Mishaps and other haps

Well, I went out into the interwebs and made a Facebook page tonight.

Michael asked me to because he had set one up and couldn’t post that he was engaged to me because as far as Facebook was concerned, I didn’t exist. Also, you can cancel your relationship with a person with a simple click on the cancel button. How convenient!

So now I have one friend on Facebook! But if you have a Facebook page and you poke me, I will have one more friend!

We’re enjoying a quiet weekend at home.

A few errands and chores were accomplished on Saturday. The urge to do “Spring Cleaning” hasn’t quite kicked in yet, but I did go through my closet last week and yoink clothes that needed to be carted off to Goodwill. I pruned my book collection a little and took some items to Half Price while I was out. Nowadays I tend to alternate between donating books I no longer want to the library and selling them, depending on how I feel and what’s convenient. In either case, somebody else will be enjoying them.

I forgot to mention voting in the primaries last week, although our household did make it to the polls on Tuesday evening. Michael and I went to visit Josh and Betsy at their new place in Janesville after we voted, so we weren’t home that evening and I guess I forgot to mention the voting.

I can’t remember what we did other evenings last week, except that it was a fairly fast week in terms of work flying by and people seemed to be in good moods. Oh, and there were no huge amounts of snowfall that made everyday tasks complicated and dangerous. I really wish work could be that “OK” every week, but I also feel like I need to be remembering more of what I do in my spare time.

Michael found out when his last day of work will be (his company is being sold, which has been in the works for a while), so he’s glad that he has a timeline now and can figure out what he will do next. He sounds relieved that a decision had been made, more than stressed about losing the job.

We have people over in a couple of hours for gaming. It sounds like our household is planning to have dinner out with Matt and Liz tomorrow night, too, so that should be fun.

The snow has been melting (a little), but I think we’re in for more wacky winter weather this week.

By the way, I just read that Ralph Nader is running for president again. This election season could become very entertaining very quickly.

I am registered for the Thursday evening yoga class now. It looks like it’s going to be a pretty small group– about 12 people. Also, I should still make it home from the class in time to run Zul’Aman on Thursdays (if we start at 7:30, it will help). The clinic is pretty close to our house, so I can run home from work, change, and easily make it there by 5:30.

I now regret that I have not taken classes through my health insurance provider before. I have a complementary medicine benefit as part of my health insurance that subsidizes the cost of certain exercise classes and other “wellness” activities. Right now, that means I get a 50% discount on my yoga class.

This type of activity would have been less expensive for me than my gym membership (which expired over the summer) and I probably would have been compelled to attend more regularly. While there were exercise classes at my gym, there was no need to register for them and they were very beginner-oriented and free flow. You could walk into a class for the first time in the middle of the season. You could also elect to skip the class whenever you wanted and there was not a direct connection (at least in my brain) between money spent on the membership and any individual class.

I think that a gym membership is more economical if you are very active and need a variety of activities, equipment, and classes to keep you going. If you don’t use a majority of the services and don’t visit the gym several times a week, it’s probably not worth the money. I am also wary about signing another one-year or two-year contract. Two months is much easier to commit to and schedule on the calendar.

The trees in our neighborhood are still encased in ice today.

If you go outside when it’s relatively quiet and listen, you can hear the stiff, crinkling sound the ice makes as wind blows through the trees and the tinkling sound of small, loose shards hitting the ground. Our driveway, yard, and the street all look like they are lightly coated with broken glass.

I’ve lived in Wisconsin for a decade (this August) and it’s the first time I have experienced or at least appreciated this phenomenon.

Since the forecast for the next few days predicts that it will remain bitterly cold, it may be a while before we lose our shining crystal trees.

Thanks to the freezing rain we had on Sunday, all of the trees around Madison are coated in ice.  I didn’t realize how beautiful this was until I left work this afternoon.  Since it was very sunny (though bitterly cold), the trees twinkled like crystal.   It’s an amazing effect, probably not appreciated enough when you see it on a card or in a photograph.

1. Bolivian free-trade, organic whole bean coffee.  It is the right blend for me (med-dark).  The beans are glossy and fresh.  It can be ground in-store or at home.  The price is about 60-70% of what I would spend for a pound of beans at a coffee shop.

2. Green tea (Matcha) European-style yogurt.  Also, strawberry cream and banana cream yogurt.

3. Ends & Pieces fruit snacks

4. Chocolate Orange Sticks (now that I have bought the Raspberry variety, I believe the Orange variety is superior)

5. Frozen Garlic Naan (Indian flatbread)

6. Milk chocolate bars (Trader Joe’s brand)

Things yet to try:

frozen herb cubes (fresh herbs in frozen cubes, ready for use)– basil and cilantro

I haven’t tried many of the salty snacks, nut & fruit mixes, frozen foods, bakery goods, or sauces/condiments.  In fact, it would be hard to systematically work through the entire stock of the store single-handedly and some of it doesn’t fit too well with the way that I cook.  I do see advantages in the options it provides people: fairly healthy food that is easy to make and cheaper than eating out.

