Snow, Cherry Trees and Aircraft Carriers

It snowed this morning. Tomorrow is the first of May! That's crazy. It was freezing out too. Thankfully it didn't snow for very long and it didn't stick to the nice green grass, but it's still pretty chilly. I think tomorrow it might be warmer. In the 50s anyway. I hope it gets a lot warmer by Saturday, we have tickets to a Pawtucket Red Sox game! (They're coming to Syracuse.)


This is a picture of the cherry tree in my front yard. Everything is in bloom and very confused! I don't think it was in bloom this early last year... The lawn needs mowing again too. I hope it warms up!

And this is what I've been doing for the last 3 nights. Watching this great documentary on PBS. "Carrier" is a 10-hour, 5 day event. I'm hooked. My dad served on 2 aircraft carriers in his Naval career (the USS Intrepid and the USS Kennedy), so I was very curious about what life was like on an aircraft carrier. This documentary was filmed aboard the USS Nimitz during a 6-month period in 2005. They served in the Persian Gulf and gave air support (ie: bombs) to the ground troops in Iraq. It's quite an eye-opening film and I recommend it to all. It's on for 2 more nights. And I hear it might be re-run in July.

Decorating with Toilet Paper.

This is my little downstairs bathroom. As you can see there is no storage. I have had a few (well, one in particular...) complaints about the lack of toilet paper in this bathroom. For instance, if you're in the middle of your business and you run out, what do you do? I would probably use a few tissues. But I was told (by someone...) that tissues are more expensive and they prefer to use toilet paper. I took the hint. I found a neat little basket at the Christmas Tree Shop ($2.99!) and I bought it for the sole purpose of holding toilet paper. As soon as I got it all set up and thought it actually looked nice, my 11 year old son made fun of me for turning toilet paper into a decoration. I can't win! I'm leaving it though. Just in case my dad visits again soon and needs a re-fill...

Club Wedd

I have to begin this post with a special thank you to Amy. A month or so ago, she mentioned in her Blog that she received an offer from Target. The offer stated that if she filled out a wedding registry, she would get a $20 gift certificate. Only problem was, she's not getting married. She wrestled with the idea of just making one up and getting the free $20, but all her friends talked her out of it. I went as far as suggesting she send me the offer, since I was getting married. I was only kidding (partly), and a week later, it was in my mailbox! So Eric and I had fun (ok, mostly I had fun) putting together a registry at Target.com. It was actually more difficult than fun. We both have houses chock full of stuff. We really don't need anything! Thankfully you only had to have 10 items on the registry in order to qualify for the gift certificate. I think I managed to find 14.

A week or so passed and I sort of forgot about getting the $20 gift certificate. I knew it expired in the middle of May, so I had time. In the meantime, we received a packet of things from Target's Club Wedd in the mail. There was a fun file folder just full of nifty things. My favorite was the book of coupons, some of which were free items. There were checklists, shopping lists, post it notes, etc. None of which we really need or will probably use. Well, the coupons will be used, but probably not the other things. It really looked like a neat packet of items. I highly recommend anyone getting married to register at Target.

Today, Alex and I went to get the $20 gift certificate. All you have to do is print out the registry and present it to guest services and you get your gift card. (You have to present the offer as well.) We found our "registry", printed it out and took it to the service desk. There was a young kid working there. I handed him the offer. He didn't ask to see the registry at all and within 30 seconds just handed me a $20 gift card. I felt like he really didn't think I was getting married and that I was just trying to get free money. I almost felt guilty! But I wasn't guilty. He just gave me that look. It annoyed me. But I got the $20, so I guess I shouldn't care what a 16 year old kid thought.

Alex had a nice idea about what to do with the $20 gift card. He thought that we should split it between the 4 of us. So that's what we did. He bought 2 packs of Yu-Gi-Oh cards with his $5 and I bought a "fancy" Chicken Caesar frozen Pizza with my $5. I'll give Eric the card with the remaining $10 so that he and Kelsey can each get a little something for themselves.

Thanks, Amy!

Then and now.

This is a photo of my backyard when I moved in. When I bought the place, there was a good 2' of snow on the ground, so I really had no idea what was back there. After the snow melted, we discovered it was quite a pit. I had little to no (closer to 'no') experience in gardening and yard work. So little by little I cleaned and planted grass and somehow along the way (it's been 3 years) a backyard started shaping up. Then I got a dog and she killed the grass and made it pit-like again.

