Life is a bowl of cherries...

I'm taking a straw poll - answer in the comments. Have you ever heard the phrase "life is a bowl of cherries"? I'll explain the root of this question in a follow up post...

Grandpa and Leonidas

Grandpa and Leonidas got some quality snuggle time on Christmas morning. Leonidas sported his jingle bell collar and "I ate Santa's cookies" tshirt just for the occasion!

The ski machine!

More on our ski trip to come but here's one of Alex conquering the slopes in Colorado! After 3 days and a few spills, he was practically an expert :-)

this is way cool...

This is only a test...I'm trying to blog from my phone! I figured I'd be a more consistent blogger (and include pictures!) if I could take a picture on my phone and blog immediately. Let's see how this comes out!

P.S. this is a picture of my "garden" at work. Here's to hoping they survive in my absence over the holidays!

winter time fruit

i love fruit - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, watermelon, grapes - so the grocery store in the winter can be a little disheartening. there is no good fruit to be found, or if it's there, it's WAY more expensive that anyone should have to pay for a tiny clamshell container of fruit.

thankfully, God in his great wisdom, did leave us with one fruit that's delicious and easy to get in the winter - clementines!

i love these little guys - easy to peel (although as you can see, i'm not one of those talented people that can keep the peel all in one piece), just the right portion (regular oranges are a little overwhelming for me), and available in large quantities in the winter! i eat at least one, sometimes several, every day and never get tired of them :)

got any of your own secrets to surviving the winter fruit famine?

4 months and counting...

today, alex and i have been married for 4 months! in the spirit of my 2 month anniversary post, i thought i'd spend some time reflecting and share some additional marital wisdom :)

1 - spending time together = becoming more like each other: alex has discovered he actually really enjoys reading (we even got library cards!) and i've become a much more knowledgeable football fan (football is 4 nights a week in our house - thursday, saturday, sunday, monday). also, i think we're finding each other funnier than ever before...i don't know if that means we're actually becoming funnier people or perhaps our standards are lowering ever so slightly :)

2 - when one of us cares deeply about how something is done, it's best for the other to let them do their thing: i never had a real Christmas tree growing up (allergies run deep in my family), so the whole picking out a Christmas tree process is a bit of a mystery to me, but to alex, it's a science - how many needles fall off when you bang it on the ground, are there any obvious holes, is it the right shape, etc. and even though it's FREEZING outside, you have to examine every potential tree. so this year when we went to select our tree, i just sat back and let him do his thing, and we came home with the perfect tree!

for me, the example may seem...kind of stupid, but i care deeply about how the dishwasher gets loaded. it's better for alex (and our marriage) if he just puts the silverware in the way i tell him to and doesn't resist. the silverware gets cleaner my way anyways.

3 - cooking for two means tuna and crackers no longer equals an adequate dinner: when you're cooking for two, you actually have to COOK and not just combine whatever's left in the back of the cabinets. and because cooking (and doing the dishes) can be a lot of work, you often want to make enough food to feed you both for more than one meal. be sure to adjust your portions appropriately though, because a box of pasta that used to feed me for a week now feeds us for 1.5 meals. boys eat a lot.

4 - two people = more than twice as much laundry: maybe this is obvious to other people, but i didn't really think about how much bigger alex's clothes are than mine, which means we actually have more than just twice as much laundry to do. maybe i should just take my wise husband's advice, and instead of doing laundry more often, we'll just get a bigger hamper!

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Alex and I set aside this Saturday for Christmas decorating!!! Of course, this primarily revolved around selecting, setting up, and decorating the tree. So, this morning we set out for the Home Depot to make our selection. Chicago had it's first major snow last night, so a lot of the trees were coated in snow and therefore would be soaking wet when we wanted to bring it in the house.

Thankfully, the one we ended up with was under a covering, and quite dry :) It's about 7ft tall and filled up the space in our place really well:


After getting it in the stand, we let it dry for a little while. I worked on Christmas cookies and Alex worked on the rest of the decorations. When we were done with that, it was time for lights! You'll notice, these lights have white (i.e. super noticeable) cords. When I first selected these lights 3 year ago, it was my first time with a real Christmas tree and I didn't know you were supposed to buy the ones with the green cords so they blend in. Whoops.


After the lights we hung the ornaments - my favorite part :) So many of the ornaments have special significance and fun memories associated with them. Here's the finished product (minus the tree skirt):

We love it! Now our place looks really festive and we're feeling the Christmas spirit :)

recommended reading

when it comes to reading, i'm what i'd call a "binge reader". once i get started in a good book, i can't put it down. this weekend i even made us late to a social event because i just HAD to finish the book i was working on :)

in fact, it was such a great book that i wanted to recommend it to you all here - it's called "April 1865: the month that saved America" by Jay Winik. it's non fiction, about the final month of the Civil War with portraits of the major players woven into it. it covers Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, President Lincoln's assassination, and so many critical events in our nation's history. the reconstruction of the United States was not a forgone conclusion after the Civil War, and this book made me really appreciate the greatness of our leaders at the time.

i learned a whole lot from the book (did you know the succession process for the VP to take over if the President dies is not actually in the Constitution??), but it's not a heavy read necessarily. it's about 380 pages and i got more invested the more i read. if you're looking for a good read over the holidays, i'd highly recommend it!

now, it's time for a novel - on to "The Help" for book club!

we (meaning alex) know someone (sorta) famous!

last night, alex got his first interview with an actual professional football player for his blog! he spoke with none other than W&M's own Derek Cox, starting corner back for the jacksonville jaguars! alex knows derek from his days as the student-athletic-advisory-council vice-president (derek was the president) and they've kept in sporadic touch since graduation.

although derek has NO idea who i am, i'm a big fan of his and love seeing someone i (sorta) know on TV. we watched his first start ever against the indianapolis colts last year, when he picked off peyton manning in the end zone on their first drive. we happened to be in Indy at the time, watching the game with my extended family, who are all big colts fans, and we LOVED rubbing that in :)

any famous or sorta famous people in your lives??

view from the top!

last weekend, alex and i took a last-minute, spontaneous trip to our nation's capital to see friends, and we had such a blast! we got to relax, play games, watch football, and just generally enjoy everyone's company :)

as an added perk, we got to take several special tours, including the Dome of the Library of Congress! located across from the Capitol, the LOC Dome gives you a great view of the city and the National Mall. i took this shot with my phone, so it's not the best, but here's an idea of what we saw:


alex, who is afraid of heights, was a real trooper, particularly on a windy day, until i started getting closer to the edge to take a picture of the flame on top of the LOC Dome - then he was less than pleased :)

pick a persona!

since i spent most of my days at a desk in front of my computer, i find it pretty easy to get bored with my surroundings. thankfully, someone brilliant at Firefox has found a way to help me combat that - they created "personas" which are basically banners that run across the top of your window, and they have all kinds of themes and colors.

whenever i'm feeling the need to a change of scenery, i change my persona, and then change the colors of my gmail to match. today, i'm trying out a new one:


and i can't decide how i feel about it. it's really bright, which i like in theory, particularly as it's getting dark outside so early, but it might actually hurt my eyes to look at it all day. what do you think? what tips do you guys have for making "desk life" more interesting?

