A case of the Mondays...

Beep beep, beep beep, beep beep....the sound of the alarm going off at... 5:00am! Now, this in and of itself is a very normal occurence around our house, since Drew is supposed to be at work by 5:45/6:00 ish. However, yesterday it meant that I would be getting up as well. You see, just the night before, we had discussed a new beginning for Drew: taking his lunch to work. In order to ease the transition for him, I offered to get up and make his lunch for him.

I groggily pulled myself out of bed, and put together a delicious meal for my husband (with cherry yogurt-his fave-and freshly made christmas cookies as well). I handed it to him as he walked towards the door, gave him a kiss and crawled back into bed. Not too bad for having to get up so early, except...

Fast forward to 7:40...beep, beep, beep beep, beep beep...the sound of the alarm going off again. In my tired stupor (I had been up just a couple hours prior), I hit the off button... Fast forward again, this time to 8:20, and you would see me sitting up in my bed panicked because I have overslept!!

I leapt out of bed, quickly showered, apologized to Annabelle for her lack of morning playtime, and ran towards the door... only to find Drew's lunch sitting on the ironing board. That's right, I got up, put the lunch together, and he left it sittting at home... TOTAL frustration!!! Luckily, since I was running late, I was able to take his lunch as mine.

I got in the car with 7 minutes before I was supposed to be at work (it is about a 15 minute drive), go to put the key into the ignition, and IT WON'T GO IN!!! Now, I have experienced a locked steering wheel, and other pesky car issues, but the key would not even barely go in, not at all...either the key slot had shrunk, or my key had expanded. I ran inside to get the spare...NOTHING. I tried everything, jiggling the steering wheel, jamming the key in (that tactice worried me a little, so I only made one attempt), messing with the gears, locking and unlocking the car to reset the alarm...NOTHING. After about 10 minutes of pure frustration (and pure crankiness at this point...I hadn't had my coffee yet), I went inside to call work and let them know I was running late. I put on a pot of coffee (if anything was going to happen, this was a necessity), and called my mom-she is the best in these types of situations. She informs me that this particular issue has never troubled her, and I should relax a few minutes and try again.

Well, I decide to take my fresh cup of coffee and go to my trusty friend google. I soon discovered through a quick search that all I needed to do is bang on the underside of the steering column with the heel of my hand with a few swift hits to realign the steering column mechanisms. It seemed a little too simple, but I went out to try it. ABRACADABRA! My car was fixed. I was now on my way, just a mere 45 minutes late. Only, I had forgotten my last box of Christmas presents to be mailed to Nashville, meaning that it definitely would NOT be getting there by Christmas. UGH.

The rest of the day at work went by pretty smoothly (thankfully), but upon return home, then Mondays continued. As seen in my husband's previous post, we had the Great Fire of '08, and then an argument about nothing. It was probably brought on by the fact that we haven't seen each other much in the past few weeks (since Drew has had to work so much), and there isn't really a lot we can do about it...which leads to a lot of pent-up frustration from me on top of pure exhaustion from Drew...the whole fire issue didn't really help all of that.

Luckily, the kitchen was cleaned up without any residual damage (minus a wok that has a lot of soot and gook left on it still), and Drew has a day off on Christmas (his first since the 7th). In the meantime, we will just keep taking it one day at a time, and hopefully will avoid future cases of the "Mondays."

The Great Fire of '08

Good evening boys and girls. Today we're going to learn about something we all enjoy. However, it's something that can be dangerous, so it's important that you all know how to do it correctly. So what is this thing of which I'm speaking? Why, it's STIR-FRY of course!
So, the first thing you have to know about stir-fry is that you need to read ALL the directions before starting.
The wok can get pretty hot, and the food cooks quickly, so you need to have all of your ingredients prepared and ready for use before you begin.
Next, heat the wok on high until it's very hot, then put in some of the oil and spread it around the bottom. Peanut oil has a high threshold for burning, but you may notice a little bit of sizzling going on.

(Please understand that we don't have a real picture for this moment, we were a little occupied)

Now that you've got everything all heated up, it's time to add your ingredients. Stir-fry can cover a wide range of tastes, from vegetables, to seafood, to chicken... pretty much anything you can think of.
The food cooks really quickly, and it should smell delicious.
It only takes a couple minutes to finish cooking, so you don't need to set any timers or alarms.
Now that your meal is cooked, you should have a spectacular sight in front of you.
The only downside to stir-fry is shared by all types of cooking. You have to clean up.
Now, enjoy your meal.

