Good idea Bad idea

Good idea: sleeping in this morning. Last night I did so many barrel rolls in my bed that I almost turned into a river otter.

Bad idea: rushing out of the house without eating a crumb. Not even a little splash of egg nog passed my lips.

Good idea: wearing my bright yellow jcrew sweatshirt and my big fluffy puffy black vest.

Bad idea: wearing ballet flats without socks. It was 17 deg F this morning. Brrrrrr

Good idea: listening to my new Josh Groban Christmas CD on the way to work. Hooray for the holidays!

Bad idea: listening to Josh Groban belt out how he'll be home for Christmas. Even though I love my in-laws, I'm really going to miss being with my parents this Christmas.

Good idea: getting my daily hit of free hot chocolate at the work dispenser.

Bad idea: using a Styrofoam cup and messing up the environment.

Good idea: Looking for tickets to go see White Christmas on stage in Denver in the next couple of weeks on craigslist.

Bad idea: Trying to haggle someone down in price and end up frustrating myself.

Good idea: Remember the holiday cheer that should be in my heart and try to be nice to everyone at work.

Bad idea: Eat too many of my co-workers candy out of her candy bowl. Feeling slightly sick.

Good idea: Print off the invitations to the small Christmas party I'm throwing for some of the kids at my church.

Bad idea: Don't notice that the printer is out of colored ink until after they're printed.

Good idea: Think of the perfect gift for my dad.

Bad idea: Realize that the gift might weigh a ton and I'll have to ship it out to him.

Good idea: Get excited about spending a WHOLE WEEKEND with my sweet ear doctor.

Bad idea: Realize it's only really 2.5 days, not 2.5 weeks that I want.

Great Christmas Gift #4

If you know someone who likes to cook and bake (like me), and who likes to know the history of a recipe (me, again) and who likes trying new things every time they cook (me), this cookbook looks like it would be great. I don't have it....yet....but I've flipped through it and it looks stellar!

America's Best Lost Recipies!

Our first together

Last night the ear doctor and I finished putting up all our Christmas decorations, capping the experience off with trimming our first tree together. Here is our step-by-step tree decorating process:

1. Ear doctor slowly rotates tree around and around while I stand across the room to determine the exact angular position that shows of the most beautiful sides.
2. Pull out the new string of fancy 8-phase blinky lights and make sure they work alright.
3. Our tree is tucked in a corner of our living room, so we debate back and forth about whether we are going to loop the lights around the back of the tree, or zig zag across the front. Decide on the zig zag technique.
4. With the ear doctor on one side of the tree and me on the other we zig zag the blinky lights up.
5. Both cross to the other side of the room to make sure blinky lights are even. See that they are decently spaced and return to the tree.
6. Add two more strings of cheap normal tree lights so that our tree has a magical, only a few little lights twinkling effect (the ear doctors great idea!)
7. Add the light up Christmas star that I bought for $10 4 years ago. Not my dream tree topper, but it looks ok.
8. Stand across the room and again appraise our work. After some poking and prodding the light phase of tree adornment is deemed acceptable.
9. Have a moment where I look at my wonderful husband and realize that this is the first of many, many Christmas trees we will trim together.
10. Get a little choked up.
11. The ear doctor stations himself on the other side of the room while I get the bead garland under control. The ear doctor is very particular about the spacing/drooping/alignment of the bead garland, so he directs while I do the placement.
12. We decide the beads look alright.
13. Move on to the Christmas ornaments.
14. All special or sentimental ornaments go up in the best spots at eye level.
15. Place the reindeer my good friends got me last year dead center, next to the blown glass wedding cake from my mom and the cute little Santa I had from last year.
16. Get a little overwhelmed at how much I'm loved.
17. Decide the the tree is looking a little bare still and pull out the sparkly wide gold wire ribbon and add bows across the tree.
18. Impress myself with how good that looks.
19. Stand back and admire the tree.
20. Decide that we should get some candy canes to hang on it.
21. Look down at all our unused red ball ornaments and ask the ear doctor if candy canes are the only thing missing.
22. Wonder why he left the room for a minute.
23. Hear him call out from the other room, "there's one more thing it's missing."
24. Fall head over heels for him again when he comes back to the room with a pretty bag and an white tissue paper wrapped present.
25. Unwrap the present (I love presents) to find a custom ornament that he'd picked out for me with our last name and 2007 on it.
26. Like a jerk, ruin the moment by commenting that the little girl on the ornament has yellow hair, not red.
27. Test the ear doctor's patience....again.
28. Throw arms around man of my dreams, then turn and place the perfect ornament in the perfect spot of our perfect tree.
29. Stand back and enjoy.
30. Try to take a picture to share on my blog, but realize the camera's battery is as dead as a doornail.
31. Hope people who read my blog will have patience like the ear doctor.

