Blog

1. I am plum out of Door County sangria wine until our trip up in September. This is cause for serious concern because summer and sangria really do belong together. I was fool to purchase only one bottle on our last trip. What was I thinking?

2. Maverick has been working up a storm these past two days! Girlfriend has been rearranging the gravel beneath her rock. By rearranging I mean that she has  done nothing but dig deep and remove all the gravel from beneath her rock and stack it up on the sides of the rock, thereby creating an impenetrable fort on the outside and a black hole/endless abyss on the inside. She’s on schedule to reach China by nightfall. It’s so deep in there that you can’t even see her anymore. Which we’re sure was precisely her plan. But since we’ve read that crays sometimes exhibit this kind of trench-digging behavior in preparation for molting, and also because that’s just what they like to do, we’re letting her go to town. She seems to be pretty happy about her newly constructed epic cave of wonders. And we’ve been enjoying watching her – she’s so darn funny! Mav had a pea and a piece of cocktail shrimp for dinner last night – girlfriend eats better than we do.

3. Yesterday we stopped by Speedway to gas up the car. It was 6 pm at the busiest (read: least expensive by a good $0.30 per gallon) gas station in Anderson. It was crowded. We spot a huge fancy black vehicle poorly parked in front of the gas station – not in a parking space, only half pulled up to the curb and half sticking out into the pass-by lane, and completely blocking the only way out of the gas station. Ted and I ruthlessly start taking bets on who the dodo is. Five minutes of traffic-blocking stupidity later, out walks an orange woman (when are people going to learn how unfortunate spray tanning is?) with bleach blonde hair rolled up in four 8″ curlers on the top of her head, wearing the shortest, tightest, most hooter-bearing black mini dress I have ever laid eyes on, with 6″ heels and enough makeup for a national tour. She opens the vehicle’s door, somehow managing to clamber inside despite her ridiculously inappropriate ensemble, and a tiny little yippie dog with a rhinestone studded collar hops into her lap. It was a better dodo than I ever could have imagined! Made. My. Day.

4. Lenten church fish fry Fridays are the best. Tasty!

5. We’re headed to a Cincinnati Cyclones pro ice hockey game tonight at U.S. Bank Arena against the Chicago Express. It’s Pucks & Pinot Night and Singles Night – oh la la & jackpot. We try to hit up one game per season. They’re cheap, highly entertaining, fun, relaxing, and generally have good eats too.

6. Ted’s new haircut = lookin’ good.

7. We finally acquired a really special nativity set for us to display in our home during the Christmas season (thanks mom&dad2)! We’ve been talking about getting a really nice one for the past four years now and have been waiting patiently until the right one came along. Found it! There’s a small group of people that travel to Catholic churches around the country and sell crosses, nativities, and other religious pieces that are hand carved from olive wood by families in Bethlehem. The families make these religious artifacts by hand for a living – and the work is often phenomenal. We love the nativity we chose, and it makes us happy that the money is going to a hard-working family during a time of the year when they often don’t get many nativity sales – which are big ticket items so they generate more revenue for the family than, say, a cross or rosary would. We really love the beauty of the scene we chose and can’t wait to put it up next Christmas.

8. I finally made good on my vow to be a good and loving wife and finally made Ted his blessed, prized, cherished pineapple upside-down cake. For no reason at all other than that I love him (Oh yeah, and that he does my taxes for me).

9. Next week is spring break for Cincinnati Public Schools. Not that I’m in school anymore, so that really doesn’t mean anything special for me, other than the fact that there are a whopping 11 acting classes that I do not have to make lesson plans for or teach next week! And while I have about 175 incredibly awesome kiddos that I’m currently working on plays with, it’s going to be soooooo refreshing to not have to teach for a whole week! Refreshing and unfortunate, because no acting classes = no money, but in exchange I do get a precious few seconds of free time. Such is life.

10. Pictures!