keep your paws off my box

In the middle of August, our A/C quit working -- naturally.  So until the repairman could come over, we purchased a few fans.  As soon as this fan was out of the box, Stella claimed it as hers.

The background is kind of dark, but you'll notice that Bridget is underneath the chair, watching.  Both she and Henry wanted to play with the box too, but anytime they'd come close, Stella practically attacked them.

She slept in that box.  She moved the box from the kitchen to the living room.  She played in that box.  And no one else was allowed.

Didn't take long for Stella to assert even more authority in this house.

leave me alone

I snapped tihs photo of Henry one afternoon, who was very excited to be photographed.  He had no idea Stella was sitting on the back of my couch.  My favorite part was how he looked so happy and how she looked flat out annoyed, even angry that he was in her space.

go colts!

Yes, we bought Henry a Colts jersey.  And yes, I know how sad it is that we spent money on it.  And turns out I think it's fun.

door into a chair

Awhile ago, my mom saw where someone had turned an old door into a chair.  Lucky for her, she had saved a door from our old house (the house my dad and I both grew up in), and she also has a son-in-law who is quite handy with woodworking.

This door had been in our old house for at least fifty years, if not longer.  It still had a section on it that my grandfather nailed tin to when mice started to chew their way through it.  (On one hand, gross.  On the other, it was an old farmhouse.  And I don't know of too many people who haven't had a mouse in their house anyway.)  At CJ's best guess, there were at least five coats of paint on it, including a coat of blue milk paint (again, showing how old the door was).  After he scraped off the paint (it took us a container and a half of paint stripper), he fashioned a chair out of it for my parents' porch.

the best pet toys

I don't know why we spend money on toys for the pets when the best toys tend to be those that are free -- wadded up paper and lately, bugs.

The other night, Henry stared intently at the door for several minutes.  I was beginning to think someone was trying to break in our front door (it was late at night).  Turns out it was just a bug on the wall.  The next night, it was Bridget, who was about to shimmy up a light to get to a bug.

And this is why we have pets - to make the dull moments in life entertaining.

follow friday

I ran across a new freebie website the other day.  It has a lot of duplicates that I find on the one coupon blog site I read on a regular basis, but there are still a few different ones on there.  The great thing about freebies is that they usually come with coupons inside.  Probably my favorite one so far was a free medium-sized contact lens solution that I got in the mail with a $4 off coupon.  This week, CVS offered extra care bucks on the solution, and with the coupon, I got an $8 bottle of contact solution for $0.49.

I digress.  Visit Hey It's Free!

somewhere inside

When I finished reading The Help a few months ago, I wasn't so into reading anything again.  Nothing seemed interesting.  So I picked up Harry Potter to clear my head for a bit.  Then class got a little hectic and our schedules got even more hectic, and I just didn't have the patience or time to sit down and read a book.

One night last month, I think I decided that I needed a break from staring at spreadsheets (I stare at them all day at work and then I would come home and stare at them for my finance homework), so I picked up Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home by Laura Ling and Lisa Ling.

Remember last year when Laura Ling and Euna Lee were captured by North Korean soldiers and were almost sent to a hard labor camp for twelve years?  This book tells Laura's story, with Lisa interjecting about what went on in the United States while they were imprisoned.

I finished it in two or three days, it captivated me that much.

Most of all for me, it was just a fascinating look at North Korea's government and the culture it has created.  Of course I already knew how the story ended and I have to admit, it made me like Bill Clinton just a tiny bit more.

Considering I'm typically a fiction-only sort of reader, for me to enjoy non-fiction so much really says something, so I highly recommend you go out and pick this one up.

raggedy stella

One of the things I find funniest about our pets is how they sleep.  Bridget curls up in a ball.  Henry usually curls up too, with his feet resting on the wall or whatever piece of furniture is nearby.  Stella just reminds me of Raggedy Ann.  She stretches out over everything when she sleeps, and even when you try to pick her up when she's awake, she's very floppy.

home ec 101

I'm sure no one will probably be surprised by this, but here goes:  Home Ec wasn't my best subject.

Ignoring those very few cooking disasters that everyone has had, I actually am a decent cook now, if I do say so.  Sewing though?  Never my forte.