6 months!

Yesterday, Drew and I celebrated one of our first major milestones of married life...it has been six months since we said our "I do's." We didn't commemorate with anything too spectacular--a nice dinner out and some Christmas shopping--but we did take a few moments to think about the past 6 months and everything that has happened since June. It has been a wonderful time as we have finally experienced seeing each other for an extended period of time and really learned the intricacies of our daily needs and wants. It certainly has not been perfect as we adjust to Drew's long work hours and a limited social circle outside of each other (in this new place), but it has been fun, and I can say that I love Drew more every day that I am married to him. Here's to another 6 months! (and then we will be in Tullahoma celebrating Shelley and Cason's nuptials--YAY!! :-D).

Christmas decorations

While I'm in a posting mood, we were busy this weekend. Emily gets a little giddy around the Christmas season. She literally counts down the minutes until she can play Christmas music. So it's only natural that on my weekend off she'd convince me to decorate our little pad. It took a little convincing, and I wasn't necessarily happy about it at first.So, I decided to get a little help. Annabelle tried to run from her responsibilities at first, but I "convinced" her to pitch in a hand... err... paw.
Yeah, somebody didn't tell her I qualified for the state wrestling tournament three times. All kidding aside, we did get some serious work done. Check out our tree with the amazing color-changing star.We didn't slack around outside either. Our house is one of the brightest on the street. Of course, there's still a bit of time before Christmas, so we'll see if our little home holds up. Emily's promised not to spend any more money on Christmas decorations, so we may have to get creative. For now, we're happy with how it looks.

Thanksgiving cheers...

So Emily and I had our first ever Thanksgiving on our own. Well, I say "on our own," but we had quite a bit of company. Sarah, Ruth, Matt, and Katie decided to drop in and share in the feast. It was great having them here, even though I was working for a majority of the time. Annabelle was definitely ready for the occasion. We had to keep a close eye on her so she didn't run off with some food like the Bumpus's dogs (if you get that reference, you're a beast). Emily and Katie got a little crazy with the place settings.
Of course, I had to help out too.Of course I'm kidding. I got to play an integral role in the process. I carved the roast beast... I mean turkey (wrong holiday).
Anyway, we had a great meal. It was so nice to sit down with family and relax for a day. It was one of many wonderful Thanksgivings to come, and I look forward to forming our own holiday traditions as well as bringing along some new ones from both of our families.

After Thanksgiving Day Sarah and Katie headed back home, but Ruth and Matt hung around for the weekend. I was on call on Friday and Sunday, but we still found some time to spend time together. We went to Tombstone. That's right, site of the shootout at the OK Corral.
It's also the setting for one of the most quotable movies of all time. "Are you gonna do something, or just stand there and bleed?"
I admit, I could have come up with a tougher looking pose, but look at Emily! She looks pissed! All in all, it was an amazing week. We can't wait to have more visitors! We love Tucson, and there are tons of things to do out here. If you get some time off, please come out and join us for a few days.

Cleaning day...

So I have this weekend off, and you know what that means... Does it mean having fun together around Tucson? Does it mean being lazy and watching football all day? Of course not! It's cleaning day! So, how do Em and I go about a cleaning day? I can tell you, we have very different approaches. While I would just look around and see what needs to be done and do it as I see it, Emily has a slightly different approach...I'm sure many of you have seen that sight before. It means that one of the most feared weapons in her arsenal is about to be unleashed. Something that would even make Chuck Norris weep in his bed... THE LIST!
Yes, The List comes out when something needs to get done around here but needs a little bit more organization than the typical chore. Or you can take my theory and believe it's something Emily does to procrastinate and postpone doing something she doesn't want to. By the way, that picture's only half of The List. As you can tell, Annabelle was quite intrigued by the whole thing.
Actually, she's just a pooped pooch from the run I took her one earlier today. Anyway, feel free to give us a call to distract us from our many activities today.

Back in the classroom...

