Now what?

We had a great weekend in Illinois celebrating Chad's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary (more on that later -- including pictures).

Now, here I sit, at my parents' house on vacation for a week. I'm meeting an old high school friend for coffee at 2:00, taking my niece out on Tuesday, tagging along on some scouting out of potential reception sites on Thursday for Janice's upcoming wedding, and other than that I have nothing planned. It's both strange and glorious to have a completely open calendar.

When I wrote about this trip two months ago, I was just looking forward to some time off work. With the craziness over the merger and excitement over Chad's new job, I'm ready for this week even more!

As I was literally wandering around the house trying to figure out what to do after unpacking my suitcase, I realized I need to find a short-term hobby. Or at least a book!

So, here's the deal...to keep my faithful readers entertained, I'll make a special commitment to post every day this next week so you can get a sense of what I'm doing (or not doing). It will be proof that I'm being productive at least once each day. Past that, I make no promises.

Chad's new gig

Continuing with the discussion over whether I can keep my mouth shut, here's more top-secret scoop that has been in my arsenal as of late:

Instead of staffing the Senator's personal office, as of June 1, Chad is making a very well-deserved move to the Senate Banking Committee where he'll largely be working on housing issues. It's a nice advancement and will be a good challenge for him.

For those of you in the bleacher seats (like I am), here's what this means: If you need any advice on when to sell, when to buy, when to refinance...you can just get in line. Once Chad figures out what he's talking about, I have first dibs on asking a lot of questions.

Sad news

So I've been a little MIA for the past few weeks, largely because my life has been unpredictable and travel-filled. More on that later...now on to the sad news.

While we were away this weekend, the health of our friends' little girl, Olivia, began to deteriorate. Olivia, who fought a heart condition and leukemia for almost three years, passed away on Saturday in her mother's arms. I've written about the faith and strength of this family before and they continue to show such incredible courage as they navigate this unthinkable journey.

Visit Julie's blog if you want to read more.

Please say an extra prayer for Zac, Julie, Jack and Brooklyn that they are able to spend these days remembering all of the joy Olivia brought to their lives while we all mourn her passing.

Still Here

Chad here...I'm not any good at these, but thought I'd check in to let folks know that we are still alive. Ellen is in the air on her way to Chi-town. I'm still in DC. Lucy is still ruling the castle. Nothing too interesting to report. I just thought since we've been a little MIA on here as of late, it would be good to have something posted. Unfortunately you are all stuck with me writing it. So, let's see....what do I find interesting....

How 'bout a little "Go Cubs Go?" The good news is if you don't get Ellen back soon there are many more versions of this I can put up. Also a good Eddie Vedder song. Enjoy!

Same-old, same-old...

My blog turned two years old this week! Seems like just yesterday I wrote my first post. (I still do feel kind of uncomfortable eating out by myself in restaurants, though I have done it twice this week.)

Looking back, not much has changed with my life in the last two years. Same house. Same job. Same husband (ha). Lucy has probably been the biggest addition to our life and everything else is just the same as it was. Which is a good thing.

Ssshhh...

I have had way too many things in my head lately, the most recent of which being news that: 1) my sister's boyfriend was going to propose and 2) mom was going to come out and surprise her after the announcement.

Whoever thinks I am no good at keeping secrets has just learned a valuable lesson! (Though please don't tell me any more secrets. I think I have used up my allotment of keep-it-quiet skills for awhile. My brain still hurts from remembering who I could and couldn't talk to.)

Mom decided to come out here on Thursday and flew out Friday night. We had a great weekend of shopping, eating, and hanging around (and the weather was perfect!). Last night, we took mom to dinner and then headed to one of our favorite restaurants for a cocktail. Nick was planning to bring Janice by for a glass of champagne after he proposed somewhere along the National Mall. They both arrived just beaming and it was so fun to celebrate with them. (We drug out the surprise a little by having mom watch from afar before appearing.)

It was one of those weekends that, in retrospect, will have seemed like a lot longer than 48 hours -- one of those times you're not trying to forget about work and chores and bills and life in general...it just happens.

Congratulations to Janice and my future brother-in-law Nick! The guys will officially outnumber the girls in my family for the first time in 30 years. Here's hoping we don't suffer too much retribution after three decades of choosing movies, restaurant locations, dinner menus, etc.

Janice and Nick

So fun that mom could join us!

Chad was recuperating from food poisoning (not my cooking,
by the way) and earlier played a softball double-header
then 18 holes of golf which is why he looks thin, sunburned
and tired. But he wouldn't have missed this celebration!

Plunk this!

I am not the one in our house to talk politics. (In fact, I avoid the topic when at all possible.) But this is so cool I just have to share.

Background: A Republican has not been elected to the Alexandria City Council in six years. No matter your political persuasion, I think we can all agree that a little political "balance" is a good thing, right?

Granted, there are some things the city does that I don't agree with, but for the most part I have no complaints. Alexandria is clean, the schools are good, traffic is manageable, crime is virtually nonexistent...what is there to complain about? Doesn't matter to me that it's been entirely run by Democrats. I don't really concern myself with city politics and I don't believe in voting for people or issues unless you're informed, so I've never voted for City Council before.

Until this year.

In February, I got the real estate assessment for our house and the value went down about six percent. (No, that's not bad compared to others and I'm not complaining, but it still went down for the first time since we owned it.) And what did the City Council do as a result? They raised taxes to compensate for the declining home values! So instead of paying, oh, about six percent less, I'm actually paying...more! That got me fired up, along with apparently every other fiscally-conservative person in this town. (In the case of proper political timing, the actual bill did not arrive until today -- the day after the election -- though I was paying attention enough to know what was coming.)

At any rate, about a month ago, we got a letter from one of the Republicans on the ballot letting us know he was running and asking for support - monetary or otherwise. We didn't send a check but did make a mental note to vote for him. Then a few weeks later, we got a letter from the Alexandria Republican Party (Chad's registered so he gets all this stuff -- I think I'm officially an Independent) with the scoop on their strategy:

There are six seats on the City Council and all were up for re-election. Up for election were six Democrats, two Republicans and two Independents, one being a Republican who can't say she is because she works for the federal government and can't "identify" herself with a particular party. Even though we technically could vote for six people, they said, vote only for the Republicans (and the one Independent). It's apparently called "plunking," also known as "bullet voting." Statistically, it's really smart: Vote only for the few you really want to win and let the Democrats, or whoever else is on the other side, cancel each other out...and things could get interesting.

So, yesterday, on the way back from the gym, we went to our polling place, voting for only three candidates--even though we could vote for six. It was kind of fun and I felt empowered. For the first time in my life, it seemed, my vote really did count for something.

And today, I open the paper to find...two of our people won! Papers are calling it an "election shocker" and even our über-liberal Washington Post conceded it was a "sign of resurgence" for the Republicans.

This was so fun, I think I might do it again sometime. Here's hoping my taxes go down first.

To-Do: Get out of Town

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the whole year, a day when we throw our to-do list to the wind (ok, my to-do list) and head out to the Blue Ridge mountains with friends to the Montpelier Wine Festival. We pack food, blankets and games, leave in the morning and come back at night. It's my official start to spring -- and I love it!

This year, the weather threw a wrench in our plans. There was an 80% chance of rain, so we added umbrellas, tarps and ponchos to bring along. But, aside from a few rain drops when we first arrived, it was a perfect day!

Our little place in the sun

Janice takes a nap (I did, too!)Competitive games of bocce

Dark clouds rolling in as it's time to leave

But we were only 50% lucky this weekend. The Cardinals/Nationals game, which we were supposed to attend this afternoon, got completely rained out. Fortunately, we were smart enough not to go to the field first -- the game was delayed for four hours before they finally postponed! That's ok, though...at least I had one day this weekend to cross things off my to-do list.