Naked refrigerators

 Naked refrigerators make me sad. They are so lonely looking. See?

How boring is that?

So, after 5 days of staring at a bare refrigerator, I am happy to report that its is now fully clothed with 

Pictures of family, cards from family, magnets with important numbers (who to call when the toilet is  clogged, etc :), postcards from friend's travels, and shoe magnets!

and....

Inspirational postcards (we can do it!), an awesome picture of Jonathan, Alison as a little girl, flower magnets, family christmas cards.

and....

Works of art by little people that I love (Sawyer and Alison), a "congrats on passing your PI class" card, and snowflakes.

and....

Word magnets, flower magnet, and art work by Jonathan (its a monkey, like him!).

Now, whenever I open the fridge, I am greeted with nice memories of people who are important to me. Much better than a bare refrigerator, don't you think?

My born-again MacBook

For 2 years now, my wonderful MacBook has been sitting on a shelf, for all intents and purposes dead to me. I kept it around because I have a lot of memory and emotion (just ask Josh how many tears have been shed over this 1 computer!) tied up in it, and it holds on its hard drive all of my music and a lot of documents and pictures. I kept, hoping that one day, I would have $500 to fix it, or that I would have another Mac to which I could transfer all my love and affection (and music and other important stuff). But last night, my MacBook that has been dead for 2 years, came back to life.

It was a pretty normal Saturday night. Josh and I decided to go to the mall to see if Verizon could fix our phones which have been acting REALLY slow (they couldn't - said to wait till December when we were eligible for an upgrade). On our way out, Josh asked if I wanted to go to the Mac store, to which I responded (some-what bitterly) "why would I want to go there?" We decided to go, and Josh agreed to ask them if they could take the data off my hard drive of my broken Mac, and put it on a new one we have been eyeing as a potential Christmas present. As I'm looking at the pretty 13 inch MacBook Pros, Josh asks the sales person my question. He tells him that 2 years ago, the hard drive on my Mac failed, was replaced, and then a month later, the logic board died. The kid then checks with the Genius people and comes back and asks "are you sure it was the Logic Board that failed?" to which we responded, "thats what the Genius bar in NY said." According to the Geniuses in Fairfax, VA, it wasn't my logic board that failed, it was my hard drive again. Josh immediately asked to purchase a copy of Snow Leopard, and rushed me out of the store. We then hustled over to Best Buy where Josh got a $50 hard drive, and we were homeward bound.

Three hours and $80 later, I have my computer back. It doesn't have its documents or music yet (we have yet to determine if the failed hard drive "ate" my stuff or not), but I have my computer back. I'm trying not to be angry with Apple, for lying to me 2 years ago, especially since its now up and working again. Thanks to my genius of a husband.

Baking Catastrophe

It started off innocent enough. I stopped by Wegmans on my way home from work for some supplies, and came across this:

Yum, cranberries! One of my favorite Fall foods. I love cranberry sauce, cranberry muffins, cranberry cookies, and cranberry bread. I picked up a bag, intending to make a loaf of cranberry bread later this week.

I get home, unload the groceries, put them away, and put the dishes in the dishwasher from last night. I had a little room left in the dishwasher, and I don't like to run it when its not full - but I also wanted a container that was dirty and I'm too lazy to hand wash, so I decided to make a quick batch of cranberry bread (because baking IS easier than hand washing, promise). After putting the cranberries in the food processor, I discovered I had enough cranberries for a double batch - so I doubled it - so I thought. Instead of adding the butter for a double batch, I added enough for a double triple batch! It was too late to remove the extra butter since I was already beating the butter and sugar together. To make matters worse, I had barely enough ingredients for the double batch, so off to Wegmans I went AGAIN.

Here is my poor kitchen aid struggling with only HALF of the ingredients for my gigantic batch of cranberry bread.

Everything wasn't going to fit, so I dumped it in the biggest soup pot I had.

And, with the help of my huge wooden spoon (thanks mom! That was a great gift!), I was able to mix everything up.

Sorry about my thumb at the bottom :)

 Here is part of the finished product! Lesson learned, don't bake when hungry/tired/distracted or to avoid hand washing a dish.

We're moving on up!!

Since graduating from college, I've moved 5 times (thats 5 times in 5 years!!). And in less than a month, we'll be moving again. This time, we're not going far, almost across the parking lot. I'm excited because we'll have 2 closets and a pantry; Josh is excited because we'll have a fireplace!
Here is the floorplan of our new place

 

Getting ready to move yet again has caused me to reflect on the events (and adventures!) of the past 5 years.

I moved to Blacksburg Virgina without knowing a single person! It was a little scary, but also a chance to meet new people and make new friends. And I made some best friends for life (sorry ladies, you're stuck with me!)

Sunny and Rebecs, on a winter roadtrip to Maine

Eileen, the main reason I survived Grad School!

 

 

 

 

Blacksburg was a great place, with great people! I couldn't possible picture everyone I love from Blacksburg or this post would go on forever!

Next came a move to Alexandria, Virginia. What an adventure that was! I spent the first 3 months of living there completely lost most, if not all of the time. My first day at a new job, I was over 2 hours late. Luckily, they decided to keep me!

In Alexindria, I lived in a cool house with some really cool girls.

After Alexandria, Josh and I moved to Syracuse, NY. Humm, what to say about Syracuse... I think this pictures sums it up:

Naw, I kid (a little). Syracuse was also a great place to get to know these guys

Hanging out with Uncle Josh!

stealing some koolaid

Our favorite mischief companion

and my partner in crime (well, baking and other fun stuff)

 

 

 

 While in Syracuse, some really cute penguins came to visit

and I has some shopping and baking adventures with my wonderful friend Christina and some quality bug-hunting with her little boy (I'll admit, I had a crush on him - such a cutie!)

But, after a year and a half in Syracuse, it was time to move back here

and so we wouldn't miss Syracuse TOO much, our first winter back looked like this.