Nored No More

Snow Day!

I find it interesting that it's been so long since I've posted, that all you have to do is scroll down a smidge to see the snow we got last January.

This morning Chris went to work at oh-dark-thirty to prep sanders and plows, "just in case" we really got the amount of snow the weather men said we were getting. Because around here, that really doesn't ever happen.

Lo and behold, I have six inches of snow outside my house right now. SIX. INCHES. And Chris is STILL pushing snow 12+ hours later. Me? I have a clean house that smells like gingerbread, and I'm hunkering down with the laptop and the TiVO remote. Ah...heaven!

11 a.m.-ish. I kinda slept in today for the first time in I-have-no-idea-how-long, and this is pretty much what I woke up to.

 
This is around 1 p.m.

 

This is Charlie, around 3 p.m., suffering the indignities of a not-well-thought-out-attempt-at-a-Christmas-card photo shoot.

 This is why house smells like gingerbread. 

And THESE are the greatest thing to grace my oven in a long time. These are Smitten Kitchen's  Cream Biscuits. As I commented on her blog, I will never buy another roll of ready-to-bake biscuits; these were so super easy, and beyond delicious. Dinner tonight was two biscuits with jam and a glass of milk. I have 12 more in the freezer - raw. Looking forward to baking fresh biscuits on Sunday! 

 

Holiday Spirit

Chris and I made a long list of things we wanted to do to "enhance the holiday spirit" and that could be good traditions for us. The tree was something, and ornament shopping was something, marathon-movie watching was something, and there were a few more things on there that I can't recall right now. In any event, we got the tree, we did some ornament shopping (although we still can't find anything for the top of the tree that we like), the marathon-movie-watching turned in to catching-up-on-all-seasons of 24 (we'll finish season 1 this weekend - yay for Netflix!). One of the other things we wanted to do was to attend something that was Christmas-specific. Initially I thought this could be The Nutcracker or something like that, but I think, once you see the pictures below, that we really found our "something." We went to the Reston Holiday Parade with Chris' sister-in-law, niece, and three nephews. It was fantastic, and I'm already wondering what floats they'll have next year. Enjoy the photos!

 

   
 

Happy 4th of July: 2008 Edition

Greetings from - miracles of miracles - sunny Central New York. I've been here about a week, and it has only poured down rain two of the seven days I've been here. Quite a feat for a city whose motto should be, "Syracuse: Which Day Was Summer?"

In any event, this now being the year of "new traditions," there were no lobster races or crepe-papered bicycle spokes or corn on the cob. There was, however, lounging by the pool:

Charlie catching some rays by the pool.

Hannah (5 month old Cavalier), Morgan (4 year old Cavalier), and Charlie chillin' in the shade (FINALLY - too much time sweating it out on the bricks instead of some cool grass somewhere...).

Check out Ma's handiwork - she made this a week or two ago just in time for the holiday:

So all this week, Charlie and I have walked the mile loop around Elmcrest once in the morning and once in the evening. Before getting here, I bought new Bags on Board pooh bags, and they're bright blue. Mom's been joining me with Morgan in the evenings, and her pooh bags alternate between clear, white, and red because she uses bags from the newspapers that get delivered. When we return from a walk, the pooh bags get deposited on the side of the house, and then they move to a grocery bag before moving to the garbage bag. Tonight when we returned from our walk and threw down our pooh bags, we realized that we had a lovely melange of red, white, and blue pooh bags propped at the side of the house - how patriotic, and how apropos for 2008's 4th of July at 4066. Mom suggested a picture to send out, but I opted to take a picture of this for our 4th of July, 2008 photo:

We went with a McDonald's picnic at Long Branch Park for dinner tonight, and our Happy Meal toy was a persian cat. Voila. Hope you had a safe and enjoyable 4th of July. Go USA.

Happy June

Where does the time go? Last weekend was the official start of summer, with Memorial Day festivities abounding. This year I wanted to do something other than lounge poolside all weekend, and while camping sounded great, it's just too popular a weekend to book a campsite last minute.

