Havin' a baby!

And moved back to Philly, and all kinds of stuff. You can keep up here.

Heat miser?

Do any of you remember this? I don't, and I'm sure I would remember such a catchy tune. (My coworker sent it to me.)

Another football sunday passed

Go Eagles! But Johnny asked a compelling question:

Is Adam Vinatieri still on the Patriots' payroll?

1st leg

We finally set out for the first stretch of the trip about 7:30 last night, after some problems with Johnny's web site and stupid iWeb.

Yes, I just called iWeb stupid.

After missing what waa probably some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip in WV and Va, we reached Lexington where we crashed at the HoJo on this mountain. The leaves are still turning here (at home our trees are almost bare) and Ilm looking forward to the drive to Richmond, home of VCU.

But first, breakfast!

Chili season starts ... now

Last night our friends hosted their first annual chili cook-off. Johnny made the first place trophy which had a golden ladle and two hot peppers dangling in a manner reminiscent of the male anatomy. There were also ribbons for 2nd & 3rd places.

It was completely fun. The weather was pretty cool, so they got the fires going around 5 or so. There ended up being 14 varieties of chili there, including 6 veggie options and a 1/4 keg of scottish ale from a local brewery. With about 30 people and at least 9 dogs there, the voting was pandemonium. There were these little plastic cups and there were several strategies in place to get around to trying the selections. I ttied one at a time and took notes. There were voting sheets suggesting the aspects of each chili to consider and we weren't allowed to vote for our own.

Johnny made this awesome chili with cinnamon and marjoram, both brilliant suggestions from her grandmother. The votes were tallied ans she won 3rd place overall! First place was a meaty kind I didn't try, but I did drink a lot of beer and had some pumpkin pie squares.

It was pretty cold and we were a little tired, so we took off a little early. It was weird though, because we both woke up around 3 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I think that has never happened to me before -- wait, it did a few times when I was trying out an allergy medicine, but that doesn't really count. I might also be coming down with a cold.

But! I am trying to sleep it off because next week is Johnny's whirlwind east coast grad school tour! I'll be joining her for part of it from Thursday until Tuesday when I fly back from Philly before she heads up to NY and beyond. Yay for trips! Philly, I can't wait to see you!

Debate Unvailable??

I am trying to watch the doggone debate, but it says the video is "unavailable." Apparently this isn't the first time this happened!

Haller een

These are the cutest $alloween stickers of all time. Just look at that mummy!!!

Oh, the difficulty

It's really hard to be an Eagles fan in Columbus. The game is only on the Sunday ticket so we had to find a place to watch. T he first place had some beeahtches who wouldn't "let" the bartenders change the audio channel. The next place was showing it but it was sequestered into the corner, also with no audio. Finally, we found our spot -- and we're gettin' some fries!

Makes the people come together

there was some sort of power outage on campus today and my work tasks are limited due to downed servers, so... a post!

I was going to update you anyway because the Fabulous Johnson Brothers had this really great interview on a local radio station.

Here's the link to the station's page (scroll about halfway down)
or
Go directly to the audio.

I'm so excited to watch the show tonight (8 pm Fox, just in case you forgot).

Our friends are famous

Some of you might know that we have a friend that's in a band who is going to be on Fox's series, "Next Great American Band." The show's premiere is Friday and I can't say what happens (because I don't really know) but they are definitely in at least one of the first 3 episodes.

They're so cute.

birthday revelry continues

In addition to this Alessi watch (the grey one):

I also got Johnny tickets to see Wilco!


It's tonight and I'm really excited.

Three-Grain Molasses Bread

Okay, so here's the recipe, adapted from "1001 Low-fat vegetarian recipes" by Sue Spitler (2nd ed.)

Three-Grain Molasses Bread

1 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. yellow cornmeal
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 1/4 c. water
1/2 c. light molasses (I used blackstrap because that's what I had)
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
3 T. vegetable oil

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Bake at 350 until toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour. Remove from pan and let cool on wire rack.

It's very easy, and soo yum. Have some directly from the oven, it's worth it.

Free tickets

Johnny scored tickets to the BlueJackets (pro hockey) game. This photo is of our sweet view. And if you look closely, you can see the Chipotle burritos falling from the air by way of mini-parachute.

It's fall!

Today's the first day it has been cool in a long time, so I felt practically obligated to bake something. I made a Three-Grain Molasses Bread from a cookbook, and cranberry muffins adapted from a recipe I found online.

The bread was incredible hot from the oven, but I'm saving the muffins for when I get hungry later.

The cultural hub of the midwest

Wednesday was Johnny's 32nd birthday, so we went out for drinks to celebrate. There was a whole group of people who came and she got a bunch of drinks as gifts. People started taking off and there were just a few of us left: R (Johnny's friend who went to Italy with her), J ( Johnny's coworker), me and Johnny.

R and Johnny were talking and there was some skeezy old guy with an arm sling at the bar staring at R's legs. I gave him a dirty look and he kinda gave me a guilty shrug.

R left and J and I were telling Johnny about the nasty dude. She's a little protective of R so she started thinking of ways to get Skeezo back. They'd noticed that he was wearing penny loafers and white socks earlier, so she thought she'd go steal his pennies. She walked over, but there weren't any pennies so she casually picked up a napkin from the bar and came back to further assess the situation.

She thought maybe she'd take his sock instead. J agreed that this was the best course of action. I started laughing.

J is like the little brother she never wanted. They should maybe never drink together.

I'm still laughing off how ridiculous that would be when Johnny gets up and walks over. J says to me: you know, if she takes the sock, we need to get out of here, right?

Johnny takes Skeezo's foot, removes his penny loafer, takes his white athletic sock from his old foot and returns to the table to finish her drink.
Then she picks up the sock and leaves the bar.

J and I pay our tabs and head out to the parking lot. Skeezo's friend had followed her out and was halfheartedly womdering why someone would take his friend's sock. He may have called her bitter.

Johnny hung the sock on the sign for the pita place next door.

Happy Birthday.

Saddest news ever

We had an amazing ceremony and post-vacation. When we got back, our cat Toolip was really sick. I took her to the vet and she had pretty bad jaundice. They did some tests and kept her overnight for an ultrasound. It turned out that her gall bladder duct had a rupture, due to some pressure --they weren't sure if there was a cancerous tumor, or what. It apparently had been going on for some time because she'd lost some weight and had some liver and pancreas issues as a result.

We're going to plant some tulip bulbs out front and put her ashes there. We all miss her very much.

We love you Toolie.

Pre-party

tonight we are hangin' out at the kareoke.

3 days and counting

We were up until about 3:30 last night working on our (quite lovely, thanks to Johnny's artistic vision and commitment to quality) programs. That was the last really big thing to do!

I'm supposed to work tomorrow! How am I going to do that? I can barely stay focused today.

New 'do

I'm still planning to do some color.

sunny days ahead

All right! I got the first solid look at next weekend's weather forecast and it's looking good!

I got an email from my mom yesterday that she is planning to attend our ceremony, and she's going to try and bring my sister. I was surprised at how excited I was to hear the news. I sometimes think that I can control my emotions, but then, pow! they pop right out. Anyway, I'm really glad.

We got a call today that our rings are ready! Johnny made some progress on her (completely different now) outfit, and I just need to find some shoes. Then, we're in business.