Home Improvement

in addition to being an awesome show with Tim Allen & JTT (jonathan taylor thomas for those that were never jr. hight girls), home improvement was also the theme of the past few weeks around our house.

we started with painting. when we moved in (as most of you saw), the walls were blah. i mean really blah. well, we finally got around to adding a little color! we started in the kitchen, painting the one open wall a deep red color. then we moved on to the living, or at least a portion of it. we painted that a deep caramel color. painting goes pretty quickly with two people!

at first i was panicked about the caramel color. it looked pumpkin, which is cool for fall, and not so cool for the rest of the year. but we plowed on with a second coat and thankfully it became much more tan and much less orange. success.

then last night, we added some decor while improving our kitchen's functionality - we hung a pot rack! we have very little cabinet space, and until last night we'd avoided getting our new pots out of their box because we had nowhere to put them. well now we do!

it was a bit of an adventure to get it on the wall (smaller than ideal drill bit = alex guestimating the correct size of the hole and me fretting in the corner that he's going to destroy the wall/lose a finger), but eventually we did it and it looks awesome!

pictures of our home improvement efforts to come...now we're anxious to keep going!

2 months of wedded bliss :)

as of today, alex and i have been married for two months! it seems like it's been longer and shorter than that at the same time. however, it's been plenty of time to start learning funny things about each other, so i thought i'd share a few insights :)

1. sleeping in the same bed can be treacherous. for me, most of the pain has been physical - poked in the eye, elbow to the shoulder, etc. for alex, it's emotional - i have an unfortunate and startling tendency of sitting up in the middle of the night and carrying on conversations, all while sleeping away.

2. we have very different cleaning styles. i'm a "make a mess and clean it all up at the end" kind of person. alex is a "clean as you go" kind of person. unfortunately for him, this means he's often cleaning up after my messes along the way because i just haven't started cleaning until i'm all done making the mess!

3. grocery shopping for two people with different tastes can be tough. particularly when he's shopping for me, as i am admittedly picky about stupid things, like the thickness of my deli meat. i like it falling apart thin - he likes buying whatever's on sale that the deli has pre-sliced. i can't help it - it's how i was raised.

4. our TV tastes are more aligned that i expected. or at least we're patient with each other. we spend a lot of the weekend watching football (or researching, as alex calls it, for his new blog StarBust Football Inc) and then during the week we unwind to Glee, House, and all my/his other favs.

5. we really love being married. and i think we're gonna keep doing it for a really really long time :)

click for a good cause!

sorry for two posts in a row about animal rescue....i don't know what's gotten in to me...maybe it's time to get Leonidas a sibling, haha.

anyways, the organization we adopted Leonidas from (Homeward Trails) is in an essay contest to win $1500, and all they need is people to click to vote. no registration or anything, just clicks. whenever they do things like this, i like to pass around - we don't have a lot of money to throw their way, but i'm happy to help them win some from someone else :)

so if you get a chance, click here to vote. thanks!

Rover rescued!

yesterday on my way home from work, i saw this little puggle (pug/beagle) wandering by the side of the road without a collar. after turning around and driving past him 4 times, i decided to stop. he appeared to be well fed (i.e. kinda fat), neutered, nails clipped, not itchy (i.e. no fleas), so i decided he must be someone's lost pet.

well, i couldn't leave him by the side of the road, so i picked him up (no leash/collar), put him in my car, and drove him to my vet, where i knew they could scan him for a microchip. turns out, he had one! they called the owner and left a message, i left the dog with the vet, and they promised to call me and let me know what happened.

about an hour later, Rover (his name) was picked up by his owner! apparently, they'd been visiting cousins and he'd wandered out of their backyard. now he's all safe and sound!

feeling tech savvy?

this weekend, alex and i made the switch to our own family phone plan, and with that, we were able to get a good deal on new phones! we were excited to shop because we had decided to make the switch to Andriod smart phones and say a fond farewell to our old faithful "messaging only" phones.

we both ended up going with the new Samsung Facinate, which just came out for Verizon a few days ago (we felt so trendy, haha). i've got to say, i love it. seriously love it. it's touch screen only, no keyboard, and the screen is super responsive and easy to use. it's also got the biggest battery of any android phone, so in theory it's supposed to last the longest (so far, i've been impressed - 36 hours and i still have half a charge left).

but, what i'm MOST excited about is i finally have access to the games that previously i could only play on my dad's iphone, like Jewels (similar to Snood) and Paper Toss (requires you to flick crumbled paper into a waste basket, paying attention to the wind speed of the nearby fan). after all, that's what phones are for right? no? well anyway, it's fun and mindless and keeps me from doing what i should be doing like reading...oh wait...haha.

anyways, if any of your are considering a phone upgrade, the Facinate has my vote!

pura vida!

it's finally time for some pics from costa rica! the beach was incredibly beautiful - really soft black sand, with small waves because we were situated in a bay. i took advantage with a little art work:
here we are on our first day in costa rica exploring the beaches:


this is where we spent most of the week - next to the 3 tier pool complete with swim up bar and snack hut!


this was one of our biggest adventures during the trip - zip lining! alex is a little afraid of heights, so this was particularly triumphant for him :) all told, we went across 11 lines and 3 suspension bridges. i even took one of the long lines upside down! here we are halfway through the trip on a platform above the tree tops:


we also took one night to escape the resort and explore a small town nearby. it was really fun to explore a little of the local scene, do some serious souvenir shopping, and eat some fresh seafood:


although we did have some rain during our trip, we also got some beautiful sunsets. here's the view from the balcony of our "bungalow":


the resort also had several restaurants to choose from and all of the food was delicious. here we are in the main restaurant on our last night:

that's just a taste of our incredibly relaxing and beautiful trip. more on costa rica next time...

my new last name

i know i owe you all pictures and stories of costa rica (don't worry, they're coming), but for now, i want to share a revelation with you. as you know or will some day find out, after you get married, everyone LOVES using your new last name. loves it. which is nice and fun and also totally bizarre. so far i've made the switch on facebook, but still need to do so with email, voice mail, the social security administration...you get the idea.

well, today my grandpa called just to say hi and when i picked up, he said "hi there mrs. heacock", pronounced "hee-cock". my boss had done the same thing earlier in the day. when i corrected my grandpa, he said, "oh it's probably because people are used to saying peacock".

