Community - One of the my favorite things

I'll start with the more depressing topic...

In case you live under a rock, Western Massachusetts was hit with some pretty bad tornadoes last week. The cities of Springfield, West Springfield, and Monson were some of them that were most severely hit. Don't worry, all of my family and friends are fine - though some have parents who lost their homes. Being in Ohio and trying to track down my parents and siblings that day after work was terrifying. After finally confirming everyone was okay, I took up my post as newsmaster. My parents house had been without power for over 2 hours and my siblings (who were all home without the 'rents) had no way to keep up with what was going on. So I got on our local news station's website and watched the streaming feed for hours, sending texts and phone calls about new warnings, tornadoes, and updates. It was nice to be useful. And I know my youngest brother (13 years old) appreciated it - he was the most upset and scared about what was happening. Massachusetts folks don't really grow up knowing what to do when a tornado hits - so with me being the new midwesterner I was called on for my "knowledge" (which is not much... haha).

When all is said and done, the death count was very low for these storms, and it sounds like the community is coming together to get back to "normal" as soon as possible. I am newly appreciative for my family's good fortune and safety.

Now a happier note :-)

My house this weekend was the scene of community coming together to get a big job done. My husband and I recruited 6 of our closet friends and family to help put in a french drain (see previous posts about flooding in our basement...). I got home from work on Saturday to see a yard full of half naked, dirty, sweaty, smelly men playing in dirt throughout our yard. Everyone put in hours upon hours of hard work and now the drain is complete. I'm actually hoping it rains buckets sometime soon so we can see if it's gonna solve our problem.

I am so thankful to have friends who are willing to spend a large portion of their weekend doing housework with us. To be fair, we did entice with as much food and beer as they could consume :-)

One of the boys got up this morning saying it felt like Daytona (Dayton to Daytona for those who don't know). He was out in the 90+ degree heat all day Saturday, getting sweaty and gross, then spent all night drinking heavily.

Is it bad that I'm proud our house became a less fun version of Daytona...? :-)

Staying Honest

I know, I'm a bad blogger. But hopefully I'll get better :-)

So today marked day 1 of my plan to get back into shape.  Woohoo! The past two years of not dancing has really taken a toll on my muscle mass and endurance. And it's time to change all that. No, unfortunately, dance classes are not really in the budget. Bummer. So instead, it's up to me to do it on my own.

Step 1 - Amp up my time dancing around the house. (Mostly for mental health)
Step 2 - Start running/jogging regularly. This will be a bit more difficult, because I hate running. And I find it boring. But I've already run today, and my plan is to run every day after - when the weather cooperates. This is the only reason I hope the rain stays around ;-)
Step 3 - Jillian Michaels. Yup, I'm using the Biggest Loser trainer's 30 day shred. Just did day 1 and feel great. Though I know from experience I'll hurt tomorrow... haha. The plan is do this workout every day that my schedule allows (which will be most, hopefully 4-5 days a week).

The motivation behind this? I do generally want to be healthier. However, the more immediate motivation is.... Country Concert.

Yes, the multiple day outdoor country concert in middle of nowhere Ohio. If I can get the time off of work, I'll be camping from a Thursday night through Sunday morning. Not gonna lie, dreading the whole "camping" part of it.... for those who might not realize it, I am totally an indoor girl. But I'm going through with this for the experience... once.

How does this relate to being healthier? Well, as long as the weather cooperates (which it has not done for anything so far this year), jean skirts and bathing suit tops are the uniform (and I want a tan darn it!). Now, for me to be comfortable in such an outfit, getting in shape is mandatory. So I'll try :-)

I'm hoping to use my blog to keep myself honest and on my game - but since I only have 2 months left before CC '11, I'm hoping that'll keep me going too :-) Yay health!

I tried to put a picture of a waterfall on this post....

But the internet was not cooperating so I gave up.... haha.

Why was a picture of a waterfall relevant? Because that's what our basement resembles right now..... The drainage in our yard leaves a lot to be desired. And with the couple inches of rain we got overnight, I knew our basement would be wet when I rolled out of bed. I did not expect the amount of water we got though. Between towels and our mini carpet cleaner, I sopped up over 20 gallons of water today - in less than 2 hours. At one point, I heard water running down our basement walls..... Behind the nicely painted drywall... which will need to be taken down sometime soon - mold and all that to worry about.

