Thoughts on Arriving

So we've been "home" for about two weeks now (staying in a hotel for the first ten days doesn't count), and we just about have everything situated in the house.  The kitchen was the first room to be settled.  The guest bedroom is all set up! (Book your vacations now!) The office is almost ready.  The bathrooms done. Our closet still needs some organizing, and everything could use a good vacuuming.  Pretty much everything has found its space  Even though it's remarkably foreign - more than one might expect - it's becoming more like home every day.  Now that the house is more or less under control, it's time to get out and start exploring.  Because until I find a job, my world is incredibly tiny!  

We've been to O'ahu several times, but upon arrival, nothing seemed terrifically familiar.  Partly because my husband usually does the driving when we're here, partly because this has never been my favorite island and we usually just connected here before dashing off to a different island, partly because the roads here are pretty confusing (to say nothing of the street names in a foreign language!), and partly because it's all colored by the we-live-here-now filter.  We're not vacationers, we're residents.  And that changes everything.

A couple people told me, before we left, to beware of island fever - when you just have to get off the island and start to go a little stir crazy.  We spent seven years in central FL, roughly the same land mass and population as here, and I feel like I barely scratched the surface of all the things to do and see there.  Never even made it to Sea World or Gator Land (gasp!).  So, to the island-fever folks, if you have run out of things to do on a gorgeous tropical island of a million people, clearly you are not looking hard enough.

When I'm not arranging the house1, I've been doing loads of comparison-shopping.  Trying to figure out what reasonable prices are for things around here (e.g. where milk does not cost $7 a gallon or other confiscatory pricing), and I'm surprised to see that gas pricing is virtually uniform throughout the island, even right at the airport.  I meant to take a photo of "what $100 buys in Hawaii" upon return from shopping yesterday afternoon, but already put the perishables in the fridge before I thought to - and didn't want to pull it back out.  So, some other time.

Our neighborhood is nice - loads of families, which means we probably don't have enough candy for tonight!  We have air-conditioning in some rooms, but the trade winds and our elevation (right at 1000 feet) make for nice circulation through the house if we throw open our windows.  Especially our front door, which has a separate screen door in front for just that thing.  Haven't had a screened front door since my parents' house! Anyhow, since I throw open the windows every morning, I find that there's so much sound!  Cars driving down the street, dogs barking, people's conversations - I have to be careful about singing along to my ipod. :)  Such a difference from Florida, where one goes from a sealed air-conditioned house to a sealed air-conditioned car. It's amazing how much goes on that you hear when your windows are open!  I know that's sort of a captain-obvious observation, but it just shows how insulated our FL existence was.  I suppose it's largely good - I sometimes get easily freaked-out by unidentifiable noises, but leaving the windows open and spending so much time in our house (again, a strange benefit of not having a job) as well as a much smaller house, I feel a lot more secure here than I have in previous homes.  Maybe that's just a function of my own growth in general.  Another topic for another time.

Other topics for other times: the process of finding a church, what it's like to be "on sabbatical" for the first time in my life, and what new things we've learned through each of our moves.

Not sure what I will wind up doing for work, but am patiently waiting on submitted resumes and sending new ones out when I see something interesting.  What I want to do is tackle my projects list and get to reading.  In time.

I love that we have both mountains and ocean again.

And because we're just on the other side of the Ko'olau mountain range and the wet windward side, we get brief little showers virtually every day, as well as rainbows virtually every day.  But the rain is so gentle, and it spares us from running the sprinklers on the yard.

1 I distinctly remember being peeved four years ago when we moved into the home we built and lamenting that all my school load was robbing me of the ability to enjoy the setting-up-the-house time.  That's been redeemed - I don't have anything to do now besides that here!

Thoughts on Leaving

Well, have I been woefully negligent in posting, or what?  I started a bunch of posts over the summer and never finished them.  Until now... so, apologies for the newsreader bomb, subscribers.  

Anyhow, the big news this summer, if you don't already know it, is that we are moving! To Hawaii!  Mr. Jenspin got a promotion, and that promotion is on Oahu.  It hasn't felt real. It gets a little more real as days pass, but I still can't believe it, even though all our household belongings (that which we didn't give away or sell - which was a lot) is in a shipping container somewhere between Florida and Honolulu, our car gets picked up and shipped tomorrow, I quit jobs I loved and don't have anything lined up in Hawaii yet, and we had to say a lot of goodbyes to a community we specifically moved to seven years ago.  

We had to do a lot of figuring-out about what to do with our belongings. We purged a lot in some typical summer-cleaning, but we had to decide what really made the cut, as we had a finite volume of a shipping container to constrain us.  What comes with us? What sells? What stores?  And since it was summer, I spent a lot of time in the lovely home we built and continually improved. I have been sad to leave my gorgeous kitchen, my big screened patio, the luxurious bathtub. And I had to ask myself, Do I love Jesus more than my stuff? And, if I'm honest with myself, sometimes the answer is no.  But then, isn't that a fundamental question? "Stuff" isn't just stuff. Could be "spouse". Or "job". Lots of little gods, all competing for our allegiance. Which we so readily surrender.

So, believing that the opportunity was from God, we pursued it, willing to shed things like belongings, like houses, which I've discovered often cause people hesitation in decisions to follow after God's desires.  Come, follow Me.  Sell your belongings, give the money to the poor. Don't look back.  The invitation is deceptively simple.

As we decided to move over the summer, that meant my last day of school - a lot of lasts, really - had already happened. And I was grateful for that, because I think if I'd known I'd been experiencing my last whatever, along with my seniors, I'd have been miserable. And instead, it was a season of such joy.  Unlike any other.  And that joy, along with a natural sense of completion in graduating off my seniors, made the decision feel fairly natural. I actually went back to campus this fall, to help out with the new teacher's transition the first week of classes. I was glad for the opportunity to see students one more time. But the lasts I thought I'd been spared, I had to confront them. A little. It's a new school every year, but this time it's different.  The increment of change seems much larger. It's familiar, but a lot of the students are new, a lot of the faculty is new. New programs, new classes, new people; it didn't feel quite like mine any more.

I keep saying it's not goodbye, it's really see-you-later - and I really do trust that's more than lip service.  With modern methods of communication and personal broadcasting, I'm in contact with hundreds of people all across the globe that I otherwise never would have seen again.  Plus, our lives have gone in such a crazy path I never would have predicted, I can't discount seeing people again.  It's not like we are moving to a beautiful vacation destination or anything.  It's just so weird, I keep getting fleeting thoughts like "we are moving to Hawaii.  Do you hear yourself??" I don't know when it will really sink in.  Or stop feeling like vacation.

If there's one thing that I've learned, moving to college, to grad school, to California, to Florida, it's that I always find my people.  And there's always room for more favorites.

Anyhow, we're currently en route, stopping in Indiana to visit family before heading to the middle of the ocean.  I'll continue to post updates as conditions warrant.  It's exciting, having the prospect of a new place to explore, a new culture to navigate, even a language to learn.  It's decidedly foreign, but doesn't require a passport.  Aloha!

ISO Adjectives

I need an adjective.

Specifically, I need an adjective for my style.

More specifically, I need an adjective for our home decor style.

If I see something that is our style, I know it. But to describe that style in the absence of symbols? Kind of difficult. It's sort of Mission, but without the Spanish. It's sort of Arts-and-Crafts, without the country. It's sort of modern European, but without the Ikea. It's sort of eclectic, but with a bit of focus. We don't shy from bold color, as our red sofas, eggplant-purple door, and rich tones of paint on the walls attest. We definitely tend toward squared edges and straight lines, but not exclusively. We like classic stuff, but with a modern twist. We like modern stuff with a classic twist. It's not typical wicker-and-palms Florida. It's not over-the-top gilded rococo. It's not spartan minimalism. It's warm, comfortable, and inviting. At least, I think so. I need to get an independent opinion.

How to sum all this up in a label or four? (shrug) So come over and tell me what my style is. We need to throw a housewarming party anyhow - we'll just task our guests with the adjective search.

Weight

Several of my blogging friends have mentioned the weight of life lately, so I'll throw my thoughts into the mix.

This year has been... heavy, overwhelmingly so, for a number of reasons. I've lost my study hall, which means I've lost my second prep period, something I was promised when I interviewed three years ago. So I'm teaching six classes, five preps. (teaching colleagues everywhere gasp) Actually, when you factor in my once-a-week club preparation and my student lab assistants, I suppose you could say I have seven. At least I'm not working weekends any more... Anyhow, I'm nearly a month behind on grading - what with our new house, plus a bunch of responsibilities heaped on me the past couple of weeks. This year's theme is "suck it up," and I'm trying very hard to shoulder everything, but the cracks are beginning to show.

