All posts in category 10 on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday

1. Let’s start with some talk about our weekend, because it was very nice. We flew down to DC Thursday night and were staying with our friends Pat and Becky. Friday was awesome because we had no plans for the day, so we just bummed around the house with Becky for most of the day. Friday night we got to have dinner and drinks with Whitney, who is stuck in the US while she waits for her visa to be processed so she can go back home (London) to her new husband. Stinky for them, but bonus for us!

2. Saturday I got up and wandered around Eastern Market for a few hours, chai in hand. I got back to Pat and Becky’s just in time for pancakes, which was awesome. Saturday night was Jenn and Jason’s wedding (the reason we were in DC), which was very fun. And a reminder of just how long and painful Catholic wedding ceremonies can be. Especially when the priest takes a 5 second pause before every sentence. And sometimes in the middle of them.

3. Sunday we headed out to my sister Jen and BIL Jon’s house to meet up with the fam and celebrate Mom’s birthday (which was on Saturday), and were surprised to walk into the house and find my brother David was there as well. Apparently Jen had done some scheming and got David down there to surprise Mom, which in turn surprised the rest of us. It was good fun, and any time Jen and Jon cook it’s yummy! I think this was the first time since Christmas of 2006 (or was it 2007?) when we had all of us together. Of course there are photos, and of course I haven’t gotten to editing them yet so I haven’t posted them yet. Hold your horses, Emily.

4. Also on Sunday, I got to chat with my sister Jen about some of the little stuffed animals she crochets. She is definitely a much more advanced crocheter than I, but the very cute penguin she had lying around inspired me to give some amigurimi a shot, and I decided on the pattern for these ninja minions because…well, it was free and it seemed like the least complicated of any I’ve seen! The finished product is what you’re looking at above, although I didn’t do eyes because I don’t have any black thread or yarn to give me little slanty eyes with, so I’ll try to acquire some this weekend. I’m pretty happy with it, especially as I learned both how to change colors and how to do a decreasing stitch.

5. I think next on my list of things to crochet will be a new scarf for myself. I found a chunky yarn that I love, so just need to find a pattern I like and start crocheting…and hopefully that will happen before I actually need the scarf!

6. I’m starting to get over my “I got cheated out of summer” feeling and enjoy the cool weather we’ve been having…although it’s been so cold in the mornings that I’m snuggling under a blanket when I’m checking email and weather before I leave for work! It might be time to start closing some windows around here.

7. Champ is currently sitting on the arm of our chair, staring straight up at the paper lantern that hangs next to it, completely still. She is one weird little cat.

8. You know what else was awesome about DC over the weekend? Sleeping in a bedroom directly next to a bathroom (no crossing the apartment, going downstairs, and crossing the apartment again to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night), and not having a 6am furry wake up call.

9. Even awesomer than that? Coming home to cats so well fed that they didn’t even provide a 6am furry wake up call!

10. I know Biggest Loser started tonight, and I know that some of you are waiting for me to talk about it. Here’s what I have to say: I’m not wasting my time this year. They lost me with the 3 hours season finale in the spring – too much time wasted on montages and repeating footage. Surprisingly, I’m not sad about it at all…I think Biggest Loser has run it’s course.

10 on Tuesday

1. Oops…it’s Tuesday. Not Monday. I definitely sent out three emails this morning saying it was Monday before someone pointed out to me that it’s Tuesday.

2. Tuesday means Dewey Square Farmers Market, though, and that’s exciting! We’re leaving for DC Thursday night so we don’t need a lot, but I couldn’t resist the call at lunch and ended up with 3 apples, 1 musk melon, a head of lettuce, potatoes, and green beans. The fruit will get eaten by me at work, the lettuce will used to salads and wraps this week, and the potatoes and green beans get eaten for dinner tomorrow night. I REALLY REALLY wanted to buy a butternut squash, but that will have to wait until next week.

3. I have known about the genius feature on iTunes for a while now, but haven’t really put it into practice…until last week when I made myself a few playlists using it. It’s a bit hit or miss, which is likely more a result of what exactly is or isn’t in my music collection than anything else. It kind of makes me want to upgrade my iPod to one that has the genius feature on it so I can make myself genius playlists on the fly. I’m curious to know how exactly the Genius matches songs – I may need to do some googling on that later.

4. Pete and I are off to DC this weekend for a wedding, catching up with Whit while she’s visiting from London, and celebrating Mom’s birthday with the fam. I’m excited to get to catch up with everyone, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll be exhausted from it by the time we get home on Sunday night!

5. I saw Stephanie tonight, and because my calendar has been a bit full all summer and I kept double booking myself without realizing it and having to cancel my massage appointments, this was the first time since June that I’ve seen her. Poor girl had her work cut out for her. She finished and said “so you could use about another two hours of work”. :( When I win the lottery, I’m going to move her (and her puppy!) to live next door to me and she’s going to be my personal masseuse. She already knows about this plan and she’s totally on board with it. One more reason why I love her.

6. So Lost…can we talk about this? Pete and I watched the first four seasons in three weeks, exactly. And so today I went and dug up a release date for season five on DVD, because the previous seasons all seemed to be released in the first week of October…and the date I saw was actually the first week of December. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT THAT LONG?

7. Please, before you view the following two pictures, have a phone nearby. You may need to call 911 when you DIE OF CUTENESS. One and Two.

8. You still there? Did you survive the cuteness? Let’s talk about the difference between me and Pete. When Pete goes out and I’m home alone, I watch things along the lines of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. When I have something to do after work and come home late, Pete watches things along the lines of American Experience: We Shall Remain.

9. I’ve had a really strange, really frequent urge to sew lately. I am not a sewer. I’m fairly certain that the last thing I sewed was a fuzzy stuffed animal/ball in 7th grade sewing class. But I have, very often over the last few weeks, thought to myself “I should get my hands on a sewing machine and…” Frankly, it freaks me out because I have no idea where the urge to sew is coming from.

10. This one makes sense to me, as it’s starting to feel more and more like fall around here: I’m itching to start crocheting again. I stopped and bought some new yarn on the way home from work today. Now I just need to figure out what to make with it and find a pattern!

1 Comment

by Sarah G on September 8, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in 10 on Tuesday

Posted by Sarah G on September 8, 2009

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2009/09/08/10-on-tuesday-19/

10 on Tuesday

1. If ever you see me with a Coke in front of me, please take it away. It’s time to kick that habit for real.

2. We’ve been good about eating lots of veggies lately (and Pete’s been eating lots of fruit – I’m not quite as good about that). I stopped at the farmers market on the way home from work and bought a few things – corn, green peppers, and these pretty yellow pear tomatoes. They’re tasty! I realized on the way home that I should have bought more – butternut squash, green beans, apples, carrots…will make a list for Thursday so I don’t forget!

3. I did yoga yesterday for the first time in a loooooong time. It felt really good. It happens to be Yoga Month, as well, so I guess it’s as good a time as any to get back into the habit! Did I mention that it felt really good. I mean REALLY good.

4. Have I mentioned already that we’ve been watching Lost? We’re on Season 3 now, and I hate every night when it’s bed time and I have to stop watching. I’m sure that when we get through Season 5 and I have to wait for the new season next spring I’m going to be very unhappy about it.

5. Last night I accidentally tore a hole in my oldest, favoritest pair of pajama pants. They are blue with yellow duckies on them, and I have found very few pairs of pajama pants since that fit me as well (except one pair of green flannel ones with tigers on them). This hole makes me very sad, but I haven’t given up on my ducky pants yet!

6. We’ve gone from a week straight of hot, humid, summer to straight up fall weather. I was so cold this morning that I almost got a sweatshirt out of the closet! I’m usually a fan of fall, but I feel really cheated out of summer this year…and I’m hoping it will make a bit of a come back before fall sets in for good.

7. Last Saturday Leyre and I went to see Blink 182 and Weezer. Weezer was awesome, and I think we’re both pretty bummed that we were late and missed half of their set. Blink was not so great, and just after Leyre and I were talking about how they weren’t hitting notes and how Mark Hoppus sounded like he had obviously sang a show the night before and his voice was showing it….well, that’s when he started talking about the death of Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM. And then started crying. I guess I can’t blame them for not sounding so great, given that their good friend had died the night before and apparently they’d been doing a lot of crying.

8. Exactly how wrong is it that I still feel like we kind of got cheated out of a good show? I mean, I can’t help but wonder what the show would have been like if they hadn’t been struggling to get through it, you know?

9. The show did make me dig up a lot of music that I haven’t listened to in a long time, and some that I hadn’t listened to at all. That meant lots of new (or new to my iPod) music to listen to at work today. This song made me very happy. For the record, that is not the official video, I don’t think that there is one, but I do heart stick figures. Sorry for the random Fall Out Boy at the end there.

