friday, part 2

so today . . .  we went to our first angels game of the season.  (i know, i know, that is how the last blog started, but then i got sidetracked about the tv...)  we were so excited!

this was going to be a new experience for us.  we have never had season tickets to anything.  we have been to angels games before.  we know some people who have season tickets, and when they can't go, sometimes they give us their tickets.  and they have really, really good seats!!  our seats are not "quite" that good...  or even close.  but we think they are going to be fine.  they are on the top level just past third base, which is the side of the stadium we like.  and after 2:00 p.m. they should be in the shade.  at least, that is what they told rollie when he bought the tickets.  i hope that is true, or i will probably not be going to many day games...

but this was not a day game.  this was a friday night game (which meant fireworks at the end,) and the first game of the season (which meant a giant flag on the field, david cook singing the national anthem, and a military flyover.  i took video of all of this, but it is too big to use... now i wish i had just taken photos.)

 we were so excited.

we left an hour and a half early, and i didn't even complain.  not once!  traffic on the freeway wasn't bad, so it didn't take us long to get there.  we have this cool parking pass that lets us into a special parking lot, but we weren't sure where it was.  as it turned out, navigating the freeway traffic and finding the parking lot turned out to be the easy part...

the reserved parking lot was on the first base side of the stadium.  which was a bit of an issue since our tickets were on the third base side.  no problem, we thought, we will just drive around...  that turned out to be impossible!  there were sheriffs on horseback, little old guys in red vests and hats trying to direct traffic that didn't want to go where they wanted it to go (including us!) 

and then...  we ended up... in the tailgating section!!!  i didn't even know there was a tailgating section, but let me tell you, those people just sort of took over their part of the parking lot!  it was crowded with not just cars, but people as well... and those sheriffs on horseback.  who, btw, were going the wrong direction!

it was a nightmare.

one of the parking attendants finally stopped us and asked if we were lost.  "yes!" we said.  he stopped traffic and let us go in through an exit.  maybe he thought we were a traffic hazard, or maybe he just didn't want to see us go around one more time.  either way, it got us out of the line of fire and into a safe place...

...but when you park on the third base side of the stadium and your tickets are in the top section on the first base side of the stadium, you have a loooong walk ahead of you.  trust me.  and so, walk we did... along with 44,106 other people...

we have decided that next time we will forgo any special treatment and park in the regular lot on the first base side of the stadium.

still, we got to our seats with plenty of time to spare.  but that worked out great, because since this was the first game of the season, there were lots of preliminary festivities.  (which i can't show you, because as i said, i took video instead of photos!!  next time i will know better...)  but i did get a few pictures.  this is our new superstar player. 

i think his last name is puhjoles.  don't ask me how to pronounce it--it's embarassing--but he is apparently a home run megahitter.  and he is from cuba (which, now that we have a cuban son-in-law, seems noteworthy enough to mention.)

puhjoles chose not to hit a home run tonight.  in fact, nobody was hitting much of anything. it was a slow game.  at the seventh inning stretch, the score was still 0-0.  i was beginning to doubt all the hype i had been hearing about our angels this year.  so far, i wasn't seeing any of it...

and then, there was the seventh inning stretch.  apparently david cook had left the building, because his was not the voice we heard.  instead, a young teenaged girl (who was pretty good,) led the whole stadium in "God bless America," and then, "take me out to the ballgame," followed by the traditional "build me up, buttercup!"  yes, it was quite an eclectic musical interlude...

and then... the rally monkey made his first appearance of the season.

the rally monkey comes out after the seventh inning stretch if the angels are behind.  and that thing is magic!  angels fans tend to be pretty laid back.  as a whole, they don't really get on board with the whole "let's make some noise!" stuff.  they will make a little noise.  they will cheer and boo according to what is going on.  but they are not the wild and crazy fans that some teams have...

...until the rally monkey comes out.  then the crowd gets loud!  (maybe it is because they have been drinking for two hours by then.  i don't know, but i choose to think it is more about cheering their team on to victory!)  people dance.  people swing their rally monkeys around.  people yell.  it gets crazy...

and the team scores.  not every single time, but often enough.  they score.  not only does the rally monkey inspire the angels to score, but he also strikes fear into the hearts of the opposing teams.  he is a double threat.  and tonight, he worked his magic, and we won.

not without incident though.  i got beaned with a cell phone...

i was sitting in my seat, minding my own business, eating nachos (because really, i go to the games for the food, freebies, and fireworks,) when something whacked me on the head.  at first, i thought it must be a stray ball, and i was wondering why it had struck my head instead of resting in rollie's hands!  because surely if a stray ball had come near us, he would have caught it... or at least knocked me out of the way... or thrown himself over me to protect me!  but there i was, with a knot on my noggin, and enough pain that i was seriously considering crying.  and the ball was still on the field.  don't ask me why someone's cell phone was flying through the air, or why it landed on MY head instead of the thousand other places it could have landed...  i kept rubbing my head.  i'm sure the people behind me thought i was a big whiny crybaby, but that thing felt like it had been dropped from outer space!  i'm telling you, if i ever get hit with an actual stray ball, i will probably just die...

then again, maybe not.  i was pretty darned brave when i broke my wrist!  let's just hope we never have to find out...

but i survived.  and the angels won.  and since it was friday night, there were fireworks! i told rollie when he bought these tickets that i probably wouldn't go to all the games.  i know there will be other people that he would like to take once in a while, and i am good with that--especially during those weeks when they play every single night of the week.  "but," i said, "i want to go to the friday night games.  all of them."  why?  because there are fireworks at the end on friday nights, and i looooove fireworks!!

especially on a night when we win.  although on a night when we win, more people stay for the fireworks, which meant that getting back to our car and out of the parking lot was a bit of an ordeal.  clearly we had parked on the wrong side of the stadium!  it felt like we were salmon swimming upstream to spawn (wow, two hunting and fishing metaphors in one day!  my oregon roots must be showing.)  but we finally made it back to our car and onto the freeway...

...which seemed oddly safe after navigating the stadium concourse and parking lots!

one game down, eighty one to go...

:)

friday, part 1

so today . . .  we went to our first angels game of the season.  it was so much fun!  we were so excited!!

and then our tax return popped into our bank account...

"let's go get a tv!" rollie said.

the first time rollie walked into our new house, before we knew it was going to be our new house, he said it knew it was the right one.  he said he just knew it when he walked in the door.  i sort of think he knew it when he saw the gigantic tv on the wall in the family room!  of course that tv did not come with the house, but i know rollie has had visions of a huge tv in that spot ever since that day.

but big tvs are expensive, and not in our operating budget.  income tax returns however, can sometimes cover non-budgeted and non-essential items like big tvs.  so the minute that return hit our bank account, rollie was ready to go.

i, of course, was a little slower to get with the program.  i kept thinking about all the other things we could do with that money.  rollie kept saying, no we couldn't, the money was for a tv--we had agreed.  and he couldn't understand why i wasn't more excited about it, since it was going in the family room which is where i watch most of my tv.  really, this tv was for me!

uh huh...

so off we went.  but our time was limited, because we had a baseball game to go to!!

he wanted to go to costco.  i wanted to go to walmart.  we decided to check out walmart first, then go to costco, then make a decision.  this is the way i shop.  it is not the way rollie shops, but for some reason, today he agreed to my methodology.  which turned out to be a blessing and a curse...

when we got to walmart, it looked like they were clearing out all their tvs!  the tv wall was half empty!  we had decided to get the biggest led tv we could afford.  it probably wouldn't be as big as we wanted, but we didn't have thousands of dollars to spend, so we would have to be content with what we could get!  we found a couple of possibilities to keep in mind as we went to costco.  and then, as we were walking out of the electronics department, we found a 59 inch plasma tv on sale for a ridiculously low price!  i whipped out my phone and started researching online.  rollie whipped out his phone and scanned the upc code.  his way was faster, and in a couple of minutes he discovered that this tv was selling for less than half of its suggested retail price!  bargain!  bargain!!  bargain!!!  but we showed great restraint, walked away, and went to costco to compare.

costco had a lot of tvs, but the one we would have wanted was about $400 more than the one at walmart.  we debated between plasma and led.  we debated the difference in price.  i did some more online comparisons, and we finally decided to get the one at walmart... if it was still there.

and it was.  now we were excited!  we paid for the tv, declined the three year extended warranty, and waited for a store employee to bring the big rolling cart so we could get that thing home!  rollie kept saying, "we are going to have to call diandra and have her come pick us up in the rodeo.  this will never fit in the prius!"  but i knew it would.  i had measured it!  they rolled it out to the car, and the walmart employee took one look at the prius and just shook his head.  "trust me," i said, "it will fit!  i measured it!!"  they both looked at me like i was a crazy person, but when dealing with a crazy person, i guess it is best if you give them what they want... so they picked it up and tried to put it in the car... and it wouldn't fit.

