Wishful Slacker

Website of the Week- Part 2

Ok- here's Part 2 of Website of the Week!  Last week I featured Etsy, now this week I am posting Etsy's hysterical evil twin, Regretsy.  My sister-in-law passed this gem along to me.  It is hilarious.  Enjoy!!!!

Michigan back roads

We made our trip to Tawas, Michigan using our Garmin, and it ended up taking us up and across some incredibly remote and fantastic roads.  I wish I had my camera out the whole time, because I missed a lot of good shots of old abandoned buildings and fields.  It is a long drive, about 7 hours from Chicago (which is why we rarely make it up here), but listening to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" definitely helped to pass the time!

 

 
 

City? What's a city?

 

 

 
 

Wow

Somehow, it has been almost a full year since Jim and I were married, and I've been thinking through the events of the days leading up to October 25, 2008.  I just loved our wedding (wedding planning, notsomuch).  We were married at The Belvedere Inn, a bed and breakfast in Saugatuck, Michigan.  The Inn had ten guest rooms which we filled with our friends and family.  Having all those people together under the same roof was so cozy and comforting, and then for the wedding when everyone arrived, it got even better! 

This seems a strange comparison, but I'll make it anyways.  When my sister and I were younger, one of our favorite make believe plays was to pile all our stuffed animals and dolls on the bed at night and pretend we were on a boat in the sea.  What really happened to lead up to this is that we were on a boat ride at an amusement park, when SUDDENLY the guard rail SNAPPED in two and there we went, in our little covered boat, out to sea with no one to save us.  We seemed to get over the feeling of despair one might feel in this situation and moved on to the care and protection of Heart to Heart bear, Cabbage Patch Dolls A,B, and C, Nellie the elephant, and Teddy Ruxpin.  I loved that make believe game.  Lying there in the dark, surrounded by all our stuffed animals, next to my sister, made me feel so safe and warm (though occasionally one of the kids would fall in the water, which sometimes became hot lava, requiring a daring but successful rescue attempt and stern disciplinary action). 

But honestly, staying at the Belvedere that weekend, with everyone we loved all around us or just down the street, gave me such a similar feeling.  It was that comforting sense of togetherness and continuity, a richness that I can easily conjure up if I just pause and imagine it all again.  And all those people are still there in our lives, just spread out.  It makes us realize how fortunate we are. 

Tonight, a year apart from that weekend, we are sitting in our apartment that now has not one but TWO leaking rooms (one from the ceiling, one from the floor. go figure), and my husband got so mad when I showed him our sopping wet carpet that he sent an awesomely angry email to our building manager who has made the choice to not take us seriously for over a year now (reason #534 that we're happy we rent and don't own!).  The ceiling continues to bead with drops of water even though the rain stopped hours ago.  But it is our wedding anniversary, and the thought of my life now with Jim, our cat, and our families, just makes me so happy.  Even with the drips. 

I'll leave you with this picture that Kris took on our wedding day that made me so pleased when I first saw it.  October 25, 2008 was a bear of a fall day in Saugatuck Michigan.  Rain in the morning, wind, threatening rain all afternoon, goosebumps aplenty, and Kris managed to forever immortalize this strip of blue sky on our wedding day :-)

    

Website of the Week- Part 1

I've been busy and am late in posting my website of the week!  This is going to be a two part website of the week.  Part 1 features Etsy, an ebay-type site that features craft items for sale.   I have yet to buy something from Etsy, but have been tempted and honestly haven't perused its offerings in as much detail as I would like (probably not the worst thing!).  Part 2 will be posted next week :-)

Blog posts will be light next week, because my husband and I are actually LEAVING CHICAGOLAND.  AND THE INTERNET.  AND BASEBOARD HEATING.  For the first time in a year, we are taking more than 2 consecutive days off of work, and for the first time since MAY we are leaving this area.  We will be heading up to my parents' version of Golden Pond, their cottage outside of East Tawas, Michigan, which we haven't visited in 2 years!  So, as you can see, this adventure is very overdue for us, and it still seems strange to think that we're going...

Oh, and with regards to the heating comment, not to worry.  There is a big ole furnace and  a couple space heaters.  You think I'd go somewhere in this weather with no heat?!  It's not even November and I've already worn my heavy North Face coat twice (people have looked at me oddly because of it too).  I like my warmth.   

The creative force and my creative farce

When we got married 360 days ago, we received two incredible wedding gifts- a bed quilt put together by all the members of my father's side of the family and a wall hanging picture quilt filled with pictures from both my and Jim's families (ok, we received many incredible wedding gifts, but these are the two I'm talking about in this post!  Don't start getting offended on me!).  We have the picture quilt hanging above our couch, and the bed quilt remains safely folded away beneath our bed until we expand to a place with extra bedrooms that can be sans feline influence.  I mean, this quilt is gorgeous.  Each square is amazing, and they all have so many personal touches.  One square is made with a cross stitch that my grandmother started but wasn't able to finish, and my aunt Anne even used the ribbon from our wedding invitations in one of her squares.  They even put little descriptions of each square into a book for us. 

This past weekend my aunt Sarah got married, and the Walker family banded together once again to make her a quilt.  We all worked on our quilt squares in the spring and it was put together this past summer by the quilting savants of the family over in England.  This time, I was involved in the contribution of a quilt square, which made me very, very nervous.  Over the years any creative spark for crafts that I once had slowly leaked away.  Yes, I dabble a bit in knitting, but is that creative?  My answer- No. 

My sister seemed to inherit all the creative influence that could have come from our parents.  Of late she's become so involved with making things from scratch that it's almost frightening.  Her big thing now is making mosaic works of art out of broken glass and ceramics.  She goes into her basement and smashes up old tiles and plates and then glues all the pieces together to make some pretty dang amazing things.  Even the square she made for our quilt was awesome- she sewed (free hand) the Chicago city skyline along a dark blue background.  She has done other crazy stuff like sewing a tree (her symbol of survival) with different colored thread to the front of her purse (with the leaves shaded different colors for the different seasons).  She even attached beads to it to add more texture.  Seriously, I am not kidding you that her ability to create has left me awestruck. 

Above and Below: Two of Piper's mosaics

My mother has also developed a creative streak, however with a slightly later onset than my sister.  Growing up, my Girl Scout patches were glued and ironed to my sash.  I was the Girl Scout whose badges slowly peeled away and glided to the floor while standing in a circle singing "Kumbaya."  I think my mother was 2 months away from turning the stapler to my vest until finally, to her relief, I decided to close that chapter of my life.  Then, one day she woke up, and said, "Self.  Your children are growing up.  Why don't we learn how to sew quilts?"  And then off she went, from one day attaching fabrics together with Krazy Glue, to the next day hunched over a sewing machine.  This is a quilt she made me out of my old T-shirts in high school.  Ignore the fact that it desperately needs ironing.  The shirts were probably this wrinkled when I wore them back in high school too.  

So here I am, surrounded by these very creative people, when I am finally called upon to make a quilt square.  I hope you can sense the feeling of "EEK!!!" that washed over me.  So, I decided to stick with what I knew- how to draw pedigrees (don't make fun- that's the only drawing I do now!).  Was it void of creative influence?  Completely.  But could it work?  Yes.  So this is what I came up with, all on my own.    The Walker family pedigree, all of us together in cross stitch.  I have to say, I was pretty pleased with myself :-)  

Birthday party madness

We ventured to Oak Park yesterday for our nephew's birthday party.  He is turning FOUR this week, which is so hard to believe.  It was not that long ago when I received the text saying he had been born (ironically, while sitting in my "Death, Loss, and Grief" class in grad school- the announcement allowed me to leave with a definite pep in my step instead of the morose way we usually filed out of there!).  At that time he was Jim's new nephew, and it's been a joy for me to watch that title evolve into "OUR nephew."  Long-term relationships come with many benefits. 

It's been so much fun watching him grow up into the amazing little boy he is today.  When we walked into the house yesterday, it was pure madness (or, as one father described to us, similar to a prison riot).  Kids shrieking, yelling, banging things- all organized chaos.  In talking to the other adults you had to raise your voice louder than at a bar on a Saturday night.  We arrived to a blur of children running around and around the dining room table.  Our nephew shot past in a flash of maize and blue.  He happened to look up and when he saw us, got a huge grin on his face, and exclaimed, "Heyyy!!!!"  He is such a genuine, sweet boy.  He sang happy birthday to himself along with all the other kids and was excited about every present he opened. 

Years ago, I babysat for this family whose boys were so overindulged that in a corner of their playroom sat a pile of presents that they didn't even care to open.  Those kids had so much, that nothing was even special for them anymore. To this day, I think that has been one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed.  The level of appreciation that has developed in our nephew for the people in his life, for activities and presents, has been a pleasure to see.

It will be exciting to watch as he continues to evolve into his own person.  I know his life can take him in a million different directions from here, but I think this kid is off to a great start.   

Homework!

I've been taking a creative writing class at StoryStudio Chicago for the past few weeks.  It's been a lot of fun.  The best part is just being in a classroom again.  Gee wiz I sure like it!  We have writing assignments and HOMEWORK.  I was good and tried doing some of it last weekend right after the class (we each drew slips of paper and had to write about the person described.  I got "tollbooth attendant on a Monday morning."  I named her Louise).  However I sort of waited on finishing the rest until this evening.  I guess procrastination never truly abandons us.  I went out with some of my coworkers after work today for a drink, and as I was sipping my martini and thinking about the start of the weekend I thought, hmmm, now that I'm imbibing, maybe I should have done my homework earlier!  But that thought didn't last too long as my attention returned to my 4 coworkers and our immense pride in ourselves for actually GOING OUT after work- as in, SEEING EACH OTHER OUTSIDE OF THE OFFICE.  Not only that, but a group of us actually peeled ourselves away from the computer and the phone and ate lunch TOGETHER today and AWAY FROM OUR DESKS.  This never happens.  And it made me happy.

With this feeling of satisfaction, I got home and was picking up the cat and cooing into his face and telling him how much I love him, when that rotten animal lunged at me with his TEETH, hard, so that I now have this huge scratch going down my nose.  I mean what kind of "congrats on being halfway done with being on call" greeting is that?  That boy is in some trouble. 

So, I cleaned up my nose, sat down on the couch, and worked on finishing my assignment for tomorrow.  And I wanted to share this assignment, because I've really enjoyed working on it and it's a good "get me started" exercise.  We were all given a copy of the poem Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon (who I guess is a woman named George???).  What we had to do was make our own version of the poem.  We read our rough drafts in class last week and had to polish them up for tomorrow.  Y'all should try it- it's kinda cool to see what comes to mind!  Here's mine:

I am from Windex,

from the wet vac and the spot remover

I am from the hobbly nobbly roots

and the shade that never allowed the annuals to grow.

I’m from the lilac bush,

deep purple piercing through the windshield gleam

on a country dirt road,

its shoots rescued by DeLisle women

before the earth was churned into a subdivision.

I am from Shake n’ Bake pork and mashed potato flakes.

Keep your elbows off the table, and

Say Please and Thank you.

Place the fork and knife on the side of your plate when you’re done.

I’m from green customs labels and packages on the doorstep,

chocolate digestives, custard creams, and ginger snaps

nestled within bubble wrap and

Marks and Spencer socks.

I’m from the cacophony of barks and toe nails

scrambling on Pergo floors

to the frightened person standing on the porch.

I’m from latchkey mornings and papers to grade,

Working parents dissolving in the June warmth.

One summer was filled with musty library books

and crinkly laminated covers,

“Shelby Township’s top readers” rolled into the newspaper box,

and my sister’s face in newsprint.

Then came a crisp morning and we trudged off,

backpacks bouncing with each step

taken through the dew.                                   Lindsay Walker Rhodes

 

 

 

Website of the Week- it's a nerdy one!

I am on call at work, so my selection of a Website of the Week is a site I've just been scouring while sitting on the couch because I didn't feel like staying longer at work.

Yes, my fellow genetics friends, the website of this week is GeneTests.

Go to the site.  Click GeneReviews at the top.  And search away.  Cystic Fibrosis?  Neurofibromatosis?  Organic acidemias?  It's all there.  Click on "Reviews" for a full synopsis and "Testing" to figure out where you'll send a sample for molecular analysis.  Oh, but first you may wish to talk to your doctor :-)   

HAVE FUN!!!

Stock Pot Sunday

I am on call at work again for the next two weeks (boo!) and need to "beef" up (sorry, that was really lame) my available food leftover options in case things get crazy.  Last time I was on call I did not do this kind of prep, and as a result each evening I was scratching my head trying to figure out what I could make to eat.  So right now I am whipping up two stock pot meals that should provide us with ample leftovers.

The first, "Wendy's Chili,"' is a recipe I got from Top Secret Recipes, a site that attempts to emulate popular restaurant entrees.  I've been making this for years and it's really good!  This one recipe gives you a LOT of chili, so use a big stock pot.  We usually have so much leftover that I freeze some for later.  It's a good recipe for a weekend day because it simmers for about 3 hours.

The second pot on our stove contains a Beef Barley Stew that is from our Taste of Home cookbook.  I used low salt beef broth and we just added a bit more salt to kick up the flavor a bit.

All this good food, and I may be too frazzled to enjoy it! Oh the sadness!