Day 301: Parallel Lives

Today was pretty typical of Saturday's, Eric worked at 9:30 and I got up at the same time to get on my day's work. I was your typical ADD housewife, switching between cleaning, blogging, dancing, and relaxing every few minutes. I was incredibly productive in getting the house ready for our family's pre-Easter next week. Then in the evening I went to a classmate's house to work on a project. While there, a kid stopped by doing school fundraising. He said, and I am quoting directly "this card is $10 and good for 5 free medium pizzas from Wheat State Pizza, more than a $50 value!"  I literally ran to my car, got the money and paid the boy for one of the cards.

Before I left my classmates house, I called to order a pizza to bring home to Eric when I actually read what was printed on the card... "With the purchase of a large or extra large pizza at regular price, get a free medium pizza!"  Yes, the "regular price" was underlined.  This kid scammed me into a BOGO that I would never have bought knowingly - when do Eric and I buy pizza?  Never.  Lame lame lame.

As for Eric's day - he woke up with me in the morning and headed out to work straight away.  It was a hard day at work because one of their new hires decided to quit by just not showing up, so they were short handed.  He ended up working an hour late, booo.  But then he got to hang around the house and play while I was out doing school work.

We finally got to have some dinner, watch some Scrubs and That 70's Show, and spend an hour or two together after I got home.  Woo!

Addy is the naturally occurring gargoyle in our house.

Day 300: Follies and Our 300th Day Married!

Wow, 300 days of blogging, awesome!

Tonight was the Lawrence School Foundation's Annual Follies. Acts from various schools in the district performed fun, talented, and political shows. Prairie Park did an dance that falls into all of those categories. Our music teacher began a solo act which we interrupted with a flash mob and modern dance routine demonstrating the public schools as being a broken machine.

The purpose of the Follies is to raise money for teacher innovation grants, and they do that through sponsorships and tickets to the show. Seats included Biggs Barbecue and free wine and beer, hooray! A coworker and I each had 3.5 beers before going on stage and I only missed my mark once in the dance!

Eric got off work just before intermission, and the door people let him in for free because the show was half over. So he got to join me in the free drinks and second act. We had a really good time, good enough that Eric drove me home and we left my car at the public library!

Jen & I have buddied up this year, Follies was a good chance for us to hang out!

Prairie Park's Machine Act

Prime Numbers Act

Hallelujah Act

It's My Life Act

Day 299: Adult Swim and Putting

After I got out of school today I volunteered at a disability resources community expo, and then had a dress rehearsal for the Lawrence Schools Foundation Follies at Liberty Hall.  This meant that after a full day at school I volunteered from 4-6, and had the rehearsal at 8:15.  I didn't want to waste the gas on going home, just to have to come back to Lawrence, so I decided to walk around on Mass Street.  There was some music coming from 9th street, and when I went to explore what was going on I was greeted with a giant "Carl" from Aqua Teen Hunger Force!

It turns out there was an Adult Swim Block Party - live music, free t-shirts, free 5-hour energy, free claw and plinko games, and sponsor people handing out even more free stuff.  The party was rained out - so I got some 3 Spoons Frozen Yogurt and watched other acts rehearse at Liberty Hall until it was my groups turn.

When Eric got home from class he rushed back out to his car for a "surprise", and came back inside with his dad's golf clubs.  We rummaged through the bag and each got a putter, got two cups from the cabinets, and dumped out a whole bag of golf balls.  We spent the next hour putting at each other (we each had a cup near us for the other person to putt into).  I perfected a move that I call "The Reload" where I hit the door frame and the ball bounces back to me to try again!

I got an Aqua Teen Hunger Force t-shirt for Eric, two Squidbillies drink koozies, a prize ribbon, and a water bottle.  Nothing too exciting, but it was all free!

Addy is initially not terribly amused that we are golfing - she gets much more interested when the balls start rolling around the house!

 You putt balls at me?  Yay, balls!

I made one into the green cup!  And Eric landed tons of shots!

Day 298: Grilling Out!

We've been torn on whether to open the grill that we got for the wedding for awhile now.  We know that grills aren't allowed, but 4/5 porches in our apartment complex have one out in plain sight.  We finally came to the conclusion that we would use ours, but keep it stored in the storage closet when not in use.