"no, wait!" i said, "you have to put it in straight, not at an angle!"  they still weren't convinced.  i could see it in the way they rolled their eyes.  but i knew it would fit.  did i mention that i had measured it???  so i went over to one side and helped them lay it down flat, and guess what?  it fit.  perfectly.

well, nearly perfectly.  we thought the back might stick out a little bit, but rollie moved a few things around inside the car and found us a couple of extra inches which is all we needed to get the back of the car closed.

while he was doing that, i was dancing around on the sidewalk, giving myself a thumbs up, and saying to anyone who would listen (and even some who didn't quite know what to think of me, including the walmart employee) "oh yeah! listen to the girl!! oh yeah!  listen to the girl!!"

we had bagged and tagged our tv!  and successfully put it in the freezer!  (not really!  it's a hunting expression!  it was actually sitting in the entryway...)  but since we had used my method of shopping (check out every possibility before making a decision,) rather than rollie's method of shopping (buy the first one you see and go home,) now there was no time to install the beautiful new tv...

..because we had a game to go to!

the power of suggestion strikes again...

so today . . .  i cannot blog.

i cannot blog today, but not for the usual reasons.  usually when i say i cannot blog, it is because i am too tired, or nothing blog-worthy happened, or my brain has left the building.  but none of those reasons are the reason i cannot blog today... (well, except that really nothing blog-worthy happened, but i could probably come up with something if i gave it some thought.)  the problem today is that i need to do report cards and homework letters for school tomorrow, and it is already almost 10:00!

why, you may ask, didn't i get started earlier?  well, i have my reasons!

first of all, i didn't sleep very well last night.  and it is all my doctor's fault! 

i had to go to the doctor yesterday for a follow up visit to my "annual procedure."  she is not happy with the mediocre results we are getting with my current medications, so she wants to make some changes in a few weeks.  in order to make the best decision, she started asking me some questions about how my current medications are affecting me.  "are you irritable?" she asked.  "i don't think so," i replied.  "i mean, my husband hasn't looked at me like i was a crazy person and asked what the heck was wrong with me!  so no, i don't think i am irritable."  "ok," she said, "what about sleeping?  are you sleeping ok?"  "yes," i said, "i sleep really good!  sometimes i wake up in the night, but i usually go right back to sleep.  but sometimes i go to bed really late." (i didn't tell her it was because i blog!) "so maybe i don't get enough sleep, but not because i CAN'T sleep."  "ok," she said, "i'm asking because one of your medications tends to ramp most people up."

what?!?!  one of my medications tends to ramp most people up?  where is my ramping up???  this is a side effect i could use!  it seems like i am always tired (probably because i hardly have any iron in my blood, but that is another story...) i think that if i have to take this medication, it is only fair that i get the good side effects...

now i am irritable.

but my doctor said adequate sleep is important to managing my medical issues.  so last night i went to bed early.  before 9:00!   and laid there, not sleeping.  i didn't get to sleep until after 11:00, and then i woke up every couple of hours!  all. night. long.  this has never happened to me before.  i am usually a good sleeper.  i stay up until i am tired, and then i fall asleep quickly and am dead to the world until i start smacking the snooze button on my alarm at 7:00 in the morning.

in fact once, our security system went off in the middle of the night.  rollie immediately leaped out of bed, grabbed a weapon and went to investigate.  diandra jumped out of bed and peeked out into the hall to see what was happening.  the dogs barked, and mia jumped off the bed and on the bed and off the bed and on the bed.  i was aware that the alarm had gone off, but i just rolled over and continued to sleep.  i only know what happened, because rollie told me the next morning... along with little comments like, "if i wasn't home, and that was a real burglar breaking in to the house, you would be dead!  you have to pay attention to the alarm!"  i sort of think that if i was alone and a real burglar was breaking into the house, my best defense would be to stay asleep and hope he would just take the valuables and run...

but i digress.

my point is that i slept perfectly fine until my doctor put the notion in my head that maybe i shouldn't be sleeping perfectly fine.  and so last night i didn't sleep perfectly fine, which meant that i was tired today.  so when i came home from school, i took a little nap... just to get me through the evening.  because it is thursday, and rollie teaches a class on thursdays, and usually we go out to eat before his class. and i had some errands to run after that, so i didn't get home until almost 8:00. and then it was time to farm with my dad on facebook.  and then, milo started bugging me to hold him...

which would have been fine if he would have let me hold him.  but he didn't want to lay in my lap, he wanted me to hold him in my arms.  but he kept shifting around.  he just couldn't get comfortable.  he will lay in rollie's lap and let rollie hold him for hours, but when i hold him, he wants to actually be held.  in my arms.  and he is a bit chubby, so my arms get tired pretty quickly.  

finally rollie came home from his class.  "oh good!  you are home!!"  i exclaimed.  "why?  what's the matter?" he asked.  "milo is demanding to be held, and i have stuff to do!  maybe he doesn't feel good..."  "he is probably just ready to go to bed.  usually we are in bed by now, and he seems to know when it is time."

ah yes... milo doesn't have any trouble sleeping at all!  of course, maybe that is because he lays his chubby little body on the most comfortable spot on the bed... my pillow!  

for some reason he has recently decided that he has every bit as much right to lay his little furry head (or whole body,) on my pillow as i have.  and usually he gets away with it.  because usually i am asleep!  of course, if last night is any indication, that may soon all change...

and so, here i am at 10:45, "not blogging" because it is late, and i have school work to do.  i don't think i am going to be asleep by 11:00 tonight either...  and getting all the school work done before morning is starting to look less and less likely to happen...

... unless, of course, some "ramping up" starts to occur...

the swap meet strikes again!

so today . . . i learned a few things.

1. i prefer mediterranean ocean views to hawaiian ocean views.

2. all palm trees are not the same. some palm trees look like they are coming to eat me.

3. rollie likes paintings of red poppies (yay!)

4. i am a terrible judge of space and size. (and age and weight, but those two aren't really relevant to today's blog.)

5. i need to drink more water.

every saturday morning rollie plays basketball at the church. he leaves early and usually gets home between 10:00 and 11:00. most saturdays this works great for me! i sleep in and just take it easy. but every once in a while, i get this urge to go do something fun. and today, my urge to go do something fun just happened to coincide with a non-basketball saturday for rollie and our need for some new artwork...

that, of course, meant just one thing. orange county swap meet, baby!

we have lived in our new house for seven months now, and there is nothing hanging on our walls. nothing. the furniture is all in place. the boxes are all emptied (well, except for the book boxes--i need to get a bookcase.) we are all settled in. except that there is nothing on the walls.

when we moved, i decided i didn't just want to hang everything back up. we've been looking at the same photos and artwork for the last 20 years, and i decided it was time for a change. so i put all those photos and decorative items into boxes and spent the last seven months looking at blank walls. and that has been ok, but it feels like spring is just around the corner, and that always makes me feel like prettying things up.

in the past, our walls have mostly been decorated with photos. i love photos! but it seems like once i frame a photo and hang it up, it's place is secured until the end of time. i've heard that there are people who actually change the photos on their walls occasionally, but i am not one of those people. once a photo is up, i can only add to the arrangement. i cannot take it down. the result of this sort of thinking is that my walls become "cluttered" with photographs.

i've worked really hard to get rid of stuff and keep our new house clean and clutter-free. it just feels calmer to me that way. cleaning now trumps cuteness. i watch all these shows on hgtv where they come in and redo rooms for people, and they always look beautiful! but now i look at all the stuff they "stage" and think, "who is going to dust all of that after the designers leave?!?" i am done with dusting stuff just because it is cute. i hate to dust! so my solution is not to clutter up every horizontal surface with things that require me to dust them.

