Life in Denim and Flip Flops

I love lazy Saturdays. Sundays always have that impending week feeling to them. They can be restful and lazy, but you know that it's just temporary, the wake up call is coming. But Saturday holds so much promise. If you stay up late, you've still got Sunday for recovery. I know a lot of people who like to get their weekend projects done on Saturday, leaving Sunday for a day of rest. I'm the opposite. I want Saturday to recover from the week. Monday through Friday can get pretty brutal. I need Saturday to just chill. I might do some baking or cooking. Even some laundry. But the bulk of what i need to get accomplished usually falls to Sunday. It's like a warm up to the rest of the week. Gearing up for the hectic speed and intensity that is my week. Today I spent that Saturday sleeping in, watching some tv, and reading. Totally calm. Totally relaxing. Tomorrow I need to kick it into gear and get some things accomplished, but I've still got a few hours of my Saturday to...

If you're looking for a good different kind of WWII film, Sophie Scholl would be a good choice. The story follows the 21-year old university student who was a part of White Rose, the student resistance movement. She and her brother Hanz are working to spread their message through flyers when they're caught by the authorities. The rest of the movie depicts her interrogation and the consequences of her decisions and actions. It's a very powerful movie. Subtitled in English, the film was nominated for the best foreign film Oscar in 2006. I was struck by the imagery used in the film. The language actually seemed less like a barrier than an insight. The anger, confusion, hatred, and pride were quite easily conveyed even without the subtitles. The courage it must have taken to resist Hitler at that moment in time is really awe inspiring. I can't really talk to much more about the movie without giving away the plot. Just know that it was moving and powerful and worth your time...

I've been trying new recipes out of my cookbook recently. I thought that for break this week I should bring a bunch of different homemade breads and spreads. So I ended up making cheese bread, chocolate bread, and whole wheat bread. I wasn't totally sure about the chocolate bread. The dough looked more like cookie dough, but I asked Ben to taste test the next day. He thought it tasted fine so I'm taking that and the other two kinds tomorrow. We'll see how everyone likes it.

I so want it to be spring. I'm done with the snow and the cold. I realize it's only February. And yes, I realize I live in the Midwest. But this just seems a bit ridiculous. I think we probably had more snow last year, but I think I've finally figured out the difference. Last year it seemed to melt off before it snowed again. This winter that hasn't been true. It doesn't get warm enough to melt everything off, so it just keeps piling up. There's been snow on the ground constantly. No mental breaks from winter. Last January (maybe February) it was bitterly cold here, but there was very little snow on the ground then. I guess it's been 10 days since our last big snow storm (that dumped almost 7 inches on the city) so I suppose we are due. I'm just hoping that the forecast is wrong like it has been so far the winter. We've never got quite as much as they expect. So hopefully that 6-10 is closer to 4-6. :) But with it being the heavy wet snow, you know i...

The delivery guys were here before I got home (30 mins before they were supposed to be here) and then it took them all of like 6 mins to put it together! So before 12:40 they had come and gone! Here's the end result: a guest bedroom with bed!! Just ready and waiting for its first guest. The headboard is still at my parent's house, but soon it will be complete. BTW the photos above the bed are of all of my former roomies: my sister, Gretchen, and Amy!

Tomorrow I'm having a twin bed (mattress and frame) delivered to my apartment. It's for my guest bedroom, and a Christmas present from my parents. I'm really excited (probably too much so) for it to get here. I was thinking about it last night when I realized this is the first piece of furniture I'll own that's new. Sometimes I wonder how I made it almost to 26 before owning a piece of new furniture. (And yes, besides the guest bedroom the rest of the apartment is fully furnished!) Does this make me officially an adult? As weirdly giddy as I am about this bed, it got me thinking about the rest of my furnishings. The rest of my apartment is outfitted in hand-me-down furniture or rummage sale buys. I really love that most of my furniture has a story behind it. My kitchen table is the one I grew up frosting Christmas cookies on at my grandmother's condo. My desk is an antique that I stole my mother's pens out of when I was younger. My comfy living room chair is...

After the late night last night, bad/weird dreams all night, and my body insisting I be awake at 8:30 whether I wanted to or not, the caffeine was almost a necessity. Plus I was craving coffee. Decaf latte just didn't sound good. I needed to be awake enough buy a bed for my guest bedroom :) It was also a great excuse to take my parents to a cute little independent coffee shop. Honestly that is one thing I love about Dubuque. The excess of indie coffee shops is awesome. Mom and I made the mistake of letting Dad get their equivalent of a red eye. He loved it made sure on the way through town again (I needed the phone book after failing to remember where a store was.) to double-check that he knew how to get back to it! I also had a Diet Coke at lunch. :( Ironically, I'm still pretty exhausted today. So I'm not entirely sure what's up with that. Back on the train tomorrow though. It's going to be an interesting rest of the month as starting Wednesday, I think I'm go...

