photo of the day

I'm doing something called Project 365 (well, it's my own spin, since I didn't get the kit) where I take a photo and do a short amount of journaling each day for a year so that at the end I have a neat picture of our life right now. What better place to put this than our blog? I won't do it every day, but expect to see it occasionally.















When Keith mows he makes sure to leave this little patch of flowers untouched so that I can enjoy them. (if you are actually horticulturally inclined and know these are weeds, please let me enjoy my ignorance) They're perfectly situated so that I can see them out the window when I'm at the computer in the evening.

thoughts on getting implants

So, I'm eventually going to get implants, but I'm honestly really worried about the pain and recovery time involved. Technically, I'm only going to get one implant, and it's going to be a tooth. Why, what did you think I was talking about?

One of my molars is a baby tooth (yes, really), because I never had an adult tooth to push it out. The dentist today said the roots are so short that I need to have a consultation with a surgeon soon so that we have a plan of action for when the tooth comes loose. Does this mean I'm going to have to get my mom to pull the loose tooth if I can't get it out soon enough? Anyway, there's surgery to implant a metal post, a couple of weeks of recovery, and then a fake tooth is attached to the post. If you're squeamish, don't google tooth implants. Not exactly something I'm looking forward to. On the plus side, I'll never get wisdom teeth!

The photo is of Keith and I starting out on a walk around the neighborhood two weekends ago. The only thing it has to do with this post is that it makes me think happy thoughts.

an unexpected long weekend

Would you pay $777.66 to get to stay home from work for a day? I did.

Wednesday when I was walking from my car to the garage door, I noticed a hissing noise and a hot smell coming from my car. I thought, "hmm...that's not so good," but then promptly forgot about it. Before you chastise me, remember that my car is 23 years old. It makes lots of odd noises and rarely creates good smells. Thursday I got home from work around 7 pm it was doing the same thing, so I had Keith come take a look. After checking the temperature gauge (which had made it's way past the red), we agreed I would take my car in to Firestone after work on Friday.

Friday morning I hadn't even made it to the highway (about a mile away) before the temp guage made its way all the way to the right, so I turned the car around and headed to Firestone. When I called to let them know I was on the way, they told me to pull over immediately and let it cool off. After waiting in the Goody Goody Liquor store parking lot for about 20 minutes with my hood up, looking like quite the hooligan, I drove the final two blocks to Firestone. Since they had to let the car completely cool, heat it back up again and then run some tests, the nice Firestone gave me a ride home so I could wait there. At least I could respond to work emails from home. In the end it took a new radiator and hoses, 7 hours and $777.66 to get my car back to normal.

It wasn't all bad, though, because I got an unexpected day to play at home! I scrapped most of the day and made myself a grilled pb and banana sandwich for lunch. It was a relaxing start to a 3-day weekend that just happened to cost me nearly $800.

And just so you don't use this experience as a reason to tell me I need a new car, I'm proud to say that the Firestone guy said my car was in pretty good shape for its age. It's never going to die. Never.

a fabulous four-day weekend

UNT's spring break was last week, but as of last year the university is only closed on Monday and then is open the rest of the week. Classes are out, but offices still stay open. It's pretty stinky. Since it's so quiet with all the residents gone, I worked Tuesday and Wednesday to catch up on my inbox and then took off Thursday and Friday. Thankfully, it was such a good four-day weekend that it actually felt like a whole spring break!

Thursday I scrapped some, went to hang out and have lunch with Michelle and her daughter Gabi, came home and scrapped some more, and then Keith and I went on a dinner date to Uno Chicago Grill in Fort Worth's Sundance Square. What a great day! Usually when I'm with Michelle we're also with Keith and Thiago (her husband) or they're at our house for a huge family gathering. Since we don't get to see each other nearly as much as I would like, it was nice to take some time for just the two of us to talk and hang out. Plus, Gabi is an adorable two year old! When I told Michelle we were eating at Uno, she asked me what that was and I think my initial response was something like a low groan of longing. If you haven't been to Uno, you must go! They have the most amazing deep dish pizza ever. I'm normally a thin crust kind of girl, but this crust is so flaky and delicious, it's the best I've ever had. We're actually glad there's not one near us, because then we would probably be fat, fat people.













The restaurant is in Sundance Square, so there's also lots of pretty streets and cute shops to walk around before or after your meal.






















Look at that amazing pizza.






















Not the greatest photo of me, but my four cheese pesto pizza sure does make me happy!

The rest of the weekend I did lots of scrapping--finished 5 layouts!, Keith got to watch lots of basketball, and we went to the FC Dallas (major league soccer) season opener. It was a pretty great weekend.

I'm not as picky as they think I am

I'm infamous among my family as being a picky eater. I spent many a family holiday eating ham, rolls and then lots of dessert while the rest of the family piled their plates high with a huge variety of "yummy" foods. I still remain a rather...discerning...eater (no red meat or spicy food, for starters), but have discovered that I like a lot of other foods that I didn't get a chance to try as a kid.

Keith's equally picky, but unfortunately he shuns almost an entire food group. He can't stomach most cooked vegetables. Technically, he can't swallow most cooked vegetables. (We'll discuss the infamous "Green Bean Incident" from his childhood another day.)

We're open to trying new foods, though, and have been trying out new restaurants from the Entertainment Passbook that my mother-in-law gave us. (thanks, Cindy!) A couple of weeks ago we tried out a Mediterranean restaurant in Richardson called Afrah. It was delicious and now that we're looking at the photos again we want to go back!















Keith ate Kafka (a beef dish) with rice and baba ganoush, I ate chicken kabobs with rice and hummus, and we both had the falafel appetizer and lots of warm, delicious pita bread. mmm...pita bread























Yes, Keith's food looked like that before he ate it. He also actually enjoyed the baba ganoush (it's made with cooked eggplant!)























The reason I look so happy is because of the pita bread in my hand.
















We couldn't resist some fresh pistachio baklava.

Who wants to go back to Afrah with us?

this is not

This is not a photo of me at 10:00 last night, wearing pajama pants and an XL grey sweatshirt, with hair still damp from my shower, sitting on the floor of our bedroom, surrounded by meticulously-sorted piles of laundry, with my my torso, arms and head leaned over and curled up into a square [empty] laundry basket, because I was so tired it actually felt comfortable. That is not what this is a photo of. But it might have been, if Keith was a little sneakier with the camera phone.


















And for anyone who thinks my t-shirt drawer is over-organized, you might want to look into the "filing" method of storing folded t-shirts. I can see all of my shirts at one time instead of digging through a drawer and there's no more accidentally unfolding shirts because you pulled out one from the middle of the stack. You can even take it to the next level and put newly laundered shirts at the front of the drawer so that you know that the ones you haven't worn in a while are in the back. Not that I do that or anything...

things that make me happy

a clean and sunlit home

an organized freezer

a beautiful sunrise on the way to work

cooking tasty food and sharing it with people