this also goes for wall art. i love a good collage wall, but that means a lot of frames that have to be dusted and glass that needs to be cleaned. instead, i've decided bigger is better. bigger means less dusting! bigger means less confusing to the eye. bigger means i feel calmer.

but there is a limit...

our goal today was a nice big picture to hang in our bedroom. for the last ten years, our bed has had a window behind it, but now there is this big, blank wall. we have a vaulted ceiling in that room, and it is a large room, so i thought a nice large painting would be perfect. i've tried to give that room a calm and peaceful feeling, so we have light yellow walls, driftwood colored furniture and white trim. this decor screamed out for a beachy picture. i was thinking ocean, sand, and palm trees. and then we started actually looking at paintings...

i discovered that i hated the palm tree beach pictures. i didn't know why, i just rejected all of them. i was saying things like, "the colors are too vibrant," or "it looks too fake," or "it looks like a picture from a calendar," or "no huts with thatched roofs!" and then there were the snakey, carnivorous palm trees. they looked like they were coming to get me. they looked like if i didn't run fast enough, they would eat me for lunch! they were my worst nightmare!! i couldn't have those things hanging right above me as i slept... or i shoud say, as i tried to sleep!

this surprised me! i love palm trees!! but i was not loving the palm tree pictures...

what i was loving were the pictures of the mediterranean ocean views. we had the good fortune to visit santorini in greece several years ago, and there were some paintings of that location. i really loved those paintings! they were calm and serene, and they reminded me of how much we enjoyed that trip. the problem was, i have a small painting that we bought when we were in greece of santorini, so it seemed like two pictures so similar might be too much.

as we were flipping through all the paintings, we found one of red poppies. i love red poppies! (actually, it would be more accurate to say that i love pictures of red poppies. in person, i'm not such a fan. but show me any group of paintings, and if there are red poppies, that is probably going to be my favorite.) "i love those red poppies!" i said to rollie. "well," he replied, "they are the state flower of california." "really?" i said, "i guess i did not know that. they are just so happy looking." "yes," he said, "i like them too!" this was news to me. i didn't think rollie would be all that enthusiastic about any flower pictures, but he liked the poppies! we quickly decided that the poppies would be perfect in our living room, over the brown couch which will one day be a cool and stylishly sleek red leather couch. i hope.

we were making progress, just not in the direction we had planned. now we had a painting that we weren't even looking for, and we still didn't have one for the spot we needed. we looked and looked and looked, and finally decided on a painting of the marina on catalina island. the colors were perfect for our room, but the painting was really large. we asked if they had a smaller one, but they didn't. that was ok though, because as i said, we have vaulted ceilings...

we walked back to our car, each carrying a painting. and then we got to the car. it's a prius. i was looking at the large painting and looking at the prius and thinking, "we are going to have to call someone with a pickup truck to get this painting home!" have i mentioned that i don't really know anyone with a pickup truck who would be willing to drive all the way out to costa mesa on a saturday afternoon to pick up a painting for me??

maybe i need some new friends. preferably ones with a pickup truck and no life...

rollie was saying, "oh, ye of little faith..." as he put the back seats down and got that big painting into the back of his prius.

ok, maybe i don't need any new friends as long as i have rollie and his prius...

we were all smiley all the way home. we had found not one, but two paintings that we both loved! we were so excited to get them home and get them hung up. we brought them into the house and i propped the poppies up on the back of the couch, just to see how they were going to look. they were perfect!

then we went upstairs to hang the picture of catalina. and that's when the trouble began...

"it's going to be too big," i said. "it isn't going to fit! we are going to have to take it back!!" "let's just get it unwrapped and see," said my calm rational husband. "ok," i said, "but i can tell that it is too big." we unwrapped it and held it up where we wanted to hang it. yep. it was too big.

how could this be?!? it fit in the prius!! how could it not fit on the wall?!?! and what if we couldn't take it back? why hadn't i measured the space? or the painting?? i was getting a little bit panicky.

rollie was not. because even though it wasn't fitting in the space we had, it was close. so we started shifting things around, and we finally got it hung. (that is the short version. the long version included moving the bed several times, taking the 6" risers out from under the legs of the bed, and carrying the painting around the room to see if we had other options. this was all done by rollie, while i stood back and gave my opinion. and then of course, we ended up right back where we started. there are days when you don't want to be married to me...)

our house is starting to show some personality. when you walk into our living room, now it looks like people live here, not just like it is a storage room for furniture. and while that giant painting in the bedroom is a little overpowering right now, i do love it. and i think when i get some smaller things up on the rest of the walls, it will balance out.

at least i don't feel like it is going to eat me!

on a side note... one of the things i was looking for today at the swap meet were seat covers for my car. it sits in the sun with the top down sometimes, and i am worried about the fabric seats fading. there were lots of people selling seat covers, but these are the ones rollie thought i should get.do i even need to tell you what i thought about that??? i didn't think so...

i think i'm going to need some new shirts... red ones, with an "A"

so today . . . rollie went a little crazy.

rollie is not the one in our family who goes a little crazy. i go a little crazy. diandra has been known to go a little crazy. even the dogs go a little crazy! (ok, the dogs go a little crazy all. the. time!) but not rollie. rollie is the calm, rational one...

well, we can't say THAT anymore!

this afternoon, i got this text from my calm, rational husband--"i am at angels stadium trying to get tickets to take mike to a game on may 28." ok, this was not exactly news to me. mike's birthday is really close to rollie's, and the last couple of years they have gone to an angels game to celebrate. even though mike has moved a few hours north, i knew they had been discussing trying to make it happen again this year. so why he was texting me this information was a mystery... unless he was standing in a long line with nothing to do... which seemed highly improbable to me... how could there be a long line for tickets when the season doesn't even open for another month? apparently i don't understand the fervor of angels fans. yet.

and then i got this text--"how would you feel about season tickets?"

HOW WOULD I FEEL ABOUT SEASON TICKETS?!?!?! ARE YOU INSANE????? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SEASON TICKETS PROBABLY COST???????

that's what i was thinking. that is not what i texted back. because the truth is, i love to go to angels games. and even though i knew it definitely was not in the budget, i wasn't quite ready to kill the dream just yet. so, being the supportive wife that i am (stop laughing!!) i merely said, "why? are they making you an offer you can't refuse?" and he said, "i'm not to the window yet. i was just wondering."

rollie was standing in line at angels stadium, contemplating season tickets. the only thing i can compare it to is when i am in the shoe department at nordstrom rack. it's like, suddenly everything seems possible...

we continued to debate, by text, what to do. this is something we had sort of talked about possibly doing one day... i just didn't think today was that day. so i said, "well, it wouldn't hurt to check it out, but don't get them today! you need to think about this. if we do it, there will have to be budget trade-offs i'm sure." what i didn't say was, "and i'm not sure i am willing to go without home improvements, a vacation, or food, to make it happen!"

he finally got up to the ticket booth and told them he wanted two seats for the may 28th game. the ticket seller clicked around on her computer and said, "i only have two seats left for that game." ONLY TWO SEATS LEFT FOR A GAME THAT IS ALMOST THREE MONTHS AWAY?!?! "and," she continued, "they are in the very back row, clear out in center field, and the view is obstructed by a pole."

ok, now this was a problem. who is going to want to sit in those seats? certainly not rollie and mike for their birthdays! so after waiting in line for 45 minutes, rollie got out of line...

... and went in search of the season ticket office. (i choose to think that at this point, he was following my advice to just check it out. i choose to think that he had not yet made the decision to actually buy season tickets. i may be wrong, but let me just live with my delusions...) he walked in and was greeted with, "do you have an appointment?" you need an appointment to buy season tickets? really?? he obviously didn't have an appointment, but they allowed him to wait for the first available season ticket seller. when he was finally seated in the conference room, the season ticket seller said, "so, what do you want out of your season tickets?"

what kind of a question is that?!? if we are going to get season tickets, we want a world series win! duh!!

but rollie handled the question with a bit more tact than that, and said, "well, i have a budget..."

something you may not know about rollie is that he is a hoarder. i know, i know, you thought i was the one who was in danger of being buried by my stuff, but rollie is a hoarder too--he just hoards something a little smaller than most of my stuff. he hoards $20 bills. whenever he can, he puts $20 bills in a stack somewhere (somewhere where i can't find them, obviously!) he calls this his fun money. he saves it in hopes of some day taking a dive trip somewhere or skydiving or something else he thinks would be ridiculously fun that isn't in the budget. i think he also dips into it when we go to the swap meet or the outlet mall. but the truth is, he hasn't had time to do a lot of fun things in the last year, so his fun money stash has been growing...

the season ticket seller went to work. they discussed his choices. they went into the stands and checked out the best options. he sent me a picture of what our view of the baseball diamond would be. and in the end, he signed on the dotted line.

my calm, rational husband went a little crazy.

so we are season ticket holders for the angels, at least for this year. rollie is deliriously happy. if he was the sort of person to make a bucket list, this would definitely be on it. and i'm happy, because he is happy. and let's not forget that since he is married to me, i am pretty sure i am going to be sitting right next to him for most of those games :) he has assured me that this will not affect our budget at all. we will still have food to eat. my home improvement projects will not suffer. we may even still get to go on some kind of vacation...