I'm annoyed that I'm being robbed of the joy of a new house: figuring out where everything belongs, rearranging furniture, hanging pictures, painting, meeting the neighbors. Instead, I get all the annoyances: the long search for something I need that could be in any given box in any given room, the inability to find something my husband has unpacked. I feel like a visitor in my house, rather than that sense of ownership that comes with organizing one's things in a new space.

I'm annoyed that this is my fourth year teaching high school, and it feels like my first again.

I'm annoyed that the very thing that keeps me teaching (and not chucking it all and going back to industry) is slipping through the cracks right now: the personal connections with students and my investment in their lives. This greatly troubles me.

I'm annoyed that the weight is beginning to manifest itself physically. I feel just-on-the-edge of a potential sore throat, and I'm supremely lucky that I haven't been taken down by some virus; I'm totally ripe for it, what with my lack of sleep. My shoulders are so tight, it's going to take weeks to unclench. I've been noticing my heart doing that little skip-a-beat thing it does when I'm under pressure.


This is not good.


This weekend will be filled with grading, but the mountain is steep. Of course, I'm not making any progress at this moment... Oh, who am I kidding? I'll be up past midnight regardless. May as well write on the internet for a bit.


All right, then. Back to work.

Five Things, Again

A friend and I worked at Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach yesterday, doing airbrush tattoos on people. I'm trying very hard to compartmentalize and never recall sights and sounds of the day, so let me just say that I've declared a moratorium on my interaction with the general public. I try to avoid the general public as best I can, but that's it. I'm done. My quota has been exceeded.


I'm exceptionally happy to report that all five things from the post below have been located! So now I have a new list:

Asset 001: Hiking Shoes
Known Aliases: Columbia Trekkers
Last Known Whereabouts: second-floor banister of former house; fruitless search for these rounded up missing Uncertainty book.

Asset 002: Blender
Known Aliases: The Kitchenaid Margarita Miracle
Last known Whereabouts: Under the sink of former house
Known Associates: other operatives such as the Food Processor, most of which have been traced

Asset 003: Knives
Known Aliases: none
Known Components: Block, five knives, and sharpening steel
Last Known Whereabouts: Kitchen counter of former house

Asset 004: #10 Envelopes
Known Aliases: none
Last Known Whereabouts: Office of former house

Asset 005: Toilet Paper
Known Aliases: Charmin, Cottonelle, many others
Last Known Whereabouts: Spotted in new house; presumed dead
Known Associates: Paper towels and napkins. May need to recruit more of its kin if it has indeed perished.


Other Top-Fives:

Fruit-Flavored Candy
1. Banana Laffy Taffy
2. Cherry Tangy Taffy
3. Passionfruit Tic Tacs
4. Peach Jolly Ranchers
5. Blue Raspberry Airheads


Chocolate Candy
1. Kit Kats
2. Dove Milk Chocolate
3. Valhrona 71% Cacao
4. Cote d'Or Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts
5. World's Finest Chocolate Milk Chocolate Almond Bars

Five Things

My life is in utter disarray.

There are five things I need to find. So far, I have located two. So, that's 40%. Still failing, but definitely redeemable.
- Toothbrush (found yesterday)
- Deodorant (found this morning)
- Blank CDs (haven't a clue - I might just cut my losses and go buy some)
- My Uncertainty book (no clue where it might be)
- A Consumer Reports magazine I'd been reading the night before our move (again, no clue)

I mean, at least the things I've found were the mission-critical personal-hygiene items, but still, there's no telling how long it will be before I locate these. Particularly forboding is the fact that the book was from the library, and I might be maxed out on renewals...

I have a mile-high stack of papers to grade, but I need to get the rest of my life in order. No comments from the peanut gallery about how I'm currently writing on my blog when I could be grading. It's called a break, people! Anyhow, I'm going to set a goal. Unpack two boxes per night. Now, that's a pretty reachable goal. And at that rate, we'll be unpacked around 2010. But, as someone who puts easy things on her to-do list for the mental victory of crossing them off, I'm all for easily-reached goals.


