Oh where ... is my blueberry?

Last night I was looking at the ingredients to a commercial blueberry muffin mixture when something so utterly disconcerting caught my attention. The blueberry mixture didn't contain any blueberries. That's like birdseed minus any seeds or like crabcakes minus any crab or like M&M's minus any of the mmm mmm goodness. The mixture did contain a sub-stellar sounding item known mysteriously as "blueberry gems". Interestingly enough these "blueberry gems" also contained no blueberries (but instead was composed of such highly nutritious offerings such as corn cereal, hydrogenated corn syrup, flavoring and red # 40) ... mmm mmm good?

It's Official

Well, it's official, I'm a student nurse. I received my acceptance letter from the College of Lake County nursing dept in the mail yesterday. I was hoping that once I submitted my application that I'd be done jumping through hoops for them, but it looks as if the hoop jumping has just begun. First, I've got to accept the offer (by filling out a form and delivering it to the admissions office), then I've got to wait for the (tentative) clinical schedule to be released, fight the other 59 students for a spot in the time slot I want, then wait some more until Jan when (1 week before classes start) they'll give us all the other info we need about clinicals including our finalized (and possibly different than requested) clinical schedule. Oh well, at least I got in.

I also received in the mail yesterday a stethoscope from my mother-in-law. My sister-in-law (Tom's lil' sis) completed her BS in Nursing a couple years back, but then decided not to practice. So, she was awesome enough to give me her stethoscope, which I couldn't help but try out last night. Good thing for Tom he wasn't home. But he better watch out when I get my blood pressure cuff.

5 Tons

I don't know about you, but when I read Tom's last post I smelt a challenge. So, last night, when it was my turn on the weight machine I had to see if I could outdo Tom's 9,300 lbs from Weds night. It took me a few more reps (I'm only lifting about 1/2 what he is right now) but I did it. 10,000 lbs and some sore muscles later I am (for now) the household record holder for most weight lifted in a single night.

Keepin' it real with steel

We've been good about working out these past couple of weeks, have been to our exercise palace (aka the basement) with our big fancy tv (20 inches) pretty much every day in the past two weeks. We've been rotating between the treadmill and the weights and yesterday was my day on weights.


If you have any knowledge of me you know that my mind is like a calculator (not necessarily because it's accurate but because I think in numbers and twist and turn numbers for a living), for example when the Kentucky Derby was here I wrote this post, another example is that when I can't sleep at night I count by 17's (no particular reason and I don't know why/when I started) . The exciting this about last night is that I'm starting to turn Amanda over to the dark side! After exercising she asked me what sets I generally do and then asked me how much I lifted that night in aggregate. So, between us we calculated that in aggregate I lifted 9300lbs (and that doesn't include the dead weight of my arms at the end of this shenanigans).

Now there's no turning back! What will she calculate next? Stay tuned.

17 34 51 68 85 102 119 136 153 170 187 204 221 238 255 272 289 306 323 340 .... zzzzzzz

I'm dreaming of a white christmas

Just like the ones I used to know.
Where the treetops glisten,
and children listen,
where I can go off-roading in the snow.

We took our "S"UV into the shop yesterday to get it prepped for winter and to get it refreshed as it's travelled just about 60,000 miles. We have a trip to Kentucky coming up for Thanksgiving and wanted it to be ready to go. So, we set aside the estimated cost of $450 to get this accomplished plus we set aside a little bit more because they inevitably find something wrong. Unfortunately they beat us at our own game, $1698 later we have new brakes/rotors (which had been grinding since middle of last week) new tires (we were still driving on the originals and they had apparently started to crack) and a new brake light.

So, I'm hoping to put this fancy reincarnation of the beast to work, let it go out and have some fun! Just don't ask me about getting it stuck in our driveway in Fairbanks within the first month of ownership. It doesn't quite have the clearance of a hummer, drats.

TKO - Wife is Down

Yesterday Amanda wanted to go shopping (after accidently bleaching her shirt) and 99% of the time I want to do pretty much anything other than shopping, so I called my friend Chris up to see if his wife Miki would entertain Amanda and as a side effect Chris and I could get in some good football watching, worked like a charm. After the girls got back we hooked up the Wii (from Nintendo) and proceeded to play a few of the sports games. To follow is a brief commentary of our experience on each one.