Luckily, Chris' family has a place on Lake Anna, about two hours (with traffic) away from here. No dogs allowed in the house, as people have allergies and whatnot. Since we weren't leaving Charlie behind, and since the weather was perfect, we put up a tent in the big back yard and had clear, sparkly skies to sleep under. Charlie was in H-E-A-V-E-N (except for maybe when he fell off the boat or when he maybe got shoved off the dock because he was being way too girlie and afraid of the water for anyone's liking...) - plus for a dog not allowed in my bedroom back home, he took to sleeping on my head real quick (and not necessarily a bad thing when it's only 50 degrees at night!).

Here's a photo montage of the fun:

(his permanent cruising-location, as viewed from the back of the boat)

(his permanent cruising-location, as viewed from my eyes)

(Here you can see how falling off the boat was a total possibility... we were at a sandbar, where the water was not quite waist deep. When he went in, he sunk like a rock but then popped up and started swimming. Thankfully Chris was there to lift him back in the boat - while the SeaEagle is tough, I don't know if it's panicking-dog-nails-that-haven't-been-cut-in-three-months-tough!)

I swear he came home a different dog. He was on a 30-foot lead for most of the time, but he thought he was wandering around at will. And when his selective hearing kicked in, he was quickly and easily reminded to "COME!" when called by a firm foot planted on his lead. He met other dogs, he learned to swim, and he learned to retrieve a stick thrown in the lake. His mother, meanwhile, learned it's not smart to try and take the stick away with out saying "DROP IT" first.

The week went by quickly (six hours of dental work on Wednesday helped, I guess...) and this weekend was Herndon Festival. We went for a little while on Friday, and on Saturday I volunteered at Alex's Lemonade Stand. Today has been lounging and laundry, as I'm leaving for Denver tomorrow afternoon to complete the next round of data collection for the dissertation.  Have a great week!

(PS - Don't worry about Charlie while I'm in Denver - he'll be in the very capable hands of Chris!)

Band Meme

Anyone seen the BAND MEME going around? Basically, you go to three sites to randomly select your band name, album title, and cover art.

1. Go here for the band name: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
No matter what the title of the article is, that's the name of your band.

2. Go here for the album title: www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words from the very last quote on the page makes up the title of your band's album.

3. Go here for the cover art: www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Whatever the third picture is, that's the cover to your band's album.

Ready? My band is the Tim Tom Complex, the album is titled "...frail and feeble mind," and this is the cover art. Nifty, eh? Enjoy!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I've been talking about doing it for over a year now, but today I finally did it.

Here's what my hair looked like at 1:15 today:

And here's what it looked like at 1:17 today:

And here's a side shot of what it looked like at 2:45 today:

I went 18 months without a single trip to a salon, and then in September I decided it was time - starting with trim to get it healthy, today was the day I was able to cut it off:

Tomorrow it goes in the mail to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program (where you only need EIGHT inches to donate your hair instead of ten. I'm sending nine).

Have a great weekend everyone - knitting content to return soon!

A year in review

So a year ago, I started Nored No More, with the idea that I can be busy enough with productive things that keep me from 'noredom,' and by blogging that information I'm obliged to stay busy.   I even make mention in the inaugural post that I was starting it as a way to track my 2007 Goals.

So for 2007, here's what I had wanted to do and the progress with each:

• Start a blog - Done, although this year I'd like to post more consistently.
• Run more - started to, got sick and stopped for a month, got better, did great, got discouraged by the cold,joined a gym for the treadmill aspect, jacked my back on some ice... Well now I have no excuses, and it's going to be 50 something this weekend, so I should be out running soon.
  
• Start up the Knitting Night -  I'm pleased to report that I hosted nine official knitting nights and two unofficial knitting nights, and I attended three knitting nights hosted elsewhere. This is about one per month, and I'm good with that but would prefer to get a bit more knitting done this year.
• Sign up and run the Quantico Half Marathon - a big no...I waited too long and there weren't any spots left. I've signed up for the Shamrock Half in VA Beach in March. With that said, I need to hit the pavement, STAT.
• Get a passport - CHECK!
• New TiVO and HDTV - halfway check; got the new TV in October, but can't get TiVO in my complex due to some not necessarily legal maneuvering of the property management group... Awaiting the arrival of FIOS or something else equally effective and cool after the home-owner's association gets its act together.

So of the seven I'd say I reached 4.5 of the 2007 Goals. I love reaching my goals...must set one up for success by making them attainable though, right? So for 2008, I hope to:

• finish my degree. I'm on the IRB process at the moment, which means I'm still on target to finish in late spring/early summer, but this HAS to be on my list because I'm just so tired of school. 
• on the heels of Goal One, I hope to treat myself to a vacation somewhere that will allow me to get a stamp in my passport. I got the passport in 07, so I'd like to use it in 08.
• another goal for once school is done is to start volunteering somewhere nearby. There are several viable options that I've looked in to, but I don't want to commit to anything I can't be %110 in to - and with school and work, there's no way right this minute.
• finish or frog all the projects currently on sticks. Tired of half finished projects that I actually like - and tired of feeling guilty about the ones I don't like. Finish it or frog it - that's my goal.
• complete a half marathon...I've been wanting to do this for years, people. At least as long as I've been working on the degree. I feel like if I finish a race, I'm guaranteed to finish the degree - hey, in my mind, it works just like that. Oh, and I really want to go camping at least once in 2008 - my poor kayak hasn't seen water in over a year now, and I want to get out there with my tent and my boat and spend some time 'away.'  Hmm. I wonder...could I take my tent and my kayak and my knitting and my passport and kill three birds with one stone?!?!OOOH! Maybe at an international half-marathon? On graduation day! heheheheh. 
  

Click and Sign

I'm probably the biggest TV addict in the world. I have a schedule of shows I watch consistently, and I have a sub-schedule of shows I can NOT miss. I watch The Simpson's, Family Guy, and Dexter on Sundays. I watch How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, Chuck, Journeyman, and CSI: Miami on Monday nights. I watch NCIS, Bones, and House on Tuesday nights. I watch Criminal Minds and Life on Wednesday nights. I can't miss Ugly Betty or The Office on Thursday nights (and I'd say the same about Grey's Anatomy if stupid Izzy didn't annoy me so much), and I also like CSI on Thursday nights. On Fridays, I watch Friday Night Lights and Numb3rs.

Now with a list of shows that long, you'd have to assume that I have a DVR as well as no social life, right? No DVR, and I go to Pilates class on Monday and Thursday nights, I go to trivia on Tuesday nights, and I knit on Wednesday nights (or vice versa). Almost always, there's a happy hour or something on Friday night. What makes it possible for me to see these shows is this great thing called the INTERNET. I can watch ALL of these shows, for free, whenever I want. ALL of them. I like all of these shows because I like the story lines and I love the writing. But today I did some reading on the WGA strike. I learned that  the writers want some ridiculously low percentage of the residuals for the webisodes and internet downloads of their work - and the studios are saying, "No." So I did some more research and found a petition to sign - you too can sign it by clicking here.

Yarn?

I have a question - I need some little kid hat yarn in the Lilly Pulitzer colors. Does anybody have some recommendations?

I'll be making a nippertail hat for my friend's pigtail wearing 4 year old. I made her a red one last year, and she has NOT forgotten it and wants to know if I'm going to make her a new one to match her new coat. Well it takes all of an hour or two to knit one, and she's really a cute, smart, and well-behaved kid, so when she asked so nicely I couldn't say no. Any one have any ideas? Thank you!

Where to go, where to go...

DUDES. Guess what came in the mail??

AWIJ-AWIJ! My passport!!

Now all I need to do is win the lottery to finance my trip around the world.