I'm dreaming...

Photo (C) Christina Saull - All Rights Reserved

of when it looks like this outside

(go ahead, hate me)

Five for Friday

1. How 'bout that LeBron James, huh? I know, I'm sick of hearing about it too. So I'll just make one comment on it, to Dan Gilbert: the font you use means everything. Comic Sans? REALLY?

2. As you saw from yesterday's hot dog post, our trip to Cleveland was indeed epic, despite the LeBron decision hanging over the entire city (see exhibit A below).

We ate so much, my stomach literally hurt until yesterday. Things we ate that made my stomach hurt: pizza (x2, including once at the ballpark); beer (x a lot... ); hot dog with bacon and cheese, chocolate milkshake and cheese fries (all for lunch on Saturday); nachos (at the ballpark, but on a different night than the pizza); ice cream, regular (x2); ice cream, sundaes (x2). Pepto anyone?

3. Another highlight to our trip was going to see two Indians games, one of which they actually won! For a team that is 33-52 headed into the all-star break, we were really excited to see a winning game. Plus it was Brad's first game at Jacob's Field (I'm sorry, but it will ALWAYS be the Jake to me), the weather was perfect and our seats for both games were great.

4. This wouldn't be a traditional "Five for Friday" post if I did not comment on/complain about the weather. It is sunny an average of 66 days a year in Cleveland, leaving you an 82% chance of it not being sunny during your visit. Guess what? Bright blue skies every day we were there! What are the chances? Of course, then we came back to 100+ degree temperatures in D.C. this week, so perhaps it was the big man upstairs reminding us to enjoy sun and 80 degrees while we have access it!

5. Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention probably the best part of our trip to Cleveland: the Happy Humper. No, I'm not talking about some adult store or badly titled x-rated movie. I'm talking about this:

The world's most dangerous/thrilling piece of playground equipment ever. When I was in elementary school, we'd pile onto this thing way beyond capacity and have the time of our lives. Fingers were squished, flesh was pinched and more than one tush was burned on the black rubber. Yet, it was pure recess bliss. I was sure that the school district had wisened up sometime in the past 20 years and taken out this childhood play thing.

Nope! There it is, in all its glory, on the playground of Ella Canavan Elementary School (a fine educational institution, I might add). It even has a twin. Warmed my heart.

Five for Friday

1. Great call yesterday by Brad and my Dad on missed When Harry Met Sally quotes.

Brad's contribution:
Harry Burns: "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally Albright: Why not?
Harry Burns: What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally Albright: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry Burns: No you don't.
Sally Albright: Yes I do.
Harry Burns: No you don't.
Sally Albright: Yes I do.
Harry Burns: You only think you do.
Sally Albright: You say I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry Burns: No, what I'm saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally Albright: They do not.
Harry Burns: Do too.
Sally Albright: They do not.
Harry Burns: Do too.
Sally Albright: How do you know?
Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally Albright: So, you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail 'em too.
Sally Albright: What if THEY don't want to have sex with YOU?
Harry Burns: Doesn't matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally Albright: Well, I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry Burns: I guess not.
Sally Albright: That's too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.

Dad's contribution: "I'll have what she's having." Did you know that line is actually spoken by Rob Reiner's mother who plays the woman in the deli who is definitely envious of the turkey sandwich that Meg Ryan is eating since, just prior to this line, Meg Ryan was faking a, well, you know what.

Classic.

2. I've decided that I'm probably going to work a picture of Cary Grant into a post at least every two weeks. He really brightened my day yesterday. Thanks swooner (my new nickname for him).

3. The weather here is disgusting today. It's only fitting that it should be pouring rain, since it is one of my best friend's at work last day. This makes me terribly sad. In fact, I've decided she's not really leaving, she's actually just taking a REALLY extended vacation. She'll return one day. Hopefully.

4. My personal trainer kicked my butt this morning. It hurts to type. This is what I get for telling him I wanted to work harder. Might be a long day...