Great Christmas Gift #3

Every time the ear doctor and I go to Costco (once a week) we look at these cool books. Inside they teach you everything from first aid to how to fight like a pirate. There's history and crafts and all kinds of awesome ways to spend an afternoon. I'm sure they're supposed to be for kids, but they are really really cool. For the kid inside every grown-up:





Daring book for Girls and Dangerous book for Boys

An email from the ear doctor

This is what it said:

Babe,

I hope your day is going well. I just saw a 3 MONTH OLD baby in the clinic who had more bling than any adult I've ever seen. Not only did he have a fat gold necklace and ring on one hand, but he was also sporting the ring in the attached picture. Note how many finger holes there are.

And here is the attached photo.

Yes, that is a gold ring with holes for 2 little infant fingers. I think we're going to get one for baby Charlotte. All the other kids in the St. Louis ghetto will be so jealous!

(Charlotte doesn't really live in the ghetto, that comment was just for effect :)

Great Christmas Gift #2

For anyone who likes to do projects (ahem, me) this 5 piece basic Gocco printing set is an awesome gift! I could use this for SO many different things! Plus, buying things off Etsy is SOOO good!

Tree Day

I cannot begin to tell you how great it was to be home with my family for Thanksgiving! Seriously, so amazing. I got to play with the baby to my heart's content. She is at the wanting-to-be-bounced-all-the-time-by-aunt-Katie phase, so I gladly performed the task. Guess what. You have to be SO strong to be a mom and lug that dead weight around all the time! My biceps were KILLING me the next day! Who knew?

Thanksgiving is great and stuff, but my favorite day is the day after Thanksgiving which my mom has turned into another holiday....TREE DAY! I've explained the genesis of this most wonderful of holidays in many years past, so I'll skip with that. I'll just have to say that I loved that the ear doctor could help my dad put up the lights on the house. I love that he was there to help me with the tree. His help on the gingerbread house was crucial. And seeing his eyes light up at his snoopy, smartie-filled race car was priceless.

Great Christmas Gift #1

This awesome poster (in seafoam green) could find a place in anyone's house!


Poster from Keep Calm Posters, and black 19.75 x 27.5" Ribba Frame from IKEA.

In honor of the day

It used to be harder for me to express my gratitude. I would worry about using the wrong words. I never wanted to use the trite expressions that flit around day in and day out. I wanted my expression to really convey the sincerity I felt. I just didn't think that a simple "thank you" would fit the bill. How could it?

But, then I counted up how many times people told me thank you. I cross referenced these occurrences against my perception of the teller's insincerity. I compiled a list of the utterances that didn't make me feel loved or appreciated.

The results?

Every time I was thanked I was touched.

So, although it may seem small and banal to me in the telling, I'm pretty sure the hearer still understands my intent.

And, more to the point, the intent of expressing gratitude isn't to make me feel good about myself, now is it? So why should I care?

Sweet Dreams

Last night the ear doctor was tucking me into bed. He lovingly pulled the covers up to my chin and made sure I was nice and warm. He laid down beside me, put his loving arm under my weary, little head and started telling me a bedtime story.

Not about a princess or a fairy. Not about a red balloon or a pot of gold.

Instead,

my darling ear doctor told me the fascinating tale of the human circadian rhythm from a neuroscience point of view.