apparently my new last name is just one letter off from the most pretentious of birds, and that is causing massive waves of mispronunciation. maybe most of you already noticed that, but i never did! who knew??

lots and lots of water...

and not in the awesome Brad Paisley song way. on friday, we had a HUGE storm come through and pretty much the whole chicago area flooded. lots of things shut down - people's electricity, the eisenhower expressway (the major east-west highway to the city...picture 66 being shut down from the Beltway to DC), the kennedy expressway (north-south highway...so add portions of the Beltway shutting down and maybe even 270), and even my parents' sump pump.

that's right, we awoke to about 3 inches of water in our basement saturday morning. bummer. although we had nothing compared to some folks - my office got 18 inches in the basement, the company down there lost all of their computers, and our AC is broken (80 degree office on a monday is also a bummer). then, when alex and i took the train into the city for a work event saturday, we saw people in row boats going down their street. that's right - row boats. some underpasses even became swimming pools for children of irresponsible parents. it was chaos.

here's a picture of the street in front of my office on saturday afternoon.
thankfully, it's all clearing up now and people are starting to recover. you can tell by the streets lined with old carpet for the garbage folks to grab :)

starting the "honey do" list

recently alex and i decided we were totally bored of the cream walls and white trim throughout our entire condo. since he's got some time before the wedding, we decided that we (meaning he) would get some painting done before i move in!

we've had lots of fun picking colors, and some of the names are really creative - so far he's painted the bedroom "mineral water", which looks like a pretty robin's egg blue, and the guest bathroom will be "grass cloth", a nice soft green.

any suggestions for our living room?? that's the next project we think :)

engagement pictures are up!

our photographers for the wedding are a young local couple that we've really enjoyed getting to know. they're fun, creative, and you can tell they love what they do. anyways, as a part of our package, we got an engagement session with them, which we did about 3 weeks ago. well, the pictures are edited and some of the photographer's favorites are up on her blog! check them out here and see what you think :)

as a side note, stephanie actually found these guys first and used them for her wedding, so keep that link to see some of her wedding pictures when they get posted (hopefully soon!).

plants update!

remember my baby plants that i told you about awhile ago? i was so proud that they were actually sprouting roots! well friends, i am here to tell you that either i have a green thumb i never knew about...or these are the easiest plants to grow ever. check out their roots now!

today as a reward for being such great plants, i cleaned the vases and gave them new water. what a productive friday afternoon :)

lots to celebrate!

i apologize for being a big time blogging slacker - the past few weeks have just been crazy, but they're settling back into a normal rhythm so it's time for some updates!

first, alex has moved into the condo along with all of his and my belongings! this has made for several days worth of work packing, cleaning, unpacking, sorting, and throwing away, but it's starting to come together. we are loving the 15 minute drive between us now, and we're getting to see each other nearly every day. it is awesome.

second, stephanie, my very best friend from high school, got married on saturday! the week was full with her bachelorette party thursday, the rehearsal and dinner on friday, and the ceremony saturday. a few highlights:

• the look on stephanie's face when trent (her husband) told her friday night about his family's brunch at 8:30 sunday morning...needless to say, i think she convinced him to bail on that, haha
• the opportunity to see where she and trent are moving - it's a tiny 1 bedroom apartment in the city (as in 500 sq ft or less) with 1 closet, but it's just steps from the lake and they've done some cute decorating to make it feel cozy
• getting to open her ceremony in prayer and ask God's blessing on their marriage along with her family and friends, such an honor
• listening as they each gave their vows, stephanie in tears, trent handing her kleenex...it was beautiful
• clapping as they kissed as man and wife...like 4 separate times :)
• dancing the night away with alex as we pondered our own wedding just a few short months away...

it was such a great week and all of the busy-ness was well worth it in the end!

PS - i was going to spell "busy-ness" "business", but that's the same as the regular business...odd and confusing.

AT: stereomood

i can't claim credit for finding this - i snagged it from Olympia - but Stereomood is awesome! you can pick from a variety of "moods" and it'll pull up a playlist for you. it's totally handy for boring times at work or at home or at a party or whenever...very cool.

hilarious video describing contemporary worship services

my brother sent me the link to this video and i literally laughed out loud as i watched it. if you've ever been to a contemporary worship service (as you probably all have), i think you'll definitely appreciate it :)

busy weekend!

alex and i just finished up a crazy weekend, so here are the highlights to fill you all in :)

bought a house - well a condo anyways :) that's right folks, we closed on friday, got our keys, and we are officially home owners. we love the place and we're so excited to start moving things in, which will happen gradually over the next few weeks, until alex moves in for good at the end of the month.

visited my old grammar school - from 3rd through 8th grade i went to a little grammar school that i just loved. i had wonderful teachers, good friends, and tons of amazing memories. well, the school has recently finished construction on a brand new building (yay!), which means it was time to say goodbye to the old building (sad). so saturday, alex and i went to the farewell event for alumni, wandered around the school reminiscing, and chatted with over half of my teachers. it was so fun, and really meaningful.

saw scott's final freshman 15 show - saturday night we trekked to northwestern for scott's final a cappella performance with his group, freshman 15. after 4 years, it's hard to believe it's coming to an end, but the group did a great job, and scott had two awesome solos - jon mclaughlin's "indiana" and michael buble's "just haven't met you yet". personally, i think he had the best two songs of the show and it reminded me of what an amazing performer he is! i was a very proud big sister that night :)

had a bridal shower - another very fun, really great event where we saw lots of wonderful friends and got some amazing gifts! our neighbors hosted, and they were simply incredible - delicious food, adorable handmade favors, and elegant decorations. some gift highlights included a wii fit, a keurig coffee maker, several sets of our dishes, a yellow stand mixer, and an original watercolor painting of the inside of Century Memorial Chapel where we will be married (from my mom). i have to say, i felt quite loved!

entertained lots of out of town guests - including 3 aunts, 2 uncles, and three cousins. it was busy, but again, very full of love. i was so grateful to everyone for making the trip to chicago for the shower/my brother's show. i gotta say, we've got a pretty great family.

cast your vote!

my boss is a part of a group called the House Republican Economic Recovery Working Group (long title, i know) and they've launched a new initiative called You Cut. You Cut encourages the public to vote on what spending cuts they'd like to see enacted in DC. every week there will be five choices, and the winner will be put to a vote on the House floor the following week. even if you don't agree with the policies or don't want to vote, i think it's still a cool use of technology to gather public opinion in a new way. if you do want to vote or want to learn more about it, check it out here. Virginia's own Eric Cantor is spear-heading the project.

