Baby!

No, not ours--cute pictures of our niece! She was definitely worth driving to Adam's family reunion. Supposedly, she looks just like Adam when he was a baby. Clearly, we all hope she grows out of that later! We didn't get to spend a lot of time with them, but it's always nice to see the family. Here we are with Scott, Erin and Baby Charlotte.

Back to School

As part of our epic driving adventure over the first weekend in August, we helped Jesse move to Rantoul, IL. He'll be attending the U of IL at Urbana/Champaigne to earn a PhD in...something scientific at which he'll no doubt be terribly brilliant. =)

The driving started on Friday afternoon and continued until about 1:30am Saturday. That's about the time we all started hallucinating with fatigue, so we snagged a hotel room and finished the drive to Rantoul at 10am on Saturday. Jesse's new place is a nice little townhome, a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, with a laundry room (which Jes was especially excited about).

All Muraled Out

Looks like they're done with the mural by my bus stop.

Watching too much Price is Right

Every time I think about car shopping, I can't help but remember watching Bob Barker getting mauled by contestants after announcing, "A new car!" Thank goodness we're done with the car shopping for a while.

For those of you who need a little catch up, the Blazer got rearended (again) last fall, and then we got told that the engine wiring needed replacement. Instead of fixing those issues, we decided to save the money and put it towards a nice used minivan.

I did a bunch of research, and all of the signs pointed toward a Toyota Sienna, 2005 or later. After a few weekends of shopping around, we settled on a 2005 AWD Le from Walser Toyota in Bloomington, MN. Our salesman was very nice, and he's actually called us since to make sure that we're happy. The van is the 7 passenger size, and it had about 47,600 miles on it. It's got some really cool options, too, like having both a cd player and a tape player, which I think is awesome. Mom really liked the power passenger sliding door. Adam likes it for taking the dog to the dog park, too. Yay!

Sidewalk Work

We got a couple new sections of sidewalk in front of our house recently. It's our neighborhood's year for sidewalk work--they started at Chicago Ave and are working East. It was an annoying couple of week to walk back and forth to the bus stop, so I'm glad they're done. Now we just get to wait for them to send us a bill. Yay.



This is the house across the street from us.

The new mural by my bus stop

I was happy to see a new mural on the corner of 38th and Chicago. I'm a big fan of building murals in general, but I really like this one because it's all about mass transit, which I think is hilarious.

Aftermaths

I think we're on week five or six of the Great Thorne House Re-Landscaping Project 2008. You can't see very well in this photo, but the hostas have moved from along the front walk to up next to the house, and around the two trees on the boulevard. Yet more hostas have moved from the front walk to in front of the garage. I think I have four more hostas left to move, and then the Great Hosta Diaspora will be over. Oh, except for that big one on the corner, maybe.

We had a very strong straight-line wind the other day, which resulted in a lot of smaller branches down in our yard, and some larger ones down in our immediate neighbor's yard.
And then there was the next block up, which was still not open to traffic this morning. Thankfully, this tree didn't fall on any cars or houses, so it's just a nuisance.

It's not easy to see in this picture, but there is a huge twist in the branch that fell.

More Spring Pix

This is the giant hole that Rex has dug underneath the tree in the front yard. The scrawny little plants next to it are tiger lilies that the dogs have trampled almost to death. I don't know if I'll be saving those--I may just give up on them. It's not as if we don't have a zillion more tiger lilies around.

This used to be an ugly little scrubby bush, which Adam dug up a couple of weeks ago. These are Sweet Black Eyed Susans.

These are Smooth Blue Asters, which will hopefully be lovely and attract butterflies.
This is the south side of the house. I dug up the rose bushes (that you can barely see here) last night. So now there are Meadow Blazing Stars planted underneath the furnace exhaust pipes, instead of ugly dying rose bushes.
This is a not-so-great picture of my super great new fences on the east side of the hosue. Next to the stairs, I planted Elegant Camas (also known as Mountain Death Camas, since the roots are poisonous). Around the corner, I have tiger lilies, some of which started there and some of which I moved there over the past month. I was going to continue the fence around the south side of the house, but the dogs have been leaving the new plantings alone, so I might not put more fences around.

And this is a picture of the kind of things you see on my bus ride.

Spring Rebirth

Yet another resurrection of the house blog! Hooray!

My goal this year is to rehabilitate the flower beds on the east, south and west sides of the house, including large portions of the front yard. Two dogs does not a pretty yard make, but we're going to do our best to grow some grass back. I volunteered at the Friends' Plant Sale this year, mostly so I could go to their pre-sale last Thursday. I came home with several types of native wildflowers, and I'm hoping that they'll be able to exist happily with little to no input from me.

Here are some pix of the sale. I'll try to post pix of the yard, too.

This girl brought her hamster.

Reset

I read this article in the Downtown Journal today which interested me on two levels. It's about a public art installation which will take place in the skyways in downtown Minneapolis. I walk the skyways a lot--getting lunch, running errands, going from job to job--so I'm excited on an artistic level to be able to see these photographs.

On a personal level, one of the people photographed gave this quote:

Chen moved to the Twin Cities to study at the University of Minnesota, and he currently works as a multimedia consultant at the university.
Chen thinks of “home” in terms of his technical training. You hit the “home” key when you get lost and need to find your bearings, he explained.
“When you realize [your] origin, you can start from there again,” he said.

It makes me think about the times that I have traveled and then come home. It makes me think about how many times I have moved, and how many places I have called home. It makes me think about my friends who have moved lately, either away from Minneapolis or back to Minneapolis. It makes me think about how resistant I have been to traveling now, and how my life orbits tighter and tighter around my own house. It makes me wonder when and where we will travel or move in the future, and where else I might call home.

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

Yes! I want to know what's going on!
No! It's more fun making shit up!
I don't actually care about you, so whatever, man.

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

They love each other
They ignore each other
They fight to the death

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

48
50
55
58

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:


Whining about carpal tunnel syndrome
Bribing with cookies or Gasthof's
Withholding sex
Threats of posting embarrassing pictures

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

Get out of bed at 10am
Watch the dog sleep on the couch
Wonder what I'm going to eat for lunch
Bother the dog some more
Take a nap

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

Curtains
Artwork
My new coat
My "freelance SM" hat
Wet laundry


(PS: Your answers are awesome!)

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

Curtains
A gray v-neck sweater
A black wool coat
A trackball mouse
Retail jewelry display stands
A coat rack

$64,000 Blog-amid

Name this category:

Arrow is an only dog.
Adam is still working on his second set of speakers.
We are not pregnant.
I still own a Chevy Blazer.
It's -15* F with the wind chill.

No more whining

This is for Adam, who pawned me off on icanhascheezburger.com this afternoon.

PS: Annie, my podiatrist said that my metatarsals are all healed up, so now I can start working up to my normal exercise. I didn't tell him that my normal exercise is walking to the kitchen to make popcorn before I watch a movie. Ha ha ha. YARR!

This post is boring.

I have a cold. Adam is still building speakers. I've just been reading up on the mailing rules for APO mail, since Alex is now in Baghdad. Arrow has a sore on his foot that we've been treating with topical applications of a black tea bag. I got rear ended last week and I'm waiting for the insurance adjuster to call me back and tell me where to take my car for repair estimates. I'm not excited for that process, since I'm pretty sure they're going to total out my car.

I lied. This post isn't boring. This post is whiney, and I'm okay with that.