Restful, huh?

A question for the Southerners out there

How on earth do you people generate and maintain your holiday spirit when nary a snowflake falls? Today it is 77 and sunny in Colorado. I felt like a C-R-A-Z-Y person over my lunch when I went to drop off movies at bl0ckbuster (3 weeks late....oops) and "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." was blasting from my stereo.




On a more pleasant side note, the soda machine gave me two beautiful Diet Coke's for the price of one. Score!

Whoa

I cannot believe that I forgot to brag about this last week! I must be loosing my mind or something.

Last weekend the ear doctor and I went grocery shopping and we got chicken breasts for $.99 a pound!!!!!!!!!!! Unbelievable! I was so shocked that I actually took the package of meat over to the meat counter to make sure the price was right. The slack-jawed, shocked, overwhelmed and incredulous expression on my face was met by the butcher's small, knowing smile. Without a verbal inquiry from me, he answered my obvious question, "yes, $.99 a pound."

Like a selfish fiend, I ran back to the cold meat locker and grabbed as many packages of the precious protein as I could. That cheap chicken was MINE and I refused to share my good fortune with the other patrons of the King S00pers. I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure that the store manager failed to notice me practically STEALING their meat.

I circled the market, giving myself a moment to calm the pumping adrenaline. I carefully placed other items on top of the meat, intentionally obscuring the price of my prize. There is no way I was going to spread the good word to the other suckers in the store that day. It was *MY* discovery.

At the checkout stand the nice woman working the register took one look at the tag and called the manager to make sure the price was correct. They both stared at the package, scratched their heads. I held my breath with anticipation of their verdict. Turns out, it was marked correctly.

And that is how I ended up with almost 20 lbs of frozen chicken breasts in my freezer.

Beat that!

A great way to kick-of the season

I don't often link over to other people's blogs, so the fact that I'm doing it today says something. It says I was too touched by this story to just leave a comment there. In my small way, I too want to share something with everyone because I love it. It would be selfish and wrong of me to keep it to myself.

So,

go check out the Greatness of Deb.





(Caution: if you are as much a softie as I am, you might want to grab a tissue before reading)

Look around

I really love Chip0tle. I mean, I really like it there. Their burritos are sweet ambrosia to my mouth. Today I went their with co-workers and something really ticked me off.


Let me take you back to scene of the "incident."

Here we have an aerial view of the interior restaurant layout. Like at every other Chip0tle, you enter the restaurant and go strait to the beginning of the food line. At position number 1 you give the first worker your meat and bean choice. You slide down the line as you watch their nimble hands prepare your delicious lunch until it is all wrapped up and cocooned inside it's silver protective sheath. At position number 2 you pay for your choice and move on.

At this particular Chip0tle, everyone then turns around and flows to position 3 where silverware, hot sauce and napkins can be procured. Each person then slides down to position 4, the soda machine. This is the particular locale of the frustrating occurrence.

After smoothly participating in the well-designed directional flow you leave and sit at your chosen table. We usually sit at the large round table indicated in the figure above as position 5.

As you can clearly see, the flow of traffic moves from right to left at position 4. This is the only thing that makes sense. The ONLY thing.

We need to take a closer look at the soda machine featured as the pivotal focus of position 4. Below is a schematic view of the soda machine looking face on.

As you can see the ice machine is the first device each person encounters. This is logical and makes sense with the flow of the entire experience. Then, each person moves down to fill their cup with their beverage of choice.

I don't know if you can tell, but both normal Coke and diet Coke have 2 spigots each.

Today, and almost every other time I've been to this particular establishment the person before me will get their ice and choose the FIRST diet coke spigot to fill their drink. This puts me in a very odd position. Do I get my ice, go around behind them to use the farther away, second spigot or do I wait until they are done using the closer spigot? What if they step back at the exact wrong moment while I am accommodating for their flow disruption (going behind) and I end up dropping my burrito and the goodness explodes out of it's tightly wrapped silver container? If I do decide to wait, should I then slide to the farther spigot so that the person behind me isn't in the same quandary? Ugh!