AT: poor English translations

a coworker posted this as an away message and it made me laugh out loud - nothing like a few botched translations to brighten up an otherwise typical thursday :)

handmade at it's best

i recently made my first purchase from Etsy, a virtual marketplace for all things handmade. sellers from all over the world can post their products and you can even order custom items by directly contacting sellers - very cool! i ordered personalized cards to use as "thank you" notes for my upcoming bridal shower in illinois and i can't wait to see how they turn out. maybe the rest of you have already discovered this trendy new site, but if you haven't you should check it out!

we are approved!

i can't believe this day is finally here but i am proud to announce that we are approved on our condo! we had our home inspection this weekend, which went very well, just a few small things to take care of when we move in, and i have to say, it was so exciting to be back in the place after several weeks. we still love it, we're so excited to be there, and we can't wait to get in and start making it feel like our home!

i believe we're going to be closing may 13 - just 2 1/2 weeks away! alex is planning to move in at the end of may, and he'll get started on cleaning and painting and arranging. then after the wedding, it will be all set for me to join him :) can't wait to get settled so we can start entertaining out of town guests!

my plants have roots!

guess what?? my plants that i told you about are actually growing roots! don't believe me? i don't blame you - i wasn't even the one to notice them. my coworker came in to check on them, and she pointed them out to me.

they're a little hard to see in the picture above - let me help you out.

yeah that's right. do i have a green thumb or what??

AT: cornhole arcade game

yesterday, alex and i were out running errands and we decided to stop for lunch at this bagel place my parents rave about. well, the bagel place was closed (or at least the door was locked - we got their 15 min before they were supposed to close), and we didn't feel like eating at subway next door. thankfully, just across the shopping center was this great little burger/hot dog place i remember ordering food from in high school.

what a place! the food was good and inexpensive, they had a giant gumball machine (although alex had two gumballs - and spit both out shortly after), and they had a couple of arcade games - including CORNHOLE! of course, we had to play. there was a big track ball that you used to pull your arm back and throw the bag, you could change the angle of your toss, and there was even a wind factor! it took us a few throws to get the hang of it, but once we did, we were pretty good (although i'll admit, alex was way better - he even got several in the hole!). it was awesome!

office sprucing

this has been a pretty gloomy week in chicagoland - lots of rain, lots of thunder, lots of clouds - like i said, gloomy. so i decided to spruce up my office to combat the yucky weather!

first, i changed the water in my little plants. let me explain these plants. someone else in our office brought in this very hardy plant, and supposedly you can simply clip a portion off of the plant, put it in water, and it will grow roots. well, i told her that was really cool and i should try, so the next day she brought me these two vases to do it! so now i am the proud caretaker of two green stems stuck in water...that hopefully will turn into plants someday. anyways, they sit on my window sill and i like them a lot :)


then, i decided to bring in my Easter candy and leave it in a bowl in my office for people to come in and take. then, separately another person from the office brought me this black "wet-erase" board that really serves no purpose but he saw it for a dollar and so he bought it for me. since i have this silly board, i decided to use it to announce my new candy bowl!


any other tips for sprucing up a gloomy office???

game-filled weekend

this weekend for Easter, my brother and Alex both came out from their respective schools to celebrate. my family decided to make sunday a game day, and we had some good times. first we played bananagrams, a new game that my parents gave scott in his Easter basket (yes, we still get Easter baskets). bananagrams is kind of like scrabble, but easier. you get a bunch of letter tiles and you have to use all of them to spell connecting words.


my brother, who had played before, was awesome at it, alex and i did alright, and my parents were (surprisingly) terrible! my mom kept muttering all of these non-words as she tried to use all of her difficult letters (J's are more difficult than you'd think!)...we were amused.

then we moved on to monopoly deal, which i've actually blogged about before here. alex and i had played a bunch on our own, but we decided to share the joy with the rest of the family. although it took a little while to get the hang of it (about 2.5 games into it, my mom goes "wait, so everyone gets 3 plays per turn??"...which is the most basic rule of the game and my brother kept trying to put properties in his bank), we had a lot of fun.


we ended on one particularly dramatic round, where my mom tried to get revenge on my brother and win the game only to be foiled by his "just say no" card, and my dad successfully stole a full set of properties from me by laying his "just say no" card on my "just say no card" (there's only 3 in the deck), only to lose his two full sets and all of his money in just one round. all three of these instances ended in table-round high-fives (excluding the thwarted party of course). good times.

Guam at risk for "tipping over"?

check out this video of a Congressman in a hearing about placing more US troops in Guam...it almost has to be an April Fools joke, but he looks awfully serious...or maybe hammered...

a promise is a promise...unless you're in politics

i found this article too interesting not to pass along - it cites the promises obama made during his campaign that have since been broken in the first year+ of his presidency. even though i know we don't all agree politically (as is healthy), i thought this was particularly poignant for people who either voted for him or didn't vote for him but felt hopeful after he was elected that he may stand for some worthy principles.

some of these examples are ridiculous (a tax on tanning salons does not count as a tax on families with incomes over $250K), but others are really fascinating (his campaign stance on health care reform compared to the actual bill he signed into law). i always expect political candidates (particularly those with little to no experience like our president) to be surprised by the realities of their office, and how difficult the job they've just assumed will be, but all of these lined up together was...stunning.

tasting and track meet

last thursday night alex and i went to the big tasting for our reception at the Royal Fox! we were really excited to sample all of the food and see the place again all decked out in wedding style. when we arrived, we wandered around the whole place looking for our table, taking pictures of the styles of other tables, and smelling the delicious food. every table had been decorated according to that couple's color scheme, but the arrangements and centerpieces were all different, so we took notes on what we liked. there was even an entire table dedicated to all of the different napkin folds you can choose - i didn't even know we had to pick a napkin fold!

then came the food - there was wine, appetizers, soup, salad, sorbet, entrees (chicken, beef, & fish), sides (starches & vegetables), and dessert (white & chocolate wedding cake plus various other sweets). needless to say, by the end we were totally stuffed! we haven't finalized our menu yet, but trust me, it will be good :)

moving on to the weekend, alex and the vikings had their first outdoor track meet saturday! it was a home meet, so alex was super busy all day running the throwing events. one or more of his athletes competed in all four mens' events, and they all did pretty well! one guy actually placed in all four events - javelin, discus, shot put, and hammer. it was really fun to see alex being all official, even though i know it was a lot of work. when all was said and done, he'd been standing outside for over 9 hours!

of course, i went to watch the meet, and i came all equipped with a comfy chair, a blanket (it was cold for those of us just sitting around!), and a good book. although i had more down time then alex, i did try to find ways to make myself useful - i videotaped all of his athletes' performances and i even got to pull the tape to measure the javelin throws! all in all, it was a very long but very fun day. go vikings!

