for my entree. They had this in the typical "sage butter sauce" but the twist...ameretti cookies crumbled in the sauce! It was delicious. Every so often you would come across a sweet little crunch! It made it a very special pasta dish.

Tomorrow Michael leaves for Houston until Friday. I'm not sure what I'm planning to accomplish while he's away, but there is supposed to be one person coming to pick up some boxes on Thursday. It will be nice to get some of those boxes out of the house and to know they are going to be put to good use again!

This coming up Sunday we may try to go to the kick off party for the inauguration. It's on the Mall at the Lincoln Memorial, free and there are going to be many well known names there including Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder. Among those reading historical passages will be Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington. And more people are going to be there as well that haven't been confirmed yet. It's supposed to be really cold that day, but for all these names, and it being free, I think I could manage to put on enough clothing to be warm. We would probably leave early in the morning with food and water on our backs and then wait all day for the performance that evening. We'll see if we actually end up doing it. But I think it would be really fun and well worth the effort.

OK...here I am!

Sorry again for being so intermittent in writing lately. I just haven't felt the real desire to write on here. And I have another good excuse. My computer is having problems. I've been using Michael's for the last few days because I'm pretty certain my computer has some kind of virus. Everything is really slow, it won't open many programs, when I'm online websites keep popping up out of nowhere (but surprisingly, they aren't porn websites. They are random, normal, websites). So, I've turned that computer off until Michael finds the reboot disk and I'll reformat the whole thing. Hopefully that will fix the problem. And you may be wondering why I can't find the disk for myself...well, my wonderful husband (who does things that he thinks will improve the situation even though sometimes making them more complicated. Regardless, I still love him) decided over the last couple months to take most everything out of the boxes they were labeled in downstairs, and repackage them into different "better" boxes. I think he did this to remove the paper that was cushioning everything and probably to see what we could use upstairs. Well, in doing this, the boxes that were labeled with everything and which room they came from are now no longer valid since things have been consolidated. So, he's the only one who knows where some things are put. Or, I should restate that, he is the only one who SHOULD know where things are put. I don't think he really remembers. So, I'm leaving it up to him to find the disk to reinstall all the programs on my computer. Last year I had to do this because I was locked out of my computer so I think I can do it again fairly easily. I just need the disks to start it.

Enough of that. My home life is boring. I'm ready to work again. I applied to several places this week including Petco (as a dog trainer), PetSmart (as a doggie/kitty day care attendant), 3 jobs at Georgetown University as a Research Assistant and at the FBI as a Physical Scientist. At this point, I really could care less what I do as long as I get out of the house. I have my doubts about the Petco/PetSmart jobs as I listed $14/hour as what I would minimally accept and I'm pretty certain those jobs pay less than that. I do not want to go back into food service. That is one thing I am certain about. I really want to work with animals and I've put my name out there on a volunteer list for all the non-profits around this area but haven't heard anything back from that yet. Also, I started the process to volunteer at the National Zoo in the Primate Exhibit, but when the director wrote me back saying that the position has little, if any, contact with the animals, I've been put off a bit. I don't mind getting food together and cleaning enclosures IF in addition, I get to interact with the animals at least a little bit. Well, we'll see what comes up soon. I may have to start working on the house again which I'm really NOT looking forward to. We still need blinds and we still need to put up curtains so that's something that is fairly easy. But I really am not excited about more painting. But since the downstairs hasn't even begun to be worked on yet, we still have a lot of painting to go. We still need to pick out colors.

That's about it for now. I'm glad tomorrow is Friday and then I get the weekend to be entertained by my husband. He claimed that we are going to knock down the downstairs bathroom by Saturday, but I still don't believe that one to be truth. I'll believe it once I see it. On Sunday we are going to see West Side Story in DC so I'm looking forward to that too. It's a matinee so we'll probably get some dinner afterwards out there. Hopefully the weather will be decent as the last two days has been cold and rainy. Today doesn't look too bad, but I haven't left the house yet to be sure. At least the sun is out.

Oh, one more thing. I can't post pictures from the trip to Dallas on here since my computer has all the pictures saved on it and I'm on Mike's computer. But as soon as I get my computer fixed I'll post some.

To be brief...

I really don't feel like posting on here today, but since it's been quite a while since my last post, I thought I'd give you a little post to tide you over. We went to Dallas for Christmas and the in-laws met. Then we rang in the New Year in our house in VA while I slept on the couch and Michael woke me up to tell me Happy New Year.

That's pretty much the very abbreviated version of what's been happening the last week and a half. I'll update soon with more detail. It will probably happen after Michael goes back to work on Monday and I'm bored all week long again.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!