Wii Tennis - Amanda vs. me - Amanda hit a couple of good aces on the serve and had some good returns, I did nothing flashy but was solid throughout.

Wii Bowling - All four of us - Amanda got out of the gates solid while I lagged behind. Apparently something I was doing with the controller was causing the ball to curve, it took me until about the 7th frame to even figure to just adjust my alignment. Chris and Miki (who's ball was just crawling along) were solid but behind Amanda throughout most of the game. Amanda got her first ever strike in real or virtual bowling in this game. To the 10th frame. Amanda had doubled my score and Chris needed 33 points to beat Amanda, strike 1, strike 2 and then 7 pins. Amanda lost by 4. Perhaps we should go for a real bowling adventure.

Wii Boxing - Amanda vs me - I'm not sure if this game is a really good game for relationships or a horrid one, perhaps it's dependent on the individuals. We get to virtually beat each other up in the name of play. Amanda landed a few good ones, as did I. She was TKO'd, poor thing.

High in the Sky like a Birdie

For my birthday a few weeks back Amanda purchased a gift certificate for a flight lesson. We've both talked about getting our private pilots license at some point but have never taken the time to start it as we've pretty much had at least one of us in college the entire time we've been married.

It was fun, we took off from Waukegan airport in a Cessna 172 and followed the coast down to the city (where the houses are just ridiculously huge), did a 180 around the skyscrapers (we were only at 1800 feet or so, close to on par with the Sears tower) and followed the highway back to the airport. The hardest part wasn't the physical flying it was the knowledge of what the instrumentation does and how to talk with the control tower. That's what the instructor was for.

It furthered my desire to become flight certified. If we both get the license we could just take a quick jaunt to St. Louis or Minnesota from here. First we have to get Amanda through nursing school then we'll see!

ps. In case Riley is reading it is ok to go "high in the sky ... like a birdie"

Overachievement at its Finest

I was recently invited to join an honor society at the college I'm currently attending. I figured I'd join so that I could have the designation on my transcript, maybe get some scholarships, and get to know some of my fellow overachievers at school.

Last night was our orientation meeting. The meeting was from 7 pm - 8 pm. I arrived (as always) 10 mins early. But much to my suprise the speaker had already launched into her presentation with only 3 people present (I was the 4th). I was a bit shocked, but figured she had just started, 10 mins later however (right about 7 pm) when she was finished with the formal presentation she quickly flipped back through the slides to the beginning and I realized I'd missed about 3/4 of the presentation and the 20 or so people that showed up after me missed even more (if not all) of it.

Eventually, through the Q&A I did find out what I needed to know. I know she's a documented overacheiver, but I'm still wondering why someone would think it's ok to start a presentation 1/2 hour earlier than scheduled. I'm also wondering what the people that walked in at 7:01 were thinking when they had missed the entire presentation.

The kicker was she kept saying "for those who came in late".

Here I go a marathoning

Last night I completed a marathon. It only took me 8 days! Not too shabby.

I used to run more, albeit it was because I had friends that used to run and it was a way to catch up with them. Those were the college days, get up, go to a couple of classes, run a few miles, play some basketball, do homework at the last minute, do it all again the next day!

One of these days I may be able to beat my "Beat Beethoven" time from 1999, 5k in 24 minutes and 42 seconds. Slow yes, but I did get a T-shirt and I was #22 in my age/gender class and most importantly I did "Beat" Beethoven (which wasn't hard 'cause he's dead).

When chainsaws attack

Ok, for all of you sportin' techno-colored dream coats, ala Joseph, fill me in on what this means.

My dream last night was a macabre version of chainsaw meets limbo meets me. In essense there were a few of my friends playing the game of how close can we get this running chainsaw to various parts of Tom's body (midsection, neck) without cutting him, and how still can Tom be while we do it.

Nuttin' but a day, fall is here ok

Cracked me up this morning, here it is 80 degrees outside (if you look at the past couple of posts this is a theme) and it's October. The people here at work have decided unilaterally that because the calendar says that it's fall that it's sweater season and "don't be wearing those flip-flops". I tried to argue that your clothing should be contingent on the weather, it didn't work. I even tried the argument that "if it was July and just happened to snow, would you be insisting on running around in tank-top, shorts and flip-flops?" Some got the point but none would relent.

I say, if it's 80 outside, wear clothes appropriate for 80. If it's 0 outside, wear clothes appropriate for 0 (which for me might be the same as those appropriate for 80). Be flexible, be dynamic, be out there!

We're not obese, we're just in snowsuits!

Here we are in October in Chicago and the temperature is slated to be 80 degrees today. More impressively the temperature is slated to head up to almost 90 degrees by Saturday (88 by one forcast, 86 by another). Chop it in half and I'd be set!

This forecast caused Amanda to lament that it can't be this hot in October and that it'd be even sadder if it stays warm through halloween. Back where we're from you put on your halloween costume over your snowsuit! Just picture what all of the little zombies, ghosts, cats, policemen and whatever else kids dress up as these days look like when they're waddling around with a snowsuit underneath the costumes!

Adventures of Mudbelly

Last night was an adventure fit for someone with young kids, maybe it's God's way of preparing us? I got home and fired up the grill so we could kiss some pork chops with some good old fashioned natural gas flames. While waiting for the grill to heat up I started chopping off the seed shoots that had taken over the basil garden. I suppose not watering these plants fervently enacts some sort of survive and propogate mode in these suckers and the plants were overrun.

We don't have a big deck but we do have a big cat (22 pounds or so) that just loves to sit outside on the deck. When I go out she begs to go out and I usually let her, last night was no exception. This cat has a sneaky way of moving six inches at a stint and then resting, the idea in her mind (I suppose) is to take a little bit and rest and act like nothing is happening and then once our guard is down she takes a little bit more. Before long she was sitting on the step of the deck and then down one step and then under the deck. Our deck doesn't have much clearance, maybe twelve inches, and she just plopped down in the middle. She just didn't want to move and our tiny broom at times couldn't reach and at other times had no affect moving a cat of her mass. To make matters more interesting the ground underneath the deck is dirt and it had rained earlier in the day.

After twenty minutes of trying to broom her out and trying to bribe her out with food we upped the ante and found the hose! That did the trick!

At this same time Amanda was cooking up a glaze for our porkchops complete with a green onion from our container garden, unfortunately the glaze turned into sludge while we were both chasing Mudbelly.

Right province, wrong lake.

Playing Trivial Pursuit last night when the question "Muncho Lake is located in which province of Canada?" After we pointed to a picture hanging on our wall that we took while driving down from Alaska to Chicago we answered "Yukon Territory". Much to our chagrin (it was after all for a piece of the pie) the correct answer was/is "British Columbia"

After studying Google Maps we came to rediscover that the lake on our wall is not the infamous Muncho Lake, it is Lake Kluane which is located in the Yukon Territory! I claim half a pie piece for that answer!

Jellybeans for Mr. President

Last night our friends, Chicagoans out of the city (and into farmville), came up to visit. To be fair they came up to visit a bunch of people as they are trying to garner support to move over to Germany as missionaries, but we threw them a mini-party anyways. Lest you get false ideas in your head about our nefarious partying ways our party consisted of pizza, guayabano juice, snickerdoodles and Trivial Pursuit. Trivial Pursuit is generally a game that we don't finish, or at the least a game that we don't finish using the rules that are written on the box (at some points we create a fast-scoring system to complete the pie), yesterday was one of those cases. The winning team got a grand total of three wedges, all within the first three turns. Questions such as "What did President Reagan keep in his stein in the oval office", answer "Jellybeans" (of course! wonder if they were bellyflops?) We did find there was a marked difference between the new version of Trivial Pursuit and the version we played last week from 1981, we actually could foster legitimate guesses in this version!

We also reflected on "beautiful" weekend of 80 degree days we were enjoying with this first week in October being more of the same. Some of us expressed (mostly Amanda and I) anticipation of the leaves changing colors and the nights getting crisper. As we enter this time of cooler crisper weather I look forward to being able to fill my lungs with icy air and perhaps partake in more winter events outdoors such as hiking, biking, maybe even cross country skiing. We'll see, life gets busy but sometimes you have to smell the frozen roses!