Cheaper by the dozen

Earlier this week (during my terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day, in fact), my future brother-in-law Nick really bailed me out. He came over to wait for the dryer repair man while I was at work and, while he was here, fixed some screens in the front windows. To repay him, I'm baking a bunch of cookies for him to take to the fire station.

It's also a co-worker's birthday tomorrow. And I haven't sent Chad with any cookies for his office lately. So I decided to make a double batch. They're crunchy jumble cookies (chocolate chips and Rice Krispies, the perfect salty/sweet combo) and they're in the oven right now.

While I was baking away, I got to thinking. Here's a list of the random stuff that was in my head:

• Baking is therapeutic. I should do it more often.
  
  
• I'm so glad this kitchen has a ton of counter space.
  
  
• Thank God for Costco. I love buying in bulk. When I ran out of chocolate chips, I realized I had another five pounds -- no joke -- unopened in my pantry.
  
  
• What did women do before Kitchenaid stand mixers? I guess they didn't have to go to the gym, at least.
  
  
• When recording a recipe, make a special note if you doubled it when you wrote it down. Instead of doubling the recipe tonight, I quadrupled it. I have cookie dough coming out of my ears.
  
  
• Oh man, is this mixer overheating? I ended up having to split the batch to put in the chocolate chips -- the bowl was too full!
  
  
• I wonder how Becca (my sister-in-law) always makes perfectly-round cookies? I will have to ask one of these days.
  
  
• Mom used to tell me that when I was a grown-up, I could eat all the cookie dough I wanted. (This was justification for why I couldn't when I was a kid.) Tonight I took her advice. I ate so much, in fact, I'm sitting here with a stomachache.

Score!

My cousin Matt in California regularly sends out videos of his almost-one-year-old daughter, Violet. Even though I've not met her in person, she may be the cutest thing I've ever seen.

In addition to coaching high school football, Matt watches plenty of college and professional games as well. It appears that Violet has become his new football buddy. Oh, this made me laugh...

(Side note: I did get dad's permission before posting this.)

Financial meltdown

Every now and then, this blog is like therapy. But cheaper.

And right now I need cheap. (Chad might argue I need therapy, too.)

It's not that I don't mind spending money; in fact, it's sometimes kind of fun. (See "Trip to Paris," August 2009.) But it's the unpredictable, expensive things that all seem to spring up at once that really make me frustrated. Here's a list as of late:

• Injuries are not cheap. Chad is now going to physical therapy twice a week at $25 a pop. That's $200 a month. And once the surgery is finished, and Lord knows what that's going to cost, it will increase to three times a week ($300 a month). I'm starting to realize how mad people get about health care, and we have pretty good coverage!
  
• This injury happened right at the beginning of the season, so we still had to pay for all of Chad's fall leagues. Goodbye to a completely wasted $145.
  
• Last month, Chad's car needed $500 of work. Now the "service engine soon" light is on again. And property taxes are due. And the registration is due for my Jeep ($45), but we can't pay for that until it passes an emissions test ($20) and inspection ($15). Oh, and my "service four-wheel drive" light just came on too. I don't even use that!
  
• Last night, as a final nail in the coffin to all things money-related, the dryer went out. I took two loads of wet laundry over to Janice's for drying at 10 p.m. and I'm pretty sure steam was still coming out of my ears when I made it up her three flights of stairs.

I considered throwing myself a pity party, but I don't want to spend the money.

Thirty-onederful

It's not that I wasn't looking forward to turning 31...it just didn't register. Really. Even yesterday morning when I woke up, I laid in bed for about 10 minutes bemoaning morning before I realized it was my birthday. And even then, I didn't care. That said, the day was busy but did turn out great. If nothing else, birthdays are a refreshing reminder that you're loved.

As I celebrated yesterday ("celebrate" being a strong word, perhaps, for someone who spent 12 hours at work), I thought back to a lot of other fabulous birthday memories. Among my favorites:

2: Dad says October 20, 1980 was the worst day of the whole winter. Of course I don't remember this but he remembers the weather on every birthday I think I've ever had (the other kids, too). I think this is a farmer thing. Just last night on the phone he said the weather the day I was born was a beautiful fall day (I couldn't help but wonder if my arrival kept him out of the fields on a perfect day to harvest).

5: Going to the set of Romper Room and being a kid on the show with my neighbor, Joel. Holy cow was that fun. I thought I'd hit pay-dirt!

6, 7, 8, or one of those...maybe all of them: Waiting sooo patiently for my grandparents (and sometimes my aunts and uncles) to come to my birthday party. Being one of four kids, it wasn't often that I got all the attention, so those were days to savor!

9: So excited about my birthday that mom made me a special breakfast and I got to open my gifts at the kitchen table before school. I remember what I opened, too: pajamas.

10: Walking around school with a dozen stitches in my eyebrow after I'd walked into a door (actually, the door kind of walked into my face) two days before.

13: I got to have a birthday party with friends over (a first, I think) which included a bonfire, weiner roast and a hayrack ride. Lucky for me, it was a beautiful fall evening!