April 2005.

April 2008.

Here it is as of yesterday morning. Before the rains came and flooded it and made it all muddy. I think the grass seed floated away too. If I was staying any longer, I would lose the chain-link fence and put in a nice wooden fence. It's mostly all wood around it anyway, just part of one side and the back. It's the chain-link removal that would be the pain. But it will be someone else's pain, not mine! The grass is coming along (I helped it a little tiny bit with photoshop...) It's in the shade most of the day, so it's hard to grow. But now that I am not allowing the dog back there, it might have a chance.

Yard work.

I've been spending my evenings this past week attempting to clean and fix up my backyard. Jenny really destroyed it over the winter. Well, maybe I shouldn't have let her run free... and maybe I should have been better about cleaning up after her too. Whatever it was, the yard was a disaster. I'm attempting to re-grow grass and I've finally finished laying down bark mulch. I used 12 bags. I re-laid the brick borders around the garden areas too. I've also been working on a small brick patio. I started at the end of last fall and didn't finish it. Tonight I tore it all apart trying to get it more level, but it's still a little off. I'll put a couple of chairs and some potted plants on it. I'm really just trying to pretty-up the place so it will be nice for re-sale.

So that's what I've been doing with my evenings after work. The weather has been so nice I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. Jenny has been enjoying the exercise too. Tonight she pulled another psycho-crazy thing when she saw a Beagle while we were out for a walk. But I just held her back and eventually the little beagle came over. They became best friends. His name was Toby. They sniffed each other and then peed in the same spot. I think they might be engaged now.

Runaway Dog

This evening I got to see what would happen when Jenny got off her leash while we were outside. She had been wildly (read: Cujo-like) barking and growling at a little chihuahua who was innocently having his nightly walk. Somehow her collar slipped over her head. As I looked down I saw that I was holding nothing but a leash attached to an empty collar and Jenny was off sprinting down the street. For a split second, I thought "Huh, she's gone. Oh, well!" Then just as quickly, I realized that was probably not a very nice thing to think and thought that I should probably run after her. As I was running, I yelled to Alex who was outside playing basketball in the driveway. He saw Jenny running away and went after her. Amazingly, he lunged after her, just barely missing her as he went face-first into the neighbors yard, just managing to scrape his knees on the side of the road. I think that his fall and the scream of frustration because he couldn't catch her, startled her. She immediately stopped, walked back to me and innocently looked up at me. I picked her up, Alex grabbed the leash and we brought her back inside. I wonder how many neighbors witnessed that bit of comedy.

Spring is here!

I haven't been very good about blogging since we got back from vacation. I think it might have something to do with the weather. It's been SO nice out! We're spending a lot of time outside. The weekend weather was the nicest in recent memory. It was wonderful. I spent most of Saturday cleaning out the backyard. I need to spruce things up on the outside a little to give it some more curb appeal. 

On Sunday, we went to Eric's mom's house for a wonderful turkey dinner. It was sooooo good! Eric's brother and niece's were there too. The photo above is Eric, Laura & Kelly looking at the ducks and boats on the river. I thought it was adorable and couldn't pass up taking a photo. What a beautiful day!! 

More Cleveland

I finally got the photos sorted from the trip, uploade and labeled. Click here to see them. Enjoy!

Cleveland Rocks!

Day 1:

We made it to the Rock n Roll City around 3pm on Sunday. Although the weather was cold and snow was in the air, we had a fantastic time on our first day. We checked in to our hotel and headed off for downtown Cleveland. We had tickets for the Cavaliers/Heat game. (Stub Hub is the best! $6.75 tickets!!) The facility was very easy to get to from the interstate. Quicken Loans Arena is right next to Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field) where the Indians play. You could literally go from one game to the other in just steps. And I believe people were doing just that as an Indians game was ending as we got there. We went inside the Arena about an hour before tip-off. We wandered around, got some hot dogs and found our seats in “Loudville”. (aka the nosebleed section). We were up pretty high, but we could see everything just fine. I was amazed at all the activity that went on during the game. As Alex said after the game “We went to a festival and a basketball game broke out.” Yeah, it was pretty much insane the whole game. There was loud music, videos on the big screens, giveaways, dancing, fireworks, cheering, contests, and an occasional dunk by LeBron James. Actually, I believe he only had one dunk yesterday. I think his game was a little off. The Cavs won, but it was low-scoring for an NBA game. (84-76) I’m surprised they could concentrate with all the hoopla that was going on around them! After the game was the highlight of Alex’s day. They allowed kids to go down on the court and shoot a free throw. He loved it! And most of the adults watching were secretly wishing they were still kids so they could do it too…