Other Top-Five Lists, just because:

Purdue University Courses
- Wine Appreciation (FS 470)
- Floral Arrangement and Interior Plant Management (HORT 360)
- Art History since 1400 (A&D 227)
- Weather Analysis and Forecasting (ATMS 444)
- Constitutional History since 1873 (HIST 328)

Literary and Theatrical Themes
- Highbrow comedy
- Unrequited love
- The non-Bond spy (think: Bourne Identity, Alias)
- Understated religious symbolism (think Matrix, *not* CS Lewis)
- Oblivious romance (think: Niles and Daphne on Frasier)

Desk Supplies
- Fountain pens
- Sticky notes
- Index cards, unlined
- Hole punches
- Erasers


Update (1201a): Found the CDs! At least now I'm passing. Unless I add my knives to the list. So, maybe I'll pretend I'm not looking for them...

Damage Report

Before I launch into tales of the move, let me tell a quick story about what happened to me Thursday morning.

So I have my clock radio alarm dialed all the way down to the lowest FM station - 87.7. Which overlaps with VHF station 6, in case you weren't aware. I don't know how it got there, but inertia keeps it tuned to that station. Anyhow. My alarm goes off that morning, and somewhere between the alarm going off and the smacking it receives by my hand flailing for the snooze button, Mr. Low-Fidelity Clock Radio shouts, "...Al Gore's murder..." and SMACK - the snooze bar shuts him up. I lay there in bed and think, what?? But before I can really process this, I'm back asleep. Nine minutes later, I hear the TV talking head say, "...suspect is considered armed and dangerous..." and SMACK again on the snooze button. What on earth is going on? So I drag my bones out of bed, brush my teeth, pull on clothes, and go downstairs to turn on the tv. All I see is traffic and weather, and one would think that if the former vice president was indeed murdered, that would have higher priority. Well, one would think. So there's nothing to be found, and so I drive to work. I don't bother listening to NPR or any other news outlet. First period is my prep period, so I walk into the copy room first thing in the morning and see Jess. I ask, "Um. Is Al Gore still alive?" She responds (disappointedly) affirmatively. Hm. So I'm puzzled by all of this. Until last night, I heard a reference to this on the news. Aaaaaaah!


Okay. So, we've moved. Mostly. At least, the majority of our stuff is now in our new house. It's going to be a long time before we've found everything...

You know how every vacation has a theme? Well, they do. For example, our summer trip to Europe (2006) had the theme "Peculiar German Things." Major life events have themes, too, and this move was no exception. I began to think the theme was becoming "Supremely Bad Decisions."

The morning began inauspiciously. First, after taking the first carload of stuff over to the new house and retrieving tools to take apart beds and bookcases, I noticed a big mamma-jamma spider on our front porch wall. I stood there, looking at it for a few minutes, wrestling internally, do I kill it, do I spare it, yadda yadda, and eventually I decided to just do away with it, because the last thing I want is to be staring at this thing *inside* my house, instead of outside. And this was no spider I'd want to come upon in a darkened alley. So, the nearest weapon is my foot. So I kick it, and it falls to the floor. And so do thirty baby spiders! Turns out big mamma-jamma spider is a mama spider. So now I've given this spider a brute-force caesarean, she's not quite dead, and now I have little baby spiderlets scurrying everywhere. And these are going to grow up to be big ol' spiders. So they get the stomping, too. So now I feel horrible, because mama's not quite dead, and she's having to witness the carnage of her children. I'm trying really hard not to think of Charlotte's Web, all right?

Supremely bad decision #2 (however involuntary) was Brian's choice of footwear. As he was carrying things out of our old place to the truck out front, his sandaled foot hits a utility meter grate and punches through it, sustaining injury involving toenails. Other people's toenails gross me out, so I'm going to stop here before I barf. The bonus is that we had a nurse practitioner there to help us move, so she did some triage and got him back up on his feet.


Things perked up after that. Cable's working, so's water, electricity, even internet. Everything has been pretty plug-n-play. So far, we've had only one wrinkle - the kitchen table set that hasn't been delivered. The rant on Kane's Furniture can come some other time.

