Lemon, Lizzie, Lythgoe

Last Thursday (and I've been trying to post about this since then...good grief) I met blogging friend Amanda Lythgoe for dinner at The Blue Lemon. Michelle was supposed to join us, but was unable to come due to Eva's current sleep woes and resulting behavior (it's not pretty).


I had never been here before, so it was fun to find out that such a cool place was so nearby.


I ordered the raspberry chicken salad (with some fear since I'm not so keen on chicken or vinaigrette dressing), but after the first few bites I was sold and ended up cleaning my plate. I find that having fruit and nuts in a salad makes it far more tasty, yet this technology somehow eludes me at home.


Amanda brought these cute monogram necklaces for Michelle and I, they're double-sided with the reverse color-scheme on the back.


I gave Amanda 3 decorative tiles with black ribbon hangers that spell out her word for the year, JOY. (I thought it was funny and enjoyable that we both brought gifts for each other.)


Amanda suggested that we go across the street to Dear Lizzie for dessert. I have passed that place at least 50 times and never gone in, so I was very happy to finally see it's charming goodness for myself.


How pleasing is this cupcake? The answer is (of course) SO PLEASING!


Dear Lizzie closed at 7:00, so Amanda and I ended up talking in her car for awhile longer. It was so fun to meet her in real life and to feel like good friends.

The winner of the birthday label drawing (courtesy of random.org) is Lisa Price!

**Do you like vinaigrettes?
Have you been to The Blue Lemon or Dear Lizzie?
Don't you just love spontaneous gift giving?
Can you believe this post took me a week
to create because of picture-loading woes?**

P.S. My picture-loading woes are NOT over. Each of these photos took about a half hour and sometimes multiple tries to load.

Aargh!

I have no post for today because my photos are taking forever to load. I don't know if this is a Blogger problem or a clogged hard drive problem, but either way I'm seriously bugged. Serenity now!

Technical Difficulties

Our Internet went down yesterday around noon and didn't come back up until this morning (#$@). I felt like I had a hand tied behind my back all day yesterday because of it, even though I had plenty to do with my Californian house guests.


Missy Claudia and her family arrived Wednesday night at 10:30 and have been staying with us since then. Our house is like the little house that could right now because we're able to fit 4 adults and 4 children without much difficulty. Of course, it helps greatly that they're such easygoing house guests. Not everyone would be keen on sleeping on squeaky bunk beds or a hard futon, but they make it seem like these are deluxe accommodations. I have much to report from their visit, but since it's still going on it will have to wait.

Happy Birthday Kelly!!!

**Did you notice that I didn't post yesterday?
Are you an easygoing house guest?**

Sweet Fancy Moses, I'm Back!

Glory, glory hallelujah and sweet fancy Moses I'm back baby and loving every minute of it. I feel like I've been a subject in some cruel experiment over this past week with no internet access, fortunately I am no longer twitchy and irritable, but instead am so grateful to have it back won't take it for granted ever again!


Fortunately the heavens have smiled upon me and have restored my connection to the rest of the world (oh I've missed you so). Now I can reconnect, update my Netflix queue, check movie times, email, Amazon.com, and all of your blogs! I was talking to Michelle the other day and said, "What am I missing? Any big announcements?" Only to have her say, "Lara had her baby! and Jordan is pregnant!" Congratulations and wow. Then Hannah stopped by yesterday and informed me that Jessie is now posting multiple times a day (what!?) and that Angie is 20 weeks pregnant with a baby girl and is just barely announcing this!! Sheesh, I've only been disconnected 7 days and so many big things are happening. What else did I miss?


When sweet Hannah stopped by yesterday she brought me my favorite treat, a cup of pebble ice from Sonic, and checked on me. She also offered use of her computer any time. That was so nice! Today I got a thick envelope in the mail from her with this blog-goodness inside. She printed my internet-woe post and all of your comments (as of 2:23pm yesterday) which was 8 pages worth!, so that I could read them and feel connected and loved. What a fantastic idea! I was so thrilled to see my blog banner that I let out a little gasp. Thank you so much Hannah for doing that, and thanks to everybody who commented on there or who called to check on me. I really appreciate it.


I'm now overwhelmed with the task of catching up on a week's worth of posting and of reading blogs, but I'm up to it. I haven't drafted anything in a Word document because I prefer to write after I've chosen pictures for a post, so hopefully as I look through my photos from the past week they'll trigger my thoughts and I can write. It's a beautiful thing to feel like I have a life worth reporting, when it has only been 7 days of normalcy and nothing major! What a blessing.

**Do you take your internet
connection for granted?
Do you have anything major to report?**

$%#@!

My internet has been down for 48 hours and still isn't fixed (I'm using Michelle's right now)! Apparently the big electrical storm we had on Tuesday night did a number on the city, so everyone (hard to believe) is out of service. It has seriously altered my days, and though they've been productive, it has been weird and left me feeling out of the loop. Aargh! If it doesn't get fixed today, then I'm guessing it will be down all weekend. I will have to do some cleansing breaths and make notes so I don't forget what I wanted to say. Until then, I hope you're all doing well, sending good mail and enjoying the kids being back to school.

Book Club Craziness

This summer has proven to be a scheduling nightmare for our book club. We usually meet the first Wednesday of every month to discuss the book, and then get together later in the month if we're celebrating one of our birthdays. Amy and I both had our birthdays in July (the 7th & 9th) but we weren't able to get together until September to celebrate them!! Good grief.


We finally managed (after much emailing) to set a date and plan a menu (thanks to Michelle for that). We met at Collette's house to discuss Sarah's Quilt, celebrate Amy's birthday (31st) and to eat Americana Pot Roast, twice-baked potatoes, spinach salad, tasty rolls and poppyseed cake with fresh berries. That doesn't sound so hard does it?


Leave it to me to actually have the book finished early, my pages for Amy's birthday book done before 6:00pm, and the pot roast made, only to transport it to Collette's house and have the tasty juices flow not only out of the tightly sealed (whatever) plastic wrap, but also off the baking sheet I was using as a buffer! This meant I had beefy pot roast juice (which had paprika, garlic, onions, red wine vinegar and spices) on the floor of my car (it even went off my very absorbent floor mats). I got to Collette's house and was in a very bad state of mind, which just didn't seem fair when I'd been so calm and well-organized for this event.


I ended up coming in to the house swearing under my breath, sweating, and with a cloud of discontent swirling around me (not good). I had to set down my now dry pot roast and then head back out to the car to do damage control. I had to hose down my floor mat on Collette's lawn, so while negotiating her kinked hose I almost lost my life on her porch steps (I'm still not sure how this happened). I was so frustrated! Then I turned to see a yucky brown spider (must they plague me so?) on her welcome mat, like that's what I needed to see right then!


Fortunately I was able to return to a normal state of mind after cooling down (physically and mentally) and while eating our scrumptious dinner. Everything was so good, and we always have a good time chatting so I returned to my normal self (not my irrational self) and was able to have a good time. It drives me crazy that I allow myself to get flustered by stupid things. The pot-roast incident wasn't that big of a deal, but somehow it totally got me in a tizzy.

Shortly after finishing dinner a wicked storm came in and created tornado-like gusts that actually knocked Collette's tree right over. It looked like it had actually been chopped. Crazy! At one point Jana said "If the world ends tonight, I'm not ready." So funny.


We finally celebrated Amy's birthday and gave her the creatively wonderful book that Jenn masterminded and coordinated (I don't know how she comes up with these great ideas over and over again!) but that we all contributed pages for. We also gave her 2 gift certificates, one for Robert's and one for Joann's, so hopefully she'll have some fun shopping.


We finally retired to the basement (aka The Book Club Room) for dessert (which so good) and to discuss Sarah's Quilt. We all enjoyed it, but agree that it doesn't compare to These Is My Words. I really enjoyed it though and think Sarah is a fabulous character, and I look forward to the 3rd installment of this series.

By the time we left that night (around 11:30), the storm was over and all was well...little did I know that my internet had been zapped and would be out of commission for 7 freakin days!!

Click here to see the rest of the photos.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

A Trial of Life

Okay, this is a Valentine's Day Miracle, but our internet is back up as of 8:19pm Saturday night!! I just came home from an afternoon of creativity at Jessie's house (along with Michelle and Hannah) and was positively blue driving home because I knew I was returning home to no internet connection. We were told today that the city was in-charge of fixing it and that it wasn't a priority for them (I'm not sure why), plus it's a holiday weekend so we'd be lucky if they looked at it by next Tuesday! %$#@ I was having visions of picketing the city offices, pleading on my hands and knees and getting petitions signed by my blogging friends. I'm beyond grateful that I don't have to do that. Alas, I cannot stop to post anything of consequence now because I just brought home dinner for me, Randy and Lori and we're going to watch a movie. Hopefully I'll be back to normal posting life tomorrow! I've missed you all so!

Not Dead

FYI--I'm not dead. My freakin internet has been down since noon on Wednesday! #$%@ I'm going crazy. (I am posting this update from Creative Friday at Michelle's house.) The city is supposed to have our service fixed by this afternoon, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high. If this continues I'm going to have to start posting from the library. That would be a grim state of affairs.

I hope you're doing well. I've missed you so!