Ugh.... yay home ownership :-P Working on the drainage in the yard is definitely near the top of our To Do List... haha.

Thankfully the rain has stopped, and the water is now only trickling in, as opposed to gushing. Yay!

Spending the rest of my day off reading and vegging on the couch :-) (with periodic trips downstairs to swap out towels)

We're still alive... promise :-)

To my faithful readers (the number of which I can count on one hand ;-)), I apologize for my absence. Life just hasn't been blogworthy lately. Who cares about going to work everyday, eating dinner, working out, and hanging with your spouse? Really... haha.

I did celebrate a birthday recently - I am now the big 2-4.... mid twenties.... crazy! I celebrated with some of my best friends with a UD style party - complete with a .2 mile walk between two houses.

Today has been a productive day here at the Schroeder house. In addition to the errands I ran all day (it being my day off and all), Craig and I finally cleaned out the gutters (yay!). We've had a crazy amount of rain lately and I noticed a couple of storms ago that the gutters on the rear of our house were apparently full... of something. Water was falling not through the downspout, but over the edge of the gutters. Our stop gap solution? An extra door we had laying around... it diverted the water away from the base of the house a little bit. I like to think it helped a little bit :-) But today, we finally hoisted Craig to the roof (ok, more like he climbed a ladder and I stood watch in case he fell and I needed to call 911). The gutters are now clean - yay!

Other things accomplished - changed our bed sheets, cleaned our bathroom, cooked corned beef and cabbage for the first time, and cleaned the kitchen. Woo hoo! I also set us up on Mint.com after many recomendations. It's a website that helps manage your money by monitoring your spending habits and the like. Hopefully this will get us on a better track for our future goals (buying the house, going on vacay with the Beckers this summer, paying student loans, etc) :-) I'll keep you guys posted on how we like it in a couple months.

Now that I've gotten you guys a quick (though in my mind boring) update... it's off to continue planning our vegetable garden! (yay!)

Oh, and Ms. Kelly - here are the links for the food I posted about before :-)
http://annies-eats.net/2010/02/01/pizza-bites/
http://annies-eats.com/2010/06/30/basic-pie-dough-tips-and-tricks/

"The world would be a better place if everyone had your personality...."

I'll get to the origin of that line in a bit...

For those you have been living under a rock, a pretty big winter storm hit more than half of the country last week. Including western Ohio.  Now, I thought I had hit the jackpot with this storm. In Cincinnati, where we live, it was almost all rain - score! In Dayton, where I work, it was a pretty bad ice storm, resulting in my office losing power for almost three days and me getting two free days off of work. I got the benefits of a storm (snow days!) without the bad parts (shovelling inches of ice).

Then I made it work on Thursday morning. Apparently managing your own historic site means you get to clear the sidewalks of ice and snow.... So from Thursday through Saturday I spent a total of 4-5 hours salting, chipping and shovelling ice.... so much for the best of both worlds.

So where did the title of this post come from? Well on Thursday, as I worked on the last step I was going to do that day, a black pick up truck pulled up and a gentleman began talking to me from the vehicle.

"You need any help?" (would have been nice if he had driven by an hour earlier, but I digress...)
"I'm on the last step, I'm all set. Thanks for asking though!"
"You are very pretty! Are you married?" (ugh....)
"Yes, yes I am married."
"Well your husband must know how lucky he is." (I hope that's the case)
"He does, he is very good to me."
"He should be out here helping you!"
"Oh, I work here. This is a museum.... I'm actually being paid to shovel."
"Oh! Well that ain't too bad then!"
"Nope!" (hoping to run away.... end of conversation please...)
"You have a beautiful personality! I can just tell... you are a great person!"
"Thank you...."
"No really... I can just tell how nice you are. You found God, I can tell!"
"Yes, I have..."
"You know, the world would be a better place if everybody was like you!"
"I like to think so..."
"haha, yeah... you are just such a good person... I can tell..."

This continued for a couple more minutes, I found out this gentleman had lost power at his house because of the storm and was staying with his brother in law who lived in the neighborhood. After 5 minutes of chatting I was able to sneak away.

Definitely one of my more awkward conversations, especially recently. I mean, I felt pretty good about myself afterwards (after all, he could tell just how good of a person I was just by talking to me for two minutes). But definitely  not a situation I was entirely comfortable with... haha.