We have all but two bathrooms and the entry hall painted, and it didn't seem like a great idea to paint the entry hall until we moved everything in. We've had a fleet of people here, doing all kinds of work - installing blinds, putting handles on cabinets, installing ceiling fans, painting, hauling, etc. It's been great. We made such progress yesterday, I suffered from some strange form of daylight savings - you know, the kind of day where you think it's gotta be about 700p, and when you look down at your watch, you're delighted to see it's 330p? Anyhow, it's certainly starting beginning to feel more like home.

Things I will miss about our old home:

• The Publix half a block away. So convenient for fresh food at a moment's notice. We have one nearby, but it's a 5-min car ride, at the very least. :(
• Stairs. My knees don't agree with me. They don't have any problem with a one-story.
• A private walled patio. We have a screened enclosure, which I love, but people can see in screens! Not like I run around outside naked or anything, but it's just different, being on a porch without walls.
• Being in the flight path of the Britain-bound 747s. We'll still get to see them take off and land, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same when they're not flying low and slow, directly overhead!
• Neighbors (mixed blessing). We're on the edge of the prairie here, on the frontier of our neighborhood, and we don't have many people around us yet at all. Another house across and down the street had a moving van outside yesterday, too, so I'll have to wander down and meet them sometime soon. I hope we can have people nearby that we like and know. I've never lived somewhere - besides growing up - where I really knew my neighbors. Maybe here.

Yay!

It's ours. :)

Stuff and Things

Man, I am monstrously bad at blogging these days.


Well, Prom is over, which lulls me into thinking that I might have some more time on my hands, but I host a food-science workshop at the end of the month, we close and move mid-October, I'm helping a friend do airbrush tattoos one weekend in October, I'm planning to go to Purdue one weekend in late October. Which brings me to November. So, I'm deluding myself if I think things are going to settle down any time soon, aren't I?

I got a new phone this week. Called Verizon to add a text-messaging plan and found out that I was eligible for phone upgrade. Sweet! Since my previous phone was a piece of crap - the battery hatch was completely broken and the battery itself barely lasted a day. Anyhow, they had a pretty good price on these, so I now have a sexy red phone. I've always been on the Luddite side of the technological spectrum, so to have a hot new phone is kind of a Big Deal for me. And it's red! Anyhow, I celebrated by having a major text-fest on Thursday, and spent yesterday afternoon transferring telephone numbers to my new phone because I'm far too cheap to take it to a Verizon store and give them $50 or whatever it is they rob charge to transfer data.

Did I mention it's red?


Our door is finally painted! The whole place looks great - pictures to follow soon. So, it's essentially finished. Now we just wait to close.

The Other Central Florida

I've lived in Florida for three years. Today, I found what may very well be my favorite thing in the state. We spent the day at Rock Springs, in Kelly Park.

Rock Springs bubbles up out of a rocky (duh) outcropping, then flows in a stream for some distance. There are boardwalks and picnic spots all over the place. Instructions: Carry an inner tube up one of the boardwalks to the source of the spring. Put your butt where it goes (wow, that water's chilly!), and ride the lazy current downstream for 20 minutes or so. To me, Florida has few charms, but this was absolutely delightful! The spring water is 68-70 degF - so awesomely good in 98 degF air. The stream is partially shaded, and it's all jungly with trees and blooming plants on either side. There are rocks in the streambed on the upper half, the cool water is crystal-clear, and with the sun filtering through trees and glinting off the water, it's just heavenly. I decided to forego (1) the tube a couple times to swim down the stream - also fun. Well, until I had my back turned (not before it was too late) and took a rock in the shin. A mixed blessing is their crowd control procedure. The park opens at 800a, and they let people in (only a dollar per person!) until the park is full (1030-ish today); they turn people away until 300p or so, once the crowd starts to thin. The line of cars to get in at 300p was a half-mile long, easily. It's nice that they keep it from getting crazy-crowded, but half our group didn't get in. But still, it was really really really sweet.


Top Ten Free (or Nearly Free) Things to Do in Central Florida

1. Rock Springs/Kelly Park
2. Watch Shuttle/Rocket Launch
3. Orlando Science Center (especially when free for Orlando residents)
4. Orlando Art Museum on Thursday Afternoons
5. Watch Big Planes Take Off/Land at Orlando Int'l
6. Leu Gardens on Monday Mornings
7. Tour Model Homes
8. Winter Park Farmer's Market on Saturday Mornings
9. Watch Thunderstorms Develop
10. Pressing Pennies (esp. at Turnpike Service Plazas)

Honorable Mention: Benefit Wine Tastings at (now-defunct) Salvatore's Restaurant



Construction continues to zoom along. We have cabinets and countertops, and the tile is mostly finished.