15: Mom was taking night classes and the other kids were at Youth Club (my birthday was on a Wednesday) so dad and I went out, just the two of us, for dinner at the Packinghouse. They've always had a policy where people eat free on their birthdays, so we just had to pay for dad's meal. The unfortunate downside was that I'd just gotten spacers in my teeth to make room for the inevitable braces a few weeks later and they hurt so bad I couldn't even chew.

16: Dad picked me up from school over my lunch hour and drove me to the DMV to get my license. (Thank goodness it wasn't a Monday, when they were closed--that would have been traumatic!) Though three squirrels jumped out in front of the car during my test, I passed. And when I dropped dad back off at home to head back to school with just myself in the car (the independence!), he said to me, "You control your destiny." I actually remember those very words to this day. That night I went driving with my friends Jen and Will. I actually just picked them up for ice cream. I wasn't exactly what you'd call a problem child, except for a few painful years in junior high.

21: As an RA in college, my biweekly night to be "on duty" (ie: manning the dorms, waking up in the middle of the night to let in people who had locked themselves out, making sure no guys were around after curfew) fell the night before Fall Break. It was also my 21st birthday, but I didn't want anyone to cover for me because they were all going home and I had planned to play the cards I was dealt. After going to dinner, I settled into my room for the evening...until about 9:30, when five or six of my RA friends, who were all supposed to be gone, stopped by. One covered for my shift while the others took me out to a bar. I had two mixed drinks and was home before midnight (like I said, total wild child...) but it was honestly the nicest, most thoughtful thing I think anyone has ever done for my birthday.

23: On tour in Houston, one of the final stops on our BH&G tour. I'm pretty sure we were at some place called Molly Malone's (or Molly Maggees? I don't remember) and Monday Night Football was involved. That's about all I remember. Toward the end of our five-month journey, I was so excited to head home that those days were all a huge blur.

29: Celebrated with all of my grandparents (at right). Every year since high school I get a little sentimental on my birthday wondering if they'll all be around when the next one rolls around. So far, I'm still 4 for 4!

30: Perhaps my favorite birthday. Chad surprised me with a trip to a cabin--Rachel and Paul came too--and then the week followed with several get-togethers with friends.

31: Relatively uneventful. Long day at work putting out a new survey, several TV and radio interviews and a media briefing. My friend Robert sent me a cupcake-shaped flower arrangement and mom's whole class called to sing "happy birthday." Our CEO started the monthly all-staff meeting with a birthday shout-out (umm...embarrassing...) and I heard from lots of friends through Facebook and email who remembered. Chad, knowing how tightly I was wound, gave me a gift card for a massage at a place in Old Town that I love, then made dinner while I took Lucy for a walk on a wonderfully crisp fall night. All in all, a perfect day.

A matter of thyme

Since it's been a dreary and chilly weekend, we decided that chili sounded good for dinner, but we had to get it made before the Bears play the Falcons.

We were in the kitchen trying to figure out what ingredients we still needed before Chad headed to the store. Rummaging through our spice rack, I asked, "How much thyme do you need to make your chili?"

Chad looked up with a blank expression on his face. "I don't know. I think I'll just start making it as soon as I get back from Safeway."

It took me ten seconds to understand what he thought I asked.

Do not call

My friend Scott, who is also my boss, assured me that he'd be reachable by phone for the rest of this week while he and his fiancé, Robyn, put the final touches on their wedding (tomorrow!).

Considering he'll be out of commission for the next two weeks on his honeymoon, I took him up on his "really, call anytime" statement with a quick question this morning.

He answered the phone but his mind was clearly no longer at work. "Why does no one tell you how much crap there is to finish in the 48 hours before a wedding!" he practically screamed into the phone. "Do you have any idea much stuff we have to do?!? How am I going to get all of this done?!?"

"Gee, I had no idea it was that crazy," I said dryly, remembering the chaotic few days before we got married. "I think weddings are like childbirth -- no one who has been there before tells you what it's going to be like until it's too late to turn back. Otherwise you might change your mind."

Silence.

"Ok," he said, grumbling. "I'll take a look at what you sent me in 15 minutes. Right after I go pick out this stationary."

Hot and cold

My friend Linda, who is one of three people who reads my blog, scolded me today for not updating in a week. I must first add that Linda is in that stage of pregnancy that you just don't want to mess with and apparently it's a slow week at work for her. But I'll be darned, she's right.

I do have a good excuse for not updating. Life is busy. B-U-S-Y. (I am actually supposed to be starting on a work project right now but have become momentarily distracted.) In fact, Chad and I are both so busy that we chat online more than we talk in person. I'm hoping this only lasts a few weeks.

Here's our latest conversation. I had just gotten home from work and noticed that Chad was on IM, meaning he was still sitting in his office:

6:48 PM me: Still there, I see.

Chad: yeah, hoping to head soon

6:49 PM need to go see if mark is still here though so that might delay me

me: ok

6:50 PM well lucy is sitting here looking out the window for you and i am waiting for you to come home so you can help me turn the heat on. [It is currently 60 degrees in our house.]

Chad: ha, u can't figure that out?