...at least for a couple hours! Yesterday morning, I went in to substitute for one of our regular preschool storytime volunteers. I had a chance to read with my co-worker Abby in 3 preschool classrooms--3 year olds, 4 year olds, and 5 year olds. It was so much fun to be hanging out with kids again in a classroom context, and it definitely made me miss teaching. I had forgotten though from my student teaching days in kindergarten how much energy it required to entertain small children for even a short period of time! Whew!

As we look at new project assignments at work, I am looking forward to hopefully working more closely with teachers and preschoolers as a literacy consultant/trainer--teaching again, but in a slightly different context than a traditional classroom teacher. I will tell you one thing I certainly won't miss...the mountains of paperwork and grading!

Here are some fun photos from my day in preschool...

We are reading a funny story called Gladys Goes Out to Lunch, about a gorilla that is looking for something delicious to eat other than bananas...the solution? Banana Bread!

The second story we read was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Afterwards we reenacted the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Here we are being butterflies!

The Munchkin Goes Crazy!

So Em and I were watching TV tonight, and we happened to notice that our little rapscallion had a bit too much energy. This will probably become a common problem as I won't be getting home until after it gets dark, and walking in Tucson after dark is impossible because there are virtually no streetlights. Enough said, I'll let you watch.

Once more into the abyss...

Apparently my wife seems to be posting a bit more than me, so here goes nothing. Last week was ridiculously exhausting. I was on-call 4 out of 8 days. I've also only had 1 day completely off in three weeks. That day wasn't exactly relaxing either, as I did Story Town with Emily. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time hanging out with the kiddos, answering important questions and even signing a couple autographs. I'm just a little bit tired these days.

So, that makes my next few months so exciting!!! I'm in the hospital for 10 out of the next 12 weeks. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it means 80 hour work weeks, sleeping in the hospital every 4th night, and waking up and arriving at work between 5:30-6:00am. So, I'm going to be a bit busy for a little while. I'm confident I can do it, but it's gonna take me a few days to get back into the swing of things and increase my pace about 100%.

There is a bright spot though. I have this entire weekend off! Also, Em's family will be here all next week, and I have Thanksgiving Day off. It's gonna be nice to have guests again, as Phil and Greg's visit was great. I'm sure the Munchkin will enjoy having plenty of people around to play with her and spoil her by letting her sleep in their beds.

One final little bit of news. I have two weeks off in January, and we've been trying to come up with a plan for a trip. New York was high on the list, but we've decided to go to Washington, DC for the inauguration. I seriously doubt we'll be able to get close to the big speech, but being in the town during such a historic time should be exciting. I'll also get to experience DC again, now that I'm old enough to appreciate it a little more.

Well, that's my update. Keep both Emily and I in your thoughts, as it's going to be just as tough on her, not having me around as much. I'll try to put up some pictures next time, but until then, here's a funny dog...

Cheap Gas

...thanks to my Safeway reward this month, I paid 1.45/gal for gas last night. I couldn't remember the last time it cost less than $20.00 to fill up the tank, so I made Drew take a photo.

Story Town 2008!

On Saturday, November 15, downtown Tucson was transformed into "munchkin madness" when over 1500 kids and their families descended upon Story Town. This was the 5th year Make Way For Books organized Story Town, and it was the biggest and best yet. All of the families that made it to the event received a gift bag with a free book and other fun goodies (bookmarks, posters, etc from local organizations). There were lots of fun storybook characters that came to visit. We performed our story Knuffle Bunny in front of our beautiful backdrop and props. The kids watched dance and musical performances, visited with "community helpers," and created fun art activities! Here is a small collection of photos from the day!

The Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony with local journalist Heather Rowe

and all the fun characters that were there for the day:

Clifford, Curious George, Maya & Miguel, Cookie Mouse, & the fairy tale princesses

Clifford schmoozing with some kiddos!

Love that random storybook reading was going on on the lawn!

Tohono O'odham Basket Dancers

Fairy Tale Trail: the kid-sized castle and princesses

Our cool street banners

Trixie's family (from Knuffle Bunny)

Trixie is so sad that Knuffle Bunny is missing, but dad doesn't realize what is wrong!

Drew was a trooper and "acted" as one of the community helpers: Dr. Drew, alongside the garbage truck driver, fireman, and mailman. He only ended up getting one "real" medical question from a parent.