Why didn't they just take an extra step to the left so that we could both fill our drinks in parallel?

The world may never know.

They never get dirty

The ear doctor has more black socks that anyone on the face of the planet.

I'm not exaggerating here.

We have a little deal in our marriage. He takes out the trash (something I H-A-T-E doing) and I fold the laundry. I know you might think I'm a little nuts, but I don't mind doing laundry at all. I think I associate laundry with really happy childhood memories of my mom wrapping me up in a warm, fresh-from-the-dryer blanket and singing me to sleep.


pause for momentary memory reverie


Anyway, thus far the arrangement has worked out beautifully. I never have to bend over a foul smelling garbage can and he doesn't have to fold his shirts.

We are very Steven Covey Win/Win in our house.


The other day I bent down to pull out some laundry and all I got was a handful of black man-socks. Hmmmm. That's strange. I piled them up on top of the dryer (I don't really *do* matching) and stuck my hand back into the dark hole of mystery. To my surprise, out came another fist full of socks. Stunned, I sat down on the floor in front of the dryer and, to my complete amazement, the ENTIRE dryer was filled to the brim with black socks. He has an entire load's worth of ONLY black socks!

Well, I just piled the whole lot of them on top of the dryer and called that good. (please, please, please. If you ever come to visit my house don't ever open the doors to my laundry cubbie. There is always clothes folded on top of the dryer. Most times we just don't care enough to actually put the clean clothes away. At least they are always folded, right?)

The next day I saw ear doctor standing in front of the dryer doing the strangest thing. He was holding about 5 different black socks in his hand and carefully comparing them. I asked him what he was doing and he explained his sock selection process.

Because he has SO many different black socks he's pretty much given up on finding an exact match for his two socks. He holds them up and attempts to just find two socks that have the same amount of fade to them. So, basically, my husband never wears matching socks.

I feel much better now about wearing my valentines day socks in the middle of August...at least I'm wearing a PAIR!

Good News

I ate an entire movie-sized box of Hot Tamales today while sitting on my bum at work.

Glorious!

Why my mother in law is cool

The ear doctor doesn't like Harry Potter.

At all.

Unfortunately for our relationship, I am an ardent fan. This is a real sticking point between us as I want to talk over my Ron/Hermione love theories and he isn't able to listen to my prattling on.

Earlier this week we got a huge, heavy box in the mail from his mom. We were really intrigued by what they could be sending us. With eager anticipation we opened the box and peered in. She had sent us an entire cardboard box filled with movies they didn't want anymore.

SCORE! I love new movies.

But, what really made me excited was the three brand new, unopened copies of the first 3 Harry Potter movies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She sent them just for me.

Isn't that nice?!?!?!?!

Good Eats

My family has always teased me about my strange connection to food. They'd always complain that if I ran out of things to talk about it would always circle back to what I ate that day. My mom said as a little girl I'd come home and the only thing I'd remember about my day at school was lunch.

I always felt like I was getting a bum rap for all of this. Sure, I like food, but just as much as the next person.

A couple of months ago I was going through some memory books that my grandma helped me make. I was shocked as I flipped through page after page of a 7 year old's account of the daily menu! It read something like this:

Today we went to golfing camp at the BYU. It was fun. We had hot dogs and popsicles [sic] for lunch.

and the next day

Today at golf camp we learned good stuff. We had burgers and milkshakes. I had strawberry and Maggie had vanilla.

Oh, how I wish I was joking.

Well, since I clearly will never be able to leave this trend behind I just thought I'd fill you in on the awesome week of food we're having at Casa del Ear Doctoro.

Monday: The ear doctor "grilled out" and made us awesome rib-eye steaks. I made sweet potatoes fries. Yummm

Tuesday: The ear doctor again whipped out his grillin skills and made us some crispy-skinned brick chicken, and I steamed us up a couple of artichokes and lemon butter.