10. Confession: sometimes, I wish Ice Creamsmith delivered. Because sometimes walking across the street is just too far.

*Eek! Sorry, I thought I set this up to post after I went to bed last night and apparently I’m not that good with blogger….

1 Comment

by Sarah G on September 2, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in 10 on Tuesday, food

Posted by Sarah G on September 2, 2009

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2009/09/02/10-on-tuesday-18/

10 on Tuesday

Where to begin….since Pete just fired up the 360 for some Netflix viewing, let’s start there. Pete and I recently added Dhani Tackles the Globe to our instant queue and have been watching it more or less non stop since then (we’re about to finish the first season and have to wait a year for the 2nd – boooooo). Yeah, I’ve got a crush on him. Not even a crush really, I just want to be his best friend and travel the world with him. I’ll let him do the “tackling” of new sports. This minor obsession has only been furthered by the fact that a friend of of a friend was hit on and taken out to dinner by Dhani around Christmas and is going on her first official date with him soon…I want her to date him, and then I want to weasel my way into his life and be his best friend. This could TOTALLY WORK. Right?
Speaking of Netflix on the 360, we just downloaded the updates so that we can now browse Netflix and select movies directly from the XBox (previously we could only access what we’d already placed in our instant queue). Could my life possibly get lazier? And awesomer? Seriously, we love streaming Netflix. It has completely ruined us for watching live TV and having to sit through commercials.
Those apples up there, in case you’re wondering, are the ones I bought from the fruit guy outside South Station this morning. You get 3 pieces of fruit for $1.25, and I stop and get fruit every once in a while when I’m trying to be healthy. Sometimes it works!
I had a really, really awesome weekend last weekend. It was my first since early March that I didn’t have to do a training walk! I guess officially last last weekend was the first I didn’t have to walk, but I had about 14 hours of driving and two weddings that weekend so I don’t think that counts.
We kicked off the weekend by heading to Tavolo Friday night to hang out at the bar, eat delicious dinner (CANNOT go wrong with the spaghetti alla vodka), and watch the Red Sox game. It was nice to relax with good food and good wine (and good people watching, since the Sox watching wasn’t so hot), and Pete isn’t a big fan of their menu so I was pretty excited when he asked if I wanted to go there for dinner.
On Saturday, we headed to Boston Common – with our brand new $10 camp chairs, snacks, and a Sigg bottle full of wine – to see Shakespeare on the Common. This year is The Comedy of Errors, and it was quite entertaining. Totally worth the (free) price of admission!
Sunday night we took our camp chairs out again (gotta get our money’s worth!) and went to see Boston Landmarks Orchestra at the park up the street. This was not quite as entertaining, but it was still fun and nice to get out. Plus, we were home in time for Pete to catch the kickoff of the first football game of the season (Which he watched about 20 minutes of, because really? Who cares about the Hall of Fame game? I think he was just excited to see football on TV).
Barley has been very snuggly with me lately. This is very uncharacteristic of him, he usually prefers to snuggle Pete, but both today and yesterday he jumped into Pete’s lap and walked right across it to settle into mine! I’ll take it, even if it means I end up covered in a layer of fur when he gets up. We may need to invest in a furminator.
I still haven’t unpacked from WI. Is that a problem? I mean, most of the stuff has found it’s way out of the bag…but the bag is still sitting there on the floor of the bedroom with half a dozen things still in it…
And now it’s bed time!

1 Comment

by Sarah G on August 11, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in 10 on Tuesday, food

Posted by Sarah G on August 11, 2009

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2009/08/11/10-on-tuesday-17/

10 on Tuesday

1. Let’s start with the picture(s), shall we? I didn’t have one I liked from today, and I couldn’t pick just one from Wisconsin, so here’s a collection of the non-wedding portions of our trip. Click on the following links for full size versions of each photo… (starting in the center and then moving L-R, top to bottom) 1. Soy, 2. Sunny, singing, 3. Cooking, 4. The Drive: part 1, 5. Rain Drops, 6. The Drive: part 3, 7. Trout Pond, 8. Pete, on a plane, 9. Toby, 10. Barn Quilt 3 (and cow), 11. Fields of Gold, 12. The Drive: part 4, 13. Holly Dolly

2. Things I’m currently excited about: sleeping in my own bed again, not driving anywhere for a while, not having to do training walks in the near future.

3. Things I’m currently NOT excited about: the amount of stuff I’ve been putting off until this past weekend was behind me, returning to my furry alarm clocks, having to cook for ourselves again.

