Randomness and Ramblings

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noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:31:00 +0000

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noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:40:00 +0000

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Goodbye, My Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:55:00 +0000

I got a phone call today that I wish I didn't. The wife of my friend Chris, who was one of my closest friends when I lived in California, called me to let me know that he passed away. He was traveling for business, told to her that he wasn't feeling well and was going to take a walk. She didn't hear from him for several hours and had the hotel look for him, where they found him in the room. He was already gone.

The cause of his death isn't known yet. They ruled out seizure (he was epileptic), aneurysm, heart attack, and several other things. I just hope for the family's sake that they figure out what happened.

The worst part? They were expecting their first child in a couple of months. Life can just be so unbelievably cruel sometimes.

I'm clear on the other side of the country, so it's hard for me to process. I'm heartbroken and shocked nevertheless.

Where ever you are, my friend, I hope you are at peace. I love you, buddy.

Ugh...

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:28:00 +0000

I'm sick for the second time in a month, this go-round worse than the last time. It's tracking just like my last trip through flu-ville, so I at least know what to expect. This hacking cough is just a bit much, though... and my nose is chapped from blowing it so much (TMI, anyone?).

There's not much I can do... loads of people have had this thing twice, even The Boy. Thank goodness that he is so good at taking care of me.

Happy Birthday Bobo!

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Can you believe it? Our little Bobo is a year old today (ish, he was about 10 weeks old when we got him, so we counted backwards to the day).

He was little and really sick with kennel cough the day we picked him up:

Since then, he's thrived and has even done some travelling:

Like Logan, he's picked up some nicknames over the past year:

The Bobo
Beep Beep
The Great Googly Moogly
Smudge (for reasons I'd prefer not sharing, and yes, it's exactly what you're thinking)
The Silver Fox
Senor Poopin' in the House (yes, what you're thinking here, too)
Little Brother (in contrast to Logan, his Big Brother)

Logan has even adjusted pretty well. He won't cuddle with him, but doesn't get as offended when Bobo walks over him, either. We can't imagine our life without him, although we recall that it was really peaceful once upon a time. We admit it... we love the chaos that Bobo brings us.

Bad, Bad, Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Bless me interweb, for I have sinned. It's been months since my last blog, Christmas to be specific.

The last few months have been out of control busy, even for my out of control, busy life. A rundown:

I took the week between Christmas and New Years off to have some quality time with The Boy before the craziness geared up. That was the last time I saw any peace.
All, I mean all of my clients decided that the first two weeks of 2008 were the best time to start approving projects. I delivered a bunch of projects, and travelled to Indianapolis for a client meeting.
One word: thesis. Once I get this bad boy done, I'll finally be done with my masters. More importantly, I'll be able to cross one major thing off my list.
I also have to finish up a paper for publication. So, essentially, I polish of a 40ish page paper and then immediately jump into another one to deliver by June. The upside is that I will be published in my field, which rocks.
I'm teaching again this semester. Same as before, two sections of the same course. I've made some great enhancements to the class, which I'm really proud of. I love it, but it sure is time consuming!
All of this work and stress has left me extremely burnt out, and with that burnout comes lack of motivation and less than ideal productivity. Something had to give, and in the short term, that has been Sasstastic.
I've been fighting a miserable cold and lingering cough for the past month or so, a direct result of all this stress.
This summer, I hope to have some time to dedicate to working on this site. I've disliked the new design pretty much since I launched it, so I really want to put together a much cooler site. Plus, I'll be teaching a course next semester that deals more with internet technologies, so I need to brush up on my web/Dreamweaver skills. This site is the perfect playground for that.

I'll do my best to keep up with my posting, but quite honestly, I may not see the light of day for the next couple of months. You're all invited to my graduation come May, though!

Merry Christmas from the Sasstastic Gang!

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 18:25:00 +0000

Why I've been combing Goodwill for old socks.

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:52:00 +0000

I got this cool kit for making sock creatures for my birthday back in April. Ever since, I've been wanting to do stuff with it, but have been bogged down with work, teaching, and school. Finally, I finished my teaching gig and handed in my independent study paper. Burned out... I was dying for something to unwind.

And I found it. Meet my first creation:

I'm stuck for a name, so feel free to offer your suggestions. :)

Oh, and now I'm obsessed, so I expect to have bunch of them hanging around before too long.

A new place to gather

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:39:00 +0000

Like we didn't have enough to do this fall, we will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. We'll have the fam over, a total of 14 people and as many as 4 dogs... a full house to say the least. We're excited to have everyone over, but were concerned about where everyone was going to sit for dinner. We have a table that was generously given to us by The Danza's before they moved into the city, but it's not nearly big enough and also pretty wobbly with the leaves in place. What to do, what to do...

Enter our good friend Mike, who makes custom furniture and promised us a table as a wedding gift. We talked styles and he went out and got the materials for the job. The Boy and I generally let the experts drive a lot of the creative process in situations like this, because they're the experts and usually come up with way cooler ideas than we ever could. We basically showed him a picture in a magazine that we liked, told him we'd like to bring the outside in, and cut him loose.

We went to visit him and the shop this weekend to check out the process, and were amazed by what we saw... speechless, actually He went out and bought a single slab of wood, essentially a cross-section of a tree. His design was inspired by a designer named George Nakashima, who was an amazing furniture designer and a generally interesting guy. My favorite quote that I read by him:

A tree is perhaps our most intimate contact with nature. Each tree, each part of each tree, has its own particular destiny, its own special yearning to be filled.

But I digress... we saw the nearly finished tabletop, and it is badass. It'll be done for Thanksgiving (in truth, we were told to expect it "late Wednesday night"), and I can't think of a better way to break it in than having a meal with our family. Did I mention that it's about 9 feet long?

Check out the tabletop as it was on Saturday night. If you look closely, you can see Mike and even Bobo:

Thanks, Mike. You (of course)rock and we love you!!

Tagged!

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:18:00 +0000

Okay, Kat... you tagged me, so here goes!

1. Who eats more? The Boy
2. Who said “I love you” first? He did, although we had both been thinking it for a while.
3. Who is the morning person? The Boy. I could sleep until noon if I put my mind to it.
4. Who sings better? We're both pretty horrid.
5. Who's older? I'm two months older than him. We got married within that span of time, so our marriage license has me listed as a year older. He'll never let me live that down.
6. Who's smarter? We're both pretty damn smart, if I do say so myself.
7. Whose temper is worse? The Boy is the least patient man on earth and I'm probably a bit too passive.
8. Who does the laundry? We both do... depends on who runs out of underwear first.
9. Who does the dishes? Both of us... we try to do the one cooks, the other cleans thing, but with our schedules, sometimes one of us sometimes has to cover it all.
10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does, although Logan and I hog the bed.
11. Whose feet are bigger? His are, but they are damn supple. Mine, not so much.
12. Whose hair is longer? Mine, although he's determined to have longer hair than me. Both or our hair is pretty long.
13. Who's better with the computer? Me, but he learns more stuff every day.
14. Do you have pets? We've got two dogs.
15. Who pays the bills? The Boy runs the finances and does a spectacular job of it. We do a good job keeping one another in the loop when it comes to finances.
16. Who cooks dinner? The Boy is the cook of the family, but I'm doing more and more!
17. Who drives when you are together? He does... he gets carsick riding shotgun in the MINI.
18. Who pays when you go out to dinner? Doesn't matter... the money all comes from the same place.
19. Who's the most stubborn? Hmmm... he's pretty stubborn, but so am I. But I think he's more stubborn than me... yeah, definitely him and not me.
20. Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? We're both surprisingly good at this.
21. Whose family do you see more? Mine... looong story.
22. Who named your pet? Logan came with me, and we both named Bobo together.
23. Who kissed who first? We kissed each other.
24. Who asked who out? Apparently he had been trying to get me to go out with him for three years, but I was oblivious. So, it was him.
25. What did you do on your first date? We walked Logan at the beach and went out for Thai. I, however, didn't realize it was a date until the next time we went out. I told you I was oblivious! Another thing that he'll never let me live down.
26. Who's more sensitive? Me... I'm a big baby.
27. Who's taller? He is.
28. Who has more friends? He's got a huge crew of friends that he's known since he was 14. It's pretty amazing, really.
29. Who has more siblings? I've got two brothers and he's got two half brothers... so I guess that makes it 2 to 1?
30. Who wears the pants in the relationship? We've each got a leg.

Okay, so I tag Krit and Christine!

Happy Halloween!

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 03:18:00 +0000

If my last name were Seuss...

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:53:00 +0000

...I would totally feel compelled to pursue my PhD.

Like deja vu all over again...

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:01:00 +0000

Having settled into our house for a year, we have identified some work that we need to do and have put into motion a plan to improve our house. One of those things is spray insulation under our great room. It gets really cold up here in the Ewok Village, and we were sick of freezing our butts off in our favorite room in the house.