(1) What is the past participle of forego? Forewent? That sounds ridiculous.

Construction Update

Man, we leave for five days and return to see paint, sidewalks, a driveway, interior doors, and half the floor tile installed. Sweetness.

Oh, and a public thank-you to the dear readers who, in the past two weeks or so, have graced my mailbox with a postcard, a letter, two cards, and an honest-to-goodness box of socks! Love love love it. :)

Even More Miscellany

This is bad. I've been procrastinating and generally undermotivated for the past week or so. I'm talking set-the-alarm-for-nine-AM-and-still-smack-snooze- for-an-hour brand of unmotivation. Well, I can write it off to summer, right? I don't get the luxury of laziness the other nine months of the year. I did get my laboratory balance bench (and all the balances) clean today, so I don't feel too badly about it all.

Today's On-The-Go Playlist (or What I Sang Along With While I Cleaned My Lab):
Under African Skies, Paul Simon
Into the Night, Benny Mardones
Anything Genuine, Smalltown Poets
The Way, Telecast
Jesse's Girl, Rick Springfield
Creep, Radiohead
Window, Guster
King of New Orleans, Better Than Ezra
Lackluster, Poi Dog Pondering
Uninvited, Alanis Morrissette
Here's Where the Story Ends, The Sundays
Cry on My Shoulder, Overflow
No One is to Blame, Howard Jones
When You're Falling, Afro Celt Sound System
And So It Goes, Billy Joel
Under the Milky Way, The Church
Hang Me Up to Dry, Cold War Kids
Don't Drink the Water, Dave Matthews
Bang Bang, David Sanborn
Allison Road, Gin Blossoms
Sexy Back, Justin Timberlake (1)
Fast Love, George Michael
Maneater, Nelly Furtado (2)
Ruby, Kaiser Chiefs
Too Much, Leeland
Don't Look Back in Anger, Oasis
All This Time, Sting
Old Friends, Simon & Garfunkel
1000 Julys, Third Eye Blind
Stay - Far Away So Close, U2
Time of the Season, The Zombies
Key West Intermezzo, John Mellencamp
Synchronicity II, The Police

(1) I don't respect myself for this; I don't expect you to, either.
(2) I'm a bit disturbed that I own this, mostly because Ms. Furtado belongs to a group of female singers that make my ears bleed (also: Paula Cole and Shakira). But this song is different. It's a fantastic tango. Maybe that's its redeeming factor.


Just so you know, the quality of a soft drink is directly proportional to the quality of the ice floating in it. Tijuana Flats serves some of the best soda in the world simply because they put crushed ice in it, not cubes. And slushy = good. The miniature golf establishment where I worked throughout high school and college had awesome Dr. Pepper, partly because the syrup-to-water ratio was relatively high, but mostly because the ice was killer. It had a peculiar temperature cycle and would occasionally produce very icy ice, but then, about twenty minutes later, it would spit out fresh, soft, wet ice that I don't even know how to describe. They weren't exactly cubes. Not exactly pellets, either. Anyhow, most times, the drink was just a vehicle for the ice. I wasn't above just eating cups of ice straight up, either - maybe it was my burgeoning ice connoisseurship, maybe it was a symptom of the anemia I had for years. (shrug) I never cared for fizzy drinks as a child - they were like an assault on the tongue. I guess when I think about it, I have an unconventional food history - I never ate typical American kid food - I only discovered the joys of mac & cheese within the past five years, I can count on one hand the number of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches I've consumed (okay, I can count on one finger the number I've even tasted. I only like peanut butter in cookies. Friends loved going trick-or-treating with me because they got all my Reese's cups. That's all right - banana taffy was totally a fair trade.). So I never really drank soda pop until I took that job, but it was free for the drinking as long as you were judicious with your cup usage (I brought my own - nerd. I had two I used all the time, they're in the picture over there - bigger nerd. That picture is from the auction I just bid on - biggest nerd ever!). I hear that glorious ice machine has since been replaced. Ah, one can never truly go home.

What a digressive paragraph! At least it started and finished with ice. :)


I'm learning how to do latte art; I'm amazed by this stuff. And this. I'll be excited when I can just do a simple rosetta. It seems pretty easy, watching the training videos, but I practiced some tonight. It's clearly one of those skills that the people who are good at it, well, they just make it look maddeningly effortless. Figure skating is another one of those things. Anyhow, the texture of the milk is crucial - it has to be. Because I think my milk is sadly a bit too foamy. If you watch people do it, it seems like the bright white foam is still fairly fluid. Mine tonight was *fantastic* for cappuccinos - I was constantly slurping foam, one bad attempt after another (wasn't gonna waste it...), but I never got anything remotely close to latte art. So it's gonna take far more practice, but I think figuring out the right milk texture is what makes or breaks it all. I also think I might pour too fast? Or maybe too slow. I don't know. I'm working the coffee bar on Sunday, so I'll have plenty of time to practice, though I wonder how our to-go cups are going to affect it.


We've had two days of awesome lightning - really electrified storms with really close strokes. I was going to write about the Turkey Lake Convergence Zone, but now I'm not feeling it. Remind me - some other time.

The alacrity by which our house is being constructed is almost alarming. We had the framing inspection last Friday, and by the end of work today, they've finished nearly all the drywall and the exterior stucco. If things keep at this pace, we'll be closing well before the projected late-October date.

Even though I give little credence to wine rankings and ratings, I love that Two-Buck Chuck just won this big wine competition. Let it be known that I would probably be willing to compromise my ethics to bring a Trader Joe's to central Florida. Let me know what it'll take, guys.

In a bit of an Iron Chef moment, I decided I should use up some pie crust in my freezer and a can of pumpkin in my pantry. So I made a pumpkin pie last night, which also gave me the excuse to use some of my new Ceylon cinnamon and whole nutmeg. Brian thinks pumpkin pie is akin to barf, which means I have a whole pie to myself! I'll own up to my gluttony when it comes to desserts. Also, I haven't had a grilled cheese sandwich in a long time. I think I'm going to go get some cottony white bread and plastic American cheese slices tomorrow before lunch. Mmmm...

Yes, I do realize that in one paragraph, I managed to extol the virtues of both fancypants spices and Kraft singles. Deal with it. :)

Shingles and windows and doors, oh my!

Bathtubs, too, even. :)














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It Actually Looks Like a House!

Turns out that a construction crew can build something that resembles a house in a pretty short period of time. I was totally impressed to see a roof when we got back. The slab was barely dry to the touch when we left.

Um. See the thing in the distance, to the right of our garage? Yeah, that's totally the tower at MCO. :)

Recycling, on a grand scale

Our new house has a foundation!


I always thought it would be cool to buy an old school and turn it into a house. My old elementary school would have been awesome (but it was gigantor - maybe more appropriate for apartments). I should have bought the building before they tore it down. There was a more human-house-scale school near my high school that would have been perfect. There is an old high school in my hometown which has been turned into apartments, but I never had an opportunity to live there. I'm not limited to schools, though - I really dig all kinds of architectural reuse, including a (now defunct) restaurant in Clermont in a former church.

When I was in grad school, I lived in an old National Guard Armory that was converted into apartments. I will scan in pictures of the place later, but the slide show will do for now. What I loved most about it were the windows. Floor-to-ceiling, with a palladium window at the top (second apartment - top floor). And the original gymnasium hardwood floors (first apartment - bottom floor). My first year of grad school, I lived in a 1/1 space on the main floor. It had incredibly tall ceilings, an elevated living room, the aforementioned hardwood, a nice kitchen. After we got married, we moved upstairs to a 1/1.5 loft apartment with two floors. The upstairs loft space was a gigantic bedroom with exposed rafters and ductwork. The windows were just incredible. To say nothing of the location - over the Wabash River from campus, right on the free bus loop, two blocks down from a bakery (swoon!), and a few more blocks from historic downtown Lafayette. And next door to a funeral home, actually. I've liked every place I've lived (more or less, and it should be noted that my parents still live in the first house they ever bought, so I haven't moved around much), but that was probably my favorite place ever.

Okay - here are some scans of the Armory apartment. The first (up there) is the exterior, obviously. The second (below) is the view of our kitchen, and you can see into the living room (and the windows!). The third is the upstairs loft space that we used as our bedroom.