I think most people, even if they don't formally write it down, have at least a mental list of things they want to do and/or see before they die. Some of these things are big and grandiose, and others smaller, but it's fun to have some of each. And even more fun to cross them off as you do them. Here are five things on my list:
1. Start a vegetable garden. I'm irrationally terrified of gardening. But at the same time, I love the idea of growing my own food, and how it would reduce our carbon foot print and force us to eat healthier. I don't know if this summer will be the summer that I take the plunge and just do it, but I have these books on hold at the library, so we'll see: Grow Great Grub and Small Plot, High Yield Gardening: How to Grow like a Pro, Save Money, and Eat Well by Turning your Yard Into an Organic Produce Garden.
2. Run a sub four hour marathon. Okay, so this is a bigger goal, but I really think I can do it. I just better set my sights on a marathon sooner rather than later. Maybe I'll research which ones have the fastest, flattest courses...
3. Attend a major sporting event: the superbowl, the olympics, or the U.S. Tennis Open are my top choices.
4. Go to a wine tasting event. They always sound so fun, and I really love to sample new wines! My friend's mom, who is a buyer for a local grocery chain, hosted an informal night of wine tasting last year, and it was amazing! I need to visit some vineyards and have at it sometime!
5. Make the perfect granola. I love to eat it with yogurt and fruit for breakfast in the mornings, but it's so expensive at the grocery store, so I've tried a couple different homemade recipes. I'm getting better, but I'm not there yet. Any tips?
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
I finally caved...
My baby was born with hair. A lot of dark brown hair. In the last two and half years, that hair has lightened significantly (though I still am not convinced that she'll always be a blond) and grown to be quite long. I love her long hair, and I have fought tooth and nail to avoid giving Emily bangs. I think this is because I have so many bad memories of uneven bangs from my own childhood. Well, okay, maybe they are not memories so much as me cringing now when I look at old pictures (sorry mom, I know you tried). But alas, Emily's hair is pretty hard to manage. I often have to re-do it several times throughout the day, she's constantly pushing the wisps out of her eyes, and on Fridays, when Eric is home with Emily? Well, let's just say it's not pretty. And so I caved, and tonight, I gave her a trim and also bangs. I hate it, and what's worse than that, I think I made them too short! So, here are a couple of pictures. And what do I need from you blog family and friends? I need you to tell me how cute she is, how they'll grow back, and how she won't resent me for this when she's older (even if you have to lie).
Friday, April 9, 2010
The Friday Five
For lent this year, I gave up chocolate. To many, this is not such a difficult feat, but to me, it was quite a challenge. I'd actually done it once before, when I was in high school, but clearly time had made the challenge seem like a less daunting feat than it actually is. I kind of imagine that labor is the same way, and that is what allows women to decide to have more babies, but I digress. This week has been full of chocolate goodness, probably too much so. I KNOW I ate way too much of a butterfinger milkshake last night! Still, here are my top 5 chocolate treats:
1) Trader Joe's Peppermint Chocolate Covered Joe-Joe's. These are the best thing ever invented. Period. The ones in the picture don't all have the chocolate covering, but the boxes I buy do. They only come out around the holidays, so I stock up. I literally bought every box on the shelf when I visited a Trader Joe's location after Thanksgiving. For those curious, it was 12 boxes. I try to space them out over the course of the year, but I'm already halfway through them.
2) Chocolate covered strawberries. I don't get to eat them that all that often, but something about the combination of the flavors has me drooling every time! There are a lot of things that taste better when covered in chocolate, but strawberries have to be one of the best!
3) Bruster's Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Ice Cream. I worked at an ice cream store called Bruster's when I was in high school, and Eric likes to brag about how often I was named "Scooper of the Month". One of my crowning professional achievements for sure. But they have the best ice cream, and the flavor mentioned above is just unbelievable. I've tried everything to transport it back to Michigan, but I have to suffice for over-indulging when I'm home.
4) Warm Chocolate Chip Cookies. When they are right out of the oven, and you down them with a cold glass of milk, that's hard to beat.
5) Tira Misu Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. So stinking good! It feels light (well, relatively light, compared to other cheesecakes) and just melts in your mouth. I'm salivating just thinking about it right now, and I always have to treat myself when I visit this restaurant!
So, that's my list. Am I missing any chocolate goodies that you can't live without?
1) Trader Joe's Peppermint Chocolate Covered Joe-Joe's. These are the best thing ever invented. Period. The ones in the picture don't all have the chocolate covering, but the boxes I buy do. They only come out around the holidays, so I stock up. I literally bought every box on the shelf when I visited a Trader Joe's location after Thanksgiving. For those curious, it was 12 boxes. I try to space them out over the course of the year, but I'm already halfway through them.
2) Chocolate covered strawberries. I don't get to eat them that all that often, but something about the combination of the flavors has me drooling every time! There are a lot of things that taste better when covered in chocolate, but strawberries have to be one of the best!
3) Bruster's Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Ice Cream. I worked at an ice cream store called Bruster's when I was in high school, and Eric likes to brag about how often I was named "Scooper of the Month". One of my crowning professional achievements for sure. But they have the best ice cream, and the flavor mentioned above is just unbelievable. I've tried everything to transport it back to Michigan, but I have to suffice for over-indulging when I'm home.
4) Warm Chocolate Chip Cookies. When they are right out of the oven, and you down them with a cold glass of milk, that's hard to beat.
5) Tira Misu Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. So stinking good! It feels light (well, relatively light, compared to other cheesecakes) and just melts in your mouth. I'm salivating just thinking about it right now, and I always have to treat myself when I visit this restaurant!
So, that's my list. Am I missing any chocolate goodies that you can't live without?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
She Always Keeps Me Guessing...
Emily always seems to keep me guessing, often doing exactly the opposite of what I expect. Today I was sipping a cup of coffee, and she really wanted to try a sip. She asked me repeatedly, in a super nice voice, and even remembered to say "pleeeeease". So I relented, fully expecting her to spit it out, or tell me it was yucky. Instead, she asked for more, and then more, and then proudly walked around saying "I yike coffee". Oops, I guess that one backfired on me! At this rate, she'll be addicted to coffee before she hits kindergarten!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Friday Five
Tonight, in the middle of an unusually warm spring week, I bring you the top five reasons why it's harder to push Emily in the jogging stroller this year than it was last year:
5. She is so much more aware of her surroundings. If we get within a 1/2 mile radius of a park, or a field, or anything else that looks interesting, she'll start in on me: 'Out, Emily get out. Swings! Emily swing! Walk! Emily walk!" And so on it will go until we are well past the area. She may or may not also start whining when her pleas of excitement are ignored.
4. She asks me to sing. I only have so much lung capacity, and I'm usually using almost all of it already.
3. She likes to take control of our running routes, and will start pointing in directions I was not planning to go, insisting "this way, mommy!". If I listened to her, we may be running for a long, LONG time.
2. She's no lightweight. She's packed on quite a few pounds since last fall it seems, and you definitely notice the extra weight on the hills.
1. There are dogs everywhere. And birds. And cars. And anytime Emily sees something she likes, she'll point it out, or ask about it, and she keeps repeating herself like a broken record until you acknowledge that she has spoken or responded to her questions. This leads to a considerable amount of huffing and puffing by the end of an average four mile run. It feels more like fourteen.
Still, having the freedom to go out for a run again almost anytime I want has been wonderful. The fresh air and the sunshine has been good for the soul this week, and we've enjoyed every minute of it! Come on spring!
5. She is so much more aware of her surroundings. If we get within a 1/2 mile radius of a park, or a field, or anything else that looks interesting, she'll start in on me: 'Out, Emily get out. Swings! Emily swing! Walk! Emily walk!" And so on it will go until we are well past the area. She may or may not also start whining when her pleas of excitement are ignored.
4. She asks me to sing. I only have so much lung capacity, and I'm usually using almost all of it already.
3. She likes to take control of our running routes, and will start pointing in directions I was not planning to go, insisting "this way, mommy!". If I listened to her, we may be running for a long, LONG time.
2. She's no lightweight. She's packed on quite a few pounds since last fall it seems, and you definitely notice the extra weight on the hills.
1. There are dogs everywhere. And birds. And cars. And anytime Emily sees something she likes, she'll point it out, or ask about it, and she keeps repeating herself like a broken record until you acknowledge that she has spoken or responded to her questions. This leads to a considerable amount of huffing and puffing by the end of an average four mile run. It feels more like fourteen.
Still, having the freedom to go out for a run again almost anytime I want has been wonderful. The fresh air and the sunshine has been good for the soul this week, and we've enjoyed every minute of it! Come on spring!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The Saturday Six?
I missed the Friday Five yesterday. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but I was hoping for later. Oh well. As a way to make up for it, I've decided to embark on the Saturday Six instead. One of the things that kept me busy yesterday was the monthly meeting of our book club. This book club has been together since November of 2007, and the same 10 or so ladies have met once each month to discuss our current selection. We even have a name, the Read Wine book club! I don't remember who came up with it (it wasn't me, so I can't take the credit) but I love the time we spend together. Eric likes to tease me that we don't talk about the book very much, but we really do. I mean, we're *usually* engaged in book related talk a solid 40 to 50% of the time we spend together! Anyway, out of all the books we've read, here are my top six. And this time they are in order, with number one being my all-time favorite.
6. Belong to Me (Marisa De los Santos). This was a fiction novel that was actually a sequel to a previous work, though it was easy enough to read this as a stand alone effort. The characters were engaging, and witty, the story lines moved along nicely, and it was a pretty easy read. I really enjoyed it!
5. Loving Frank (Nancy Horan). This was a piece of historical fiction that I really enjoyed. The characters were complex, if their choices were sometimes frustrating, and it was fun to follow this partly imagined, partly true complex love story unfold. Quite the ending too!
4. A Homemade Life (Molly Wizenberg). This was a super fun read because it incorporated short stories from throughout the author's life with recipes she associates with that time. We all brought our favorite recipe to our meeting that month. Yummy!
3. The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri). A coming of age story about an Indian American boy growing up in the NE United States. The writing is phenomenal, and utterly believable. The characters are very endearing.
2. Same Kind of Different As Me (Ron Hall, Deborah Moore, and Lynn Vincent). A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it. I'm stealing a tag line from Amazon here, because it fits so well. This is a very powerful, compelling, inspiring story about faith and the power we all hold to change one another's lives.
1. American Wife (Curtis Sittenfeld). This was another historical fiction piece, loosely based on the life or Laura Bush, and it was utterly captivating to me. I love this genre, and I couldn't put this book down. It seemed so plausible, the characters were flawed but totally redeemable, and I loved every minute of reading it. I also quickly read the other two books this author had written, but found this one was easily the best.
You should check out these books if you're looking for a good read!
6. Belong to Me (Marisa De los Santos). This was a fiction novel that was actually a sequel to a previous work, though it was easy enough to read this as a stand alone effort. The characters were engaging, and witty, the story lines moved along nicely, and it was a pretty easy read. I really enjoyed it!
5. Loving Frank (Nancy Horan). This was a piece of historical fiction that I really enjoyed. The characters were complex, if their choices were sometimes frustrating, and it was fun to follow this partly imagined, partly true complex love story unfold. Quite the ending too!
4. A Homemade Life (Molly Wizenberg). This was a super fun read because it incorporated short stories from throughout the author's life with recipes she associates with that time. We all brought our favorite recipe to our meeting that month. Yummy!
3. The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri). A coming of age story about an Indian American boy growing up in the NE United States. The writing is phenomenal, and utterly believable. The characters are very endearing.
2. Same Kind of Different As Me (Ron Hall, Deborah Moore, and Lynn Vincent). A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it. I'm stealing a tag line from Amazon here, because it fits so well. This is a very powerful, compelling, inspiring story about faith and the power we all hold to change one another's lives.
1. American Wife (Curtis Sittenfeld). This was another historical fiction piece, loosely based on the life or Laura Bush, and it was utterly captivating to me. I love this genre, and I couldn't put this book down. It seemed so plausible, the characters were flawed but totally redeemable, and I loved every minute of reading it. I also quickly read the other two books this author had written, but found this one was easily the best.
You should check out these books if you're looking for a good read!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)