6:51 PM me: you have to reset the whole thing so i'd rather wait for you

6:52 PM Chad: k

i'm going to swing by downstairs and then head out

bye

I will take this moment to recognize the love/hate relationship I have with our thermostat. We installed the thing on Inauguration Day to save money on electricity (one of my New Year's Resolutions, remember? -- in fact, one of the only ones I'm sticking with). Anyway, they told us to install it wrong and the heat ran nonstop without warming the house for a week before I called the company and they set it straight. Our electric bill was two times higher than usual that month because of their faulty directions--so much for saving energy--and even my letter to the CEO, which was quite poetic might I add, was not convincing enough for them to pay half of it.

So I definitely did not include it in my list of favorite things, which I really do need to update, and was actually quite bitter about this whole experience. I seriously considered taking it back but I didn't want to have to spackle and repaint the wall again.

And then the summer came. And the heat. And our handy $100 thermostat saved us at least $200 in bills. (I know this because I've kept track of every bill we've had since 2004...so believe me when I tell you, this was no fluke.)

That's not to say the thermostat doesn't have its problems. For example, I can't figure out how to change it from "cool" to "heat." But it's not a huge deal. Isn't that what husbands are for?

HappySad

If you'd like to know the meaning of Happy/Sad (ie: not sure of which you should be and then not sure which you should be more of), I'm pretty sure this video sums it up.



Lucy is far too hyper to be a therapy dog. Though maybe she'll be a little more chill when she's 19 years old.

House hunting

Let me preface this by saying I love our house. We've spent a lot of time and a little bit of money making it the way we want, and I'm not going to leave here for just anything.

But that's not to say I don't look around. You could call us "casual" browsers. Perhaps we have not pulled the trigger because we can't agree on a neighborhood--I love our current location while Chad wants to move somewhere closer to a "downtown" area near a Metro--or maybe it's because things are just so freaking expensive out here. Either way, we planned to be here for three years and we're going on six.

No matter how much I love this house and no matter how sad I'd be to leave, I really want three things:

1. Windows on all four sides -- lots & lots of windows
2. A good-sized yard
3. A fireplace

(A walk-out basement would be nice, too, and room for a garden, and a quiet street, but at this point I'm keeping the list short.)

So tonight on a walk with Lucy I saw a house that was older on a nice-sized lot. The place was hardly in a state of disrepair but was certainly not state-of-the-art. (We're both fine with buying a place that needs fixing up because it's a lot cheaper and we'd probably want to change things around anyway.)

I came home and looked online to get more info on this cute little place that could use a bit of work and probably hadn't been updated since the 70s. Five bedrooms, two baths, built in 1925 (love those old houses), fireplace, almost a half-acre...this place had everything. All for the bargain-basement price of $1,199,000. Seriously, who can afford this? (And who would spend $1.2 million on a house with dead grass in the front yard!)

So if anyone has a million dollars I can borrow for oh, about 30 years, I'd appreciate it. In lieu of that, I suppose, we're staying put. For now.

A bonafide smackdown

Janice and I have been bonding once a week in kickboxing class (aka: "Body Combat"). We usually go on Mondays and if we're not busy we'll go on Saturday mornings as well. It's one of the only things I do for me. And it doesn't cost anything.

Even though I feel like I'm going to die by the end of the hour, class leaves me feeling de-stressed, incredibly motivated and full of energy. Life is good! I can do anything! (Can you tell I just got home?)

One of the reasons why I enjoy our class so much is because of the instructor. After observing her great arm muscles, incredible endurance and spunky personality during the first class I pegged her at about 25 years old. "Of course I can't be in that good of shape," I thought. "My glory years have passed me by..." (Note: This is not me feeling sorry for myself as much as it is my rationale for why I don't look like she does.)

A few weeks ago, she mentioned she is trying to divert her three-year-old daughter away from princesses into Tinkerbell, who she thinks is tough. "Holy moly," I thought. "She is in incredible shape for having a kid." There's no reason that I couldn't aspire to her level of fitness, especially since she doesn't seem like one of those crazy-in-shape people who adheres to a strict macrobiotic diet or some other nonsense. And she said she doesn't work out on vacation, so I appreciate that we've at least got that in common.

So a week after the bombshell that my knock-out instructor is a mom, she said in the middle of one of our classes that she has two kids. My rationale was going quickly down the tubes.

And tonight I found out she is 37. So this means I have six years and change to look like her.

As Janice so astutely reminded me a few weeks ago as we both were wheezing and red-faced after class, "Think about how many times we can do this before June!"

Boy banter

Our friends April and Tom left their son for the first time last night to attend a movie night held by our real estate agent at a nearby theater. This event is held twice a year and we love it: we go watch a movie for free; get popcorn, soda and all the other movie fixin's; and say hi to Kim, who we'd use again in a heartbeat if we ever sell this place.

While we were getting our tickets, April was showing Kim pictures of Braden that she brought along. Kim mentioned that she was sure she'd have girls -- since she was one of five daughters -- but she had three boys, and she wouldn't change it for anything.

"When little boys tell you they love you, they mean it from the bottom of their heart," she said. "When little girls say that, they just want to go to the mall."

That made me laugh all night.