congrats to the happy couple, whatever their names are

I just put the finishing touches on a nice, long post and then highlighted the whole thing to change the font, and instead deleted it.  It started out with the story of how I found out Prince Harry was engaged and I'll admit, it went down from there.

I'm sure now you're dying to know how I learned of the news, so I'll tell you, although fair warning that the last minute 11:00 pm Thursday night draft won't be nearly as funny as the draft I wrote when I was bright eyed and bushy tailed at noon on Tuesday.

My eyes were barely open on Monday morning when Matt announced "Did you hear the news? Rachel and Peter are engaged!"

Rachel and Peter, Rachel and Peter.  I knew it was early, and that it was the Monday after a holiday weekend, but for the life of me I could not think of anyone we knew named Rachel or Peter.

After a few seconds I asked, "Wait, do you mean Meghan Markle and Prince Harry?"

"Yeah!" he said.

I know Meghan Markle's name on Suits is Rachel, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why Matt thought Prince Harry's name was Peter.

Anyway, I could not be more thrilled for another royal wedding.  If you weren't around back in 2011 when Will and Kate got married, I took a vacation day from my job and woke up at 4 a.m. to watch every single second of royal wedding coverage.

With scones.  And a tiara.

It was one of the best days of my life.

Michelle and I have analyzed and over analyzed the impending nuptials and are planning a sleepover once the happy couple finalizes that May date.  I'm glad we have a few months because it gives me time to find my tiara and perfect my scone recipe.

So, that's the royal engagement news.  And I cannot even remember what else I wrote about in my original post, but I do want to share that Matt has worn his headlamp every single day since Monday.  In fact, he's worn it so much that the light bulb burned out tonight. 

I tried to take a stealthy photo of him in action wearing the headlamp, but he caught me and said living with me is like living with the paparazzi.

I bet Prince Peter feels the same way when people try to get pics of him wearing his crown.

I mean, Harry.

never thought id' say thank goodness for the head lamp

I woke up around 6:30 last Sunday morning to complete and total silence.  I immediately knew something was amiss because normally our bedroom sounds like an airplane hangar, since we sleep with two or three fans, a humidifier, and a sound machine.

I know the words you're looking for.

Low maintenance.

Anyway, Matt wasn't in bed so I walked downstairs to find him and my suspicions were confirmed.  Our power was out.  It was a windy morning and our neighbor's tree had blown over onto a power line.  The worst part of it all was that Matt had made a pot of coffee just before the electricity went out, but he'd forgotten to put the lid on the pot so the grounds went everywhere and we couldn't drink it.

Sad trombone.

It was also dark in the house, since the sun doesn't rise until about 7:00 now, and Matt had his headlamp at the ready.  That headlamp is a frequently worn accessory in the wintertime when the sun sets early and rises late.  He wears it to do chores at the chicken coop and take the trash out and all manner of things that require a hands free light after sunset.

One of my dad's hobbies is to make fishing rods, which is extremely intricate work and requires the use of diopters.

I always used to laugh when he would wear them.

And then, I married a man who wears a headlamp on a regular basis.

Life is funny.

Matt lit a fire in the fireplace because it was chilly with no heat, and looked at me totally seriously and said, "If the power isn't restored by 3:00, I'm going to have to start collecting evening rations."

Well, that escalated quickly.

The power didn't come back on until about 5 pm but I was already gone because my dad had an invitation to an after hours event at Cabela's, World's Foremost Outfitter, and I wasn't going about to miss that.

There were mocktails, sales, and snacks galore.  My parents shopped and Emily and I visited the aquarium, enjoyed a popcorn bar, a sophisticated cranberry beverage, root beer floats, cotton candy, and even got our photo taken with Santa Claus himself. 

I took a vacation day on Monday, and Emily and I went to visit my niece and nephew in New Jersey.  Emily was staying overnight to babysit so I made the drive home solo.  Before I left, Matt texted me and said, "I placed an order at Tractor Supply, could you stop and pick it up on your way home?"

And that's how I found myself in the Tractor Supply parking lot on Monday night, picking up 100 pounds of chicken feed. 

I listened to Dan Fogelberg and the Eagles on the rest of my drive home and sung my little heart out.  I didn't get home until well after dinner, so while I ate, Matt unloaded the various chicken supplies from my trunk.

The headlamp comes in handy yet again.

the traditional thanksgiving day dog show

Growing up, we always watched the National Dog Show on Thanksgiving Day.  I've carried that tradition into our married life.  Last year when we watched the dog show we got so caught up in it that we sent emails to some dog breeders, and a year later I just have to say I am forever grateful we did not go down that route.  

We are currently watching the Toy Group and Matt and I are aggressively rooting for our favorites.  The Pomeranian was just shown and Matt said "BOOO!!"

(No offense to anyone who knows or loves a Pomeranian.  This one just looked like it needed a comb and a barrette.)

We always want the English Springer Spaniel to win, because, Exhibit A, Rosie.

And exhibit B, Pearl.

Anyway, today I'm thankful for traditions.

I'm also thankful for friends and family, and for the following things that make life a little happier, in no particular order:

Dunkin' Donuts

My Dyson vacuum

Annie and Jack (they fall under family but I feel like they deserve a special mention).

Matt's enthusiasm about everything I do.  For example, I was vacuuming this morning (I was not kidding when I said I am thankful for my Dyson.  Imagine how much I'd vacuum if we'd actually gotten a dog.) and Matt walked in and said "Well ladies and gentlemen it's the World's Greatest Vacuumer, right here in PENNNNNSYVLAAANIAAAA!"  You know that song that goes "Oh I think that I've found myself a cheerleader?"  I have.

The library

Podcasts

Everything But the Bagel Spice from Trader Joe's.

Fires in the fireplace on a chilly night.

Funny memes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

since i'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, i may as well write a blog post

Well, I'm coming to you live from the middle of a police manhunt. 

I think.

Let me back up.

Until we moved into this house, we had little to no contact with law enforcement.  When we moved in, things started off innocently enough.  First, there was the time that I called the police because I noticed a low hanging wire in the yard.

And then, the time that our yard was flooding and we couldn't locate the source and it turned out the people a few doors away had left their garden hose on.

This past summer suspected drug dealers crashed a Maserati into our neighbor's car, which was parked on the street, spun it into our yard, crashed their car, threatened our neighbor, and fled the scene.

And those are only the times I've written about.  Earlier this summer our neighbor's teenage granddaughter had a party and served a few too many cocktails to her guests, who ended up in our backyard throwing up and falling asleep and we officially became "those neighbors" who call the cops to bust underage drinking parties.

And one time a man deposited a suitcase at the end of our neighbor Paul's driveway, and found his way across the street and into the bed of our neighbor Rob's pickup truck.  The man snoozed in the pickup for a bit and then woke up and tried to break into their house.

Anyway, we downstairs watching TV tonight and Matt said he was going to make himself a snack.  He stood up and looked out the window for a few seconds longer than normal.  I almost asked him "Is there someone out back?" but I knew he would probably say yes just to scare me and I'm no fool.

Instead he calmly walked upstairs.  A few minutes later I went up and saw he wasn't in the kitchen, but in the upstairs guest room looking out the window.  "The cops are here, and they're looking for someone," he said.

And sure enough, there were police cars out front and police officers in our backyard and the neighbor's backyard, running around with flashlights.  

For several minutes we watched as the cops searched, then got back in their cars, and sped off with their headlights off.

Shortly after we saw their flashlights again, this time in the backyard of the house behind us.

My heart was beating out of my chest.  I could barely speak.

Matt said, "I hope the chickens are okay."

We were in the cross hairs of a possible felonious pursuit and Matt was concerned about poultry.  

While Matt watched the backyard I looked out front, as a black SUV pulled up in front of our house.  Someone got out, carrying a brown bag, and WALKED UP TO OUR FRONT DOOR.  At the last second, she turned and went to our neighbor Diane's house.  And then, she turned and went to Paul's house, on the other side.

In a split second my mind went wild and I hoped my friends and family would say nice things about me when Keith Morrison interviewed them for Dateline.

She turned around before she got to Paul's house, got back in her car and drove away.  I am going to assume she was a food delivery driver, and just had the wrong street.  Because that would be some intricate planning for someone on the run.  But still, BAD TIMING.

We haven't seen flashlights in about 40 minutes and the cops aren't driving by as much, so I'm hoping they found whoever they were looking for.  

I'm still too keyed up to go to sleep, so I think I'll watch a show first.

But definitely not Dateline.

what i read: november edition

It's time for November's book post with Steph and Jana.

I didn't get much reading done this month because pretty much all of our nights and weekends were filled up with kitchen work.  

Or, watching the Fall Harvest movies on the Hallmark Channel.

Either way, here's what we have.

First, Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes Courter.

This is a memoir written by a young woman who spent nine years in the foster care system, in fourteen different placements, was ultimately adopted as a teenager and is now an author, speaker, and adoptive parent.  I should start by saying that I work in the foster care/adoption field, on the legal, government side.  For the last six and a half years I've spent five days a week working on cases like Ashley's, and seven days a week thinking about them.

Because I work on the state side, hearing about the foster care system from the perspective of the child really hit home.  It brought tears to my eyes several times, especially when Ashley said no one ever celebrated her birthday until she was seven years old.  

Ashley writes about advocates who worked tirelessly on her case, but also about caseworkers and foster parents who mistreated her terribly and didn't do their job.  The social workers that I work with have an incredibly difficult job, one that I couldn't do.  They get paid next to nothing and have to work within a system that is at times, admittedly broken, just like the families are.  But they work their hearts out for those kids on their caseloads and I feel fortunate that I've gotten to see that.    

I could write forever about my thoughts on foster care and adoption so I'll end this here.  I highly recommend this book.  Chances are you or someone you know has some sort of connection to the foster care system and this book will be an eye-opener.

Also, November is National Adoption Month so you can go here if you're interested in learning more.

The second book I read was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

A colleague recommended this to me and it was pretty short, but I read it really slowly and took it all in.  I don't always love books about abstract ideas and inspiration (exhibit A - my very unpopular opinion on Big Magic), but I liked this one.  It was direct and thought-provoking.  I got it from the library but I think if I owned it, it would be one that I would pick up again and again and read a little bit here and there.

Right now I'm in the middle of two books- The Dogs of Littlefield, and High Performance Habits.

Have you read anything great this month?

how am i going to cook my orville redenbacher

In a moment of brutal honesty, this is how our kitchen looks at this very minute.

I know, you're wishing that this picture had one of those fancy buttons you could click to pin it on your Pinterest boards under "HOUSE GOALS."

But Matt just looked around the room and said, "If you really think about, the kitchen is virtually finished."

I think we have different definitions of the word "finished."

What we also have is a brand new, operating, microwave, and tonight as I was re-heating some pizza (which I would normally do in the toaster oven, but that's currently upstairs in the guest bedroom because I had to bake chicken up there the other night when we were getting electrical work done downstairs and I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT), I took a look at the fancy presets.

What struck me was that the largest section is for "fit choices."

And on that fit choice list, a setting for prawns.

I don't know that I've ever had a prawn in my entire life, let alone frequently enough to necessitate a pre-set on my microwave.  Truth be told, I'm not even entirely sure I know a prawn is.  

Do you know what I could use a pre-set for, but don't have?

Popcorn.

Even though they are classified as kids meals, I think I'll be using the settings for hot dogs and nachos far more often than prawns and quinoa.

I also wonder if I could have used the butter softening section when I melted my peanut butter last night to drizzle on my bowl of ice cream.

How about a setting for that, Samsung.

lots of words about lots of things

Here we are a week into November.  It was dark by 5:00 tonight, and I'm sitting on the couch watching a holiday baking show, drinking a cup of pumpkin spice tea and and thanking the good Lord for heating pads, because my back is killing me.

I have scoliosis, and wore a back brace from freshmen year of high school through sophomore year of college.  I hated it, because what teenage girl wants to wear a hard, thick plastic brace from her shoulder blades to her hips with three giant velcro straps in front for 22 hours every day?  But man, what my 29 year old self wouldn't give to have that back brace right now.

I don't know for sure why my back hurts but I can only imagine it might have something to do with all the work we have been doing in the kitchen.  I use the term " we" loosely.  Matt has been doing the lion's share of the work and he is doing a great job.  It's not close to finished, but last night we turned on some good music and poured some wine and cooked a real dinner in there on our plywood counters and cardboard covered floors and I almost cried with happiness.

Matt took the entire week off last week and spent every day working on the kitchen.  Which means our text message conversations looked a lot like this.

I'm happy to report that he did eventually find his crow bar and I successfully turned on the water main.

One day he had to do a little work on the gas pipe which never fails to make me nervous.  He had the gas main off, and before he went outside to turn it back on, he said "You should probably wait outside when I turn this on" and then gave me a kiss and said, "Just in case things go south, I love ya."

He's a romantic.

On Friday morning I was making coffee and when I turned around I saw him shove slices of honey wheat bread down a water pipe and then fire up a blow torch.  I asked him what that particular method of plumbing was called and he said it was called "cross your fingers and hope this works."

It did work, and apparently it's a method Tom recommends.

And by Tom I mean Tom Silva, from This Old House, obviously.

We should invite Tom over for dinner when this is all said and done.  This is the kitchen that Tom and Youtube built.

Other things that have happened since I last posted:

- Michelle got married.  She now has her very own husband named Matt, and I have the text messages we exchanged the night after their first date which we have laughed and laughed about recently because they wouldn't exactly lead you to believe this day would come.  But, it did, and I couldn't be happier for them.  She was a beautiful bride and everyone should be so lucky to have a best friend like Michelle.

- Penn State lost to Ohio State by one tiny point two weeks ago and then last week lost to Michigan State by three points.  Heartbreakers.  WE ARE Penn State  very sad.

- Halloween came and went, but in a moment of early October brilliance I hid an extra bag of Reese's in our kitchen and then promptly forgot about it.  I found it the other night when I was emptying cabinets and it was a highlight of the month. 

- I had MORE car issues which I think are finally resolved, knock on wood or my brand new valve cover.  I did write a post about it but it was too fresh to be funny.  I've since found the humor so maybe I'll post it this week but let's just say I was literally not firing on all cylinders. 

- Due to the aforementioned car trouble, I had to drive Matt's F-150 for a few days, which is roughly three times the size of my tiny Ford Focus.  It was generally fine except for the time I accidentally turned into a dead end parking lot with many anxious pizza delivery drivers who wanted to get out of the lot and were being held up by Oh Laura Darling in the F-150 making a 476 point turn.  My sincerest apologies to any residents of Folcroft, Pennsylvania who have received cold pizza.  You're more than welcome to come and heat it up in our kitchen.  The gas stove is questionable, but you're more than welcome to use the blow torch.