Sweet nothings?

Holidays are here

We had Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, just us two this year. It was strange not to be going anywhere, but it was less stressful too. Adding to the lack of stress also was the fact that I got most of dinner from Marie Callender's :) And, for the first time in years, we get to have leftovers!

However, we didn't get to do my favorite holiday tradition, making candy canes. It takes at least 4 adults, preferably 6 to make them. Ah well, I'm sure we'll find people to help us sometime this season.

Here's a picture of the table yesterday, me wearing my cute apron a friend gave me for my birthday, and of my office decorated for Christmas:

Happy Halloween!

I decided to dress up for work today, since I heard everyone else was going to. Well, everyone else ended up deciding NOT to, so I think I'm the only one here dressed up (our party was on Friday). Ah well, I look fabulous :)

Go Red Sox!

Old picture

So I ran across an old family photo from Christmas 1994 and realized it's one of the last pictures taken of me before my hair started on its crazy ride through the rainbow :) So, here's me 13 years ago. (I'm not putting the rest of them up here since this is a public page and I didn't ask permission. If there's anyone that can't live without seeing the rest of the family, shoot me an email)

This moment is now saved for posterity!




Otherwise, nothing all that interesting is going on. Craft weekend is this weekend, which I'm totally excited about.

The day after I get back we have the home visit from the Foster Licensing division. They'll probably tell us that our house is unfit for children without major renovations, and we'll be out of luck for the adoption process, despite all the classroom hours we've put in so far.

A poem I learned in middle school and have subsequently never forgotten is Flying Crooked by Robert Graves. I really like the poem because the visual imagery is so potent. If you've ever seen one of these cabbage white butterflies in nature, the poem immediately calls it to mind.

Flying Crooked

The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
He has--who knows so well as I?--
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
'Tween God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Have not his flying-crooked gift.

-- Robert Graves

At Logan Temple for a wedding

Yeah, the sun was a little bright... but my skirt is so cute :)

 

Me on TV!!

Someone mentioned that I hadn't posted a blog entry about being on TV. Mostly that's because I didn't think anyone actually read this thing. Shocker. I'll have to watch what I say from now on ;)

At any rate, due to a work connection (working for the CEO has occasional perks), I got to go to the April 30, 2007 live show/taping of ABC's Dancing With the Stars. It was a blast. I even got my face on tv, which is really super cool.

Someone sent me an email asking about a rumor that they'd heard the audience is just clapping for a blank stage, the whole show isn't really live. Below is my answer to their email:

I watched all the performances, and only a couple of times did they have us applaud for an empty stage, but that was in order to have some back-up to cut to in case something went wrong. I could see when there were red lights on the cameras pointed at the people, and they were definitely all live. And you can see the audience in the background while the dancers are dancing, so it's odd to say that we were watching an empty stage.

I think they may have re-taped a few of the host bits for the next broadcast because the audience was loud, but that's about the extent of it.

I can't vouch for the backstage interviews, since they're not interviewed in front of the audience (I don't recall any claiming to be in front of the audience, they always say they're going "backstage to get their scores"). However, they showed them on a split screen in the ballroom and they appeared to be reacting real-time to the judges scores, which are definitely live. So I would say that the backstage bits are live too.

The show is only performed once, so in California they're watching the taped version... but that's standard for any live show. American Idol, etc. all do the same thing.

Oh, and during the training sequences (those are obviously pre-taped) when you hear laughter, it's not canned, it's them showing the tape on screens to the audience. It was funny, the dancers are already out on stage while the snippet is showing, waiting for their dance to start. It's obvious that they'd never heard what their partner said in their interviews. Like when Joey was (kidding I'm sure) trash talking Ian and Apolo, his partner acted totally shocked that he'd said such a thing. It was cute.

Below is a picture a friend sent me that she took of her tv with her camera when I was on screen. I edited with Picasa a bit so it's easy to see me :) I haven't actually seen the whole show yet (got home too late on Monday, and had to watch my TiVo'd Heroes last night!), so if there's a better picture, I'll see if I can post that.

Not high maintenance, no sir, not me!

You Are Medium Maintenance

You aren't as hard to deal with as some girls But you aren't the most laid back chick either You're easy to deal with 90% of the time, but watch out for that 10%! If the guy you are with has good intentions, then calm down a little But if he's really screwing up, don't waste your breath - move on :-)

Are You High Maintenance?

feh - 4 hours in the salon for this?!

Warm at last, I'm warm at last!

So, here we are. Finally warm. California weather lived up to its reputation, and on that count at least, I'm not sorry to have left New England!

Heck, last weekend I even started working on my tan! (well at least getting my skin used to the strange condition of actually seeing the sun, so I won't break out in hives like I did when we went to Florida last year! I'm still pasty white *sigh*)

I have a new job, back to the admin in the Executive Office thing again, supporting the CEO's EA. It's not so bad, I get to do fun stuff. The picture above is the top of my bookshelf. For the first time in my life, I've actually got my own office - with a door! So I had to decorate.

Sadly, the position we're in of having two houses at once (still haven't sold our Massachusetts house) made me have to go back to work right away instead of taking a break like I would have liked. On the plus side, I've got a screamingly short commute for CA - about 10 minutes.

Otherwise, not much interesting to say. We go to work, come home, sleep, get up, go to work, come home... etc. We've been a little involved in church, I've been trying to get to the Enrichment activities so I can meet other ladies in the ward. And we just got callings on Sunday, this Sunday we start teaching the Valiant 9/10 class. That's a fun age, so I'm excited. Team teaching with the husband should be an interesting experience. Ergh.

Ok, we're ready to go!

(Peeves is on the left, Maggie is on the right)

So, moving cross country with cats for the first time is pretty intimidating. Especially with one that's afraid of his normal carrier. Since their normal hard sided carriers are too big to carry them on the plane, we had to buy new ones. We've set them out so that the cats can get used to hanging out in them before hand, instead of being shoved into an unfamiliar bag at the last minute. Maggie probably wouldn't mind, she's never seen a box that she doesn't want to jump in. Peeves on the other hand is terrified of everything, so having him get used to it is good. This photo represents the first time (that we know of) that they were in their carriers simultaneously, and one of the first times that Peeves voluntarily went into his carrier. Yay for progress! Too bad he's got to go to the vet in the carrier in a few days....

New Year, New Hair?

So, the husband is off to start his new job, so what do I do? Color my hair of course :) It was a lovely light brown-ish sort of color. It's now "Chocolate Cherry" from the L'Oreal Feria line. Usually I get it professionally colored, but we're trying to save money, so I did the supermarket special routine. It's growing on me, but it was definitely not what I'm used to... Here's some pictures: