Saturday Afternoon...

Greeings! um...Greetings!
alas, i pushed my poor camera battery to its limits, and it pooped out on me :) not to worry, i have lashed it to a power strip, where it is dutifully recharging.

So, I took a walk-run today (40 min walking, 10 running...but it was the last 10, so i came home feeling pretty good about myself :) here are some things i saw/observations:

1. a million painted ladies fluttering around on (thank you google) 'butterfly bushes' bordering a park. (at least i'm calling them painted ladies, as that is the only butterfly name besides 'monarch' that i've committed to memory. and they weren't monarchs.) so pretty!

2. it is slightly awkward to walk into a new, densely-populated park for the first time. there were wedding parties, birthday parties, so, sooooo many children clambering around jungle jims...haha, i mean gyms...and (my favorite!) the three-story metal rocket!! this park even has a 'kansas wildlife' cage (great horned owl, vulture, a few turtles--two of which were mating, verrry slooowly ;) anyway, there were so many families and so much running around i felt totally out of place. it was a bit overwhelming. best part is, i got to see the medieval fighting group in action! i had heard that they met in a park somewhere in riverside, but had yet to observe. they divided into two lines that stood across from each other, yelled viciously, ran towards the center, and...kind of stopped. i thought the battle was over before it began, but i guess they were just being cautious. after a couple minutes, they started hitting each other though, whew.

3. a memorial in another, much smaller park for murdered children and other homicide victims :(

4. some nice commercial brick buildings just a block away for rent (coffee roastery hm?!?!?) one of them used to house the 'riverside cup of tea' which i guess existed for twelve years, before closing permanently in january. we just missed it. :(

5. i think i can recognize the scent of sycamore! because i was strolling along and realized that it smelled like my grandparent's yard, and then i looked up and right overhead was a giant sycamore! (once upon a time there was a cute furry little bat clinging to the side of my grandparents' tree! i love bats!)

6. this neighborhood rocks!

Chasing the Blues

So, earlier this week I received two emails and a phone call from an up-scale grocery company moving into Wichita. Among the jobs listed was a position for "Coffee and Candy Specialist." Wow, I thought! They've contacted me three times, they must Really want me to apply, and this sounds like something which, if not my dream job, is certainly on the way to it! So I applied, and...they chose someone else. And didn't even give a reason (last night I dreamt I missed a page in their letter and they gave me several good, face-saving reasons. but the reality is that they didn't.) I was going to email them back and ask for a reason, just to know what I could do differently in the future, what kind of experience they'd like, etc, but the email was a "no-response" deal, and...that's that, I suppose. Was really bummed out. Still kind of am.
However, last night, Daniel introduced me to the comedy of Eddie Izzard, which induced alot of laughter. In case you, too, are having a less-than-stellar week, please feel free to use these to lighten your mood :) Warning: they contain cussing, possibly alot. But...pretty funny anyway. The two clips are "Covered in Bees" and "Evil Giraffe." (If the links don't work for any reason, just look up "Eddie Izzard Covered in Bees" and "Eddie Izzard Evil Giraffe" on YouTube.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-tl6GBOBo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYcnEonB04E

Approaching: Tornadic Activity

Happy Saturday! Well, so far the weather is just very blustery...hopefully it will stay that way and not go crrrazy! ah, okay. just checked the forecast. false alarm. mere "severe thunderstorms" may be on the way. no mention of tornadoes, whew!
also, Daniel is heading up to Lawrence, KS for a SIX HOUR mountain bike race tomorrow. so if you all think about it, pray for safe travels and that it doesn't rain too badly up there so that he can have a fun, grueling race!
Also this weekend, we get to meet our first niece! Pete and Laura are here visiting all the way from abu dhabi with baby Claire, hooray!! Babies! :) which also means i need to quit writing soon and start cleaning cleaning cleaning our house, since we may have visitors :)

But first, today's pictures:
1. Daniel's (left) and Austin's (right) favorite easter eggs from the other day. I was about to peel them for deviled eggs, but had a guilty thought that they should probably be captured visually before being lost to history

2, 3. More embroidery! The coffee grinder is a pattern from the wildolive blog, the same one that had the easter eggs. only her dimensions were better. my "cube" is...a little off.