... although, now that we have 82 games to attend, our vacation may have to wait until after the world series...

... because, you know, a world series win was part of the deal... wasn't it?

95 years is a looong time to wait...

so today . . . the ducks played in the rose bowl. and won :) and that is all.

(of course that is not all! you have to know there is a story here...)

i don't watch sports very much anymore. i don't actually watch tv that much... mostly i listen to it and glance at it as i am doing other things. but when you are watching a football game or a basketball game, you kind of have to keep your eyes on the tv, which sort of puts my multi-tasking out of commission. this is not true with baseball. sometimes you can "watch" a whole baseball game without ever looking at the tv, and not miss a thing...

i have found that i enjoy watching sports a whole lot more when i am watching with other people. when we lived in southern oregon, we watched every trailblazer game that was on. mostly we watched with our friends, ron and joanne--sometimes at our house and sometimes at theirs. and pizza was usually involved... but then we moved to southern california, and finding fans who share my love of oregon teams is somewhat difficult. not to mention, finding televised games of oregon teams is not all that easy either, when you don't have cable...

but today, the stars aligned, and this morning rollie asked me, "do you want to watch the ducks game with me?" it stopped me in my tracks. rollie never asks me to watch a game with him--mostly because he chooses to cheer for the evil lakers, and he is smart enough to know that we might not be able to live in the same house any more if we ever lose our minds long enough to try watching a laker game together... but he was talking about the ducks. and unless the ducks are playing usc, we can both cheer for them.

however... even though i don't usually watch sports with rollie, i can hear him watching them. you may wonder how i can hear him watching something?? it's easy. whenever there is a really terrible call or a really spectacular play, he makes noise. let's just say he gets somewhat emotionally involved with his sports teams...

but i really, really wanted to watch the ducks today. it's the rose bowl, for goodness sake! and i really, really didn't want to watch it by myself. but i also really, really didn't want to watch it if the ducks were going to lose, and make rollie feel cranky! (i get cranky when i don't get my carbs, and rollie gets cranky when his teams lose. don't judge.) so when he asked me if i wanted to watch the game, i said yes, but only if he could promise me he wouldn't get too personally involved. he looked at me like he had no clue what i was talking about! "you know," i said, "i want to have fun watching the game, and it won't be fun if you get cranky." "i won't get cranky," he said. "the game is scheduled to start at 2:00, so i will tivo it and then we can start watching about 3:00." he said this with a big smile on his face, like it was the greatest idea ever. "oh," i said, "then no, i don't want to watch with you..."

ok, now before you all start sending rollie letters of sympathy because he is married to me, let me explain. rollie NEVER watches his sports live. he ALWAYS tivos them. and then, when he watches them, he zips through the commercials, half time, and any slow parts of the game--like replays! he watches a lot of sports, and this method allows him to keep up with all his teams and still have a life. but this is not how i like to watch a game. so i said, "i can't watch that way. my brain needs time to process. i need to talk about what is happening. i might need to go get a snack... or two, depending on how long the game is!" he looked at me like he thought i might be from another planet, (i am! men are from mars, women are from venus... duh!) but for some reason, he agreed to my unreasonable demands--and if you need proof that he loves me, there it is!

but i love him too, so while i was on my way to 7-11 to get my personal supply of diet lemon cokesi for the game, i decided i could probably live with zipping through the commercials and half time, if we could just let the rest of the game play. (see? i am not totally unreasonable! i can compromise... unless you want me to watch a laker game--i do have standards, you know.) so at 3:00, we settled in with our leftover orange chicken and sodas to watch the game.

as the game started, the camera panned across the field. "i've been there, you know," i said. i say this every time i get the chance. "yes," he said, "i know. you've been there. you have a picture of the grass." "i don't just have a picture of the grass--i actually STOOD on the grass. right in the middle of that field. and then i took a picture." it is necessary for me to remind him of this, because when we were in college, rollie traveled all over europe with a singing group. and when we are watching movies that are set in italy or spain or portugal (to name a just a few of the countries he has been in,) he always says, "i've been there!" this is interesting information the first 20 times you hear it, but after being married more than 30 years... well, you know, i am sorry to say sometimes my eyes roll--all on their own, of course. until a few years ago, my only opportunity to utter those same words was when watching field of dreams, which is set in iowa, i think. because i've been there. to iowa... and to the rose bowl :) did i mention that i stood in the middle of the field :))

it was a good game! i mean, i can say that now, since it is over and we won. my idea of a good game is when my team gets way ahead early, and then stays ahead. this was not that kind of game. touchdown after touchdown was scored! penalties were called. players were hurt. rose bowl records were shattered! and i talked. and talked. and cheered. and talked.

rollie was oddly silent. i finally said, "you are never going to ask me to watch a game with you again, are you?" he just looked at me and smiled. "i am being calm," he said, "i'm not getting too involved." "ok," i said, "that's good, but i need to talk about the game and what is happening and how i feel about it. i need some communication and interaction here!" and so the game went on. and we got a little emotionally involved...

but thankfully we were cheering for the same team to win. and thankfully the team we were cheering for did win--for the first time since 1917! it was pretty awesome. (and i'm pretty sure it only happened because i finally found my duck tshirt and put it on!)
so now i am thinking we should watch more sports together. i can cheer for the angels :) if we ever get a professional football team in la, i can cheer for them. i can probably even cheer for usc, unless they are playing the ducks. or the beavers. (rollie is probably reading this and thinking OH NNOOOOO! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?) i see lots of afternoons and evenings in our future, eating snacks and sodas, watching sports together, talking, and cheering our team on...

... as long as it isn't basketball...

a memorable thanksgiving...

today's blog is dedicated to larry and tracie swanson. they were our first "couple" friends and have the dubious distinction of being the guests at our first thanksgiving meal. just so you know, they are still alive...

so today . . . is thanksgiving eve. and i think the time has come to tell you about the first time i cooked thanksgiving dinner. all. by. myself...

when rollie and i got married, we were really young--probably too young to be making such huge life decisions. i had very little real life experience. i went from living with my mom and dad, to living in a dorm room, to living with rollie. and while i knew how to dust and vacuum and clean the bathroom (thank you for making me do chores, mom!) i didn't really know how to cook. when i lived at home, my dad always made oatmeal for our breakfast (sometimes chocolate oatmeal! thank you dad!) we all ate hot lunch at our respective schools, and my mom cooked dinner. and then i went away to college and discovered the joys of saga food services! choices, choices, choices, and none of them required me to get near a stove!! so basically, rollie married someone who could bake chocolate chip cookies and zucchini bread...

but when our first thanksgiving rolled around, i decided i wanted to cook a big thanksgiving dinner. mostly i decided this because our thanksgiving vacation was only four days long which really didn't leave us enough time to go home for thanksgiving. so even though my foray into providing meals for our new family had pretty much consisted of kraft macaroni and cheese and hamburger helpers, i was prepared to do whatever i had to do to make our first thanksgiving memorable...

... and it was. but not for the reasons you might think...

it started right after halloween. i got out the cookbooks people had thoughtfully given us for wedding gifts and started planning. i made a menu. i made a grocery list. i made a timeline. because as anyone who has ever cooked a thanksgiving dinner knows, you need a timeline. thanksgiving dinner does not just happen, people--it takes planning! i'm not so sure i realized this before... it seemed like all my previous thanksgiving dinners had just sort of appeared. i guess that's what happens when you aren't the grownup responsible for feeding the hungry hoard of family members. but this year, it was all up to me.

we were on an extremely tight budget when we were first married. extremely tight. i'm pretty sure that is why we ate so much kraft macaroni and cheese, because i could buy four boxes for a dollar. so going to the grocery store and buying whatever i needed all in one week was not an option. i had to divide the list so i could buy the non-perishable items early and watch for the best deal on a frozen turkey. it became clear to me, as i pushed my shopping cart up and down the grocery store aisles, that i was not going to be able to afford everything on my list. i was going to have to make choices...

but this was our first thanksgiving! i wanted it to be memorable! so i started looking for cheaper alternatives. as i was comparing prices, the first thing i noticed was that those bags of dried bread cubes that the stuffing recipe called for were kind of expensive. but i needed dried bread cubes if i was going to make stuffing. but i couldn't afford the dried bread cubes. so i decided to make my own. bread was cheap. i figured i could buy a couple of loaves of bread, cut the slices up into cubes, dry them, and ta-da! i would have bread cubes for my stuffing.

and that is exactly what i did. it took me one whole afternoon, but i cut up three loaves of bread (because i wanted to make sure i had enough) into tiny, half inch cubes. then i spread them out on every cookie sheet i had. i discovered that i didn't have enough cookie sheets, so i put aluminum foil on every horizontal surface i could find and covered it with soft bread cubes. and then i waited for them to dry...

i did all of this several days before thanksgiving, because i had no idea how long it was going to take bread cubes to dry. and i figured that once they were dry i could bag them up and save them until the big day. plus, i knew it was going to be a lot of work to cook thanksgiving dinner, and this was one thing i could do early...

and then there was the turkey. i was used to buying meat one pound of hamburger at a time--which i would then divide into thirds and use when making hamburger helper (i told you, our budget was TIGHT!) but i had decided we needed at least a 20 pound turkey! (yes, i know there were only two of us, but the bigger the bird, the more meat. right?) thankfully(?) our freezer was nearly empty. so once i found a grocery store where i could buy a turkey for about 10 cents a pound (if i bought $25 worth of other groceries, which is about all i had,) i rooted around in the frozen turkey bin until i found the biggest turkey they had--a 23 pound bird! i put that thing in my cart, feeling like i had hit the jackpot, and headed home to try to cram it into my freezer.

a 23 pound turkey is pretty big. especially when you live in a basement apartment and your refrigerator has a small freezer...

i finally got the bird tucked away, lined up the rest of my cans and boxes of food, smiled at my drying bread cubes, and waited for thanksgiving...

i say waited, but i was busy! i was still going to classes, doing homework, trying to figure out what i could make for dinner each night with a can of tuna fish, and turning my bread cubes over so that they would dry evenly and quickly.

the weekend before thanksgiving i was talking to my mom on the phone, and i was telling her about my plans for our thanksgiving meal. my biggest worry was how i was going to get everything ready to eat at the same time! i had quite a menu planned and only one oven, which i was pretty sure was going to be filled up with turkey. "well," my mom said, "whatever you do, don't make your own stuffing! just use the stove top stuffing."

just use the stove top stuffing? what was stove top stuffing, and why didn't i know about it?!?! i didn't know about it, because i was never in the kitchen when the actual cooking was happening. "you know, stove top stuffing," my mom continued. "you buy it in a box at the grocery store. then you just boil water, empty the package into the boiling water, cover it and wait a few minutes, and you have stuffing!"

this would have been good to know. it would have been especially good to know before i had spent the last several days cubing bread slices and babysitting them so that they would dry evenly. i looked around my kitchen at my 5, 386 nearly dry bread cubes and said, "i think it might be too late for stove top stuffing..." i quickly recovered. "besides," i continued, "i want to make real stuffing, the kind that goes inside the turkey. this is our first thanksgiving, and i want it to be memorable."

there was that word again...

when i finished up my classes on the day before thanksgiving, i decided i should get out my menu for the next day and get organized. and, i thought, it was probably time to take the turkey out of the freezer so it could thaw...

yep, my 23 pound turkey was still in the freezer, frozen as solid as a rock! blissfully ignorant, i took it out of the freezer and plopped in into the kitchen sink to thaw. hmmm, i thought, i should probably get out the cookbook and find out how long it was going to take to cook the turkey. we had invited company over for thanksgiving dinner, and i wanted to make sure everything was done at the same time. i flipped through the cookbook, and that's when i saw it. that's when i saw how long it takes to thaw a 23 pound frozen turkey!

we were in biiiig trouble!

i spent the rest of the afternoon and evening thawing that big hunk of meat! that turkey had more warm baths than a messy toddler! i dunked it in warm water. i ran water inside it. and that's when i found the bag of giblets. "what's this?" i said to rollie. (it should be noted here that rollie knew exactly what it was, while i didn't have a clue. in hindsight, perhaps he should have been the one cooking thanksgiving dinner...) he removed the bag of giblets, (because there was no way i was touching that!) and i continued pouring water inside the thawing turkey. finally, around midnight, i decided the bird was thawed enough, because i needed to go to bed! i had a lot of cooking to do the next day, and according the the cookbook, a 23 pound stuffed turkey was going to take several hours to cook, which meant i was going to have to get up about 4 a.m.

i felt like overall, things were progressing nicely. my jello salad was made. the bread cubes were hard as rocks (which i hoped was a good thing!) i had a bag of frozen corn and a bag of frozen peas ready to be microwaved. my pumpkin and peach pies were done (i told you i could bake--it's cooking that gives me grief!) and delicious squishy dinner rolls were ready to be warmed and served. i was pretty sure the only thing that had the potential to ruin my memorable first thanksgiving was that turkey...

i got up at 4 a.m. so did rollie. actually, rollie is probably the one who woke up first and had to drag me into the kitchen. i pulled out the biggest bowl i had and mixed up the stuffing. (it may surprise you to learn that i had waaaay more dried bread cubes than i needed. clearly i did not have an accurate picture of the size of the inside of a turkey... even a 23 pound turkey.) when i got out the roasting pan and the brown-in bag, i saw that there were instructions with the brown-in bag... and those instructions said that if i cooked my stuffed turkey in the brown-in bag, it would only take 4-5 hours...

did i mention it was 4 a.m.?

our company wasn't coming until early afternoon, so i put the stupid turkey in the stupid brown-in bag, put the whole stupid thing back in the stupid refrigerator and went back to bed...

around noon, it looked like things were finally coming together. the turkey was smelling really good. i had disposed of the extra bread cubes. the table was set. it was time to make the sweet potato balls.

sweet potato balls are a family tradition. we had had sweet potato balls at every thanksgiving i could remember, although again, i had never actually been involved in making them. but how hard could it be? take a big marshmallow, cover it with mashed up canned sweet potatoes, roll the ball in crushed corn flakes, and bake! time was getting short, so rollie was helping me. "what are these?" he asked. "sweet potato balls! we have them every year at thanksgiving!" "are they good?" he asked. "i guess so," i answered. "i don't like sweet potatoes, so i never eat them." "then why are we having them if you don't like them?" he asked.

he sure was asking a lot of questions!

"because," i explained, "it's thanksgiving, and we always have them at thanksgiving. don't you like them?" "well," he said, "i don't know. i don't really like sweet potatoes either..." so there we were, our hands covered in sweet potato goo and crushed cornflakes, making something that neither one of us liked. "maybe larry or tracie will like them," i said. "let's hope so," rollie replied...

we took the turkey out of the oven and reset it for the sweet potato balls. we carefully cut the brown-in bag off, and i started to scoop out the stuffing. it was looking pretty good! and it smelled delicious!! maybe i was going to be able to pull off this thanksgiving dinner thing after all. rollie started slicing up the turkey while i finished up the other food.'

"uh, julie?" he said. "yes?" i answered. and then he said, "i think there is something wrong with the turkey."

these are not the words you want to hear on thanksgiving, especially when you have company arriving at any minute. these are not the words you want to hear on thanksgiving when you have pretty much spent your whole grocery budget on this one meal, hoping to live on the leftovers for a while. these are not the words you want to hear on your first thanksgiving, when all you wanted was for it to be memorable.

i was afraid to look. rollie kept poking around, and then he reached down into the bird and held something up. "what is that?!?!?!" i asked, horrified, looking at the brown, drippy mass in his hand. he said, "i think it is more of the giblet stuff..."

who knew that a turkey had TWO secret compartments where giblet stuff could be hidden...

i learned a lot our first thanksgiving. i learned that thanksgiving dinner isn't just a meal, it is a week long ordeal. i learned that if you have to get up at 4 a.m. it is easier if someone else gets up with you. i learned that you don't have to cook the same amount of food to feed four people that your mother cooked to fed thirty or forty!

and i learned that the most memorable things are sometimes the ones that don't go exactly according to plan...

oh, and when cooking a turkey, look out! there are giblets in both ends!!

let the wild rumpus begin!

so today . . . i am alone in my new house, all by myself, for three whole days :-)

i love my family. they are my favorite people on the planet. so i'm not quite sure why, but i occasionally need some extended solitude in my own house.

when we lived in oregon, rollie used to leave me fairly regularly. he would make short out-of-town trips every few months. but since we have moved to southern california, it almost never happens. because all of his meetings are now less than an hour away. unless traffic is bad. but traffic is never bad enough that he has to stay overnight somewhere...

this has been a craaaazy summer. between packing and moving and unpacking and going on vacation and starting school three weeks later than i normally do, i have completely lost track of time. which is how i find myself sitting here tonight all by myself...

...because several weeks ago, rollie was asked to speak at a retreat this weekend. he said yes. the retreat is for the church where my school is, so i thought it would be fun to go for at least part of it. but we are leaving on tuesday for a business trip and won't be back until saturday. which isn't a big deal, except my mom and dad are coming to visit NEXT FRIDAY. before we get home. so i have a lot to do...

and then, as i mentioned, i am not going to start working until the end of september. a perfectly capable substitute will be teaching my class. my wonderful assistant will be there to assist her. so i decided i was not going to even try to whip my classroom into shape. i decided i would just leave it alone and deal with it at the end of the month, and instead use the time to finish unpacking. and then, i got the class list...

for the first time, i will have more pre-k kids than kindergarteners. i am not thrilled about this, but that's the way it goes. at least i still have a job! but this change in enrollment is going to be a problem unless i make some changes in the classroom. so i spent almost five hours cleaning and rearranging furniture this afternoon. and i'm still not done. i'll be going back for a short (i hope!) time tomorrow morning. because i am almost done. i think.

and then, rollie asked me if i wanted to teach one of the sessions at the retreat. he asked me this about a month ago, and since it would help him and it's easy for me, i said, "sure!" i said this a month ago when i thought i was almost done unpacking (which clearly i wasn't!) so now i have to make some notes about what i am going to say tomorrow night. i know what i am going to say, and i don't get nervous about speaking, but if i don't have notes i tend to get off track--which can be entertaining, but sometimes i forget to say what i had planned to say...

...which is exactly what is happening on my blog tonight!! this was supposed to be about being home alone, and look what i've written so far! sheesh...

ok, so i'm home alone. i worked at school until almost 8:00 tonight, and then went to target. at 8:00 at night!! probably not a good idea. but i knew since i would be home alone, i was going to need snacks. and new nail polish. and while i was there, of course i wandered about. i found a perfect lamp to put on my piano, and it was on sale for only $13! but then as i looked at it, i realized that i was going to need to buy a shade. so i looked at shades, but the shades cost more than the base! the base!! the part with all the electrical parts (and a bonus free light bulb,) was cheaper than the part consisting of a wire and a bit of fabric. which was bad enough, but then i couldn't figure out how to attach the shade to the lamp. i thought maybe that was why it was on sale, but there were lots of lamps with no visible way to attach a shade, so i don't know...

and then i saw these.pillow pets of the anaheim angels rally monkey!! (ok, i know they are now the los angeles angels, but really, i don't know how anyone who calls themselves a fan can refer to them that way! los angeles has a team--the dodgers. angels stadium is in anaheim. they are, and always will be, the anaheim angels. it isn't rocket science, people. it's marketing.) i love pillow pets! i have loved them since i went on a hunt to find one for my nephew at christmas. they are cute and soft and cushy. the main reason i don't already have one, is that i haven't been able choose just one. but i think now i have--this is the pillow pet for me. sadly, it didn't get to come home with me today, because i was already carrying nail polish, cheetos, a shade-less lamp, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. (oh, did i forget to mention the cookies? they weren't my first choice, but i couldn't find the devil donuts.)

i wandered back to the lawn and garden section by way of the school supplies. thankfully my hands were too full to pick up any pens or markers, but there was a giant CLEARANCE sign above the outdoor stuff. i don't know what there is about clearance signs that make me suddenly feel the need to purchase something. i was looking at gardening tools (even though we have a gardener who takes care of our yard,) decorative pots in all sizes and colors (even though we have all these empty plant beds around the edges of our yard just screaming for me to plant something in them,) and grilling accessories (even though we don't have a bar-be-que yet.) i managed to talk some sense into myself and headed for the cash registers. without any clearance merchandise.

and then a miracle happened (other than making it out of the store without buying any clearance merchandise)...

...because i have a track record at target. it doesn't matter what line i get into, the people ahead of me in line inevitably have problems with their transactions. my line is always, ALWAYS the slowest line in the store. always. but tonight i found a cash register with no line at all! the cashier was just standing there, probably counting the minutes until the store would close and she could go home.

it was pretty exciting for me.

i got home, pillow petless, but with snacks and new nail polish. i let the dogs out, watched some tivo and ate my sourdough jack. i was home alone. in my new house. and feeling pretty good.

and then i needed to go upstairs...

i don't normally get weird about being home alone. but i started up the stairs, and then realized that the back door was open. the back door was open, because we don't have a doggie door installed yet. so when we are home, we just leave the back door open so the pups can go in and out whenever they want. but it suddenly occurred to me that if i went upstairs, and the dogs followed me, then someone could come in the back door unnoticed. and i watch enough tv to know that when someone sneaks in your back door, it never ends well.

i turned around and closed and locked the door. i started to set the alarm, but then remembered that i can't set the alarm if the upstairs windows are open. since we have a big covered patio, our upstairs windows are apparently vulnerable to intrusions. although, it seems to me that by the time a crazed criminal could scramble up onto our tiled roof and get through a window, the dogs would have alerted the whole neighborhood and mia would be waiting to eat him. or her. but who am i to argue with the security company...

so here i sit. all alone. by myself in my new house.

for three more days :-)

did we just make a decision?!?

so today . . . we made an offer on a house. i feel a little sick.

i don't know whether to be excited that we might get the house or scared that we might get the house. so i seem to have compromised by feeling a little nauseated...

after my first big day of house hunting by myself, i dragged rollie out to dinner and told him every little detail of every house i had seen--even the ones i didn't like! and i showed him the photos i had taken. and then i made him drive by the teeny tiny house, because it happened to be really, really close to rubio's (which you would think would be a selling point.) i'm sure he was exhausted, and he hadn't even looked at any actual houses!

and then last wednesday afternoon, our realtor called and said she had found the PERFECT HOUSE, but it had just come on the market and we needed to see it IMMEDIATELY or it might be gone!! well. the perfect house. ok, then. rollie was available, so we piled into jill's car (jill is our exceptional realtor,) and headed out...

as we drove, i read the listing sheet--out loud, for everyone's benefit! it sounded nearly perfect. we walked in, and i immediately fell in love. it was beautiful! it had been totally remodeled--tile and wood flooring, crown molding, new kitchen cabinets and appliances, new windows, and NEW BATHROOM FIXTURES (i cannot tell you how many icky showers i have looked at!) the closets were small, but it was all one level--there is only so much room in a one story home!

and then we went into the back yard...

a nice back yard is important to us. we have beautiful weather here most of the year, so we want to be able to hang out in our back yard. BUT i don't want to be surrounded by two story homes overlooking our space, and i don't want the house behind me to be right next to my fence! this is not so easy to find. i keep saying to jill, "we need a back yard that is quiet, relaxing, private..." yeah, in l.a. fortunately, in addition to all the other wonderfulness in this house, the back yard was private, because there was no one living behind it. unfortunately, there was a school behind it.

ok, maybe for most people that wouldn't be such a big deal. but we have these two dogs... and they like to bark... sometimes i even think they just pretend they hear something outside so that they can race out the doggie door and bark their little furry heads off! so living right next to a school yard was probably not going to work for us, because there would be kids there. and our dogs would bark at the kids. and the neighbors would call animal control. and then there would be a big neighborhood controversy--people would choose up sides. it might get ugly.

yeah, as beautiful as it was, this was probably not the house for us.

but all was not lost. jill said there was another house with the same floor plan, in a different neighborhood that was also available. we went to look at it, and it wasn't bad--at least there was no school behind it--but after looking at the completely remodeled house, it was just not very appealing to see dated kitchen cabinets and wall to wall carpeting and icky bathrooms...

i was starting to feel like we might never find anything.

and then i talked to a friend of mine who said they had looked at 32 houses before they bought one! ok, so maybe it was unrealistic to expect to find a house so quickly. maybe this was like house hunter's initiation. "don't get discouraged," she said, "keep looking. you will find the house that is right for you. just keep looking." and so, we did.

we arranged to meet jill on saturday to see another batch of houses. this time, rollie was able to come.

seeing houses with rollie was a different experience. it was kind of like when we went house hunting on his ipad. i tended to move quickly, get a feel for the house, and move on. rollie was much, much slower. he looked at details. he asked questions. he talked to the people who were currently living in the houses! let's just say, it took us about an hour longer to see fewer houses than when jill and i went alone.

BUT the first house we took him to see was the first house i had seen on my first day of house hunting. and he loved it! i had been talking about it, because as we looked at other houses, i just kept coming back to that one. it isn't perfect--it only has a two car garage, the laundry facilities are in the two car garage, and there is no pool. (ok, the pool was kind of a long shot anyway, but this is california! i feel as though i should have a pool!!) and so we continued on to look at more houses. but at the end of the day, we both thought maybe the first house we saw was the house we should get. so today we made an offer.and now all we can do is wait. and then wait some more. i can't get excited, because if we don't get the house, i don't want to be disappointed. i'm not even absolutely 100% sure that this is the house we should get, because you never know... there might be a better house out there somewhere. but i am 100% sure that if we don't get this house, i will be disappointed--at least until we find a better house. but what if we don't find a better house? what if we end up paying just as much money for a smaller house? or a house with loud neighbors? or what if we get this house and it has loud neighbors? or dogs that engage in barking contests with our dogs?

WHAT THE HECK ARE WE DOING?!?!?!?!?!

...sigh. it's ok. really it is. i am not stressed. i am not worried. either we will get this house or we won't. it will be fine. really. it will be fine.

but just in case, i have located our tent...

march 2011. the month i will eventually forget.

so today . . . is the last day of march. this means my self-imposed exile from the land of blogging is almost over...

it has been quite a month. i have had ideas for blogs rolling around in my head, but i never seemed able to sit down and write...

there was the day rollie took me to the outlet mall to choose a birthday present, and the result was me sitting in a chair in the corner of the coach store with an armful of handbags, paralyzed with indecision...

there was the day i sent my pre-k kids across the hall to an empty classroom with a huge piece of butcher paper, toy cars, and paint... oh yes, and my teaching assistant... and paint shirts, which were of no help at all...

there was the day diandra and i zipped to the outlet mall after school and experienced deja'vu...

there was the day i discovered the top on my beloved convertible was 'letting the sun shine in'--even when it was closed...

there was the day my future son-in-law came straight to our house from kuwait... well, actually he went to germany and georgia and lax first... but then he came straight to our house!

and then there was the wedding...

and my wedding dress... which was nearly a catastrophe, but turned out to be something really special... and las vegas on st. patrick's day... and purple christmas balls, silver christmas balls, and clear, lucite jewels... and terrible wind... and a beautiful bride with a sparkly bouquet... and a groom with a temperature... and a dad who loved his daughter enough to step waaaay out of his comfort zone...

there was the day i took my mom to the las vegas outlet mall... and made her go into the juicy couture store... and the guess store... and the coach store... and she made me go into chico's... and the store with the elusive hush puppy shoes... and then i made her go back to the coach store... (and before you think someone should take all our credit cards away, we did not actually make purchases in all those stores...)

there was the day my brother called to tattle on my mom... which was also the day my dad had some kind of major surgery... which is why my brother felt the need to tattle on my mom... yes, some days we are still children!

there was the day i started walking the dogs again... and decided to walk them both at the same time... (let's just say, we survived, but it wasn't pretty...)

there were the days that rollie left the house at 8:00 a.m. and didn't get home until 10:30 p.m... and the hunt for the perfect couch for his new office... and the chairs that almost got away...

there was a whole week of rain... and not one single weather blog! (count your blessings!!)

there was the day i tried to play music on my iphone and couldn't figure out where the ipod icon was... (anyone with an iphone is now saying to themselves, "what?!?!? how could she not see it???" all i have to say is, you just don't understand how my brain works...)

there were days i laughed, and days i cried, and days i just felt like crying while wishing i could laugh...

and there were pink shoes with flowers that unexpectedly appeared...

and once in a lifetime moments.

yes, march was quite a month. and as i read back over this list, i am really sad that i missed all that blogging! because while i remember these incidents happening, i don't remember the small details, or who said what, or how i felt... because i didn't write it down.

i blog so that i can remember the small, funny things that happen to me... just in case, you know, my brain ever fails me. (EVER fails me?!?!? please. my brain fails me every. single. day.)

you thought i blogged to entertain you, didn't you. but i don't. i blog so i can remember my life.

april fool's to you!

;-)

breakfast? or a science experiment gone terribly wrong...

so today . . . rollie is in san diego.

i know, we just got back from being out of town, but there are a lot of meetings he has to attend at this time of year. and so he was home sunday and monday (well, actually he wasn't home on monday--he was at work until 10:30 p.m.!) and then he had to leave early this morning to go to san diego for the rest of the week. (don't worry, it isn't always going to be this hectic...) so when he left, i was still in bed, trying to climb out of a deep sleep and into reality. obviously, we didn't exactly have a conversation. rollie pretty much said he was leaving, and i said uh huh, without actually opening my eyes. he left. i blindly found my way into the shower, and then managed to finally wake up enough to get to school.

midway through the morning, i got this text from rollie--"okay, my wisdom to you today is this: apparently not all boiled eggs are microwave-ready." hmmm, i thought. that was an interesting choice of wisdom to impart. i would have expected something a little more profound. perhaps, i thought, he is still jet lagged.

even though we both eat hard boiled eggs for breakfast, this did not seem like vital information for me to have. i eat them because they are quick--i can grab one out of the refrigerator, throw it into my school bag, and head out the door. then when i get settled at school, i can peel it and eat it, and i don't have to get up 15 minutes earlier to give myself time to eat a real breakfast. rollie eats them because they are part of his healthy breakfast of eggs, cheese, and almonds. but rollie likes his hard boiled egg to be a little warm (i find this pretty gross, but then, he thinks pepper jack cheese is an abomination, so we've learned to be tolerant...) to accomplish warmness in a previously boiled and refrigerated egg, he peels it, and then sticks it in the microwave for a few seconds. he has been doing this for a long time. until today.

today apparently he peeled his egg, put it in the microwave, and when he opened the door a few seconds later, this is what he saw...

he sent me the picture, and then texted, "this was my breakfast."

i died. i laughed and laughed and laughed. i could just picture it... and so i texted back, "HAHAHAHAHA! oh boy... i hope your lunch is better." and then, we finally had a "conversation..."

"i'm glad my disaster gave you a chuckle."

"well, it was a pretty dramatic photo."

"why thank you. hard to believe i am an amateur, isn't it?"

"clearly you are an amateur egg heater upper."

"i was in a hurry!!"

"oh, so it wasn't the egg's fault then? the mess was due to operator error??"

"no wait, you are right--defective egg."

"uh huh..."

"at least i cleaned it up."

"believe me, when i saw the photo, i was grateful for that!!"

"took me ten minutes!"

this is the sort of thing that happens when we cook. perhaps our new house doesn't really need a kitchen. perhaps food preparation should be left to the professionals.

perhaps we should just permanently reserve a table at rubio's...

a plan is only as good as it's implementation...

so today . . . i went shopping with rollie. just to clarify, I went with rollie--HE did not go with me...

friday afternoon, i went to rollie's new office to help him hang stuff on the walls. yes, even the kobe jersey. but as sometimes happens, one project led to another. we started looking around and rearranging things, and soon it became apparent that he might need some furniture for his office.

he inherited a huge desk and a giant leather desk chair from his predecessors. by the time we got done moving things around, that was just about all that was left. so i came home and started shopping online for a couch and a couple of chairs. but i quickly decided this time the internet was not going to be my friend. we were going to have to actually go into a furniture store. or six...

so today was the day. we knew what we were looking for--a black "leather" couch and two chairs. (i say "leather," because we didn't want fabric, but this couch isn't going to get a lot of wear and tear, so faux leather would probably be ok.) we walked into the first store. it was empty except for a lone salesman. and so we got lots of attention--way more than we wanted! while he was very helpful, i was ready to leave the store long before we were able to disengage. because once he found out what we were looking for, he did not want to stop showing us possibilities...

on our way to the next store, i said to rollie, "ok, we need a better story. we cannot tell them what we are looking for, or they won't leave us alone. so here is what we will say. we will say that we are going to be moving in a couple of months (true, i hope,) and are looking for some furniture (also true,) but we don't have a place to put it until we actually move (definitely true.) that way, they will know we are not going to buy anything today, and we will be free to look around without all the unwanted help." i thought it was a brilliant idea. and so we walked into the second store. "and what can i help you find today?" asked the very nice saleslady. "my husband needs a couch for his office." that was me talking. that was me, telling her what we really needed, instead of the brilliant story i had concocted. and so, she proceeded to help us...

on our way the the third store, i said, "ok, i don't know what happened back there. i don't know why i told her what we were really looking for. but don't worry, next time i will just tell them my story and we will be free to wander about on our own."

we made it through the third store without talking to anybody--fortunately the salesperson was talking to someone else! the fourth store was about the size of our living room. we probably wouldn't even have gone in, except the side walls were covered with mirrors, so the store looked huge! it wasn't. but it was very disorienting. the guy at the fifth store didn't even look up from his desk at us--and while i wanted to be left alone to look, i was just a little bit offended that he didn't even acknowledge us! maybe word was getting around...

we got to the sixth store (yes, rollie went to SIX furniture stores. he was probably starting to wish he hadn't asked me to come along. if i had stayed at home, he would have just bought something at the first store and been happy with it. in fact, i was beginning to think we were going to end up back at the first store anyway. apparently black "leather" couches are not really in style right now...) we walked in and were immediately met by two salesmen. it was a big store. this would be the perfect time to pull out my "we are moving" story. "what are you looking for today?" we were asked. "a couch," i answered, "for my husband's office."

what is wrong with me?!?!?! i formulate a perfectly good plan, but i can't seem to implement it! i spilled my guts and told the guy we wanted a black leather couch. he said, "oh, we don't have any of those." see what i mean? what kind of a furniture store doesn't have even one black leather couch?!?! apparently brown is the popular color now, but that doesn't help us--we need black!

it was not our lucky day.

fortunately i had taken pictures of all the couch possibilities. (i even took some video--although it was totally an accident. and i was going to post it, for your amusement. but blogspot still won't let me post video!! i am starting to get annoyed about it...) we went to eat dinner, thinking we would talk about what we had seen, and then make a decision. we looked at the pictures. we compared price and style and size. and i am still not sure which is the best choice.

wait. i take that back. i know which one is the best choice, but guess what? it is also the one that costs $1200! i am pretty sure that one is not going to be living in rollie's office (even though it would be perfect!) i think rollie is going to pick the couch we saw at the first store. i think. but maybe not. maybe he will pick the one from the fourth store. either way, he should have a couch and two chairs in his office by the end of the week.

which is good, because all that shopping and thinking and deciding was exhausting. i am going to need a place to sit...

a sad top ten list...

so today . . . was the first day in thirty years that i have gone to a church where rollie wasn't the pastor. i mean, we have gone to other churches when we were on vacation, and i have even gone to our church when rollie wasn't there. but today, when i went to church, he wasn't our pastor anymore...

i thought it would be ok. i thought it wouldn't be that much different. after all, i usually don't really see him on sunday mornings anyway, until his cute face shows up to preach on the big screen in the gym, which is where i am. but it was different. it felt different. he didn't pop in to smile at me while the band was rehearsing. when i went to his office to get water, the mini refrigerator was empty. i didn't have to wait for him to get done talking to someone before we could go have lunch after church. he wasn't waiting for me to finish wrapping cords and putting sound equipment away before we could leave. it was different, and i didn't like it. not one tiny little bit.

but i guess we can't have it both ways. he can't do his new job and still be the pastor at our church. (i know this, because he sort of had to do that for the month of january, and it was not pretty!!) and he will be really good at the new job. so we will all just have to adjust (and by all, i mean mostly diandra and me) to our pastor not being rollie. and we will. but i think this momentous occasion calls for a top ten list. so here it is.

TOP TEN THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT ROLLIE BEING OUR PASTOR

10. i will miss hearing him preach. you would think after listening to him week after week, year after year, i would be ready for a change. but i'm not. he is a good preacher. he is easy to understand, he tells lots of stories to illustrate his points, and every week he says something that challenges me. i wish i was perfect, so that i didn't always have to think, "yes, i need to work on that" every week. but i'm not--it is good for me to be challenged.

9. i will miss sneaking out to the foyer at the beginning of the service to hear him play the bass, just for one song. since he plays in "big church," i don't get to hear him play very often. his band is always done rehearsing by the time i get there to play with my band. but several months ago, i figured out that since we start church a bit later, i could sneak over to the foyer and listen to him play during the opening song. so now that is what i do. or, that is what i used to do...

8. i will miss his unending supply of water bottles. he always kept water in a mini refrigerator in his office. i could bring water from home, but i never remember! and so at some point on sunday morning, i usually end up in his office looking for water. and if he happens to be in his office, well, that was just an added bonus!

7. i will miss seeing people respond to his sermons. it has been so cool to watch people change because of the words they hear on sunday mornings. rollie doesn't preach theoretical sermons--he preaches practical, "now go do it this week," sermons. and people do. and when they do, it changes them. we are all better people than we were ten years ago...

6. i will miss guessing what color shirt he is wearing. since we watch him on a big screen in the gym, his clothes are not always the color they seem. the camera has to be adjusted for skin tones, and so you can't trust the colors of people's clothing. one day he brought his black leather jacket onto the platform to illustrate a point, and the lining looked like it was bright purple! his black shirts look burgundy or purple, and his green shirts look brown or black, and his blue shirts look black or gray. so diandra and i have a litttle guessing game going...

5. i will miss knowing that whatever crisis is happening, rollie will take care of it. i have confidence in his abilities to diffuse heated situations, to confront when something is wrong, and to encourage when someone feels ready to give up. he just has this ability to know what is needed in different situations, and then how to give what is needed.

4. i will miss our lunch on tuesdays. tuesday has been rollie's sermon writing day. he needs uninterrupted quiet to write a sermon, and so he usually does it at home. and since i work so close, he brings me lunch on tuesdays, even though i only have half an hour to eat. but now, he doesn't have to write a sermon every week. AND his office is 30-40 minutes away. so now when i go out to the parking lot on tuesdays, he isn't there waiting for me with food from subway.

3. i will miss having input into what happens. there. i said it. when rollie was the pastor, if i had ideas about things, i could tell him and i knew he would at least consider it. but now, first of all, there is no one to tell. and secondly, even if there were, why would they care about what i think? so now, my ideas just roll around in my head with nowhere to go.

2. i will miss seeing kids and teens listening to the sermon. i love it when kids come up and ask him questions about something he said. or when parents report that their kids are still talking about the sermon during the week. the fact that he can preach a message that challenges adults and kids at the same time is kind of cool. actually, the fact that kids are listening and understanding and remembering a sermon is really cool.

and the number one thing i will miss about rollie not being our pastor anymore is...

1. ... the end of diandra's sunday tweets, where she says, "dad, in his sermon." because diandra may still tweet during the sermon, but it won't be her dad who is giving the sermon anymore. and that makes me feel sad. really, really sad.

i never wanted to be a pastor's wife. but i am so very glad that rollie has been our pastor all these years. i'm glad diandra has grown up hearing him preach every week. and while i know that the new responsibilities he has accepted are important too, i am going to miss his cute face up there on the screen in the gym, in his mysteriously colored shirts, challenging us to be more like Jesus... every. single. week.