After the game, we drove around town a little bit. Cleveland was a nice city from what we could tell at night. We found the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, which was right next to Cleveland Browns Stadium and the Great Lakes Science Center. I took a few night photos and then we headed back to the hotel to watch the Red Sox/Yankees game on ESPN. (Sox won.)


Day 2:

Monday was our first full day in the Cleveland area. We got up early, went to “Crocker Park” for breakfast and some shopping. This is a very neat area of Westlake, where we stayed, with fun trendy shops and restaurants. Then we went into the city to the Great Lakes Science Center and spent a couple of hours there. It was a huge Science Center, 3 stories of hands-on science activities and an Omni theatre. Alex LOVED it there. He ran from one display to another. After the Science Center, we wandered over to Cleveland Browns Stadium. We were scheduled to go on a 2pm tour of the Stadium, but there was some confusion, so we weren’t able to go. They did give Alex a Browns Yearbook because they felt badly that he wasn’t able to go on a tour. (Apparently not bad enough to give us a tour though!!) We headed downtown after that disappointment, and found a great parking spot, centrally located to the rest of the days’ activities.

We found a really neat indoor downtown mall, called The Arcade. It was from the late 1800s. The architecture was beautiful. We took lots of pictures then walked to The Tower Center. It was another, more modern mall in the downtown area. We had some much needed lunch before we headed over to Progressive Field for the Sox/Indians game.

We arrived at the game around 5pm. (Game time was 7:05) They let people in, but were only allowed to stay in certain areas. Which was fine, we got to see Pappelbon warming up in the Sox bullpen. We saw the Sox on the field taking batting practice. Progressive Field is a great ballpark. They have a neat area called “Heritage Park”, which is a small “Hall of Fame” area for former Indians. We wandered through that before we were allowed to go to our seats.

At 6:00, they blew a whistle and the entire ballpark officially opens. We found our grandstand bleacher seats, and got comfy. To say it was cold would be an understatement. The winter coats, blanket, gloves, scarves we brought did little to warm us. We moved down to the ‘homerun deck’ after the 6th inning and were just a few feet from where the Youkilis homerun ball landed. We were determined to stay for the whole game even though the feeling in our feet and hands left somewhere around the 3rd inning. We were so glad we stayed, it ended up being an awesome game. Manny (who is not well-liked in Cleveland) managed a 2-run game winning homerun. A perfect end to the game.



Day 3:

We slept late on day 3. We were exhausted! We woke with ambitions to attend the 2nd Red Sox game that evening. However, later we opted to watch the 2nd game from the warmth and comfort of our hotel room. We got as close as discussing ticket prices at the ticket window at the park. There were still plenty of seats for the game. But we decided to forego another cold night at the ballpark.

We did however go back to the ballpark in the afternoon. We took a tour of Progressive Field, which was definitely a highlight of the trip. I’ve never done a ballpark tour and it was such a fun thing for us. There were mostly Sox fans on our tour, which was great. We got to sit in the press box, the dug outs, walk on the field (not the grass, just the dirt!), the bullpen and pretty much everything else at the park. As we were on the field, a few of the Sox were warming up. (No Indians were however…) We walked right by Terry Francona. I told him we were Sox fans (as if it wasn’t obvious by our Boston hats…) and then he smiled at me as I took his photo.

We went back to our hotel for some rest before dinner and then watched the game from the hotel. Which is what we’re doing now. We head back home tomorrow. I forgot to bring my USB cable to upload the hundreds (Yes, hundreds!) of photos. Hopefully I’ll get them up tomorrow evening. All in all, it's been a great trip! Cleveland has been fun and we've crammed more in the last 3 days than I thought possible.

The 20 Worst Foods in America

Ok. This is gross. I got sick to my stomach just reading this article. And the absolute "worst" food in America? I am guilty of eating. Granted, I shared it with others, but still, it's bad. Just read about these foods. It's eye-opening!