4. We have two wonderful rose bushes at our place! one at the front door, and one at the back. They are starting to bloom!!

5. And most importantly, some sweet mourning dove with excellent taste in decorating chose to build a nest in the rose bush at the back! unfortunately, while she chose a very picturesque location, there will probably be too much human activity around that area for her taste :( but we shall do our best to protect those babies!! (just eggs, so far. will be watching, though!)

mouth-watering!

Just found out about a chocolatier in Atlanta from an article in Town and Country (I receive this magazine thanks to my Nana! :) Here is a quote (the article was written by Alexandra Marshall): "Although most American producers buy ready-made slabs of chocolate, which they then mix and mold, [Kristen] Hard is one of the few chocolatiers who start with beans that she personally procures, and then roasts, grinds, tempers, and molds." I love the idea (obviously!) of buying coffee directly from farmers, roasting it, and then either selling it as whole bean coffee or brewing it for customers...i'm pretty sure that same general process translated to the chocolate industry would be alot harder, though! not necessarily the buying/roasting/grinding...but everything that comes afterwards! i just want to grind my product and pour hot water over it :) which isn't to say i wouldn't be interested in watching the chocolate process, too, i'm just fairly in awe of what this lady does! oh yes, the shop is called Cacao Atlanta and you can see/order their products online at cacaoatlanta.com. one of these days, i WILL spend 13.00 on a chocolate bar. just not today :(

Sauerkraut!

Good evening! Tomorrow is so wonderfully Friday. Guess what I did for an hour yesterday? Unsubscribe from email lists. (not ones i've been receiving, thankfully!) it should have taken 15 minutes, but the computer at work was mind-numbingly slow!!! so that was, doing the math, 45 minutes of waiting for web pages to load. *OWOWOWOW!*

just want to say, i am excited for Easter! especially going to Tulsa to watch Bobby's baptism! but also for cute chicks and bunnies...and the easter egg/basket hunt i'm making Daniel go on tonight, muhahaha! (it's just around the house, no biggie...)

thanks to Christi for sending me a link to a lovely blog post explaining how to embroider happy easter eggs! they were WAY more fun (read: faster/easier) than the gigantic (ooh, i made up a word earlier today! gi-mammoth!) pillowcase project.

for dinner tonight, sauerkraut and german mustard on organic ball-park style hotdogs and buns! whooooo!

Sauerkraut
Is mad about
The sneers that steer his way.
"What so offends,
Most cruel friends?"
"We really cannot say...
Your odor or
That hat you wore
To tea the other day?
We'd guess it's this
For which we wish
You'd go away, and stay."
"My only hat
Got flattened at
The bar a year past...hey!
You knew this! Well!
You think I smell?!
I feel...so...betrayed..."

A Few Comments...

1. Go Hunger Games! :)

2. I hope you all remembered to make pancakes with rags in them for your loved ones...since it's april fools!! (that's our family tradition :) although today we did rags-in-oatmeal, since we'd had pancakes yesterday and didn't want to overkill it) salt in apple juice is another classic :)

3. i invented the best dessert last week: thin chocolate wafer cookies sandwiching Braums' maple-walnut ice cream. Incr-edible! if you want to try this, let me know and i'll post the chocolate cookie recipe. but you can use any crispy chocolate cookie recipe...

4. i 'mountain' biked...boke?...for 10 miles today!! on a nice trail with very very few rocks. and was two minutes away from being lapped by daniel, who was wonderful and rode with me...oh-so-slowly...for the first lap so i could get used to it. felt good to get out in the sun!! whoo!!!!!!!!!!

alright, i hope you have all had a wonderful weekend, and are ready for the next work week, eh... :)