Day 118: April 28 — Royal Tea Party

My co-worker Jennifer is the best. She's totally obsessed with the royal wedding tomorrow, so we she hosted a tea party at work. I was really happy to see everyone play along, since really we're just a bunch of cynical journalists around here.

I loved all the different mugs and tea cups. Mine is the Minnie Mouse mug.

I'm loving that some ladies dressed up.

Jennifer crafted these napkins. Impressive, I think!

Roses everywhere from my garden:)

The prize winners!

Day 116 - April 26 - Hug an Australian Day

This worked out so well for me! Love ya babe;)

Day 115: April 25 - Old habits die hard

Lent was over, and it took me an entire day before diving back into my worst vice.

Day 114: April 24 — Easter feaster

Some last-minute plans on my last-minute day off turned out quite fabulous on Easter morning. Mary and Jason had quite the spread of goodies. Of course, I only took pictures of the ones that were extra sugary:)

She made these puppies from scratch. From SCRATCH!

I'm regretting not eating one of the banana nut muffins. Maybe she'll make them again?

Freaking addicting, these little guys were.

Then it was time to help with wedding stuff. We figured what could go wrong.... a sharp knife, champagne and wine corks that we had to cut through? After a couple slices on our fingers, we decided that a big oven mitt was a smart decision.

End result. Well done, I think.!

Day 113: April 23 — When the going get tough, the tough go shopping

Sometimes retail therapy solves all. In this photo:
• I had to buy two sets of luggage, because I couldn't decide which was Cancun/Europe worthy. The grey one later won.
•Peter got a new pillow. His was nasty.
•Ella, the ginger litter flicker, got a new tall, enclosed litter box. Thank god.
• Engagement party people got kinders bbq sauce that will be in my pulled pork sliders.
•The wedding stock got stuff to make favors.
•Cindy and I got bot pink sparkle coozies - because who doesn't need those?
• And I got a bunch of other crap either seen or not seen here. I felt better at the end of the day though:)

Day 112: April 22 -- back it up

My rental has a hot 2,000 miles on it, which tells me it's pretty new. These new fan dangled cats have the coolest features. Check out the rear view mirror camera. One second it was just a mirror, the next there was a video in it. Craziness.

Day 111: April 21 - Sad little civic

She has served me well for almost 11 years. I bought my civic for $8,000 back in 2000 from a debate teammate. At the time it had 85,000 miles on it and now has about 220,000 miles. Lots and lots of fun trips, that sturdy little car has taken.

Today I wasn't paying enough attention, took my eyes off the road for a second, and the next thing I knew I was slamming into another gal in her 96 Accord. We got a good giggle out of that one, since mine is a 96 civic. I'm must thankful that A) we were both OK and B) she was a good sport about her messed up bumper. I can't stand when people are melodramatic about accidents and throw a big fit.

Day 110: April 20 -- All those checks.

Checks, checks and more checks. I signed three massive checks today (or at least ones that felt massive), emptied our savings account into our checking, and we both signed about 29 pages of loan applications. Craziness!

Day 109: April 19 — Our hopefully future house!

Baring anything going bad with inspections, we were approved for our house today! We have to go through the paces of escrow, a million inpections, tons of paperwork, but I'm pretty confident it's going to be ours. We can't wait to host all our family and friends for many years to go.


For those asking for details, it's a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,600 square foot home on Main Street in Napa. So excited!!

Day 108: April 18 — So proud of Dr. Rachel Rich

There are things I'm fairly sure I'm capable of completing, and then there are those that I'm equally sure I could not. Miss Rachel Rich has accomplished something on my "not" list. In a few weeks, she will graduate with her doctorate degree. This means that while I've been bumming around in a couple newsrooms, she has completed not only her masters, but her doctorate. I'm truly in awe, and I can't wait to celebrate with her!

Day 107: April 17 - Roses everywhere

Today I take back all the bad things I say about my crazy rose bushes. They are about to explode with hundreds of blooms, so I'll surely be entering back into the "hate" faze of our love-hate relationship by the middle of next week. But today I'm in the "love" part.

Day 106: April 16 - Mary's bachelorette!

What a fun day and night! Mary's very lucky to have such great people in her life. Lunch was amazing, the hotel was beautiful. Strawberries and champagne in the hotel room wasn't so shabby either!

Mary's "attire" for the night was ... well...interesting. I've honestly never seen a bride be SUCH a great sport, though. Honestly, I was in awe of her good nature.

Day 105: April 15 -- Getting a little culture

What a great Friday night... fondue, friendship and theater. A great combo all around.

Cindy and I made a recipe for  a crab and cheese fondue, followed by a trip to see The People's Temple at the college. People had raved about the production and it had been too long since I've seen seen any theater productions. There's just something about a good play that elevates existence somehow.

Day 104: April 14 -- The outside watcher

Ella has fully adjusted to her new home, and has taken up the position of being the keeper of the sliding door. She just sits there, window open, checking out the outdoors. Every once in a while she'll put a little paw out, but then she retreats back into the safety of the house. It appears the out-of-doors is not for her... she's an inside kitty at heart.