Can't wait to see what happens as I continue to clear sidewalks this winter.....

How do I love my Kitchenaid stand mixer? Let me count the ways....

This baby....

might just be my favorite wedding gift. It has been the biggest contributor to my increased domesticity. I can crank out a batch of chocolate chip cookies in 20 minutes (plus baking time). Breads, doughs, cakes, mashed potatoes, you name it - I can do it with my mixer.

So, needless to say, when Craig and I were invited to a friend's house for the Superbowl, I immediately volunteered to bake. So I spent most of my day Sunday doing just that. And here are the results....

Number 1 - Apple Pie

This has become one of my standard contributions to pot lucks. The crust is made from scratch and then just filled with apples, cinnamon, and sugar.  It's gotten many positive reviews and I have even given tutorials on making it to one of my friends (the same one who invited us for Superbowl). It's always a hit and very easy to make.

Number 2 - Pizza Bites

Who doesn't love pizza bites? Seriously, bite size pizza, you can't lose. These are homemade pizza dough wrapped around mozzerella and pepperoni. I served them with pizza sauce for dipping. I'm pleased to say none were left. They are a little heavy on the dough, but it's necessary to keep the filling from oozing out. Thankfully, the dough is delicious :-)

These dishes were complimented by stuffed mushrooms, spinach artichoke dip, chicken dip, cheese ball, and other goodies brought by friends. Superbowl was a success! Yummy food, good beer, and hanging out with good friends - can't go wrong!

Coming up later today.... an interesting happening from work last week.....

Adult Snow Days

Well, I was all ready to go back to work on February 1. Work clothes were clean, dried, and hung up. Leftovers were packaged for me to bring for lunch. I even went to bed early.

Then, the great storm of 2011 arrived. And I got an extra two days off of work :-)

While Cincinnati didn't get much in the way of ice or snow (a bit, but not much), Dayton apparently got an inch or so of ice over the two days. And, since my place of employment is not only located in Dayton but it's degree of production is based on the weather, the powers that be decided to close us. I've never been so excited to get a phone call at 6:45 am.

So what to do with these two extra days? Let's see, I....

- Got even more sleep
- Finished Mad Men Season 1 (amazing! can't wait for season 2 to arrive)
- Baked beer bread
- Baked cookies
- Did all of the laundry in the house
- Changed sheets
- Read for pleasure

Having random days off as an adult rocks. I mean, I totally should have used some time for thesis work, but I honestly forgot until this moment. So, no harm, no foul. I'll pick up on that soon :-)

Craig and I are in the middle of figuring out taxes, replacing our hot water heater, and doing all sorts of other responsible adult things. More on those later!

Hope everybody survived the storm of the century!!!

Dry Socket Free! (Fingers crossed....)

Well, tomorrow morning marks a full 7 days since my wisdom teeth extraction and so far there is no evidence that I have the dreaded dry socket. So as long as my mouth doesn't rebel overnight I think we're in the clear :-) So glad that my experience with this was a good one - not that I'm anxious to repeat it or anything.

The best part of having my wisdom teeth out was having over a week off of work. Craig and I actually got to hang out during the day on a Saturday. I know, crazy! But when Tuesday gets here it's back to the grind for me....

So what to do with my last day of freedom? I think some dancing and a Target run are in order :-) I'm determined to finally use some prepaid classes with the Cincinnati Ballet and after class I think it's a good time to hit up my favorite place to score cheap but awesome things. Target. This whole being a young couple with bills and student loan payments thing kinda sucks when it comes to the wardrobe.... so I'm hoping to score a couple things to make me feel cute again :-)

Another item on the agenda to feel good about.... a haircut and manicure. Coming up on March 11. For those that don't have it in your calendar yet, that is the day before my birthday ;-) I'm so ridiculously excited for a haircut it's kind of sad.... haha. But when you're an adult in the real world I guess you gotta take what you can get, right?

In other news, I've been missing my family a bunch lately. We didn't get to go home for the holidays this year (yet another stinky part of being a young couple) so I haven't seen my parents or siblings since August. And am not scheduled to see them until May. It sucks big ones if i do say so myself. Getting used to that fact of life hasn't been easy, and I'm definitely not at the "used to it" part just yet. Luckily Craig is pretty understanding and helps me deal as much as possible :-) Having great inlaws and friends out here in Ohio definitely helps. So thanks those of you who fall into that category!!!