The day was a huge success, and we had a blast hanging out in the sun with all the kiddos!

An Unexpected Office Visitor

Last weekend, downtown Tucson turned into Story Town, our MWFB event for little kids (I will put some photos up and talk more about it in another post.) Well, after Story Town, there were lots of boxes to be unpacked, reorganized and returned to storage to be used next year. As I was working on unpacking some of these boxes, I discovered a little friend that had decided to join us on the trip back from Story Town. I lifted up one of the boxes and found a small, slithery, brightly colored snake! At first I thought it was one of the MWFB toys for Story Time--we do have a lot of them--but then it started to move. I literally jumped a foot in the air and yelled, "SNAKE!" Now, as most of you know, I am generally not a jumpy person when it comes to wildlife, but this little guy totally caught me off guard, and not really being familiar with all of the creatures that live out here in Arizona, I had no idea what kind of snake this must be! I just kept saying "SNAKE! IT'S A SNAKE!" At first, my coworkers had no idea what I was talking about, but soon realized we had an unexpected visitor to the office. Mary Jan, my boss came out of her office, very heroically, and checked the little guy out. She and Liz then assembled a very professional snake-catching kit and toted the little guy out of the office, the whole time asking, "How do they do it in the movies?" Needless to say, we were all in stitches the rest of the afternoon as we remembered the freak out over the snake. We ended up letting him go in the bushes behind the office where he will hopefully live a long and happy life (OUTSIDE!). After researching the situation further in our highly technical snake research center (Google), we discovered that he was a baby king snake (they are not poisonous, in case you were worried.) PHEW! I am glad we made it out of work alive that day.

Scenes from Sabino Canyon

Last weekend, Drew and I hosted our second set of visitors to our Tucson abode (the first set was Mary & Dan in August)...my dad and Greg! We had a very relaxing weekend exploring Tucson. On Friday night, we tried a new restaurant, Cafe Poca Cosa, which was delicious with massive plates of food. It is kind of like a "gourmet" Mexican restaurant. The chef changes the menu every day and uses every type of pepper known to the world in her cooking. Drew and I both had the chef's plate which was a sample of a few of the items on the menu. It was very yummy!

On Saturday, we explored the art galleries around Tucson, and stopped off at Home Depot where my dad could share his gardening/planting expertise to help us add some green to otherwise drab backyard. He also helped us figure out how the irrigation system works so that the plants will stay green with minimal work and worry from me (a known black thumb--that's right, worse than brown--I have a horrible track record). I now have a little herb garden outside of my kitchen, and a variety of other plants throughout the backyard.

On Sunday, we all went hiking in Sabino Canyon where we could check out the desert life and cool desert plants. We didn't see any wildlife, but the location did make for some pretty cool photos. Check them out!

My first dress!

For my birthday this year, Drew got me a sewing machine! (I know my birthday was in August, but I am just getting around to finishing my first project...) It was a very welcome gift because in preparation for our wedding this past summer, I was working with my mom on a number of sewing projects, including 12 bags (one for each member of the wedding party). I also loved the idea that my veil and the junior bridesmaid dresses were made by her, and dreamed of one day being good enough to do that for my own daughter or granddaughter (it may take that long for me to get good enough).

Anyway, now that I have my own sewing machine, I decided to attempt my first dress! I picked out my fabric at a wonderful store in Nashville, Textile Fabrics, brought it back to Tucson, and began working on it all on my own! I had high hopes of finishing it in time to wear to Derek's wedding in San Diego, but alas it didn't quite happen. I did finally finish a couple weeks ago though, and wanted to share the final product. I haven't had an occasion to wear it yet, but am hoping that one pops up soon!

In the News...

In previous posts, I have mentioned our upcoming event at work, "Story Town." It is this weekend, and we have been very busy the last few days with preparations. As part of our publicity campaign, a couple of the local newspapers published articles about our event today. In the article featured in the Arizona Daily Star, I made the photo! You can't really see my face, but it is definitely me working on some of the book covers that will line the "streets" of our town!

Here is a link to the article on-line (there was also a print version). Story Town 2008

My "Famous" Photo

Emily Phy, a Make Way for Books program assistant, works on some
materials for Saturday's fifth annual Story Town.

james s. wood / arizona daily star

Yes we did!