5. Brad's parents are in town this weekend. We never seem to know what fun activities to do with them. Yet we live in this city with loads of free and cheap and fun stuff to do. The only thing really out is movies or performing arts. They just need some more exciting touristy things to be built. Somehow we always end up just sitting around and walking around Pentagon City Mall (the bane of any locals existence at this time of year due to the massive school groups that take over the entire place). So DC peeps that read this blog, I need suggestions. I know there's stuff we're not thinking of. Oh, and don't you dare suggest Cherry Blossoms. Because we all know that every tourist in the city of D.C. will be there this weekend!

le weekend

To say that Saturday was beautiful would be the understatement of the century.

Saturday was GORGEOUS!

In honor of the 75 degrees, we slipped on some shorts/capri's and tee-shirts and trekked down to Old Town to run some errands. In our trusty backpack, we also threw in a blanket and books. After our errand running, we had a leisurely lunch on the lovely back patio of Taverna Cretekou (awesome Greek restaurant) and then walked down to Founder's Park, where we spread out our blanket and read in the sun for a few hours.

Heavenly.

Kind of hard to believe that just a month ago, it looked like this out:

Day 5 post-big snow; Day 1 of blizzard; Day 6 of not leaving the house

"What day of the week is it?" I honestly can't believe I asked Brad that question this morning. That's what happens when you haven't left your little four block radius around your house in almost a week and haven't ridden in a car since... oh wow, a week! A week ago today, I was at the grocery store, stocking up on provisions for this supposed "winter storm" we were going to have. Well, I'm now a believer, since it has also been blizzarding for the past 24 hours. It has finally stopped doing anything out and Brad is out, once again, digging his car out of the snow. Mine? An absolute lost cause... you can't even tell it's a car, with the exception of a little tiny part of the rear view mirror that's visible.

I'd be surprised if we have work tomorrow, as there has been a lot of blowing and drifting snow and above-ground Metro doesn't like big snow drifts. Fingers crossed for Friday! Fingers even more crossed for our flight outta here Saturday night!!!!

blizzarding

some mega icicle that formed overnight

clean up begins... again

Day 4: no work, lotsa snow

Day 4. No work (again) today because the Metro still isn't running regularly above ground - I now haven't been to my office since Thursday. Have to fight for the Internet connection with Brad, since we are both trying to work from home on one Internet connection. They just brought construction equipment into our parking lot to try and move some of the snow... because we are supposed to get 10 - 20 more inches of the white stuff tonight.

Oh yeah, and our flight to Barbados was already cancelled. Yup, two days in advance. So now we leave Saturday night, spend the night at JFK airport (in a near-by hotel actually) and fly to Barbados on a ridiculously long 5 1/2 hour flight Sunday. At least my toes will be in sand before the week is out.

One last thing? Gary the snowman says hello. I think he's the only one who likes all this snow.

Snow, snow and more snow

I am in absolute disbelief that we are supposed to get another 10 - 20 inches of snow tomorrow night and Wednesday. I also refuse to think about what that means for our 6am flight Thursday morning. But I'm not in enough disbelief to not have sent Brad back to the grocery store tonight to stock up on more provisions just in case (good thing we dug out the car yesterday!). We did not have work today, since both our office's follow the federal government's status for those sorts of things. While this sounds appealing, it's really getting quite boring only leaving the house to go shovel. So we decided to set out this afternoon for lunch at Hard Times Cafe, conveniently located about five blocks away. Of course the sidewalks along the direct route weren't shoveled, so we took the nice city walking path, which was completely snow and ice free (makes me wonder why our street looks like a skating rink, but the stupid walking path is clear...). We had a lovely lunch, and it was SO nice to get out of the house. On the way back, we even stopped to make a snowman and named him Gary.

So, there you have it. I give it about a 50-50 chance that we will have work tomorrow. Most school's are still closed, Metro is still not running above ground and the streets are, well, lousy. Here's to more snow!

our street, still snowed in

Snow? Why yes, we have some of that

Well, I will admit that I was skeptical about this "record snowfall." I was skeptical as it began falling from the sky yesterday. I was skeptical as it fell throughout the night and day today. My skepticism ended when I headed downstairs to shovel today. Yikes. Actual snow accumulation is probably only about 16"-18" by us, certainly not record, but there are some crazy drifts in our parking lot that are literally thigh-high.

Quite frankly, as long as some sort of four-wheel drive vehicle can make it down the main road we live off of to the main road that the airport is on by Thursday morning at about 4:30am, I could really care less about what happens between now and then. Heck, maybe I won't even have to go back to work until after we get back from sunning ourselves in the tropics :)

the view at about 10am this morning

snow is over, beautiful sunset!

lots of digging out to do!

The Big Snow

I admit that last Friday in my Five for Friday, I was skeptical of the snow we were forecasted to get. I was still skeptical when I stopped by the grocery store Friday evening after work to pick up a few things just in case I actually had to cook at home Saturday and Sunday. My skepticism was decreasing only by a bit when the snow started falling around 9pm Friday night. By 3am Saturday morning, when I was awoken to someone snow blowing the sidewalk, I was a believer.

We got a lot of snow this weekend. A lot. 16" at the airport, which is about 0.5 miles from our place. Up to 20" in other places. Crazy snow. As I said to Brad, one of the top five snow's I've seen in my entire life, which isn't saying much since I lived in Florida for seven years.

The worst part was being stuck indoors for three days. Yesterday I finally begged Brad to please walk with me to the awesome chili place about six blocks away. I couldn't take being cooped up in the house any more (not to mention I was getting a little tired of cooking three meals a day!)

The roads are still a mess, such a mess that we probably won't even attempt to drive until we have to go to the airport Thursday morning. I think the real problem is that there is so much snow and just no place to put it. Plus it warms up during the day, melting the snow a little, only to have it refreeze into a sheet of ice at night when the temperatures dip into the 20's.

Regardless, I love snow. Even a lot of it. Even a blizzard-esque lot of it! I love it even more when the federal government is closed, as it was yesterday, giving me a three day weekend. Oh, and a special shout out to Brad, who is bringing me lunch to my office because I don't want to deal with D.C.'s barely shoveled sidewalks. He's the best :)

it begins... errr... continues

kitchen windows with snow stuck between the storm windows and screens

homemade corn chowder for dinner

a beautiful day Sunday morning reveals a heck of a lot of snow!

Brad's car, pre-digging out

car post digging out

(thanks to the awesome neighbors who lent us their shovels!)

a look down the street
my poor car... we figure it will be un-buried by about April

Five for Friday

1. Well, the word in the street in D.C. is that we're going to get some mega snow tonight and tomorrow. No, not the nice dusting that we got two weeks ago (see below), but some major 10-16 inches. Some people say up to two feet. I am personally skeptical, but am still planning on swinging by the grocery store so we have enough food to eat in tomorrow and Sunday. I think I'm also going to make some of my Dad's famous corn chowder (famous because I love it!), as it just seems the right thing to do in wintry conditions. We'll see what we end up with!


2. Last Saturday, I spent the morning chocolate-ing. This family tradition involves melting massive amounts of chocolate (milk, dark, white) and dipping whatever you can get your hands on in it. This year I made:

• Oreos dipped in milk chocolate, drizzled with white chocolate
• Oreos dipped in dark chocolate
• Oreos dipped in white chocolate
• Pretzel rods dipped in milk chocolate, drizzled with white chocolate
• Pretzel rods dipped in dark chocolate
• Mini milk and dark chocolate shapes in molds (which my husband apparently melted in the dishwasher... guess this year was the last one for those!)
• Dried apricots dipped in dark chocolate ("healthy")
• Peanut butter cups
• Cups filled with half white, half milk chocolate
• Cups filled with milk chocolate covered marshmallows

We gave away 90% of it as gifts to co-workers and family. The other 10% we have been noshing on, trying to make it last. Earlier in the month, I made two pans of my infamous nutmallow (bars with milk chocolate, cashews and marshmallows) - one to send my brother with his Christmas package, one to give away to people. Unfortunately, the later of the two batches became my breakfast almost every morning so... um, sorry to those who didn't get any this year! Here's a lousy picture from my phone of this year's haul:

3. Earlier this week, we booked flights to Tampa to visit Brad's grandparents over MLK Day weekend in January and to Barbados in February. A shot of warm weather is going to be really nice right around then (although it probably won't be too overly warm in Tampa!).

4. Just heard on the news that we might get *thundersnow* (literally a thunderstorm that produces snow instead of rain). I KNEW the end of the world was drawing near! And to think that I spent all that money on holiday gifts for people...

5. So Christmas is next week, but it's feeling distinctly un-Christmas-like here in D.C. I blame the Senate and their health care reform bill. There are too many people who are having to work too hard this close to the holidays because of it. I worked on the Hill a long time and have never seen it this hardcore, this stubborn, this broken. It's a little disheartening, really. Can't we all just get along?

Five for Friday

1. We gave this little bloggity-blog a shout out in our Christmas letter this year, so a big hello to anyone who has decided to follow our crazy lives because of that.

2. Speaking of Christmas letters and cards, we sent all ours out at the beginning of the week - about 80 in all. We have gotten two cards so far this year. That's it. Makes me sad actually, to check the mail on a daily basis and just get pizza coupons and credit card offers. Maybe it's the economy. "Or maybe it's people using the economy as an excuse because they're too lazy to send cards." <-- that last sentence is a direct quote an older woman at church told me last week. Hilarious.

3. Since I know you've been wondering, a squirrel update for you. They came and set traps on Tuesday morning. As of Thursday night, they had trapped one squirrel a day since Tuesday. What I don't understand is how they know the squirrel's they're trapping were the ones that were in the attic (no the traps aren't in the attic, they're on the roof by where the squirrel(s) are coming in and out). The good news is that we haven't heard any in the attic since Tuesday. The bad news is that it has been insanely cold this week and I'm now worried that the squirrels are getting trapped in the evening, drawn into the cage by the promise of food, and then they have to spend all night in a freezing cage when it is 23 degrees outside. Just doesn't seem right... not that it was right for them to be in the attic either though. Hopefully the whole thing will be over soon.

4. As you saw from previous posts, we did indeed get our tree last weekend and it is all up and decorated. It smells INSANELY good. It's also drinking up a storm, but that's okay. As long as it keeps smelling good.

5. As I mentioned earlier, winter has arrived in DC. We had a little snow last Saturday, which was lovely, largely because I didn't leave the house all day. It has been cold this week though. Wicked cold, as they would say up in Boston (when they're not complaining about the Patriots lousy play this year). I actually like winter, I really do. The clothing is so much more stylish and I absolutely hate sweating. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that I would actually much rather be in Barbados right now, with my toes in the sand and a frozen drink in my hand. Because the drink wouldn't be frozen due to the weather...

Five for Friday

1. This week has been a fantastic week at work. Sunday through Wednesday, we played host to 600 volunteers and staff for our annual Leadership Summit and Lobby Day. On Tuesday, I am proud to say that I put together a press event with five NCAA Division I men's basketball coaches, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, three U.S. Senator's and a whole heck of a lot of media. Just take a look at the very rewarding chaos:

2. Brad and I are pretty much moved into our new place. To have the whole place unpacked and basically put together a week and a half after moving is nothing short of a miracle. It is so nice to have the extra space and having a washer and dryer in the unit is literally life changing. I hope to get some pictures posted soon, although I'll probably wait until we have stuff hanging on the walls..

3. Fall made a brief appearance earlier in the week when the temperatures barely hit 70 degrees. However, we had a bit of an indian summer the rest of the week, with temps in the 80's and super humid. The weather here is a wack...

4. With the return of fall comes the return of many of my favorite things: Ohio State football (well, heck football period!), pumpkin-everything, beautiful autumn leaves, long sleeved shirts, apple orchard's and bright blue skies. Oh yeah, and my wedding anniversary, which is in less than a month!

5. We have a couple exciting things coming up that I'll tease you about: in mid-October we're headed to Minneapolis to celebrate my great-grandmother's 100th birthday, then headed to Seattle for a few days to celebrate our anniversary. At the end of October, one of my bestest friends is coming to visit for the weekend. THEN for Thanksgiving, we're headed up to NYC. It is going to be a fantastic few months!!!

PS I'll finish posting our cruise pictures sometime this year... they make me happy to look at, so I'm taking my time :)