Wednesday's Word

Bumptious / BUMP-shuhs / adjective
Crudely, presumptuously, or loudly self-assertive.

The clown in the girl is bumptious as can be: bouncing about in the peaked cap and oversized coat of a boy she hasn't learned to love yet, pacing in lockstep behind a fellow-lodger for the sheer love of badgering him, blowing out her cheeks like a fussed walrus when crossed.
-- Walter Kerr, Anne Frank Shouldn't Be Anne's Play, New York Times, January 7, 1979

Still a tremendous singer and a man so confident of his own sex appeal that he could make the most outrageously bumptious behaviour seem not only engaging but also entirely natural.
-- David Sinclair, "Larger than life and twice as rocky", Times (London), March 13, 2000

Wells did not meet his father until he was an adult, by which time he had developed his own blunt, sometimes bumptious personality.
-- George Vecsey, "An Outsider Who Became an Insider", New York Times, October 7, 1998

'Cause You've Gotta Have Friends

Our new "tenants" have been living here for about 2 1/2 weeks now. They are Mike, his wife, Becca, and their two sons, Andy (almost 4) and Johnny (5 months). Along with them also came their two pets, a beagle named Toby and a cat named Mercury. I was probably the most worried about the fact that two new animals were coming into our house. Simon has been an only pet since we got him and he has not had any good experiences with other animals.

Simon's new favorite activity is hanging out in the bathrooom sink.
He absolutely L-O-V-E-S when I turn the faucet on so that it's a slow steady steam. He sits there for a while and drinks it and plays with it. He is one happy little kitty!!

When everybody moved in, we just kind of let the animals do their own thing. We each picked up our cats and let them sniff at each other until they squirmed to get out of our arms. It was a few days before Simon began venturing downstairs to see what exactly Mercury was and what he was doing here. It only took a day or two of cautious sniffing and a couple bats at each other for Simon and Mercury to become best friends.

These two are inseperable now! Mercury is upstairs more than he is downstairs. (I think that part of that reason may be because I actually give him some affection.) Most of the time, Simon and Mercury are side by side. Or at least not far from each other.

I walked in on the two of them the other day and Simon was licking Mercury. At that point, I walked out to where everybody else was and said, "Great, now we're going to have to get another cat when you leave!" I am really happy though that Simon and Mercury have made friends. That was a true statement though. I have a strong feeling that when they move out and take Mercury with them that Simon will be lonely. It will then be only a matter of time before we adopt another family member.

Drew is lobbying for a dog. He's going to have to keep wishing for that one for a long time!!!

Coming Soon....

Last night, at our housewarming party, my sister kinda harped on me that I haven't been blogging very much lately.

I know I really haven't. This past week was very busy with trying to get the house into good enough shape to have a bunch of people over and show it off. In all honesty though, life hasn't been too exciting lately. I do have a few exciting things to blog about, so be on the lookout for those in the next couple days.

Confession: I've been sitting in bed since about 9 PM and I was going to do a few blog entries tonight. But Drew and I got caught up in looking at the Daughtry's gift registry for their daughter that is due in June. We spent about an hour looking through it and trying to decide what to order. They live in North Carolina, but Jen is coming into town this weekend for a baby shower. (I've never been to a baby shower so I super stoked.) The invitation suggested gift cards since she'd be traveling back home by plane. But after you open about 3 gift cards, it's not fun anymore. So.... we (I) ordered some stuff from their registry and had it shipped straight to them. I'm either going to print pictures from the registry, or go to the store and take pictures and wrap them up for her to open at the shower. Way more fun than a gift card!

Six Months

Half a year already!! I can't believe it. Where has the time gone? At the rate we're going, we'll be celebrating our golden anniversary the day after tomorrow.