4. Let’s catch up…it was 4th of July when I was last posting regularly, and a lot has happened since then! I spent the following weekend doing back to back 16 mile training walks. The next weekend my friends Pat and Becky were in town from DC, and we spent a lot of time catching up and a little time out enjoying the weather on George’s Island. And then it was the 3 Day, on which you can read my thoughts here. Needless to say, I survived, and headed out three days later to Wisconsin for our Wisconsin Wedding Weekend Wackiness. Let’s give that it’s own number, shall we?

5. Wisconsin Wedding Weekend Wackiness…that involved flying to Madison on Wed and spending Wed night, Thursday, and Friday morning in Fort Atkinson with Pete’s family before driving to Milwaukee for a wedding (Pete’s friend from high school) Friday night. Wedding fun, then a little sleep, then on the road by 7:45 Saturday morning to drive “up North” to River Falls, WI – about 6 hours including pit stops. We got there and found a number of friends in the hotel lobby and did some very very quick catching up before we had to grab lunch and get changed for the wedding. More wedding fun, and then Sunday morning we were up early (we are incapable of sleeping in) and spent as much time as possible with our out of town friends before we all had to head our separate ways. We dropped Mails at the Minneapolis/St Paul airport and then headed back “down South” (haha, I’m making up my own WI slang now!) to Fort Atkinson. We got to Pete’s parents around 8:30 and grabbed some dinner (brats, of course!) while I transferred photos and did a quick sort to show them, and then it was bedtime. Monday we headed back to the Madison airport around 11:30, had lunch, had two uneventful and on time flights, and made it home around 8:45. In one word: whirlwind. In two: too short.

6. I won’t go into highlights from the weddings, but I will share this funny story. At the second reception, for our friends Whit and Ed (the Johnsons!), Whit’s father and mother got up to give a toast. I’m a crier, but this speech could easily have made a non-crier cry. Ed’s friend and groomsman Kendal was sitting next to me and hadn’t heard something Whit’s dad said – he asked me what it was and I said “I didn’t hear it, I was busy crying!” Kendal was surprised, and I explained that I’m an easy crier – I cry at Friendly’s commercials – but weddings really get me. He thought that was funny. And then Ed got up to give his toast. About half way through, Kendal looked over at me said “gosh, you weren’t kidding were you?!” and offered me a handkerchief because there were tears streaming down my cheeks. Yeah, I wasn’t kidding. But Ed’s toast was incredibly cry worthy. I mean, he thanked Whitney’s parents for her. Come on!

7. The crying, towards the end of the weekend, was exacerbated by tiredness. Pete flipped on to Mighty Ducks before we left for the airport Monday morning, and yeah…I cried at Mighty Ducks. This should, in no way, demean the toasts by Whit’s parents or Ed. I wasn’t so tired then, that was honest tears. Mighty Ducks, I hope, was tired tears. July was a very busy month, and the 3 Day alone was exhausting and emotional, and then to head straight out for our whirlwind Wisconsin Wedding Weekend Wackiness which had me even more exhausted by the end of it…. tired only begins to describe it.

8. I mentioned the long list of things I’ve been putting off until “after the wedding weekend”. Training for the 3 Day sucked me dry of energy this year, and I knew I wouldn’t have time to recover from that before our vacation. I had hoped that our vacation, despite the two weddings, would be full of naps and relaxing whenever weddings weren’t involved, but that wasn’t the case. But this weekend…this weekend I won’t be setting alarm (and possibly over feeding the cats Friday night as I think that’s the only way to shut off the furry alarms…shh, don’t tell Pete!), and I’ll be staying in my PJs as long as I’d like, and maybe I’ll even nap in the afternoons…and then next weekend perhaps I’ll start on that “work on after vacation” list I’ve got in my head.

9. Now that I’m not walking anymore, and after flying, driving, and sleeping in beds that aren’t my own for a few nights, my body is crying out for yoga. Lots and lots of yoga. Perhaps I need to hit this up next Monday.

10. The cats have been very happy to have us home, and Barley has been following Pete around the house and settling on top of him whenever he’s stationary for more than a few minutes. It’s rather adorable. In fact, Barley’s already in bed with Pete, and I’m off to join them!

3 Comments

by Sarah G on August 5, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in 10 on Tuesday, family, pete, Wisconsin

Posted by Sarah G on August 5, 2009

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2009/08/05/10-on-tuesday-16/