We called a few places for quotes, made our decision, and made our appointment for them to come do the work... this morning. They were to arrive between 8 and 9 AM, so I was ready for them. At around 8:30, I heard a horrifyingly familiar noise... the BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of a truck backing up, followed by the revving of a large diesel engine, quickly followed by the loud scraping noise of metal on pavement.

Yep, you guessed it, my internet friends, the truck got stuck on the driveway, just like our U-Haul did last year when we moved in. After a few hours being stuck and doing all of the futile things we did last year to get our truck unstuck, they finally gave in and called the boss and for a tow.

I wandered down there when I saw the tow arrive to find two of my town cops blocking off traffic in both directions (I think it might have been everyone on duty this morning), and the tow truck driver putting a chain around the tree. At this point, all I could say to myself is my God, they're going to pull down a tree. I was also fighting the urge to laugh my ass off in front of them. Anyways, when the truck driver turned on the winch, all that happened was is that the TOW TRUCK STARTED GETTING PULLED TOWARDS THE TREE!! No truck rescue, no downed tree, just a sliding towtruck, chocks and all. After a little more finagling, they managed to get the truck free.

This is where it gets good...

At this point, I expect the owner to tell me that they'll be back tomorrow with a different truck, but no... He says this: "I'm getting that goddam truck up that driveway." He jumps in the truck, backs up the street at the proper angle, and guns the thing. One quick scrape, but the truck cleared it... until the wheels started spinning on the leaves on the steep part of the driveway. He backs down the driveway, cutting his wheel at an angle that made us think that the truck was going over on its side. I swear that truck was nearly at its tipping point. Admit defeat at this point? Hell no! He backs up the street more, guns the truck even harder and goes for the driveway. He clears the steep part, gets stuck a few times, adjusts, spins his wheels, adjusts, spins some more making smoke like I've never seen, and then HOLY CRAP, he makes it up!!

While this is going on, I turn to the two workers who were staring at their boss in disbelief. "He's a stubborn guy, eh?" "Yep." "Does he do crazy stuff like this often?" "Yeah, but nothing like this." The guy who was driving the truck when it got stuck in the first place, looking terrified, says "I'm afraid to go back down." I can't say I blame him. The boss tells them how to drive the truck back down and leaves them to do the job. They two workers were sweet and polite. I offered to buy them lunch, but they wouldn't let me. I'm going to have to write a nice letter of thanks to the company.

How did they do, getting down the driveway, you ask? I'll have to let you know... they're still here working!

UPDATE:
The guys finished and got the truck back down the driveway with no issues. The way down is always easier. I bet they're glad that this day is over!

My Kind of Traffic Jam

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:35:00 +0000

On Saturday, while The Boy toiled away at his adjunct gig, I jumped into my car to go grocery shopping. I headed out to the main road in my town (the one that contains our only traffic light). I was surprised to see traffic backed up a ways on the road. Concerned that there was an accident up ahead, I crept up the road in my car. Much to my delight, I see the cause of the backup... a horse drawn carriage headed up the road. As I took my turn passing the carriage, I was awestruck by the horse. It was a huge, HUGE black horse that could probably crush my little MINI with its hoof. It was unbelievable, actually. This is just not the sort of thing that you see in the suburban paradise where I grew up.

On a warm Fall morning with all of colors of the season, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect thing, traffic backup and all.

The weather may have finally cooled down...

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:11:00 +0000

...but there is something that I love about being able to wear a warm comfy sweatshirt and lighting a fire in the fireplace.

"You don't fly much, do you?"

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:54:00 +0000

Earlier this week, my job had me flying to Chicago to direct a video shoot. It was a semi last minute thing, so I had to get out the door pretty quickly. An admitted overpacker, I was determined to get all of my stuff into a carry-on bag, so that I didn't have to check anything. After all, I was only going to be gone one night. I am successful, and hop in the car to head for the airport. I chose Bradley because it's closer and is a nice small terminal generally lacking the huge crowds of the NYC airports.