Wednesday's Word

Invidious / in-VID-ee-uhs / adjective
1. Tending to provoke envy, resentment, or ill will.
2. Containing or implying a slight.
3. Envious

But to the human hordes of Amorites -- Semitic nomads wandering the mountains and deserts just beyond the pale of Sumer -- the tiered and clustered cities, strung out along the green banks of the meandering Euphrates like a giant's necklace of polished stone, seemed shining things, each surmounted by a wondrous temple and ziggurat dedicated to the city's god-protector, each city noted for some specialty -- all invidious reminders of what the nomads did not possess.
-- Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews

In his experience people were seldom happier for having learned what they were missing, and all Europe had done for his wife was encourage her natural inclination toward bitter and invidious comparison.
-- Richard Russo, Empire Falls

The lover's obsessiveness may also take the form of invidious comparisons between himself, or herself, and the rival.
-- Ethel S. Person, "Love Triangles", The Atlantic, February 1988

For five decades, Indian liberals, and some from Europe and America, have been shaming the Western world with its commercialism, making invidious comparisons with Indian spirituality.
-- Leland Hazard, "Strong Medicine for India", The Atlantic, December 1965

Calling All Decorators

I guess that this post is going to have a couple purposes. One, to ask for some suggestions and two, to serve as before pics. We have a HUGE dining room. And I have absolutely no idea how to decorate it.

I've seen lots of dining rooms where they used a burnt orange color and I really, really love it. The problem is that I don't think it will flow well with what I want to do with the kitchen. We seem to have a blue thing going in the kitchen with our dishes and towels, so I'd like to stick with that color. I also would like to tie in sunflowers, so yellows and maybe a few greens. But, at least some yellows. What do you think? Do you think that a burnt orange would work well with blues and yellows?

So, without further ado, here are the pictures. And by the way, the existing window treatments ARE NOT ours. They were left by the sellers. Suggestions would be appreciated for window treatments also. I would like to put in wood blinds along with some draperies.

I would love any suggestions. Either leave some love in the comments section or email me. Thank you so much!

Wednesday's Word

Outre / oo-TRAY / adjective
Unconventional; eccentric; bizarre.

This seven-year house of outre culture is the kind of place you can shop for a sculpture made out of working flamethrowers, videocassettes of underground movies, computer-generated art or a cute robot.
-- David Sturm, "Berlin's Green Man, Running for Life", Washington Post, June 14, 1998

The area is tamer than in its bohemian heyday, but the outre spirit survives.
-- Brian C. Mooney and Rosemary Lappin, "Galleries of the Gods", Boston Globe, August 25, 1996

McCarthy cast herself as the rule breaker, the outre intellectual woman who emerged from an eccentric and rebellious past.
-- Ann Hulbert, "Keeping Score", New York Times, October 26, 1997

Unless you head for Harajuku, the heart of hip, where being outre is a requirement. Harajuku is home to Raggedy Ann wannabes, Elvis impersonators and Japanese punks all turned out to attract attention.
-- Stephanie Strom, "Tokyo", New York Times, September 26, 1999

Fireproof

Drew and I sat down about a month and a half ago and watched this absolutely phenomenal movie. I have been wanting to blog about it since, just haven't gotten around to it.

At work, inside burning buildings, Capt, Caleb Holt lives by the old firefighter's adage: Never leave your partner behind. At home, in the cooling embers of his marriage, he lives by his own rules.

Growing up, Catherine Holt always dreamed of marrying a loving, brave firefighter... just like her daddy. Now, after seven years of marriage, Catherine wonders when she stopped being "good enough" for her husband.

Regular arguments over jobs, finances, housework, and outside interests have readied them both to move on to something with more sparks.

As the couple prepares to enter divorce proceedings, Caleb's father challenges his son to commit to a 40-day experiment: "The Love Dare". Wondering if it's even worth the effort, Caleb agrees - for his father's sake more than for his marriage. When Caleb discovers the book's daily challenges are tied into his parents' new found faith, his already limited interest is further dampened.

While trying to stay true to his promise, Caleb becomes frustrated time and again. He finally asks his father, "How am I supposed to show love to somebody who constantly rejects me?"

When his father explains that this is the love Christ shows to us, Caleb makes a life-changing commitment to love God. And with God's help, he begins to understand what it means to truly love his wife.

But is it too late to fireproof his marriage? His job is to rescue other. Now Caleb Holt is ready to face his toughest job ever... rescuing his wife's heart.

Fireproof is the third feature film from Sherwood Pictures, the moviemaking ministry from Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.

An interesting fact about the movie is the kiss that occurs. Kirk Cameron is married in real life, and is committed to keeping his marriage sacred. The woman during the kiss is actually Kirk's real-life wife in the same outfit as his on-screen wife and a wig. Awesome!!!

I highly recommend this movie to everyone. Have you seen this movie yet? Thoughts on it?