My 7th grade Home Ec teacher wasn't a patient or nice woman.  You probably shouldn't sign up to teach thirteen year olds how to sew and cook if you don't have much patience.  In that class, we had to pick out fabric (I went with Looney Tunes fabric ... keeping it classy) and had to make a pillowcase and shorts out of it.  I had so much trouble making that pillowcase, and I truly think she thought I wasn't trying.  So I had my grandma help me make a little white pillowcase for practice.  I remember showing it to my teacher -- not trying to get extra credit or anything -- and I remember she didn't care either way.  Needless to say, when I made those shorts and was given the chance to improve my grade by fixing something, I said it wasn't worth it.  Funny the things that keep with you.

Fast forward to today.  As I catch up on all my blog reading on the weekend and as I browse through etsy, I constantly see projects I'd love to tackle (in all my free time, of course).  I decided to start small, re-learning how to sew a pillow.  Many thanks to my friend, Leah, for teaching me!

I love this fabric!

All in all, not bad!  I'm very proud of it, actually.  Turns out that I have much more patience at twenty-seven than I did at thirteen, and I think that's really key in sewing.  I think I may have found a new hobby in all that free time I have.

pasta sauce

My friend, Amy, shared this recipe with me.  I'm not sure where she got it (Barefoot Contessa?), and I've altered it a little further, so I don't know who gets the credit here.  I ended up making two batches of it this weekend in an effort to use up all of the tomatoes that our garden is still (rapidly) producing.

Pasta Sauce
Cut up tomatoes and spread out on a cookie sheet fully coated with Pam.  The recipe called for 12 roma tomatoes, but I used a variety of large regular and grape tomatoes - enough to cover the cookie sheet (so more than twelve were used).  I had a few small green peppers that I also chopped up and put with the tomatoes.

Pour over to taste:  extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper, and sugar.

Roast at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Puree with basil.  I also added some red pepper flakes to give it a little bit of a kick.

Amy said her family eats quite a bit of Italian, so she uses hers up immediately, but I froze ours in quart-size baggies to use up this winter.

Enjoy!

back to school

It's not so much back to school for me -- I only had a week off -- but CJ is officially back in school again.  To get everyone up to speed, here's what we're up to --

I finished up my nightmarish class, Corporate Finance, on August 15th.  That last night was rough, and that's putting it nicely.  The week before, we had taken our final, and very few people did well on it.  I didn't come close to doing well, and considering I had studied quite a bit, I wasn't too happy.  Really, most people in the class were pretty angry.  The instructor spent forty-five minutes reviewing the test.  And then he lectured for another forty-five minutes on material that wasn't even covered on the final -- you know, just in case we cared.  Then we had to give final group presentations.  We didn't finish up until 10:20 pm.  We had four groups and four final papers for the instructor to grade, and over two weeks later, he still hasn't turned in our grades.  So needless to say, we were all pretty upset then, and we're all still pretty upset over the class.  Life goes on though, and now we're in Organization Development and Change, which although it has quite a bit of reading, it's a really, really nice break.

CJ started at Ivy Tech a few weeks ago, working on his associate's degree in nursing (also known as Degree #3).  This is a year-long program specifically designed for paramedics, so they speed through quite a bit of the material.  He goes to class one night per week and then he has clinicals one day per week.  So far, I think it's required a bit more studying than he anticipated, but other than that, it's been fine.  He's laid off of the part-time job for at least this month.  So his schedule is still roughly what it was -- just technically we didn't add any extra nights away, if that makes sense.

So that's our school update.  Nothing exciting.  Just life as we know it.

something's wrong with this picture...

One night a little while ago, CJ was at work, so it was just me with the zoo animals pets.  The house got quiet all of a sudden.  It's never cause for concern with the cats, but it always makes me wonder what Henry's getting himself into because at fifty pounds, he's just not quiet.  Ever.

I walked into the office to find this:

These two sat there for about five minutes straight.  No hissing, no annoying one another.  Just peace and quiet.  Turns out the stray neighborhood cat was sitting in our front yard, so these two had to keep watch.

Maybe that cat needs to come around more.  I could get used to this peace and quiet!