housing update

in case you were curious, i thought i'd give everyone a status update on our condo-to-be (hopefully!). we submitted our offer almost 3 weeks ago, and although we were hoping/expecting to close somewhere in the 90 day range (mid to end of june), the seller's attorney informed us they are expecting to close in may! now, i have no idea how they arrived at this conclusion or if the seller's attorney has any reason to think that, but it does give us cause to hope...

if we do close in may, it might mean we've got a signed contract by the end of april, which would make us eligible for the new homebuyer's tax credit. we had thought for sure we wouldn't get everything done in time for that, and we still might not, but we're praying for God's timing on this, and if it includes an extra $8K, that would be nice :)

on a less important and more fun note, we're considering buying a sofa bed from one of my coworkers, which would mean we'd have the futon AND a queen size sofa bed for out-of-town guests (hint hint). and this is no ordinary uncomfortable sofa bed - it has an inflatable top half so it feels more like an aerobed! if this all works out, you are all invited for a house-warming party!!!

popular girls' names - who knew??

today i was taking a sporcle quiz on the 100 most popular girls names in 2000 (it's friday, after all). there were some i expected - emily (1), sarah (12), katherine (36), ashley (8), kayla (20), jennifer (37) - and several i did not expect - emma (3), hannah (4), abigail (6), brianna (17), victoria (25), trinity (59). and then some other names didn't even make the list - meredith, heather, anne, christina, lisa.

now i know i'm not around a lot of kids, so i have to ask you teachers,do you have any maya's (79) or destiny's (32), or ava's (19)??? i think sporcle may be a little off base on this one...

wedding website up and running!

two posts in one day - crazy, i know - but this was too important not to put up! i have finally finished our wedding website - our registries are up, hotel information is up, and a few pictures are up. take a look when you get a chance, sign the guest book, and if you have any problems with anything, please let me know! Here is the link.

wishing i was in williamsburg...

days like today make me wish i was back in college - it's one of the first real days of spring, sunny, 65 degrees, just a few puffy white clouds in the sky, and all i want to do is take the afternoon off, go outside and read or nap or play cornhole...maybe all of the above. i want to take a spring break trip to the OBX, wake up late, drink tea on the porch, wear sweatshirts on the beach while playing bocce, and then cook dinner and play games with friends.

whenever i start feeling like this, although i miss W&M and all it meant to me, i am also incredibly grateful for my time there, because i really feel like we lived our college experiences to the fullest. miss you all and wish we together to enjoy the weather :)

super fun weekend

this weekend was a lot of fun - alex and i got to hang out a lot and do some pretty cool stuff :) saturday morning, we met at a little diner called Seven Dwarfs for breakfast - for anyone that knows alex, this will come as no surprise, but for those that don't, you should understand he LOVES diners. loves them. and so for Christmas, my brother had gotten him a gift certificate to this little diner. when we got there, it was something straight out of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding - the Dancing Zorba anyone? the owner was Greek, a lot of the waitresses were related to him, and as he was running around clearing tables and seating people, he's shout "opa!" for no particular reason. i kid you not - it was awesome. the food was good and inexpensive, and we were excited because the gift certificate is going to last us for another saturday morning breakfast!

after breakfast, we headed out in the drizzle and 45 degree weather to walk in a st. patrick's day parade for my boss. although you'd think the weather would have dampened our spirits (and our clothes), it did not! we came prepared with rain coats and the comradery of the event made it a lot of fun. when we got there, we didn't realize how far the start of the parade was from where we parked, so we made a mad dash through the crowds to get to our group just in time. i think that little run helped keep us warm too :)

after the parade, we got to our main task for the weekend - registering for wedding gifts! i have to say, i was totally psyched for this process - who wouldn't want to peruse a few stores picking out presents for your future life together?? we picked cookware and bakeware and small applicances and bedding and bathroom stuff...the list goes on, and we're really excited about everything we selected. although it took awhile (several hours on saturday AND sunday - alex was a trooper), it will be worth it in the end. we're excited about building a real life and home together, and although the "stuff" is a very small part of that, it allowed us to really picture our new life - and it looks awesome :)

made an offer!

yesterday alex and i made an offer on a condo!!! we're really excited about the unit - it has 2 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms (plenty of room for out of town guests!), 2 small patios, updated kitchen and bathrooms, first floor, washer/dryer in the unit, and central AC. we like the location too - across the street from a forest preserve, great highway access, near groceries and shopping, and we already know a couple living in the complex (my good friend from high school)!

however, we obviously don't have an contract signed yet or anything, and probably won't for a while, as it's a short sale. But, the short sale means it's a great deal, so hopefully we'll get our offer approved without too much delay or hassle - that's our prayer anyways :) here are a few pictures!

we'd be on the corner on the first floor of this building - that window on the front look into the kitchen...


which looks like this (sorry for the blur...)!


you walk out of the kitchen into the dining area, which looks onto the second little patio and connects to the master bedroom (door on the right).

AT: when your computer is smarter than you think it is, take 2!

today i went to send an email that was supposed to have an attachment. i wrote "i have attached" in the body of the email, but forgot to actually attach the file. well, when i clicked send, i got a message that said, "you wrote 'i have attached' in your email, but there is no attachment. send anyway?". relieved that gmail had caught my mistake, i hit cancel, attached the file, and then sent my email again, correctly this time.

can you believe that?? gmail looked at the text in my email, saw something i had forgotten to do, and warned me about it before i messed it up! that is totally AWESOME!

PS - please don't judge me for getting this excited about my email. it is monday morning, after all.

tired of winter

i am officially tired of winter. i like to think i have a higher tolerance for cold and snow than most after growing up in this area, but every year when it gets to be nearly march and i'm still snow-blowing, shoveling, and bundling up on a regular basis, i am bummed that it is still winter. i had to clear my driveway of snow 3 out of 4 mornings this week, last night i drove home in a minor blizzard, and it is getting old. particularly after reading katie's blog about the 50 degree weather, i am ready for that - 50 degrees sounds nothing short of glorious right now. i haven't seen 50 degrees since...i moved here. c'mon spring, we need you!!!