Oh and this is the worst food in America: The Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing. It has 2,900 calories and 182 grams of fat. But it's so good!!

Do you believe in Miracles?

I seem to be drawn to movies and/or books about the Olympics. I have no idea why. As I said in a recent post, 1980 was probably the first Olympic Games that I really remember vividly. And the U.S. Hockey team's Gold Medal win, and the fact that they also beat the Russians to get to the gold medal game, were huge memories for me.

Alex and I watched the movie "Miracle" a couple of nights ago. It was terrific. We were both on the edge of our seats even though we knew the outcome. If you remember anything about the 1980 Olympics or just heard about them, you should watch this movie. Even if you don't like hockey (which I don't) it's a great flick. Oh and I got it at the library... so it was free! Can't beat that.

Snow in the Forecast

It was a gorgeous sunny day today. And it was even warm. In the 60s! That's high for us in April. The ground is starting to dry up and the grass is beginning to turn green. This is a photo of the Erie Canal. I snapped this while I was stopped at a red light during my lunch break today. (Click on it to see it bigger.) You can see the grass just starting to turn green on the sides. The buds are also coming out on the trees. Spring is slowly getting here. Unfortunately, I see that snow is in the forecast for Sunday and Monday. Which sadly, is when we're going see a Red Sox game. I hope it doesn't get snowed out! That would be very disappointing. I'll try to think positive and hope for sun. 

It's a "Half" Day

Today is Alex's Half-Birthday. We discovered that yesterday over breakfast at Panera. So I decided to celebrate it today! I just finished making a half-cake with a half-candle and a half-dozen cupcakes. I was going to get him a half of a gift, but couldn't figure out what to get... (Oh and I have to thank Amy for the half-cake idea!)



Also, for dinner (which was Alex's choice) we're having a delicious Pan-seared Salmon with Vegetables & Citrus Soy Sauce. The recipe and photo is from the Winter '08 edition of Wegman's Menu magazine. Yum!

Finders Keepers

I was checking my bank account online this morning and noticed the balance was quite a bit higher than it should have been. And then I looked closer and saw that someone had deposited $3500 in my account yesterday. Sweet! I can think of a million things I could do with $3500! Pay for a wedding, go on a cruise, put a down payment on a house, go on a nice shopping spree, pay some bills... I could go on and on! However, I won't. I took a drive over to the bank this morning to point out the error. They were rather pleased with my honesty. I'm waiting for a phone call now. I'm not sure what is going on, but the money is still there... and it's tempting me. They better take it back soon. Carnival Cruiselines is calling my name, I think there's a Drink of the Day waiting for me...

Tasty Burgers

I discovered something new! Ok, it's not really new. But it's new to me. MorningStar Veggie Burgers.* I bought a box of four of them over the weekend and cooked up two last night. I fried it in a little bit of Olive Oil in a pan on the stove, added some onions to saute with it. Then once it was done, I topped it with a slice of white American cheese. I then cut it up and dipped it in Marie's Honey Mustard. Wow. It was delicious! I can't wait to cook up the other two burgers. Alex ate the other one and loved it as well. 

As I was searching their website, I noticed they have a lot more products and even some interesting recipes. I can't wait to go through them and find some new things to try. I remember trying some kind of Veggie Burger with my friend Maria years ago. They were ok, but for some reason, these seem better. I don't recall the brand of those. I think Vegetarian choices have come a long way! 

* This is in no way intended to mean that I've gone Vegetarian. I still love a good burger and some chicken. I'm just widening my horizons and trying to eat healthier too.

Unreal

Can you believe this? It's outrageous!  A-Rod could pay the entire Florida Marlins team salary and STILL have $6 million left over. I think that just says loud and clear that A-Rod makes far too much money. And what makes it really funny is that the Marlins won a World Series in 2003. The Yankees haven't won since 2000. Since they acquired A-Rod, they really haven't done squat. 

Open House

Alex had an Open House at school this evening. His class has been working very hard on some projects and they were all on display. Alex did his project on The Aztecs. Here is a photo of Alex with his project. You can click on the photo to see it larger. Very nice job! (Also, notice the t-shirt he is wearing, in honor of the 1st Red Sox game tonight in the US. Go Sox!)