Tonight: I'm making breaded, pounded chicken and the ear doctor is whipping up a batch of his secret recipe Guacamole. (he learned how to make it in Mexico and it is so, so, so, so good. Sometimes I dream about it.) And, for a special touch, he's stopping on his way home from work to get some fresh handmade corn tortillas to go with. *Swoon*

I'm pretty sure 7 year old Katie would approve of this weekly report.

Time to chop the mane

Yesterday the ear doctor and I were invited over to the home of one of our favorite families....the Rogers.

Over a delicious chicken casserole and whole wheat rolls made from scratch we caught up on each other's lives. For some reason we hadn't spent time with them since July....life gets busy, you know? Anyway, even though a little time had passed, things were just the same. Hanging out with them feels like putting on my favorite hoody, comfortable, soft and familiar.

We reminisced about our trip to Mexico eons ago (4 years), how much fun we had at their wedding (the ear doctor and I had just met...it was one of our first dates as a couple), and how much their adorable little son had grown.

On the way out I asked Amy if she would tame the wild beast that is growing on top of my head.

I so badly want to get a cute, stylish, and most importantly, NEW haircut. I want to look in the mirror and show me a fresh new person.

However,


knowing me,


I'll probably walk out of her door with an inch gone....tiny layers if I'm feeling really brave.



I'm *such* a risk-taker.

Self Realization

Saturday afternoon I realized something new about myself. My favorite type of movies are no longer comedies. The aren't even rom-coms. My favorite movies are dramas about families. By far.

We went to see Martian Child and I LOVED it. I thought the story was great, the acting pretty believable and the camera work pretty awesome. Plus, it was cool to see both Cusacks acting opposite each other. It really made their on-screen bro/sis relationship much more real.

And,

I cried like 5 times during the movie.

Making me feel better

Well, a couple of these guys sure would help my foul mood created by the great photo debacle (see last post).

Thanks Anthro! (the store, not my pal)

Wedding photo migraine

The ear doctor and I finally got around to ordering some big prints of our wedding photos to hang on our walls. We spent hours sifting through he photos to pick our 4 favorite.

One thing we thought was really great about our photographer is that she worked with an online printer ( pict@ge.com) to share photos with family members and streamline the printing process. I thought this would be a great feature. I was wrong.

After we picked them out and paid for them we had to wait 3 weeks to get them in the mail. Yesterday they came. I excitedly waited for ear doctor to get home before I ripped them out of their packing material. I carefully pulled them out of their packing material. I flipped over the first one and was instantly disappointed. The picture wasn't as great as I remembered. Something about it seemed off. I went to the next picture...same thing. The printer had messed up the photos and I was REALLY disappointed. For some reason they cropped the bejeesus out of them and turned our photogs beautiful work into something my 12 year old niece could have made with her point and shoot (exaggerated for effect).

Take a look. On the left is the online proof from our wonderful, talented photographer, on the right a picture of the print we got last night.


Is it just me or does this photo loose about 50% of it's beauty because the side of the arch on the left has been thoughtlessly cropped out?



The golden angel on the top of an LDS temple has special religious significance.....you can't just cut him off! Plus, it ruins the line in the photo!





Oops, there is goes again....





And the fact that this one is off makes me really mad. It is our favorite picture. So unique, so unlike any wedding photo we've seen, so US! And it's been maimed and makes our bodies look gross and stumpy. UGH! When you blow it up to an 11X 14 (like we did) it makes a huge difference.

And then there were 3

Every morning the ear doctor wakes up before me. He has to be at work earlier than I do and his work is much farther away than mine is. Lately I've asked him to wake me up before he leaves so that we can have breakfast together. Sometimes I'm bad, really tired, and refuse to get up. I feel like a bad little wife on those days.

I thought this morning would be one of those mornings.

When he leaned over me in bed to wake me up I almost felt like it wouldn't be possible. I cracked my sleep covered eyes open to let in a little light and geared up my most tired/pathetic face. However, when I saw the glint in his eye I knew that this morning was special and different. He asked me, "do you know what today is?"

Half awake, brain barely moving I tried to race through my mental Rolodex to remember what today was....Wednesday? your birthday? my birthday? Christmas? No.