So, I just thought I'd put my thoughts out there on the recent election. I'd never been a very political person growing up, and my family didn't really ever have political discussions. That all changed with 9/11 happened. I started taking an interest in the news, and I woke up every morning to read CNN.com, FoxNews.com, and even AlJazeera.com. That last one was more of a joke, but you should check it out some time to see some of the ridiculous "conspiracy theories" that some people have about our country. Anyway, that led to me reading about politics much more.

In 2004, I took a real interest in the election. Growing up considering myself a Republican, I found myself questioning some of my beliefs about some issues, as most people do when they've gone to college. I decided I was going to be as informed as I could before the vote. So, with a little regret I sat down to watch the Democratic National Convention. Most of it was pretty boring, as John Kerry wasn't the most interesting of candidates. I was getting a little tired, and then a man named Barack Obama strolled onto the stage. I had no idea who this person was, but I found myself captivated by his speech. I was at home in Tullahoma sitting on my parents' bed watching probably the best speech I'd ever heard. My dad, who'd been taking a shower, walked into the room, and I literally told him, "I've just heard a speech from someone who's going to be president some day." I know that story sounds made up, but it's 100% true.

So, the election of 2004 went by without much of a hoopla. I found myself deciding to vote for Kerry while I was in line, not because I really believed in his policies, but more because I didn't think he could screw things up much more than Bush did. I was excited to see Obama won the senate seat, and I occasionally followed stories about him. I wanted to read his book, but I never really got around to it. Fast forward two and a half years and his name started popping up in the news again. I was excited to see he was running, as well as one of my favorite candidates from the 2000 campaign, John McCain.

There was a brief period of time where I thought it might be a tough decision between the two. McCain was experienced and a middle-of-the-road candidate who wasn't afraid to stand up for what he believed in. Unfortunately, it became obvious that he would have to drift further to the right in order to get past the primaries. The McCain who ran in 2008 was not the McCain of 2000. Now, I think he would have made a fine president, but my beliefs fell more with Obama. I can say that this is the first time I've voted for someone who I was completely passionate about.

I know some people reading this won't agree with me, but I have alot of hope for the next four years. Yesterday's election was one of those moments that your children are going to ask you about, and I tried to capture every moment of it, despite being on-call at the hospital. Unfortunately, the day didn't go perfectly, as Prop 8 in California and Prop 102 in Arizona both passed, banning gay marriage. While we may have taken one giant step to fight discrimination, there are still many to go.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the election. I promise our fun little blog isn't going to turn into an opinion piece. I just felt motivated to jot down my thoughts, given the historic circumstances. Maybe I'll re-read them in four years to get some perspective.

VOTE!!!

Tomorrow is Election Day! (in case you have been hiding under a rock and didn't realize it...) Drew and I plan on going first thing tomorrow morning when the polls open before we have to go to work! Every time I go to vote, I always feel so excited and nervous waiting in line. I love that we have the chance to express our opinions freely and that the button I push will count in those numbers that flash up on the screen on Election Night.

In Arizona (and it was the same in Washington), we have tons of propositions on the ballot. There were occasionally propositions on the ballot in Nashville, but out west, the people like to have a say in everything and put everything on the ballot. It is overwhelming trying to read through each of them and make an informed decision, but that is my job for the night--being an informed voter.

So, I hope that everyone if they haven't already done it, has plans to vote tomorrow! This time tomorrow night, we will hopefully know who our next president will be! :-D

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a fabulous night tonight full of fun or frights! Drew and I stayed in and carved pumpkins while greeting our neighborhood trick-or-treaters. We actually had quite a few kids come by, which is always fun and exciting! Annabelle loved all the visitors and watched over the front wall as kids walked up and down the street.


Now that the evening's passersby have started to slow, we are gearing up to watch a scary movie in honor of the night's theme. I hate watching scary movies, but Drew enjoys it, so this is a special treat for him. Right now we are leaning towards The Exorcist (apparently the ultimate Horror movie, which I have never see), but I might have to browse the selections myself for something a little tamer. I will let you know tomorrow if I survived the night and what we end up choosing. Any thoughts on greatest horror movie you've ever seen?




Drew's Scared Face



My Slightly Evil Jack O'Lantern