Pre-thankful

Tomorrow, Nancy is coming to visit. She's my Quota friend from Kalamazoo. We're going to Meijer Gardens. I haven't been there since December. I am really excited to go and take pictures. The butterflies are blooming. 

Since I'm pre-thankful today, tomorrow I'll post pictures. 

Forgetful Fridays, and Fried Chicken

Yes, I forgot to blog again on Friday. But you'll still get your Saturday post too.

I had a forgetful Friday.

First, I was off a day all week. As Bill pointed out, that happens when one only works six hours a week. To which I replied by sticking out my tongue.

It does happen to me a lot. I think mostly because I used to do my grocery shopping on Tuesdays. Now that I work in the office on Tuesdays, I go shopping on Wednesdays. For whatever reason, it sets me off a day.

I had one thing on my to-do list for Friday. That was to call in our lunch order for Sunday. We're having fried chicken. No not Bill, Greg and I. The Jr. High Confirmation class. We'll be visiting the First Community A.M.E. church and, after the service, are going back to our church for lunch and a lesson.

This is for Precious; of course I had to get fried chicken.

I almost forgot to call in the order though! I was on the phone with Heather O. when I realized I hadn't called yet. It was 4pm. I had already missed the lunch rush and was hoping to avoid the dinner rush. I quickly got off the phone with her (I feel bad about that, but her birthday is coming up, so I'm planning on calling her again soon) and called to order our chicken.

Then I forgot to blog.

That's all.

I'm sure I'll be thankful for fried chicken on Sunday, but maybe I'll find something else to be thankful for, so I'm thankful for fried chicken today. I can't wait to chow down on it.

12.12.12

Twelve reasons why having your birthday twelve days before Christmas isn't fair:

12. All of your birthday coupons coincide with Christmas coupons and you often end up using them to buy gifts for others instead of yourself (and you don't get any good deals any other time of year)

11. People don't even send Christmas cards anymore, so they send you one card wishing you a happy birthday and a Merry Christmas at the same time, to "save on postage"

10. You get the Twelve Days of Christmas stuck in your head every year

9. Your friends have Christmas parties that are more important than your birthday party

8. Doing any outdoor activity (picnic, going to the beach) requires wearing several layers of clothing which means the minute you zip up the last zipper means you have to go to the bathroom and everyone spends more time inside than outside for the activity

7. Your birthday gifts come wrapped in Christmas paper

6. Your birthday gifts are Christmas themed

5. No one bakes you a cake, instead they give you cookies

4. You may get snowed in on your birthday (that isn't necessarily a bad thing), but if you happen to like snow, it never snows on your birthday

3. Your birthday occasionally falls on a Friday and everyone avoids you because it's bad luck

2. There's no money leftover to take you out to dinner because it was spent on Christmas presents, so your birthday dinner is at McDonald's (what do you like from the dollar menu?)

And the number one reason having your birthday twelve days before Christmas isn't fair is...

1. no good reason whatsoever, it just seemed like fun to count down on 12.12.12

And, just in case you hadn't figured it out, my birthday next year will be 12.13.13 on Friday!

The following year, 12.13.14 there will be a big party. Because 12.13.14 will be on a Saturday. So save the date. I want a(nother) birthday party with all my friends and family there. No Christmas party excuses this time (see number nine above).

a study of sculpture

Two weeks ago (really? It flew by and doesn't seem like it was that long ago) Nancy came to visit. We went to Meijer Gardens and walked around East-town and East Grand Rapids. We had a lot of fun, despite it being cooler and the light mist that fell while we walked around the Gardens. I did not have my camera, but knew Nancy would. Here are a couple of silly pictures we took.

it's the 13th

You know what that means!!!

Nancy came to visit!

We went to Meijer Gardens. Then we stopped by Art of the Table, which I have never been to. It's a wonderful store. I could spend hours and loads of money in there.

Then we had lunch at Cherry Street Deli, one of my favorite places to get a sandwich.

We walked around looking at the few shops that were open. Then we headed over to East Grand Rapids and shopped there. We also stopped at Jersey Junction for ice cream.

We headed over to Groskopfs, because it's another fun place to shop. You never know what you'll find.

Burton is closed, so I had to go home a different route. I chose 28th Street. I asked Nancy how she felt about Pier 1, and since she feels the same as I do, we stopped in there and wondered around.

Window shopping was fun! It was just what we both needed.

Even if it wasn't a Friday.

Only Thursday

Oh boy, I am in trouble. I just titled this post, "TGIF". Obviously I changed it, when it occurred to me that it is not actually Friday. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, this has happened.

I already had two cookies at the reception after the Arts Alive performance, I think it's time for a root beer float. Because we have plenty of fixings for root beer floats.

And because for a few seconds I thought it was Friday.

For Friday

I didn't blog yesterday.

I was busy. I had a list of things to accomplish, and I'll proudly tell you that I crossed all of them off.

I baked an oatmeal cake for Emil (Gary has also requested an oatmeal cake, that will get baked next week), I cleaned the bathrooms, ran the vacuum, read my Bible study, wrote note cards, washed dishes, took my walk, did my yoga and other exercises, made dinner (petite filets with goat cheese and angel hair pasta with homemade alfredo) and went to a wedding rehearsal.

I'll let the cat out of the bag: I'm training (shadowing, apprenticing) to be the Wedding Coordinator at our church. It was sort of a secret because the woman who has been doing it would like to retire. But she's met with some disagreement. Since she's training me it's no surprise that she (like me) does what she wants. She is 100% behind my training. But she needed to let the appropriate people know ahead of time. I think they all know now. If not, I don't think they read my blog and if they do, they know now.

I am going to post-post this, because I have a Saturday post. I don't want you to be confused because I wrote it today (Saturday), not yesterday (Friday), but I posted it to look like it was done on Friday, but it was really posted Saturday...

just another Friday

It's just another Friday. You can read how Bill and I feel about this on our joint blog.

The day is winding down and Bill built a fire in the fireplace. It was quite lovely out, the sun was shining and it was warmer than average.

Tomorrow is small business Saturday. We'll be doing our part. It's funny how it works. Today, I cleaned for a fellow Quotarian. Now I'll take the money I earned and go spend it in the local economy at a small business. In the grand scheme of things, this will help Bill. What a great circle!

And what will we buy? Well, we're going to stop by the local mom and pop shop for some bread so we can have that leftover turkey on sandwiches. Yum. And we're buying supplies to restore the windows. Complete opposite ends of the spectrum. We're going to buy other things to, but we're going to make our list over breakfast; my blueberry pancakes with homemade syrup. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I worked hard today.

Shrek Fridays

I have spent the last three days working from Dave and Greg's (The Gruley Towne, as Bill calls it). We have been in Detroit for Bill, as he has had work over here. From here we are headed to Ohio to visit Abbie at Oberlin! We are looking forward to it. We will also take a trip to Cedar Point. The weather is going to be lovely.

I've made dinner the last two nights; chicken enchiladas and chicken pot pie. If you read yesterday's post you know about my attempt to make pudding. At least the cookies turned out.

Greg is currently watching "Shrek 4ever" and I haven't seen it. It's pretty funny. Fortunately my work is done and we're headed out. Time to go pack.

Happy Friday!

are you sure it's not the 13th??

Oh my goodness. What a week. I did decide the only way to cap it off, is if today were the 13th. It feels like a Friday the 13th. Plus it's a full moon. That's why the only way this day could be better is if it were the 13th. I know I'm not alone. I've had a lot of response to my blog about the craziness that has been going on. (Thank you to everyone who's said something!!)

But it is finally Friday. Congratulations to D.d. and Jon, who will be wed in Holy Matrimony later this evening. We are looking forward to celebrating your new life together!!

And on a completely random note: have you ever noticed that Lego people faces look a lot like emoticons? Maybe it's just my phone font that makes them appear that way.

|: )

sort of. Okay, maybe not really. But it's close.

total randomness, hey it's Friday!

I hope I'm not going to jump the shark.

I said that to someone not too long ago (Heather E.: was it you on our way to the HPC meeting??), and they laughed and said they knew what I meant. Hm, maybe that could be a topic on Blah, Blah, Blog. Which, by the way, is one of the most difficult things to type.

I digress, back to jumping the shark. Or maybe not because we might discuss it on that other blog. I'll move on.

Nestle Tollhouse. I love chocolate chip cookies. Every time I make them I think of Phoebe from Friends (you can click here to watch a really bad youtube video) and her grandmother's cookie recipe. I can run through the entire scene in my head, I won't bore you here with what would turn out to be a not so funny rendition. If you never saw it, find it and watch it. The rest of the episode is not that great, but the cookie scenes are. Especially if you like chocolate chip cookies. So I made some chocolate chip cookies for the Blood Drive at our church on Monday. I can't give blood, but I can bake cookies!

Support local farmers! I went to the very rainy Farmer's Market this morning. I meant to take my camera, but it's a good thing I didn't. My shoes are soaked, my jeans are soaked, my hoodie is soaked. There isn't a permanent roof up yet, they have just begun the fundraising campaign. So it will be a few more years. In the meantime, each vendor has a tarp they drape over the metal frame, in hopes that it will keep everyone dry. But the rain settles into the low spots and either cascades off the edge, or the vendors poke at the tarp to try to keep the cascades of water to a minimum. Not every vendor was there, so there were large sections of unprotected aisle-way where the rain was effective in drenching me to the core.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the rain. We desperately need it. It will just be nice when there's a permanent roof over the Farmer's Market.

It's Friday and we have a dinner tonight. We're going to Chandra and Jason's (it's their first time hosting!) and they have a pool. I was going to take my swimsuit, but since it's currently 55 degrees, and rainy, I may not swim. Unless that solar cover works really well and it's not lightning out. I don't want a pool, but I take advantage of access to a pool.

This weekend is Open House weekend. We have four. Three are tomorrow. It's going to be a busy day, but we've outlined the route and it's almost as if they coordinated schedules. We won't have to eat any meals at home. I hope I can limit myself to the cake... It doesn't help when it's so delicious!!

Have a happy Friday!!!

is it really "Good Friday"

Okay, so let's talk about this. Nothing "good" happened to Jesus on this day (which we choose to celebrate -and I use that term loosely- on a Friday). Yes, the end result was good. But whoever chose to name this particular day with the adjective "good" must have been crazy.

And so, as our day has not started off on the right foot, I propose this be known as Black Friday. Yes, that name has already been taken for a shopping day, which was really a term used only in the industry that the media picked up on. And we all know what happens when the media gets a hold of something. It becomes normal and a part of every day life.

Back to Black Friday. Spring has decided that the Groundhog was just completely off and that between whether or not he saw his shadow (maybe it's that dead groundhog's fault) and global warming, that the bleak and dreary weather typical of February is just as acceptable in April. "Bah Humbug!" I say! I want some sun, and average temperatures.

Instead, it's hovering around 40, is completely overcast and raining off and on. Yes, yes; April showers bring May flowers. I know my plants need water. But I need sun.

Last night, while using the tiny bit of sun we had, Bill decided to wash his car. That is not a big deal, until it became a big deal. You can read about that here. I'm not retelling it (he does a very good job in his blog).

So our basement is still wet, I'm attempting to wash and dry other clothes, but the dryer doesn't seem to want to cooperate (why should it? It's black Friday), Bill is still trying to clean out the mold around the tub, and I'm working.

The best news is I ran into our neighbors at the Post Office and we're going to play euchre with them tonight. Here. And I invited them over for dinner. We still have to clean the house.

I'm looking forward to Sunday.