"It's November 7th," he excitedly reminded me.

Then it clicked. Exactly 3 years ago we decided we would exclusively date. Today is our 3 year DATING anniversary. I was under the impression that after you get married that day kind of falls by the wayside.....not at our house.

I got out of bed and went into the kitchen where the guy of my dreams had made us bacon, eggs and maple pecan waffles! He also got me a pumpkin candle (that I've been wanting for a month) and a very nice card. In the card he explained that even though we are now married he never wanted to stop "dating" me. That's why he wanted to keep celebrating today.

(I'll pause while you are all overcome with jealousy that he is so AWESOME!)

So I ate my breakfast, smelled my candle and thought about how lucky I am to have found a guy like ear doctor. Seriously? One in a million!

Its that time

I have to literally FORCE myself to wait until after Halloween to bring out one of my favorite heralds of the season....my Christmas CD wallet.


Yes, you read that correctly, my Christmas CD wallet. I have so many Christmas CDs that they have their own separate storage wallet.


Well, in my book there aren't really any BAD Christmas CDs....but some are much better than others. Here are a few of my faves...in case you're looking.

Diana Krall's Christmas Songs is SO great. I really love her voice!

Barenaked for the holidays. Just pure fun....and some Hanukkah songs too! Bonus!

This 2 disc compliation is pretty much the best collection of Christmas songs you can get. Perfect variety of the absolute CLASSIC versions of your favorite songs! A must!


As always, I get a new one each year. This year I'm thinking of getting:












Everything I've heard from Mindy Smith is AMAZING, and I'm sure this one would be no different.





Anyone have any other favorites or suggestions?

You know you like to cook when...

Well, Sunday night the ear doctor and I were invited to a dinner party. It was a Thanksgiving warm-up. One person made a delicous turkey, another made suffing and rolls, ect. We brought cranberry sauce....yummm.

Anyway, when the end of the dinner rolled around I found myself in the kitchen helping clean up I noticed that the turkey maker was moving to throw the carcass away. I gasped and asked, "can I have that carcass...I really want to make my own turkey stock so that I can get some great flavor in my sauces."

As I looked around and saw all the confused, slightly frightened faces I realized something. I'm out of control with this cooking thing. That's not a normal request to make. Normal people don't get excited about picked-clean dead birds. I need to get a grip.

Oh, wow

This is a perfect room for me.

I know that a lot of people might think this room is a bit....sedate, but I love it. The contrast between the dark blue wall and the white...wainscoting (is that what it is?) is beautiful. The loopy pattern in the rug loosens up all the very square lines in the wall, couch and picture frames. And that lamp....be still my heart, I think it is so pretty. I also like the way the two chairs are pointed to each other with an automan in the middle. I could see ear doctor and I sitting there talking for hours....

I love how edited and exact it looks.

Although, instead of birds everywhere I'd rather have foxes or something. I'm getting a little bored of birds.

I'm pretty sure this is from CB2 and the whole picture is just mean to sell that bird pillow on the chair.

My favorite

This is my favorite picture of the runt so far. Just thought I'd share.

(ED and I got her that outfit!)

Seamstress

Just after my freshman year of college my friend Kathy and I decided to make our own pair of black leather pants to wear out dancing. Well, we were cheap so we found some "awesome" black pleather at the fabric store and we set to work. We were both working down in my mom's huge sewing room and I was making some pretty good progress. Kathy on the otherhand....not so much. After finishing my mine I grabbed hers and finished them up for her.

I love to sew, especially costume-y stuff that doesn't require a whole lot of finess or accuracy.

This year for Halloween was my most sewing intensive yet becuase the ear doctor and I had 2 costumes each.

Last friday we dressed up as Bonnie and Clyde:

(Don't worry mom, that's a chocolate cigarette)

(please note the hot pink bra on ear doctor's head. This was his prize from the white elephant gift exchange....from "Dolly Parton". I got a package of raw chicken hearts and gizzards from the "Tin Man")

Last night we went as our favorite fast food chain mascots: