thanksgiving: the ugly

well. during my pie making, casserole stirring, sweet potato cleaning fury this morning, i also treid to do what my mom taught me about cooking (and actually one of the few things i actually remember from the kitchen before i went to college): clean as you go. so i did three loads of dishes. i was mostly caught up, so i pulled the plug on the sink and went about my business. i notice rumpy sitting on the floor in front of the sink staring a something. i look, and there arent any bugs (there are surprisingly few bugs here and i like that). instead, he was watching water drip out from under the sink. i open the cabinet and there is about an inch of water under there. the sink pipe rusted through right in the middle of dishes, so all of the water i was rinsing with was going under the sink and on all our stuff we keep under there. jeremy helped me pull everything out and dry it, and clean up the water under the sink. ugh.

i got over that, because it meant no more dishes for the day. and that cant be a bad thing, right? i made my pies and got everything else cooking. dinner was fabulous. (see previous post). a couple hours after dinner i got us each a piece of pie. i made it from scratch from the pumpkins we carved for halloween. i did this two years ago and it was the most amazing pie ever. this year...not so much. in fact, it was pretty much inedible. i ate little bits of mine so i could justify spoonfuls of cool whip. jeremy took one bite and spit it out. it was really really bad. so, no pumpkin pie for me this year. and it is, of course, my favorite part of thanksgiving. and, of course, i made two. what a waste!

thanksgiving adventures: the good

i made my first turkey this year. since dinner was just the two of us, we just got a couple drumsticks and a bone in breast. i found a recipe where all i had to do was rub some onion soup mix on it, pop it in the crock pot, and let it go. it was delicious! the green bean casserole and baked sweet potatoes were winners as always. jeremy likes the cranberry sauce from the can, so that is always easy to add to the table. we spent the day watching the parade, watching football, watching top chef, and hanging out with each other and the cats. it was (mostly) perfect.

we have so much to be thankful for this year: our new home, new jobs, new friends. i miss my people in los angeles sometimes more than i can stand, but we are making new friends and building some great relationships here too. this next month will be challenging for me at work because of how busy we will be, but i have to keep in mind how lucky i am to have a job i love and that gives me so much flexibilty. jeremy is getting settled at citizens and really starting to enjoy the people he is working with also. we have three awesome cacti, two great cats, and a bonsai tree. between the both of us we have five (white) golden rings.

hopefully this holiday season brings you as many things to be thankful for as it has us.

happy thanksgiving!

The baby

When he is laying in my lap watching tv he is so cute. When we wake up to discover he has chewed through jeremy's ipod earphone headset cordn not so much.
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star wars in concert

most of you probably had no idea that i am a massive star wars geek. there. i admitted it. jeremy and i exited the church at our wedding to the star wars main title. i have watched all of the movies probably a million times. seeing harrison ford on the red carpet at the oscars a couple years ago was one of the highlights of my life. having said all of that, i had the second highlight of star wars geek life last thursday. the royal philharmonic concert orchestra is touring the world. they play select songs from all six films set to movie clips and sound effects. anthony daniels (c3po) is there (IN PERSON!) and narrates. they had lots of costumes from the shows in the lobby.

from the first notes of the fox fanfare to the augmented major seventh to the death march, i had goosebumps. me and thousands of SUPER nerdy people were all on the edge of our seats. jeremy was just laughing at how serious we all were taking it.

let me also say one thing. i know that i am kinda dorky when it comes to star wars, but i was wearing jeans and t-shirt. i only point this out because of the number of grown-up people there in costume. there were kids in costume too but they are cute and not dorky. after about fifth grade, dressing as a star wars character any day but october 31 is weird. the concert was amazing, and it was so cool to see the props and the movie clips with the live orchestra. they also had some of the original sheet music that john williams had done bu hand. there were pencil marks and erasures all over it. too cool for words!

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12th vs 14th

i didn't experience any particularly bad luck (or good luck for that matter) on friday the 13th, but the 12th and 14th were rather exceptional.


good things that hapened on the 12th:
the doorbell rang twice, once with a free book for me and once with new clothes for jeremy
i found my awesome purplish pink sweatpants that i bought at a j. crew warehouse sale in college that have been in my parents' attic for four years while we were in california and which i forgot i owned but practically havent taken off since i refound them
i made a really weird soup with cinnamon, apples, and lots of veggies and chicken that turned out really really good (and super mdf!)
jeremy got his first paycheck from citizen's bank
it was sunny outside so i got to use the clothesline instead of the dryer (it really doesnt take much to make me happy!)

bad things that happened on the 14th:
i got the idiot teller at the bank who doesnt know how to make change
the ticket machine broke and i was on my hands and knees for a half hour fixing it
we dropped a box of filed tickets and had to refile them all
there were two shows of cats on the same day which meant LOTS of people showed up at the wrong time and blamed me
it was raining so even though i used an umbrella the hems of my pants were soaked every time i had to go outside
k-state lost and we got to watch every agonizing minute on tv

today is going to be another good day though. we both have the day off, its after noon and i'm still in my pajamas, jeremy is going to the shooting range, theres a baby cat perched on my shoulder (he just hangs out there like a pirate's parrot), and i'm happy.

Unhappy Halloween

Jeremy's pumpkin started growing a face tattoo shortly after we set it outside. Mine slowly deflated like a sad balloon the day after the party. It was fun to carve them, but I was sad they didn't make it very long!
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second new hampshire visitor

jeff was in town for his annual hunting trip. the trip ended sunday morning and his flight was monday morning, so we were able to sepnd sunday afternoon and evening with him.

he arrived at our apartment shortly before i got home from work, so after he washed days of hunting dirt off and i changed out of my sweater and into something lighter-weight (it was WARM on sunday!) we headed to 900 degrees neopolitan pizzeria for dinner. they were having live music, so we got dinner and a show. it was fun.

we came home and played cards. jeff had mentioned 99 as a game he played with all the guys while hunting. i remember playing it with my aunt norma and other family at my nana's dining room table once a long time ago, so i knew the game. jeremy caught on quickly (it isnt super complicated) and we played several rounds. i won the first two and jeff won the third. by then we were all exhausted and he and jeremy had to get up at 4:30am to get to the airport so we all headed to bed.

it was a short visit, but still really nice to see him!

CATS

i know i've been talking about cats, CATS and kittens for a while. this will be my last post mentioning them for a while. but a couple things are worth mentioning.

first, we went and saw CATS at the palace on saturday night with mark and lanelle. it was so nice that mark and lanelle finally got to meet jeremy, and to see them again. the show was amazing. the cast was amazing and a few of them were espcially superb. the two cats, rumpleteazer and mungo jerrie, sang one of my favorite songs. rumpy is definitele well named. although he doesnt look like these twin cats, their personalities fit him to a tee. they are trouble-makers and super playful and like to rip up paper and get intot things that they shouldnt. definitely sounds like my rumpy! after the show we went to ignite for dinner and to spend more time with them. so fun.

our cats are getting along better than ever. they chase each other around and play tag. rumpy is great at playing fetch, and whenever cricket has had enough of him, so goes and sleeps on the guest bed where he never thinks to look for her. he will come running when i yell "jellicle cats come to the jellicle ball!" and cricket usually moseys along behind him at her own pace. they crack me up. now, every night when we watch tv, i have a cat in my lap, jeremy has one in his, and we are all four so happy!

happy halloween!

halloween weekend was also opening weekend of CATS at the palace. so not only did we get a new cat at home, i've been living cats all day at work. we've been wearing the ears with our cats shirts during the week, but with it being halloween and i all, i got into the cat spirit a little more for the saturday performance. one of the girls in the show is also a box office employee, so she did super basic cat makeup for me. all the kids and old people who came on saturday night really got a kick out of it.what's the fun of working in a theatre if you can't dress up once in a while right? i brought home a playbill (i love that wokring at the theatre means my name is in all the playbills) and we went through the character names in order to find a name for our new baby.

we decided on rumpleteazer. although the character in the show is a girl, its not really a feminine name. we have been calling him rumpy or rumplesneezer. he caught a minor cold during those two awful days he had to be at the shelter. jeremy still calls him "cat" or "blackie" but is slowly making the transition to rumpy.

he and cricket have been getting along famously and he sleeps by my feet every night. we love him.

we had no trick-or-treaters either on halloween or on the sunday before which was the designated trick or treat time for manchester (thats the stupidest thing i ever heard of) and that kinda bummed me out. but since i was working during primo t-o-t hours, i guess im glad i didnt miss any cute kids. and we didnt buy candy so oh well.

what did you do for halloween?