We went to visit the Dotzours this morning.  New baby Sylvia was very hungry, but she has not graduated to table food and won’t for quite some time!  Big Brother Andrew and I played with his animals, plus a couple Terry brought over.  Aunt Maretta and Uncle Kyle had driven up from Minnesota to meet Sylvia and we just caught LuAnn in time to say good-bye before she headed back home.

If you are near the Capitol Square at breakfast time in Madison and aren’t too stuffed from eating at Marigold Kitchen, you should drop by Cafe Soleil (under L’Etoile) for breakfast pastries such as pain au chocolat, bomboloni, and spice girl wheels.

If you feel like spending more money and having dessert for (or after) breakfast, try Sucre on West Mifflin, which has only been open for about six weeks now.  Try the Opera Torte or the Chocolat Noir.   When we stepped into the shop this morning, the air smelled very lightly of anise and I made a comment to this effect to Michael.  In a few minutes, a chef from the back brought out a still-warm batch of anise and citrus buns that were *heavenly*.  I forget their French name, but I will be looking for them again when I go back.

Note: Sucre does not actually open at 7 AM- they are still adjusting their schedule to their client base and opened at 10 this morning.  Hopefully they will be updating their website with current hours and more information soon.

I held a new baby who was less than a day old on Monday. Mom, Dad, and little Sylvia were at home with big brother Andrew and Granny Lu by the time Michael called them on Tuesday evening. Wow, Althea and Bryan make this baby delivery stuff look so easy! We’ll be seeing you guys soon!

Happy Valentine’s Day to everybody since that is today! Take time for the people you care about. That’s what you do every day, right?!

I am reading Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, which has been on bookshelves for decades but it’s new to me. It would go on my list of “books about money/personal finance/life that people should ideally read as young adults.” Suze Orman’s Women and Money would also go on that list (despite the title, it isn’t just for women).

Our plans for the rest of the week include going out tonight (we had a good dining experience that wasn’t too crowded or harried last Valentine’s Day, so we’re going to try for a repeat) and taking a field trip with our gaming group on Friday night to see offBeat perform in Sun Prairie.

Work has been very busy the past couple of weeks, thanks in part to receiving the remainder of a project that was put on hold last …. March?! A big chunk of it was completed yesterday, so that should slow down a little and now we can concentrate on catching up on our normal work Being understaffed ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Wait, what?

I am planning to start a once-a-week yoga class through GHC in March. I have been thinking about taking classes from a yoga studio just down the road from us, so that might be the follow-up to the GHC class. I took a yoga class about five years ago and really enjoyed it, but haven’t picked it back up again since I left the job through which I had the super-cheap gym membership. Anyway, I’d better call and sign up before this class is full.

Time to run off to work! Have a great day!

We spent some time this morning with the Dotzours and had breakfast at their house. One of these days, I am going to have to pick up a waffle iron. Homemade waffles totally beat waffles or pancakes at the popular local breakfast joint. Thanks, Althea and Bryan!

Andrew showed us his animals and drew some pictures and was very cute and entertaining.  He has such an enthusiastic, happy view of the world!  His obliging uncle swung him in the air until he ran out of energy.

The fourth Dotzour has yet to emerge into the world, but she could be born at any time and everybody is eagerly awaiting her arrival.

We were back at home around 12:15 and people started showing up for our Sunday afternoon game. After some socializing and distractions, we made a reasonable amount of progress toward the end of our current adventure. I am considering a couple of prestige classes to take with Henry, my part-Storm Giant conjuration wizard who is really more of a melee combat kind of guy. I know those of you who are familiar with the kind of characters I usually play are not a bit surprised at this detail …

Michael’s Karazhan run tonight was interrupted by a server crash, so he has been playing an old game he picked up again recently, Psychonauts. It looks incredibly cute and I want to pinch his little pink cheeks while he plays it.

I polished up another cover letter and sent it off with my resume, fished around for more job openings I might be interested in, did some checkbook balancing for the state return I received on Friday and the bill I paid today, and went through some mail that had been piling up on my desk. I also cleaned the litterboxes, took out trash and recycling, transferred some CDs to my computer, put away clean dishes, and cleared the sink of dirty dishes at various points in the evening.

I finished a book I was reading and am probably going to start another before I go to bed.

I hope everyone has a great week! We’re planning to have people over tomorrow night to watch Frogs at our place, so that should be a fun start to the week.