i promise i have more fun blog posts coming but...

for now i need to express my extreme frustration with president obama and illinois politicians. the obama administration announced today that the federal government is buying a prison complex located approximately 150 miles west of the city of chicago to be used to house detainees currently held in guantanamo bay. you can read all about it here if you're interested in the details (there's also a good/funny quote from my boss on the first page of the article), but i'd also like to give you my side of the story.

president obama pledged to close gitmo this year, but had been totally unsuccessful in finding a place willing to hold the suspected terrorists (what a shock that most americans are opposed to housing terrorists on our soil near their homes). in a last ditch effort to follow through on his pledge and avoid the political backlash from a failure to close gitmo, he approached sen. dick durbin and gov. pat quinn of illinois, both fellow democrats from obama's "home" state, to call in a favor. then, without fully investigating the impact that moving suspected terrorists near america's third largest city could have, durbin and quinn agreed to make it happen, no matter the reaction from illinois' citizens. the pitch was simple - opening the thompson correctional facility will create new jobs, about 3,00 of them.

this situation blows my mind for 3 reasons. first, apparently illinois democrats in charge of the welfare and protection of their state cannot find a more creative way to create jobs than to bring in terrorists. second, our president refuses to acknowledge the reality that most americans don't want terrorists brought to their country, let alone chicago's backyard. and third, if anyone thinks that closing gitmo will stop terrorists from using this new facility in in illinois as a recruiting tool, they are completely bereft of common sense. moving gitmo to illinois will not undermine the stigma of gitmo; it will only relocate it.

that is enough of my soap box for one day :) i am loading pictures to my computer tonight so i should be posting lots more fun things soon!

the real arctic tundra

today in chicago it is FREEZING. when i went downstairs at 7:00 to take leonidas out, the thermometer outside the house said .1 degrees. POINT 1 degrees. when i got to work, this is what weather.com reported:


if you can't read it, that's "Feels Like -21". poor leonidas was doing really well in the snow until today...today it is just too cold for his little paws to handle. obviously, he'll have to go out sometime to use the...facitilities...but this morning it wasn't happening. maybe i'll try again later when we reach the high for the day...12. at least it's still double digits (for now!).

first day of snow!!!

two posts in one day is totally unlike me i know, but there were just multiple noteworthy things to share today, so here we go!

today is the first day of snow in chicagoland! it's just some flurries, and the ground is still too warm for anything to stick, but still...it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

as a general rule, i love the snow from December through the end of January, so for about 2 months. any snow before or after that, and the pretty white snow turns into brown, cold slush and that i do not appreciate. but for now, i'm going to celebrate the beginning of what will hopefully be a very white Christmas season!

this just happened...

but first, a little background. as you know, i bring leonidas to work a lot and he's always been great, never had any "marking" problems (i.e. doing his business in the office), very calm, etc. there is another woman who works in the office who has a cavalier king charles spaniel puppy named lucky who is probably 18 lbs. or so. she's brought him in a few times and he and leonidas haven't really gotten along - lucky is pretty hyper and jumps all over leonidas (and me - he scratched my face once) and then leonidas barks, yada yada yada.

well today, hudson was going to be alone most of the day and i knew we had no volunteers in the office this morning, so i decided to bring both he AND leonidas to work with me. for the first several hours, everything went great! the dogs were calm, chewed their bones, slept, etc. no trouble at all.

then lucky arrived. as the three started playing, leonidas started freaking out, so i picked him up and went to lock him in my office. i came back out to the front just in time to see hudson challenging lucky by "marking" a trash can. thankfully he only got a few sprinkles out before i stopped him. i took hudson back to lock him into my office with leonidas and went to clean up the mini-mess. i came back to take both of my dogs outside, and while i was putting their leashes on, lucky decided to leave some #2 all over the front office. awesome.

so, i finally get hudson and leonidas outside, and all is well until leonidas starts to do his #2. as he is squatting, hudson starts to go #1, aimed right at leonidas. thankfully, i knew to watch for this, as it happened earlier this week and unfortunately my mom wasn't able to stop it (this incident was immediately followed by an extended bath in the laundry tub). i caught hudson in time, but just barely.

to top things off, hudson tried to eat a dead bird on our way back to the office. good thing he knows what "drop" means, because there was no way i was yanking that out of his mouth.

normally, having two dogs is actually more fun than stress. not today. but at least i got a good story out of it :)

here's a picture of the calm before the storm.

cooking like crazy!

for thanksgiving this year, my mom decided to take advantage of having me home and put me to work, which basically meant i did most of the cooking and she did most of the cleaning. so, tuesday before before thanksgiving, i made two pumpkin pies (homemade crusts and all), and then wednesday i took the day off from work to prepare a sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, two pans of stuffing, egg casserole (for breakfast), cinnamon muffins (also breakfast), and to top it all off, i made a spice cake for my grandpa's birthday (it's his favorite).

between thanksgiving at the midlands and now with my family, i feel pretty prepared to host thanksgiving at my house someday! although i might need katie's advice on the turkey :)

reception site selected!

after 3 weeks of intense searching, we have finally settled on a reception site for the wedding :) i had been feeling like we were just going to have to settle for a place that was just available, affordable, and capable of getting the job done, even if it didn't feel particularly special to us, but my mom kept looking diligently and we actually ended up picking the second-to-last place we looked at!

it is called the Royal Fox Country Club, and we love it for several reasons. first and foremost, it reminds us of W&M! the building is modeled after Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in VA, complete with a small rotunda. the interior has a unique colonial feel, with a wood paneled library and decorative oil lamps. second, we'll have the place all to ourselves, so we won't be competing with other DJs or wedding guests. third, the rooms have lots of big windows looking out over the golf course with pretty picture spots close by. and lastly, it was both available and affordable, haha.

with the major decision made (church and reception site), it's on to colors, dresses (including mine of course), flowers, photographers, DJs...so i guess there's still lots to do, haha. oh well, we are definitely making progress!!!

cliche town names

i think it is my destiny to move to a town with a cliche name...apparently it's the cool thing to do. after all, chris and katie did recently move to Farmville and i just found out that anna, a friend from high school, moved to Summerland, CA. Summerland? Seriously? i'm reminded of the first time i told someone (jennie perhaps?) that i grew up in Naperville, and she thought i said "Neighborville". ahh if only i had grown up in Neighborville...then i could be a part of the cliche town club too :)