I leave you with one of my favorite pictures of the Becker Children. Taken summer of 2007 at Disney. We're supposed to be acting like bugs in case you couldn't tell.

And I'm back!

Well, the toilet has been working for the past week or so. It was  a great exercise in working together for Craig and I - and we all survived! An added bonus is that with the new guts of the toilet it uses less water when it flushes - yay Earth!

I'm at home, in bed, watching season one of Rugrats: All Grown Up. Why is that you ask? Well, yesterday I said goodbye to a small part of me - my wisdom teeth. Craig was my nurse yesterday and took very good care of me. And as much as you hear horror stories of wisdom teeth extraction - it is day two and I'm feeling great. No bad reactions to the anesthesia (it was my first time going under and I was very worried I'd be very loopy and say embarrassing things - didn't happen! As far as I know....) or to the vicodin (first time on strong painkillers also). Still not up to chewing real food - but I've never appreciated instant mashed potatoes more than I do now.

I woke up this morning with almost no pain in my mouth, so hopefully I'm done with the vicodin and can stick to advil. The best part of feeling so good so soon though? I don't have to go back to work until February 1 - yes, a week from today. What to do with my free (and pain free!) time off!? I'm starting with catching up on Nickelodeon cartoons on instant Netflix. Maybe hitting up the airforce museum in Dayton on Saturday with Craig (they have a new Disney exhibit - so excited!). Though if I'm responsible I should probably dive back into thesis work.... you know... that thing I haven't looked at since April but that needs to be done in order for me to really graduate from grad school?

Yuck. That can wait till tomorrow at least... I need to make sure I'm really feeling well first ;-)

P90X day 1

I've done it. I've joined the rest of the population and started p90x. Thought I'm not claiming I'll follow it rigidly. It calls for 6 days a week and I'll probably only manage 5. Working Saturdays leaves me just a couple hours after work and before socializing and Sundays are my lazy days. So we'll see how doing it 5/6 of the way goes :-) I'm also not following their diet, but will be trying to eat healthier and decrease alcohol consumption (not that I'm a drunk by any means haha).

Anyhoo... day 1 went well. I'm following the "lean" schedule - it's more heavily weighted towards cardio then weight training so that I don't bulk up too much ;-) Today was Core Synergistics. Loved it. Though I'll love it more when I'm better at it... haha. Times like these are when I realize how much dance kept me in shape without me even trying.... The lack of dance the past two and a half years has really taken it's toll. My flexibility is almost non-existant and my stamina sucks. I'd hate to see myself try to manage a class back at the studio at home lol.

Oh well! All I can do is try my best and hopefully it all will become easier as I go. My goal is to look good for Country Concert 2011 (http://countryconcert.com/). I figure if Craig is making me go to a 2.5 day outdoor country music festival I might as well feel good in a jean skirt and bikini top :-)

I'll keep my faithful readers updated on the p90x endeavor - with any luck I'll stick with it!

As far as our exploding toilet goes.... it is still out of commission. Updates to follow.

Blogworthy

Life has been pretty boring here at the Schroeder household - hence the lack of updates..... To my large readership, I apologize :-)

I was talking to Tracie this morning and she said this was "blogworthy" so here we go....

Craig and I entertained some people last evening and someone must have need more "flush power" than we provide.  We keep a gallon of water in the tank of each toilet to reduce our water use (yay going green!). Well this morning, the gallon from the first floor bathroom was by  our basement stairs. Weird. So, like I mentioned earlier, someone must have needed some extra umph and took it out.

Kinda funny, but not a problem. I take the lid off the tank this morning and get ready to put the gallon back in, when... all of a sudden, while I'm looking at the open tank, a piece breaks and water starts shooting all over the place. Imagine Ben Stiller trying to contain this water - and you have Craig who I immediately screamed for.

So Craig is trying to stop the spray of water and I have to climb down to turn off the water. If you haven't been to our new house, this bathroom is tiny. When you sit on the toilet, your knees almost hit the wall in front of you. Width wise, it's just wide enough for a sink and toilet. Tiny. So fitting two people is a challenge when there isn't water shooting everywhere and one has to reach behind the toilet to turn a knob.

A challenge that was conquered! No more shooting water :-)

A trip to Home Depot is in order for today. Womp womp. At least we have two other bathrooms :-)