My Second Baseball Game

Today, we had our second game. We woke up about 10:30 and began to shower and get ready. We made it out of the hotel by about 11:45 and began the search for some lunch. While we were driving around, Drew remembered that there was a Rock Bottom Brewery in Milwaukee, so we searched for that. We found it and had a fantastic lunch.


Our waiter was super cool. He was a Brewers fan, so all of us in our Cubs gear had a great time taking some jabs at him. At the end of lunch, he brought us out a dessert that had "Go Brewers" written in chocolate on the rim of the plate. We forgave him for making a bad team choice and ate the fantastic dessert anyways.


After lunch, Drew really, really wanted to go to Potawatomi. We all gave in, but only under some conditions. We could only take $50 in. Once we lost it, we were done. But as soon as we doubled up, we'd leave. Drew sat down at a blackjack table (his game of choice at the casino) and played with $80. After a half an hour, we walked away from the table with $380!! I was a happy camper!!!


After we left the casino, we drove around for a little bit before we headed to the park to tailgate again. Tailgating was absolutely horrible. It was very windy and very cold. We didn't tailgate for too long before we headed inside. We were able to catch a little bit of the Cubs' batting practice.

The group of us had to take a picture together. (We're missing Chris and Jen.) We stopped at Autograph Alley.Yes, I'm short! I'm very short!!

This game was the Sunday night baseball game, so we were on ESPN. And it was such a great game!! The first pitch, Soriano knocked it out of the park. It was such a great way to start the game. The rest of the game was pretty great, but I'm not going to put it all here, because frankly, I don't remember it all.

The Cubs did win again, with a score of 8-5. Go Cubbies!!!

Honestly, I had no idea that I would have had so much this weekend. I was not stoked about going to the games. I was totally excited to hang out with our friends, but not about the games. I really had a great time though. Dare I say that I'd love to go to another game.

My First Baseball Game

This weekend, Drew and I went to Milwaukee for the Cubs/Brewers games. I've been to Miller Park before, but that was when I was a sophomore in high school, so it's been a lot of years. Plus, if you could have negative interest in baseball, that's what I had. But, here's the beautiful Miller Park.
The only reason I agreed to actually go to the games this weekend is because Miller Park is a closed stadium. We got to Milwaukee about 4:30 and started tailgating.

Yeah, I was cold, but what's new! It was my first time tailgating and it was definitely an experience. The game started at 6:05, so we headed inside about 5:30. We got to our seats just in time for the National Anthem.

Four of us couples went. You'll recognize Adam and Nicole from the wedding. Also in our group were Josh and Heidi, the work with Drew and Adam, and Chris and Jen.

Aren't we cute? Go Cubs!!

CUBS WIN!!!!!!!

Cubs won 6-5. The Brewers fans were not so happy with that! I have never been to a sporting event like this, so I had no idea what to expect. But I definitely didn't expect people to come up to us and be so in our face. They would walk up to us and start shouting and cussing and flipping us off. C'mon!!! How old are we? It's a freaking game people!!! I always tell Drew when he's playing poker that there always has to be a loser. This time it was the Brewers. Too bad! After the game, we headed to the Ambassador Hotel.

During our time together, I've learned a couple of things that I just can't leave up to Drew to do. I first learned that he can't be in charge of buying gifts for a baby shower. Then, I learned that he can't be in charge of buying gifts in general. Now, I've learned that he can't be put in charge of picking a hotel. He picked the Ambassador Hotel because it was close to the park and it's a 5 star hotel. According to Drew, that means it was a sure bet. Wrong!!!!

Yes, the hotel was close to the park, and yes it was nice. Nice also translates to snotty. We got checked in and then decided to come back outside and fire up the grill and warm up the stuff that we had left over from tailgating and the general manager came out and told us quite rudely that we couldn't be grilling. Luckily, we had other couples with us or I would have told him another thing about us grilling. I just paid that jack-bag $140 to stay in their hotel for one damn night, and if I want to grill some food, I'm gonna do it. Lucky for him I'm non-confrontational.

But, the rooms were pretty nice.

Can I just say how much I am in love with that black tile? Oh so gorgeous!!

The other couples hung out in the hotel bar for a while. Drew and I came upstairs relatively early (like midnight) and got ready for bed. Adam and Nicole came up not to long afterwards. I fell asleep rather quickly, but everybody else stayed up for a while.

