how quickly we forget

So after putting in a load of laundry and starting up the Roomba (my birthday present from Jack... which I love), I was preparing to wash a massive amount of dishes.  And I was thinking idly to myself how cool it is to live in such a time when machines can do chores for us.  I mean, back in the day, women would have to drag out their washtub and clothesline to do laundry, and it would take all day.  And most people still clean their floors themselves, with a broom or a vacuum cleaner, and it takes just way too long to be fun.

And then as I turned on the faucet, I thought, "Man, wouldn't it be nice if there were some kind of machine that could wash dishes, t..... oh.  Right."


(Also, here:  have a video of my Roomba in action, and be suitably envious.)

screen time

So Jack and I decided that our Christmas present to each other this year would be a new TV.

Not that the old one doesn't work, mind you. It works fine... and it was free (from Jack's aunt), which is even better. But it was just.... huge.

I mean, seriously, look at this thing. It's massive, and almost unbelievably heavy.


The observant among you will note that in the above picture, the morbidly obese TV has been relegated to the basement. This should be a clue that we got a fairly exciting UPS delivery the other day!


Ain't it purty? It's all sleek and shiny and... non-enormous.


The screen is actually a few inches larger, but it takes up a much smaller footprint in our living room.


Now for review purposes....

Tired and hopelessly overweight TV:


Thin, svelte, glamorous TV:


(Note: My intent is just to be mildly humorous, not to offend those who have weight problems, nor to suggest that they cannot be glamorous and should thus be relegated to the basement. This should be a "duh," but with the internet, you never know.)

o come all ye faithful

Last round of showing off our Christmas spirit!

The advent calendar:

(you can tell it was only the 3rd when I took this picture)

The advent wreath:

(for those unfamiliar, here's a link which explains the tradition and the colors)

And the Nativity scene:

(last year our then-3-year-old little friend Evvy broke the shepherd's legs off by accident... he's good as new thanks to the magic of super-glue, but we still laugh about it)

let it snow

No, it's not snowing here yet. But our living room and kitchen are bountifully decorated with paper snowflakes!

these are left over from our wedding centerpieces last year

just barely visible through the sheers

see? pretty

We also have stockings hung-- not by the chimney, because we don't have one-- but in the window in the study. (Also left over from our wedding.)


And the family calendar made by my in-laws is also quite festive this time of year!

o Christmas tree

We got our tree last weekend!


When I was growing up, we always had artificial Christmas trees. I loved the ritual of taking the tree out of the box and putting it together with the family. But Jack was adamant that he had to have a real tree. It was a point of contention for awhile, but after last year and now this year, I think I'm sold. I love that it's a living (for a while) part of God's creation... I love the little imperfections. And really... making sure it has enough water and cleaning up a few needles aren't really that big of a deal.

We also set up the mini tree... which is artificial, obviously.

It's probably older than I am... I think my sisters took it to college, and then I did. And then I kept it. (The plastic stand broke years ago, so my dad handily made me a new one out of a few layers of plywood sandwiched together.)

When we got our tree, the nursery also had wreaths for sale, so we got one of those on a whim, too.

I love the sharp piney smell that I get a whiff of every time I open the front door!

And the tree nursery also throws in a (small) free poinsettia when you buy a tree. Pretty.

(I prefer the red poinsettias by far. I can deal with the yellow ones though they're not my favorite, but I see people selling all kinds of bizarre colors. Blue sprinkled with gold glitter? Seriously?)

God rest ye merry

Seeing a little Christmas cheer in our windows as I got into my car early on a weekday morning is just bound to make the day a little brighter.

make like a tree and get outta here

The other week, the city came and collected all the leaves on our street that people had raked to the curb.

This may not seem interesting enough to be the subject of a blog post, but it was interesting to me. I was home when they came to collect them, and I was bizarrely delighted and intrigued by the whole process.


When I texted my friend Jax to share my excitement, she replied, unimpressed, "Haven't you ever seen a leaf truck before?"

And the answer is, no! I lived in the country until I went away to college... then I lived in a dorm until I went to med school... then I lived in a shabby little apartment complex until I married Jack. I didn't even know cities collected leaves until last year.


And now my inner 7-year-old was looking out the window with glee, thinking nothing but, "THERE'S A BULLDOZER MAKING A GIANT PILE OF LEAVES IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE!!!"