Tonight we grilled dry rubbed buffalo chicken legs and veggie kabobs.  The kabobs had red baby potatoes, red peppers, garlic, onion, and zucchini.  The garlic ended up being too strong for me to eat straight, but it added a lot of flavor to its neighboring veggies.  Eric was a man about it and ate all of his garlic cloves.  We also watched Predators which was better than I imagined it would be.  Eric's favorite part was when the predator pulled out the inmate's spine - yuck yuck yuck!  I liked the twist with the doctor being a bad guy.

I also got my flip video camera, case, and tripod from Best Buy today, funded from some awesome people at DonorsChoose.org.  I'm really excited about using it!

The sun is in our eyes, but everything else was great!

Eric making the fire - burn, baby, burn!

Mystic escaped more than a dozen times while we were going in and out of the house.

So good!!!

Day 297: Swinging in our Hammock!

I worked late today and got out of work about the same time as Eric.  So I met him at Checkers and we did a little bit of shopping (yesterday was bare necessities because the Eudora grocery store is so much more expensive).  Then we drove out to North Lawrence to pick up our hammock stand from UPS.  They tried delivering it today, but we were both at work.

After a stop to pick up my car and a home visit to one of my students, we were home and set up the ENORMOUS hammock stand.  It is 15 feet long and definitely does NOT fit on our porch.  We had it on the porch for 30 minutes or so before bringing it inside - it stretches from the far end of the porch to beyond our front door - oops!  Then we set it up in the office, where it stretches from the far corner of the room INTO our closet.  For now it will live there, I can play Dr. Mario on the Wii while swinging in the room filling hammock!

Perfect!

It takes up all of the porch...and then some!  But it's nice to lay in!

She doesn't appear amused, but Mystic really liked laying with Eric.

It has since been adjusted so I can see the TV without practically falling out.

Addy is also very interested in the hammock, though it took her many tries to gain the courage to jump on.

Panoramic view of it in our office, haha!

Day 296: Naps

Phew, I came straight home from work today for a nap.  Then when I woke up at 7:30pm, I found that Eric had done the same and I didn't even wake up when he got home.  It was a little scary when I first woke up because I felt well rested and the light was dim outside - so I didn't know whether it was night or morning!  My allergies have been crazy bad over the past few days, and a nap helped me ignore the itchy ears, nose, and throat for a few hours.  Eric was just exhausted from waking up early for a morning shift.

After we woke up, we went on a walk to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner and then came home and watched "Hot Tub Time Machine" on Netflix.  It was a pretty good movie, we both enjoyed it. 

It's nice living in a town where we can walk to get everything we want!

Day 295: Granny's 99th Birthday Dinner

We started today by putting out the garage sale, only selling $7 worth of stuff in the first two hours, and packing it all up to send to Goodwill and Half Price Books - all before 10am!  Then we packed up our stuff and joined Paul and Deb on a trip to Warrenton to celebrate Granny's 99th birthday.  She will be 99 on Tuesday, the 99th anniversary of the Titanic sinking.

The drive was uneventful - lots of sleeping and we stopped for one letterbox on the Mizzou campus, which Eric and I survived.  How can you compare the awesome Jayhawk letterboxes of Lawrence to Columbia being proud of creating Mules?  Ha!

Granny seemed to be doing alright today - she recognized Paul, Deb, and Eric and thought I was Shannon.  She wasn't quite sure how old she was, varying from 89-95.  Then after we got home from dinner she didn't know where we were, but then determined we were home because she recognized the house across the street.    she kept telling Grandpa Ken to take his hat off because "he didn't look like himself", and was content when he followed her directions.

Then we had to drive another 3 hours back to Olathe, and 40 minutes home to Eudora.  I was pretty worried about the cats because Eric didn't have his house key on him yesterday when he came out for work, so he couldn't give them food or water.  They hadn't had either since Friday night.  We made sure to give them lots of love (along with the food and water) and they are both doing fine.

Har-har, Mizzou's most impressive attraction is homemade mules!  

Everyone out to dinner for Granny's birthday - Granny, Tony, Paul, Deb, Eric, Me, Ken, Karen, Kira, Matthew, Cullen, Madison, Kyle, Loreen, Brenda, Donna, Tootsie, Sugar, Joanie Lynn, and Mae.

Us with Granny.

Denny's is currently hosting "Baconalia!"  Eric had bacon pancakes for dinner and really wanted the maple bacon sundae for dessert.

Stopped to find a letterbox on the way home.

Eric replanting the letterbox.