I was going to post this last night, but I got home from the Olympics party at about 12:10. Ended up texting/calling Em cause I knew she was still up, and didn't get to be til 1am. Sorry. If I'd have written this last night, but to be honest I'm not sure it would have made much sense. We had a lot of fun. There was discussion of ice zombies, crushes on Bob Costa, why Luxembourg didn't have any athletes, the wonder that is water polo, Shaun White's hair, 3D whales, and plaid-wearing mohawked fiddlers. And that was just the Olympics talk. There was also the random growing up Catholic stories, food talk, college stories, and some good-natured ribbing. Anne Marie's menu was awesome. So much good food. I'm excited to try the mushroom and wild rice soup recipe for sure. It was nice to just chill and hang out with friends for the night. Bring on the rest of the games!!

I took today off from work. Seems like a pretty simple statement, but as I look back on the last 20 months, it's the first real random day off I've taken. It's not like I haven't used vacation days before. They've always been for an actual vacation or a few hours because someone's on the way here. This was the first time I just took a mental break. Granted, I had a bunch of cleaning to do and other things I needed accomplished, but honestly the biggest thing was just having a day off from thinking about work. I only work Monday through Friday, but last weekend as the first one where I didn't spend at least a few hours at work since the first of the year. There's just something about a mid-week break that makes life a little better. I'll have to remember this next time I'm crazy stressed out. Not that I'll have a free day on the schedule. Those are rare indeed. I'm glad I took advantage of it today :)

So as I started cleaning my guest bedroom, I heard a really loud clunk and then more loud noises coming from my laundry room. I ran in there to find my washer is broken. The drum of the washer looks like it dropped down and is no longer connected to the rest of my washer. It still spins....just freely of anything else. Thankfully it was just about to the rinse cycle but hadn't yet started filling with water. However, that meant that there were still some soap suds on my load. No problem I think, I'll just rinse them in the bathtub and hang them on the dryer rack to dry. Ha. What I failed to remember is how much work it takes to wring out clothes. The t-shirts and socks were no problem. The sweatshirts, jeans, and towels were not so much fun. This is probably the part in the story where I explain I have no arm or wrist strength whatsoever. After about an hour I've got it all done. I had to drain the tub and refill with clean water about 7 times, and the last few things (towe...

I've lived in this apartment for 20 months now, and have thus far survived without wireless internet. And before then, I lived in university housing without wireless for an additional 20ish months. But I think I'm finally starting to reach that breaking point. My parents gave me a (yet-unpurchased) couch/daybed/futon/something to sleep on for my spare bedroom for Christmas. This means, I really need to clean out that room which has sort of just become a storage room for stuff. Not that big of a deal, but it's going to take me a while to sort out the random stuff that's in there. Most of it I never really unpacked, clearly leading me to believe I probably don't need it all that badly if I haven't bothered to use it in the last 20 months. To be fair, it's also housing some of my crafting stuff, and holiday decorations too. So the cleaning/sorting/donating to Goodwill or my mom's rummage sale will commence tonight. (And continue until finished!) The drawbac...

Today was our publications reception at work, where we celebrate all the staff/faculty accomplishments outside of the classroom in the past year. It went well. I was official photographer for the event. I'll dig through the photos of people for the newspaper later. But I really love the food shots I took. The woman who made the food asked for copies of the photos. One of my co-workers decided that these look about as delicious as they tasted.

So, once again I'm running a little late with this, but here it is: a January wrapup and a February resolution. I was 99% successful in not eating out at fast food restaurants (and Panera) during January. I felt really good not to spend that money, and I really did end up cooking at home more. I am the proud new owner of a favorite Tex-Mex wrap recipe thanks to that. I also had a chance to make a few more loaves of bread, including rye bread and a white cheddar bread. I'm seriously starting to wonder how I lived without homemade bread!! The one hiccup was when I was stranded in Madison due to the fog and needing to have my sister's car towed. We ended up at Panera because I needed free internet to steal, so we grabbed lunch while we were there. I vote that's ok, because well, I make the rules, and it was more about the internet than the food :) So for February, I'm going to try and keep that up. I won't be as strict. I mean a girl needs her hot french fries ever...