10 Signs You've Got the Postwedding Blues

So you get married and a funny thing happens - you suddenly have tons of time on your hands! All those hours you spent planning the perfect wedding have become big holes in your calendar. Admit it: You kind of miss stressing out over which flowers to use in your centerpieces and googling the best hairstyles to wear with a veil (ahem, while at work). Hey, it's okay to be a little bummed now that the big day has passed, but here's how to tell if you've gone totally over the edge.

1. You decide to turn your veil into a pretty lace curtain (and then secretly stand under it and recite your wedding vows when you think no one could possibly be watching).

2. You answer questions with "I do" instead of "yes" - which is driving your friends, family, and coworkers up the wall (and it's why nobody's in a hurry to return your calls).

3. Your new favorite hobby is watching the raw footage of your wedding video on repeat while chowing down on a slice of stale cake.

4. You'll no longer leave the house without something old, new, borrowed, and blue.

5. You host a dinner party re-creating the food at your reception, giving the option of chicken, fish, or steak.

6. You're planning the weddings of everyone you know who's had a significant other for more than a month. Okay, a week.

7. You now call all of your vacations "honeymoons", including when you're just going home to see your parents for a few days.

8. You order your signature cocktail when out at your favorite bar - never mind that the "Lovetini" isn't exactly on the menu.

9. You buy the chic paper lanterns you see at a flea market because they would've been just perfect for your cocktail hour.

10. You invite your married girlfriends over for a "wear your wedding dress" party and play all the music from your reception.

I got this article from The Nest.

Wednesday's Word

Chimerical / ky-MER-ih-kuhl / adjective
1. Merely imaginary; produced by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; fantastic; improbable or unrealistic.
2. Given to or indulging in unrealistic fantasies or fantastic schemes.

But those risks are real, not chimerical.
-- George J. Church, "Mission of Mercy", Time, April 29, 1991

It prophesies war in the service of a peace which can never arrive because the vision it pursues is chimerical.
-- Hywel Williams, "The danger of liberal imperialism", The Guardian, October 4, 2001

In the chimerical atmosphere of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, it is far from clear where fact ends and fiction begins--or vice versa.
-- Margaret Wertheim, "The Museum of Jurassic Technology", Omni, November 1, 1994

Her name is Dulcinea; her country El Toboso, a village in La Mancha; her degree at least that of Princess, for she is my Queen and mistress; her beauty superhuman, for in her are realized all the impossible and chimerical attributes of beauty which poets give to their ladies.
-- Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

Housewarming Party

Drew and I mailed out our new address cards and housewarming party invites earlier this week. Our housewarming party is on Saturday, April 25 at 4 pm.


That day also just so happens to be our 6 month anniversary. I think it's pretty cool that I totally inadvertantly scheduled the party for that day. How awesome that we can celebrate being married for half a year with our friends and family!! Maybe, if I'm feeling froggy, I'll put my wedding dress on!


Ok, I'm totally kidding because that would be awkward.

Grrrrr.....

I've been trying since Monday to post an update on my 1001 Day Project. For some reason, I can't copy and paste the list. Who knows what's wrong. I'm leaning towards the fact that I * stupidly * decided to go ahead and upgrade to the IE8 right when it told me I should rather than waiting for a little bit for all the bugs to get worked out. ::bangs head against keyboard::

I really don't feel like typing the whole list out right now. Maybe later this weekend. Or, I'll probably just skip an April update and give you a May update. That actually sounds like quite a good plan to me.

Wednesday's Word

Jape / JAYP / noun, verb
1. A joke or jest.
2. A trick or prank.
3. To joke; to jest.
4. To make fun of; to mock.

One elderly Englishman, complete with tweed suit and cane, japed to a passport control officer: "We're not all hooligans you know."
-- Mike Underwood, "Into the fire", Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), October 13, 2003

He tried to defuse each petty crisis with a merry jape and spend each day with a life-affirming and reasonably up tempo alt. country song in his heart.
-- Chris Priestley, "Payne's grey", New Statesman, November 29, 2004

The shot was more of a jape than an assassination attempt, and was rightly treated as a laugh by the press and by the Prime Minister, who carried on as if nothing had happened.
-- Nick Cohen, "Daddy will stop at nothing to see you", New Statesman, November 15, 2004