Let me tell you, I was this close to going outside and taking a flying leap into that puppy. Well... at least in my head.

waxing poetic

Ohio, how do I love you? Let me count the ways:

I love you for your changing of the seasons.


I love you for your prices within reason.


I love you for your waving fields of corn,


...and 'cause you are the place where I was born.


I love you for your Krogers and your Meijers,


...and for your pleasant lack of wildfires.

rain has to be good for something besides agriculture, right?

I love you 'cause your traffic's not a mess.


I love your honest unpretentiousness.

likely to be understood only by Ohio State Fair attenders... here's an explanatory link for the rest of you

(I even love your icy winter streets...
And that, you must admit, is quite a feat.)

bookworm

Whoops, I guess I have a blog or something, don't I?

So this weekend I took it upon myself to organize our books. The textbooks are now in a separate section from the other nonfiction books, which are organized by subject, which are now in a separate section from the fiction books, which are in alphabetical order by author.

The mysterious thing is, somehow I ended up with more books than I started with. At least, they all fit on the shelves before I organized them... but afterwards, I had to pile a good number on top. Weird.

the newly organized fiction section, with books atop the shelves

the newly organized nonfiction section (yeah, we have a lot of books)

Don't yell "fire" in a crowded theater unless you're sure

The other night, I was sitting at the dining room table and happened to glance out the window. Across our back yard I could see the back window of a house on the next street over.

"Oh, someone has a fire lit," I commented to Jack.

"I was wondering why it smelled like smoke," he replied.

I could clearly see the flames through their window, and idly thought what a coincidence it was that I was at just the right angle to see their fireplace.

Then I looked harder. Those were awfully big flames, and from where I was they seemed to be filling the whole window of the house across the way. I couldn't see much else of the house, since there were trees and fences in the way. "Huh, that's weird."

Jack came over to look. "Wow, that's a pretty big fire."

Then I saw the windowsill start to glow reddish orange, and skepticism started to change to panic. "Um, I don't think that's in their fireplace."

"I don't either. What if there's someone inside? We'd better call the fire department."

So he did. Since we didn't know the address of the house, we gave them the name of the street it was on, as well as our address, for reference. When he hung up the phone, he went out to go drive by the house to see what he could see.

After he left, it occurred to me to go into the back yard to see if I could make anything out better. So I padded across the grass in the dark, and peered through a gap in the fence.

The only fire there was a fire pit in their back yard, a good ten feet from the house. There were no flames leaping in the window. There was no windowsill glowing red-hot. There was just a cozy urban campfire, with the kids likely just inside, impaling marshmallows on sticks.

And then I heard the sirens.

Three or four enormous fire trucks had pulled up onto the street. Our street, not the next one over. In front of our house. The lights were flashing and the sirens wailing..... and alllllll the neighbors were out on their front porches, bewildered and wondering what was going on.

It was kind of surreal. I walked back around to the front of the house, swallowed hard, and stood on the driveway as three large firefighters in full gear got out of the trucks and came toward me.

Now, just try explaining that you called the fire department because of a neighbor's cookout, without feeling stupid. Try leading several firefighters through your back yard to peer through the gap in your fence (while still feeling really confused as to how you could have been so, so mistaken). I was just glad it was dark enough that no one could see how red my face was.

To their credit, they were really nice about it. I kept apologizing, and they kept saying things like, "That's okay," and "Probably when they first lit it, the flames looked really high," and "They do have some candles in their window." Then they called in and explained that it was a false alarm, got in their trucks, and drove away.

And I went upstairs and shut all the drapes that were still open, and hid my face and hoped I would never run into any of the neighbors for the next month.

(It wasn't until Jack came in and we looked out the window again-- where it still looked remarkably like the house was on fire-- that we realized our mistake. It was a reflection in the window. We were just at the right angle to see the leaping flames of the back yard fire reflected in the dark glass. And the metal windowsill was glowing red... with a blurry reflection of the red-orange fire.)

So, thus ends this cautionary tale. The moral of the story is.... if you think your neighbor's house is on fire, feel free to call the fire department, but you might want to check from another angle first.

stitches in time

I'm lucky enough to possess three quilts which were made by my great-grandmother. They were delivered to my family when I was in high school-- I don't remember why or from whom. I have a feeling it may have been shortly after the death of an elderly relative. But in any case, I immediately snatched up the quilts and claimed them as my own.


I just love old quilts. Old-fashioned yet fresh, prim yet determined, rigidly patterned yet softly comfortable, plain and straightforward yet intricately beautiful. They're such a vivid reminder of times long past, nearly forgotten. You can imagine a quilt was the work of some desperately poor yet proud and determined pioneer woman. Or a shining-eyed girl who folded it carefully away in her hope chest. Or an amiably gossiping group of housewives at a quilting bee. In some ways, quilts are a legacy of women.

As I sit here with my crocheting (and yes, that's my geeky spreadsheet) and my coffee and my music, in my own home with the sun shining through the trees outside the window, cuddled up in a quilt made long ago with love by my own ancestor.... well. Then sometimes I wonder why I ever thought this whole "career" thing was so great.

(Don't worry, I'm not quitting medicine. Just... you know. You can't have everything.)

O-H-I-O

After 7 1/2 hours of solid driving by myself, I'm back home-- where the soybean fields line the highway, the cicadas chorus endlessly, the screen doors slam, the acorns drop all over the sidewalk, the lawnmowers can be heard droning several streets down, the traffic is sensible, and the people wear hoodies and flip-flops without feeling underdressed.

Mmm, it's good to be home. Big cities on the East coast are all well and good, but I really am a Midwestern girl at heart.

hypothetically...

Everyone knows that packing and preparing for a trip (unless it's a vacation, and even then) is stressful. But what if it's a month-long trip to a city 500 miles away where you know pretty much no one, and where you'll be trying your darnedest the whole time to make a good impression and where you'll be expected to work like crazy?

Maybe your study would look something like this:

And if you're really anal like us, maybe you would have multiple lists of things to pack and do, like this:

Everyone knows that studying for an exam is stressful. But what if it's an 8-hour nationally standardized test that's required for your medical licensure, that you paid hundreds of dollars for the privilege of taking, that you'd better get a good score on if you want even a chance of getting the residency you'd like... and that both you and your spouse are taking on the same day?

Maybe your dining room would look something like this (and that's after straightening):

And, what if you were taking that test on Friday, and then leaving for that trip on Saturday?

Maybe your blood pressure would look like this:
(Kidding. That's not my blood pressure reading. At least I hope not.)

craft closet, part 2

Don't you love sequels? Well, okay, no, scratch that. Don't you love the idea of sequels, even if they often don't live up to your expectations? So with that in mind, here's the EXCITING CONCLUSION of a previous post.

I ended up finding the exact same desk that the nervous-Nellie Craigslist seller was so anxious to part with. I got it at Wal-Mart (I know, gag) for only about $10 more than the Craigslist price.

So here's the largely-completed craft closet!

The homemade spool storage board:


The repurposed jars for storage:


The craft books:
Mostly knitting ones. And don't laugh at my Knitting For Dummies book, that's how I taught myself to knit!

The yarn bin:

I'm looking forward to getting it more organized and useful (just as soon as I've taken Step 2 of the Boards)...

how does your garden grow, part 2

More surprises from the back yard, this time in shades of purple!

First, some morning-glory-ish flowers, taller than I am:


Then some trumpet-shaped, vaguely columbine-like ones along the fence:


There was also another rose on a different bush-- hot pink!-- but it looks like the downstairs neighbor might have clipped it to take inside, before I could get a picture.

Easy as...

Can she make a cherry pie,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy? '
Can she make a cherry pie,
Charming Billy?

Indeed, she can.


There were fresh cherries at the grocery store this week, along with a useful item I never really knew existed: a cherry pitter. (Mine is not as fancy as that one, being plastic; however, it is cuter, as it has pictures of cherries on it.) So in a fit of domesticity, I decided to bake a gen-you-wine, bona-fide homemade cherry pie. Fresh cherries, crust from scratch, and all.

Here's the aftermath:

Of course, that doesn't show the splatters of bright red cherry juice that went everywhere during the pitting process. Our kitchen trash can looks like the scene of a very small, contained triple homicide.

And I had to make brown sugar snails from the leftover crust, just like my mom always does. (Some people call them pinwheels, evidently, but I grew up calling them snails, so snails they shall remain.)

(Look closely and note the imprints where several of the goodies had been located.... before I ATE THEM.)