AT: when your computer is smarter than you think it is

it's been almost two weeks since i blogged, and after pretty successful string of blogs in january with awesome things, i've decided to return to my awesome things format for the most part. instead of numbering them, i'll just denote an awesome thing in the title with "AT". glad we got that cleared up.

yesterday i got a new computer at work - i was really excited for this development because i was going from an 8 year old laptop (slow, small screen, etc.) to a brand new desktop with windows 7, all kinds of speed, and a great big monitor. unfortunately, the transition yesterday was not as smooth as i'd hoped. a program i rely on daily wasn't working with windows 7; we hadn't gotten microsoft office and we were using "open office" instead (a free version), and i couldn't figure out how to make some common features of my most critical spreadsheet work as i was used to. it got to be 5:00 and my entire afternoon had been whittled away by computer woes so i just went home.

i came in this morning prepared to do battle with this "open office" situation. i sat down, opened up my spreadsheet, and started with one small change, thinking this would lead to a string of tedious other changes. lo and behold, it did not! the program recognized my change and updated automatically! it was awesome. when you sit at a computer pretty much all day for work, it's these little victories that make random tuesday mornings bearable :)

you guys may have snow but we had...an earthquake!!!

that's right folks, last night around 4:00 in the morning, chicago's western suburbs, along with parts of wisconsin and indiana, experienced a 3.8 magnitude earthquake! of course, i slept through the whole thing so i can't report first-hand, but my mom woke up and said the whole house was shaking, which she mistakenly identified as a possible gas explosion or ice falling on the roof - both theories were disproved after a quick examination of the house. i didn't even know this, but apparently we are along a fault line out here in the midwest, although actual activity you can feel occurs pretty infrequently.

it's not quite as dramatic as snow-magedon, but there certainly are some crazy natural phenomena happening these days...

snow blower extrordinaire

this morning i snow-blowed my driveway all by myself for the very first time and it was AWESOME! my dad is out of town, so it was up to me to get my car out without packing down too much snow. i have to say, snow-blowing is waaaay more fun than lawn mowing, because you get to see the snow shooting out from the top and you can aim it and our driveway is way smaller than our lawn :) so for all of those reasons, i am psyched to snow blow again tomorrow morning after the next 6 inches or so have fallen tonight!

wish i was out in VA to share my new found skills with a lot of you guys - i'm trying to help in spirit!!!

new home sweet home?

this weekend alex and i took our first house hunting excursion with our new realtor and it was LONG - we spent over 4 hours looking at a bunch of places, and i think we've found 2 possibilities! of course, it's only our first time out with her, so there's probably lots more looking to come, but it was exciting to find 2 places that were in the budget, in a location we liked, and in move-in condition!

the first is a townhouse near a cute downtown area with good highway access. it's 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, with a little dining area and a living room, a patio, plus a kitchen of course. this is a place we could really do a lot to make it feel like our own - we'd paint, replace the kitchen cabinets, maybe put in a new floor, possibly make some upgrades to the bathroom (all in good time of course). the major plus here is that it is 2 blocks from the train we'd take when we want/need to go downtown, it's a very residential area, and it's walkable to several restaurants.

the second is a first floor condo, also with good highway access and close to a mall/restaurant hub. this one has gorgeous hardwood floors, a cute updated kitchen & bathroom, and the patio backs up to a big green space with a pond. it would be really fun for entertaining, has lots of closet space, and fun paint already done on the inside. it's not in a very residential area, but the community has a nice feel.

anyways, those are the updates from the house hunt - anyone have advice on pitfalls we should watch out for in this process??

you know you're a true LOST fan when...

you dream about being on the island the night before the season premier. yes, that's right. tonight is the season premier of LOST and this morning i woke up in the middle of a dream about being on the island...and it was awesome!!! i've been reading up on this season's speculations, spoilers, and mysteries to be resolved, and apparently these issues have seeped into my dream life, haha. the only sad thing about tonight's incredible television event is that i won't be able to watch and question and theorize with all of you afterward. thank goodness we have blogs to share our thoughts :) who's ready to get LOST?!?!?!

last awesome things!

#29 - house hunting: as most of you have already heard, alex and i are in the market to buy a condo/townhouse before the new homebuyers tax credit expires in april. friday was our first trip out to look at properties! although the process is a lot of work (finding a realtor, getting approved for a mortgage, searching endlessly online for property information), i actually really enjoy it. mostly i enjoy it because i know at the end of the road, alex and i will have a place to call our own and that will be awesome :)

#30 - measurable progress: one of the cool things about a sport like track is that progress is very obvious because it is measurable - a season best, a personal record, or just a better performance that the previous week. well, the vikings' meet this weekend was downtown so i went in to the city to watch! it was really exciting because alex's athletes had great performances - one guy won both the weight and the shot put! they all have already shown considerable improvement since the beginning of the season, and that is an awesome thing for a coach AND a spectator :)

#31 - regular blogging: so this is the the end of my "awesome things" month, and although i didn't even keep up with that as regularly as i would have liked, i still really enjoyed doing it. it gave me a framework to talk about the good things in my life and reminded me of how much i have to be thankful for. i won't promise an awesome thing for every day going forward, but don't be surprised if the awesome update format lives on - it's been awesome!

#28 - laughing out loud at the office

have you ever been reading some sort of distraction online while at work, and it was so funny that you couldn't help but laugh out loud? that just happened to me and it was awesome. unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) my office is pretty far away from everyone else that's here so no one heard and asked what was funny, so i had no on e to share it with. hence the blog post :)

in case you were curious about what i was reading, you can check it out here. "baked poo souffle with a side of #2 nuggets"...man i'm still laughing. what does that say about me i wonder? :P

10 new things!

i am much belated but january is almost over and i couldn't let my awesome things pledge fall completely by the wayside. so here we go - 10 (short) awesome things from the past 10 days!

#18 - 3 day weekends: although i didn't have the full day off for martin luther king day, i did go home really early and alex came out to hang out. it was such a blast to see him and have some extra time off of work!

#19 - seeing the grass again: last week we got some rain and warmer temperatures, which combined to melt the 12+ inches of snow that had been sitting on the ground for...a long time. i think leonidas was even more excited than i was about the grass - all kinds of new smells AND he didn't have to wear his coat to go the bathroom, haha.

#20- restaurant date deals: i'm sure most of you have seen ads for the2 for $20 deal at chili's or the 3 courses for $25 at fridays, and after taking advantage of several of these deals with alex and my family, i have to say they are awesome. for couples on a budget, restaurant date deals are the way to go.

#21 - seeing relatives from far away: last week my uncle flew in from AZ to visit my grandparents, and it was really fun to see him! he's very sharp and interesting, but has all the quirks you'd expect as my grandfather's son. he's also super competitive when it comes to wii sports and i crushed him at canoeing. i'll admit, i was a little sore the next day but it was worth it!

#22 - when grandma makes a joke: my grandma is this incredibly sweet 84 year old lady and over the past few years, she and i have grown very close. unfortunately, she suffers from some dimentia and is very hard of hearing, so big family gatherings can be challenging for her, BUT every so often, she'll catch my grandpa doing something ridiculous and she'll crack a joke. her jokes are always awesome :)

#23 - weird old people ideas: with my uncle in town, we spent LOTS of time together as a family, elderly included, and twice this weekend i caught my grandfather doing something ridiculous. first, we were out to dinner and i look over to see his winter hat tucked into the front of his pants. why you'd chose to put a hat your pants rather than in the pocket of your coat is beyond me. he removed it at my less-than-gentle request, haha. then, the next day at sunday brunch, we're out to eat again and my grandma asks him to hold her purse. rather than setting it on the empty chair next to him, he started to unbuckle his belt and feed it through her purse straps! why this man cannot find anything but his pants to hold on to things is beyond me.

#24 - bowling: recently alex and i went out on a bowling date! neither of us are very good bowlers (rarely getting over 100), but we still have a lot of fun getting a pizza, a pitcher of beer, and making total fools out of ourselves. since we're both terrible, there's not a ton of serious competition between us, but i must point out that i beat alex 119 - 118 in our second game. it was an awesome tenth frame :)

#25 - photography blogs: we are in the midst of picking a wedding photographer and it is a tough decision! every photographer has a cool blog with lots of fun pictures and i always get excited thinking about what pictures from our day will look like! although i could never find that creativity in myself, i definitely appreciate it in other people!

#26 - getting taken out to lunch for work: yesterday one of our vendors for work was in town and they came by to take me out to lunch! after talking to them exclusively on the phone, it was funny to see them in person and find out that my picture in my head was way off, haha. anyways, it was a delicious lunch and a fun perk of being in the working world!

#27 - solo cups with scratch off name panel: our office has the most awesome solo cups. they have a panel-like thing on the front and when you peel off the label, you can scratch your name (or whatever else you want) into the black space! what an awesome idea for keeping cups straight at parties and whatnot! i wish i had thought of that...

health care debate

so i know i am belated in posting my awesome things for the past few days, and unfortunately this is not a post to make up for that. after everything that has happened over the past few days, i felt compelled to respond. please understand this is not intended to be a judgment of anyone else's position - i am not a health care professional and so i have the luxury of approaching the issue from afar. however, i do think it is important to hear all sides of an issue before forming an opinoin of your own. so, in the sprirt of open dialogue and an acknowledgement that my perspectives are limited, i'd like to explain why i believe a national health care system is fiscally irresponsible and will end up lowering the quality of our care across the board.

first, you should know that the debate is not about whether or not heath care reforms are needed - everyone agrees that costs are astronomical and access is too limited. amidst all of the rhetoric, i believe the focus on those goals has been lost - we need to find a way to lower health care costs and provide increased access, but i do not believe a national health care system will accomplish either of those goals.

the financial argument that i've heard for a national health care plan is that the government, by being able to operate at a loss, will be able to provide coverage below the market value of other insurance plans and force insurance companies to operate more effeciently to lower their own costs. this argument rests on three extremely misguided assumptions.

• it assumes that the government can be efficient. to see an example of the government's inability to operate a health care program efficiently, we need look no further than medicare. when looking at the total cost of medicare, a whooping 10% of the bill goes directly to fraudulent activities - i don't mean old ladies getting extra massages, but organized criminal operations that are taking advantage of the government's inability to efficiently operate medicare. 10%. if we're trying to lower government costs, i'd say let's start there.
• it assumes that other areas of the economy can afford to pay for a program that operates at a loss OR the country can simply incur more debt without any consequences. when the government operates a program at a loss, it either has to bring in additional income from other sources (i.e. raise taxes on non-union so-called "cadilac plans") or it has to incur more debt. in terms of the debt, it took 43 presidents to incur $5 trillion of national debt, which is a staggering number already - between the stimulus bill earlier this year, health care, etc. this administration has plans to double the national debt in 5 years and triple it in 10 years. $15 trillion dollars in debt. that is something that me, my children and my grandchildren will have to be worried about paying off for....ever.
• it assumes that doctors and health care providers will simply accept lower rates for the same quality of service. again, i will refer to the medicare example. as i understand it, when a patient uses medicare to cover a medical expense, the doctor in turn submits the claim to medicare for reimbursement. unfortunately for the doctor, medicare does not reimburse at the actual cost to the doctor, and so the doctor has to take a loss. let's say an MRI costs $1000, but medicare only reimburses $500 - the doctor loses $500. but because the doctor runs a business, he has to find that $500 elsewhere, either by raising prices for non-medicare patients or by cutting costs in another area of operation, like research and development.
  

the implications of these arguments cannot be underestimated - instead of lowering costs and increasing access, a national health care system would actually increase costs to non-government plan consumers and raise taxes across the board. this will force people out of their traditional plans and into the government option, which will force doctors to decrease the amount the can spend on the development of new life-saving technologies.

all of this is not to say the government cannot help - it can. allow companies to buy insurance across state lines, thereby increasing the level of competition and lowering costs. allow small businesses to pool their resources to negotiate for better rates. enact reasonable tort liability reform so doctors don't have to charge consumers for insurance against frivilous law suits. reduce fraud in medicare. those are small steps that would make a big difference and help us reach our ultimate goals - lower costs and increased access.

#17 - talking to people about W&M

in case you hadn't heard, the tribe will be welcoming a new addition to the basketball team next year from my area! i am particularly excited because we go to the same church, our parents know each other, and the night before he made his decision to chose W&M over several other schools, he called me and i did the final convincing :)

anyways, we ran into his family this sunday and his mom was expressing some nerves about how far away he'd be, how different virginia might be from here, etc. well, i was thrilled to get to talk about W&M to someone who will be heading out that way so soon - i told them all about the chapel and the basketball guys there (who he talks to regularly already), the great food, colonial williamsburg, my first visit there, and how awesome the students and community are at W&M. i told them that alex and i had both made friends for life and our experiences there are something we will always treasure.

i don't often get to talk personally about W&M and my time there, but whenever i do, it is awesome. maybe one day i'll get a job recruiting for them...haha. go tribe!

#16 - Swedish food

saturday night alex and i went out to dinner at the little Swedish restaurant just 50 feet from his apartment. if you hadn't heard, his school has a relatively large Scandinavian population, so all things Swedish are more prevelant than most places. i have to say, the food was awesome! i had crab cakes with roasted red pepper sauce and french onion soup, and alex had a chicken and ham dish that came with green beans and mashed potatoes. it's a tiny hole-in-the-wall place, but the authentic Swedish cuisine was delicious.

#15 - winning contests

alright guys, here's the deal - i entered leonidas in a cutest pet contest and i need you all to VOTE FOR HIM!!! if he wins, he would appear on Bissell vacuum products, we'd get $10,000 to donate to charity of our choice, a $500 pet shopping spree, and a free vacuum! if you hadn't guessed, the contest is through Bissel, and this is what you need to do to vote:

Simply go to this website or visit www.bissell.com and click on the Pet MVP logo on the left side. Click "View this week's pets" on the right, which will direct you to the competition. Then, search for Leonidas and his picture along with a description I wrote will pop up! Click on his name, and then click "Login to Vote". You'll have to enter your email address and password to vote, but be sure not to subscribe to their email list (unless you want vacuum updates - then feel free). Then, just vote!

pass this along to as many people as you'd like and maybe one day you'll be able to buy a vacuum with Leonidas on the package - how awesome would that be??? VOTE FOR LEONIDAS!!!

#14 - mini food

last night i had an event for work where we served appetizers and they were delicious! i like appetizers because they are mini versions of good food, so you can sample several tastes. i had a few mini pizzas (which actually looked like mini quiches, but they were not), mini quesadillas, and mini egg rolls - all awesome!

#13 - seeing Alex in the middle of the week

i know this is a cheesy one, which is not normally my style, but i couldn't help myself...on wednesday, alex drove out to the western suburbs to come and see me and i was reminded how awesome it is to be living close enough that we can see each other in the middle of the week AND on weekends. yay for the beginning of the end of long-distance :)

#12 - checking things off

this week at work has been pretty busy - we've had four events, the boss was in town, and we were finishing up a big mailing project. well, in order to be sure that i didn't let anything slip through the cracks, i had a big to-do list. well, yesterday i checked off all of the most pressing things on my list and it felt awesome! some days, it's the small victories :)

#11 - unfortunate last names

now i know these are not awesome for the people who have them, but for those of us bystanders, it can be pretty awesome. today i ran into someone who's last name is "hickisch"...that's right, like hick-ish, as in having the qualities of a hick. totally unfortunate and totally awesome - anyone else have awesome stories of unfortunate last names??

a quick addendum - i also discovered someone that lives in Boring, OR today. Unfortunate, hilarious, and awesome.

#11 - free jeans

today i got my free lee jeans in the mail from the facebook drawing and they are awesome! i'm actually wearing them right now and they are quite comfortable...alex got his too and he's pretty psyched from what i can tell. did everyone else get there's too?? anyways, i have to give katie credit for today's awesome thing...good find katie :)

#10 - monopoly deal

for christmas alex gave me an awesome new game - monopoly deal! for those of you that like monopoly but don't have 7 hours and more than two people, this game is the best. alex and i played a bunch last sunday and i beat him like 25 games to 2. we played again this weekend and although he exacted his revenge (he beat me 5 games to 3), i still think this game is awesome. you can play with more people, but we haven't tried it yet...i'm sure that'll be awesome too!

#9 - giant icicles

right now in chicago, there is a big "thaw", meaning the sun is out and temperatures are in the 30s - whoo hoo! that also means houses are covered in icicles, which are one of winter's more beautiful features. and when i say icicles, i mean big ones - the one i knocked off my house on saturday was almost 4 feet long! it was awesome, but i think i might have killed a bush in the process...only spring will tell!

#8 - when popular TV trumps politics

maybe you heard this but maybe you didn't - there was a chance that the State of the Union address this year was going to bump the LOST premier to a whole week later! for those of us die-hard LOST fans who have been waiting like 18 years for the new season, this would have been upsetting. well, worry no more because today it was announced here that LOST will begin Feb. 2, on time and on schedule, and that is an awesome thing!

awesome things 1 - 7

1 - holiday compromises: for those of you that have dealt with splitting holiday time between your family and your significant other's family, you know how tough it can be to keep everyone happy. well this year, alex and i dealt with that for the first time and we struck an awesome compromise! we moved "Christmas morning" with my family to Christmas Eve morning, went to church with my family, and then on Christmas Day, we drove 11 hours to PA to have Christmas dinner with his family. we spent the next 5 days with them, and then it was off to Indianapolis, where we spent New Year's with my extended family. we got quality time with everyone and no one felt left out!

2 - outrunning a snow storm: on Christmas Day, the forecast had called for an big ice storm in the midwest, so we'd be praying all week that the traffic wouldn't be bad on our drive to PA. well, lucky for us, the storm hit after we already left and we didn't hit any traffic at all! it was awesome!

3 - long down coats: for Christmas, i asked my parents for a new coat - a long, down northface to keep me warm while walking the dog, scraping off my car, etc. well, they were great enough to get one for me and it is awesome! it keeps me so toasty, it has a hood, and it reverse-zips (unzips from the bottom) so i can sit down in the car without feeling restricted.

4 - wii canoeing: for a Christmas present, my brother, alex, and i all chipped in and got my parents a wii, which is awesome, but what's even MORE awesome is the wii resrot sports game that my aunt and uncle got them to go with it. you can do all sorts of things, but my favorite to watch and play is canoeing. you hold the remote and paddle side to side just like you would with a real canoe paddle. my mom even loves it! i have never laughed so hard as when i watched my mom and dad race each other in canoeing, paddling their hearts out in front of the tv, and talking smack to each other. awesome AND hilarious.

5 - daily calendars: alex knows how much i love calendars (he does too), so for Christmas he got me a daily calendar of quotes from the office! i have to say, there is something incredibly satisfying about ripping off a new page every day and having the restraint not to read days ahead. it's awesome because it gives me something to look forward to every morning at work. he also got one for my brother that's got entries from the blog "stuff white people like", which is also awesome.

6 - family pot lucks: this is one of my favorite things about alex's family get-togethers - everyone brings food and everyone's food is delicious! this time the unintentional theme was meatballs...alex's mom, grandmother, and uncle all brought fresh homemade meatballs and the all had different sauces! it was really fun to sample all of the different kinds, and believe me, they were all awesome.

7 - fresh snow: today chicago is getting a fresh snow, about 12 inches or so. when i walked the dog this morning, everything was so peaceful and clean and quiet. the snow was fluffy and coated the trees and the plows hadn't been through yet, so there wasn't a speck of brown, dirty snow in sight. it was awesome. when we talk about God making our hearts as white as snow, that is what i think of - clean, beautiful, and peaceful, just like the morning after a fresh snowfall.

the power of positive thinking

recently i found out about the blog called 1000 awesome things. it's pretty self-explanatory - every day they put up a blog about an awesome thing, and they're doing it until they reach 1000 (almost 3 years). it's nothing super deep, but so far they've been amusing and true. now, i'm not going to try to achieve something that remarkable, but i am going to try to come up with an awesome thing that happens every day for the month of january.

here's why. first, i'm not a great blogger and hopefully this will motivate me to be more consistent. second, it'll be a fun way to fill you in on things that happen in my life. third, in a year where there is a lot going on in my life that can get stressful, this will be a way to focus on something awesome that happened that day.

now, i know i'm late in starting this for january, so my next post is going to be 7 awesome things that happened over the Christmas/New Year break, and that will catch me up (and catch you up too!). feel free to join me in the quest for finding the awesome things every day, or just leave thoughts/comments when they come to you :)