Day 103: April 13 — Stupid bed frame

After spending hours in traffic, driving from Napa, to Cindy's house to get the truck, then to Lafayette to get the frame, then back to Napa, THIS is what we discovered when we put the damn thing together. URG.

Day 102: April 12 — Thank God for epsom salt

I don't know how this stuff works, but it's magic, so I'm not complaining. My tub has gotten a serious workout since boot camp started. One week down, second week much more survivable. Only two more to go after that. Phew!

Day 101: April 11 — Hope my garden grows

What you see here are the plants I put in the ground. I figure if I put half in the ground and half into pots, then the housing gods wouldn't think I was getting cocky about our hopeful new house.

I'm taking it easy... one tomato, one baby tomato, one yellow squash and one pepper (of some sort...peter picked this one, ha! get it!)

Day 100: April 10 — Peter the beer stand builder

I may be fairly craft, but I'm definitely not handy. I am, hence, in complete awe of Peter's latest project — the beer-making stand.

What you see here is a frame (made out of wood, an old bed frame and two turkey fryers) that will someday be on wheels and have a motor, hold that Igloo you see to the right, and will facilitate all future craft home brewing at our house. Pretty spiffy. More photos of completed project later.

Day 99: April 9 — Baby blankets and laundromats

Laundromats are terrible. We're all thankful that, for the most part, we don't have to bother with them once we become grownups in better living spaces.

Peter and I had to venture to one this weekend, though, to clean the guest room blankets, an old family quilt, and my baby blanket that my mom recently resurrected for me that had a stain on it.

Everything's all clean now. If only I had a hope chest to put it in.... :-)

Day 98: April 8 — FroYo goodness

I had the pleasure of visiting with Miss Erin Lawley Friday night and she introduced me to her favorite frozen yogurt joint that she admits she visits too often. They had an entire wall painted in chalk paint, so you could write whatever you want on it. They clear it off each Tuesday. Pretty nifty idea. I decided to write Peter a message I could picture text him.

After making my frozen yogurt concoction, I decided I was going about it all wrong. I don't like the yogurt. I only like the toppings. The iced stuff is just a vessel for the other goodness. So I just made a cup of captain crunch, M&Ms and gummy bears. None of that stuff tastes good when cold.

Day 97: April 7 — Weird views from our walk

Hails and I took a walk today to try to move some of the lactic acid out of my muscles from boot camp. It was slow going, but we made it. Meanwhile, I saw a couple of odd things...

These two cats just looked like they were an old couple sitting in lawn chairs, watching the day go by.

They were nearly identical. Hailey wanted to chase them down. Shocker, I know.

And I've walked by this tree before, and I always thought it was a little weird, but today I figured out why. It's a freakin' bird. They even put a golf ball in as an eye! The dark part to the right is a tail. It's too funny.

Day 96: April 6 — Ready to smell the roses

The love-hate relationship with my roses continues. Today, new buds are everywhere to be seen. The bushes are already bigger than I imagined they would be, and one is already more tall than I can reach. They're rogue! But I have a hunch that within the week they will also look beautiful and smell amazing.

Day 95: April 5 — The view from my seat

My computer screen showed a front page that was a hot mess. Some days my view is nice and clean, but others, there's so many moving parts that it's almost hard to keep it all straight.

Day 94: April 4-- New camper

I signed up for this crazy boot camp, and I'm certain it's going to almost kill me for the entire month of April.

These photos represent the day. I immediately drank this recovery drink after the workout. I can't imagine how sore I'd be without it.






Hailey then hated me for about 12 hours after she thought we were going on a walk but I was just leaving for camp. No eye contact. Seriously painful.






The camp comes with a diet. I made the recipe for stuffed manicotti, and it didn't suck at all.

Gross though that I had to hand mix all the fillings after the spoon was failing me. Yucky.

Day 93: April 3--computer construction

There are a few things in life I am certain I'm incapable of doing. This little project of peter's is definitely one of them. He seriously reconstructed a computer. Like from scratch. It is apparently now super duper fast. I'm in awe.

Day 92: April 2--Finley down

We are lucky to have puppy friends who visit. While Nick was off biking through wine tasting with his family, we wrestled with Mister Finley. Looks like we tuckered him out properly.

Day 91: April 1-- No foolin'

I showed up to work on Friday (normally my day off) and there was barely anyone in the parking lot. Apparently no one else likes to work Friday either.

Day 90: March 31 - Tree of terror continued....

I decided the tree deserved a couple posts throughout the year. It's gnarly little tentacles change so much that I think it's pretty amazing.

This week with the amazing weather, it's just started to sprout some little green-ness. Within a month I'm sure we'll see long branches full of leaves. Nature is awesome.

Day 89: March 30 - "Aw, snap!"

Really? This is what my computer told me the other day when my Crome browser crashed. Since when is "Aw, Snap!" an appropriate response from a computer?