Cut to me heading through security, proud of my light-packing prowess. I haven't flown since all of the drama of last summer (actually, I flew out of Heathrow about 3 days before they revealed the plot about the plan to blow up all of those planes out of London with the liquid bombs. I flew the same airline out of the same airport, how freaky is that?). Anyways, I'm not up on the regulations about what you can and can't bring on the plane. The conversation at security went a little like this:

Security Guy asks me if I have liquid or gels.
I start rummaging through my toiletry bag, pulling out stuff.
Security Guy helps me put it in a Ziplock bag like it's supposed to be, smiling at me like like I'm there to entertain him.
I ask if toothpaste counts.
Security guard laughs at me.
"Oh yeah, gel... gotcha."
I look behind me and am even more grateful that I chose this airport, since there is no one waiting in line.
Security guard tells me he has to confiscate my tube of toothpate "because it's too big"
I say, "but it's nearly empty."
Security guard explains to me that it's not the amount of toothpaste, but the size of the tube, if you catch my drift. (he didn't really say it that way, but I am trying to entertain you people!).
Security guard grins and says, "you don't fly much, do you?"
"Is it that obvious?"
Security guard cracks another smile and shrugs politely.
"It's okay, you can say it."
Laughing... "Yeah, totally obvious. Your shoes are off, right?"
I say, "Of course!" as I pull my shoes off my feet and put them in the bin.
"Have a safe trip!"

All in all, the guy was totally cool and put up with my stupidity. I was sure to get it right on the way back, as I'm sure the TSA folks in O'Hare wouldn't be as amused by my antics. The trip went well, thanks for asking, and I'm glad to be home.

My Dearest Microsoft Outlook,

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:17:00 +0000

I appreciate the fact that you deliver me so many emails for both my job and my grad school program, I really do! It's just that, as much as I know that you're just trying to be helpful, I really do know how to spell my own name. Now, I know that you're going to insist that it's not your fault, but you won't let me add any words to the web based mail service... what's up with that?

Now, I know that we're kind of stuck with each other on a daily basis, both at work and in school. But all I'm saying is for you to please lay off, okay? Plus, I've never met anyone who spells their name the way you suggest, although I'm sure they exist and that they appreciate your trying to mainstream their name spelling. Are you up to something, Outlook?

I will be a grown up about this and will do my best to grin and bear it. We should be able to coexist. But Outlook, my patience is starting to wear thin. I think that you just wanted to know.

Best,
Chrysanthemum (although you know my real name)

Flashback

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:22:00 +0000

I just saw a VW commercial that reminded me of one that made me just want to go out and buy a Cabrio. It still makes me want to go out and buy a used one. Remeber this one?

Yep, me too...

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Have you ever talked to/heard about someone you used to date and drop to your knees, thinking to yourself:

Oh thank you God that things didn't work out and I didn't end up married to this train wreck

Well, have you?

It was bound to happen...

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:58:00 +0000

Bobo's obsession with everything his big brother Logan does has finally gone to a whole new level. Yes, Logan pooped on Bobo's head because he was being nosey and wandered too close to the danger zone.

Needless to say, Bobo got a good scrubbing once we got inside.

Call Me Professor

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 16:28:00 +0000

Well, adjunct professor...

This fall I have been awarded the position of adjunct professor in the department where I earned my undergraduate degree. I will be teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, and other graphics applications to underclassmen. It's a totally new thing for me, one I have never done before. I'm excited to embark on this new path.

In case you're wondering... no, I am not leaving my current job. The teaching gig is just a part time thing. One thing is for sure. Between The Boy and I, our jobs, the classes we take, and the classes we teach, it will be a busy, busy fall.

Some day things will slow down, right? That's the plan! All this effort is to help us accomplish our bigger picture goals for our life and family. I'm just going to do my best to enjoy the ride and try to stay sane.

The Future is Now

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:43:00 +0000

Check out these 1993 AT&T ads and see if you see anything you recognize...

Rock the &@$% Out!

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:52:00 +0000

I want to party with these folks...

Thanks to Heather for the link!

A Dog's Life

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:14:00 +0000

In an effort to make Bobo be the most portable, well-socialized dog that we can, we've been bringing him out with us as much as possible. He still needs another set of shots, so he's been seeing the world from up in our arms.

Last night was no different. We took him with us to my neice's softball game. It was an unusual June night, cold and breezy. Poor Bobo was shivering, so I put him inside of my sweatshirt to stay warm. Within about 5 minutes, he fell fast asleep. Within 10 minutes, he was completely inside, snoring contentedly.

Luckily we were able to capture the moment:

Fond Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Chrysanthemum) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:17:00 +0000

Yesterday marked our first wedding anniversary. June 10, 2006 was the best day of my life and one hell of a party. Boy, I love you and look forward to many more anniversaries to come!

A brief recap of the day: