A Fun Weekend

Since I didn't have to work last weekend, Brian and I decided to make the most of the weekend. We had another whirlwind weekend.

Friday night we raked all of the leaves. Raking is officially done for the year! Now we have to haul the 20+ bags to the compost area.

Saturday I played in a volleyball tournament in Rochester. We didn't do that well, but we all had fun. That's what counts right?

We then drove to Springfield to see my Grandma, as she has been in and out of the hospital and is now in the nursing home for hopefully a short stint. Since it was too late on Saturday to see her, we saw her Sunday morning. Saturday night, since my sister was free, we went and saw her cute new house.

After Our visit with Grandma, we drove back to the cities to go to the zoo and dinner. It was a beautiful day and we saw my favorites the dolphins and sea horses and a new animal I have taken a liking to, the Red Panda.




On the way to the restaurant, we practically drove right by my sister Nicole's house so we called her and stopped in on her for a bit so Brian could see her house.

We then went to eat at Al Vento's, this cute little Italian place in South Minneapolis. I had beef tenderloin with a potato truffle puree and Brian had a pasta dish with duck. We then had dessert, even though we were both stuffed! I had my creme brule trio and Brian had gelato.

It was a full weekend full of touring new dwellings and driving! We loved every minute of it!

The end to a productive day off.

I really relished my day off today. I didn't have one appointment, phone call, or errand to run. I know what you all are thinking.... she didn't do anything except lie on the couch all day. I only watched one hour of television and that was when Brian was taking a nap on my lap :)

Here is what I accomplished:

1. Made an apple pie. I also LOVE to bake the leftover crust with cinnamon and sugar. It is almost better than the pie!










2. I did 5 loads of laundry. I still wonder how we accumulate so much laundry.

3. I cleaned the fridge and restocked it (i.e. went grocery shopping).


4. I filed 4 months of paperwork. I really need to do that right away and not let it pile up :)

5. I read a bit and knitted a bit.

6. I hung up our 4 Halloween decorations.
Now off to finish my day by............

folding clothes!

Bodily fluids and food... really?

I have to tell you about a pretty bone-headed thing a nurse did today. I was working in the blood bank and typically when a patient has special needs for their blood products, we have a nurse come down and get it as it is hard to replace if it gets lost in our pneumatic tube system.

So..... a nurse walks in to the blood bank with her soup, crackers, and fountain pop and says, "I'm here to pick up some blood."

My eyebrows raise as I look at her food. She sheepishly tries to hide it with her other hand.. which is holding her pop. I proceed to tell her, " You are absolutely not picking up blood with food". She then proceeds to question me and says "Really?"

Imagine the scene: I am standing there in scrubs, closed toed shoes, lab coat and gloves and she brings in soup, crackers and pop. Really? She is asking for Hepatitis!

Vocab lesson

On Saturday night a group of girls and I went to watch the Minnesota Roller Girls in St. Paul. I learned a whole new vocab lesson and rules to what appears to be a really fun sport. Too bad I can't skate.

The object of the roller derby is to outscore your opponent. You do this by having one of the team members, called a Jammer, pass the others team skaters.

1st new vocab word:
Jammer:Designated by a star on her helmet, she speed skates through the pack gaining points by passing skaters from the other team.

2nd vocab word:

Pack: all skaters from both teams have to skate together (minus the jammer) in a tight group that follows a pace put forth by a pivot. This pack is where the action happens. The pushing, shoving, and illegal tripping happens here.

3rd vocab word:

Pivot: one skater from each team that sets the pace for the pack. They also block the other teams jammer.

Here is a video of one of the jams: sorry about the bad filming.

On top of the new vocab words, all of the skaters pick unique names.....

Here are a few:

Suzie Smashbox

Venus Thightrap

Tiki Torture

Psycho Novia

Killaman Jaro

Sinaminn

What would be your rollergirl name?

There was also a charity booth that would give you a black eye for $1. Here is mine.

Cold and rainy weather brings.....

1. A sump pump that is working overtime. I'm just glad that it is working and we don't have water in our basement.

2. A furnace scare..... last night it was only 63 degrees in our house. We had to reset the furnace's "brain" by turning it off and on again.

3. Heidi the pin cushion: Every fall brings the flu shot and mantoux screen for TB.

4. A knitting revival: I have started knitting again due to the comforting warm feel of the yarn when it is cold outside.

5. Chili- nothing better than a bowl of chili to warm your insides.

6. Apple desserts: crisp, bars, and pies...yummy!

7. The end of sand volleyball.... pedicure here I come.

8. The half way point in Brian's coaching season, which means he will actually be home in the evenings fairly soon.

There is supposed to be some sun tomorrow! Get outside and replenish your Vitamin D levels :)

An activity filled weekend

Last weekend was jam packed full of exciting activities. It was my 3 day weekend that I get every 6 weeks so Friday I got some cleaning done and got ready for the rest of the weekend festivities.

Saturday: I played in a coed 6's volleyball tournament and Brian coached a JV volleyball tournament. Brian's team played pretty well and took 10th place out of 16 teams. He said they played much better than they had been playing.

I played with a team that I had never played before. I knew one guy and one girl. It was interesting to play next to people in which I had to learn and adjust to their playing style. We ended up winning the tournament so I made some money that day! Here is a picture of our team. Notice how short I am? The guy on the right side is one of the best players that I have ever played with. He hit a ball so hard (without jumping) that he knocked the wind out of a guy on the other side of the court. It was a really fun day.



Sunday: Brian met me and 2 of our friends down in Carver to run my first 5K ever. I'm pretty sure that I have never run 3.1 miles before, so I was very nervous. When I got there it felt like a little club that I didn't belong to.

I had 2 goals for myself for this race:

1. Finish in less than 40 minutes. ( I know this is a long time, but after 6 matches of volleyball the day before, I was pretty tired!)
2. Not to walk for any extended period of time.

Well, I completed both goals. I finished in 32:20, just about 10 minute miles and I only walked 4 steps as I was grabbing and drinking some water at the water station. I am very proud of myself for completing both of my goals and am looking to sign up for the next 5K.

I also have to say that I was not sore in the least from all the activity over the weekend. I did go home and take a nap on Sunday after the race! Brian on the other hand was a bit sore for 4 days after the race. He is a runner at heart, but he did not train for the race at all. I guess that didn't really stop him though as he finished in 23 minutes and got a medal for being 2nd in his age group.

You should all know that I can still beat him at swimming and thumb wrestling!

No, Brian did not run in his sandals.............

August update

I've really been bad at blogging in regular intervals..... maybe I should sit in a corner. Nah, then I really wouldn't get this post completed. I will just give you a brief update on the last month of our lives.

Volleyball:

All three of our sand leagues that we played all summer have come to an end. Monday nights Brian (Mens 4's) finished 4th and I didn't finish very well at all in my womens 4's. In our Tuesday night 4's league, we finished in first place and will get a T-shirt and bragging rights. Wednesday (Coed 6's) we finished first in the regular season and 2nd in the year end tournament. The first night of playoffs was the extremely rainy day. There were puddles in the court. I was absolutely drenched after diving into one of them!

Brian has started coaching JV volleyball now. I really enjoyed hearing his alarm sounding right after mine. Sweet justice!

I have started my sand league on Thursday nights. That league goes until the first week of October. Monday night indoors starts on September 21st.

Work:
Brian is getting ready for school to start. He has had his freshman picnic in which all of the freshmen were introduced to the school and faculty.

No new updates for my work.... same stuff.

Leisure:

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

2's tournament

Brian had an eventful day today. He played in his first 2's volleyball tournament. His day consisted of 11 hours at the courts and 12 matches. For pool play they were 3-5 on the day, which was good enough to go onto playoffs. They played well and actually took the

CHAMPIONSHIP game (lower brackett).

Here are the boys in all of their glory. I told Brian he could keep playing as long as he kept bringing money in!

Off to the races

Brian, Stacy and I experienced our first day at the horse races last Sunday. It was one of our J.U.Gs outings (with husbands). We met the others at Canterbury at 1:30pm and from there it was all fun and betting! Luckily you don't have to be a big spender to participate!

We mainly bet the easy way... pick a horse to win, to place (1st or 2nd), or to show (1st,2nd,3rd). After a while Brian did get more adventurous and bet an Exacta, which is choosing the 1st and 2nd place horses in that exact order. He did pick the 2 horses, but got them in the wrong order- no win there!

Here is Brian placing his first bet of the day and two of our winning tickets!

It was also amazing some of the maintenance and traditions that were upheld during the races. The had tractors come out after every race and drag the field. they also sprayed it down after every run as well. I guess so that the patrons did not get dusty! Before every race they had the guy with the horn come out and musically announce the horses in the typical port to call. They also had a winners circle where the winner's family could come and have their picture taken with the horse and jockey.



They ended the day with something for the kids. They got to run out on the field and race just like the horses did. They took all that were under 8 in one heat and the over 8 in another heat. It was funny to watch or more to listen to as one of the local radio voices from K-fan announced all day and kept going through the kiddie races!

All in all: Betting $36, Eating $9, Winning $28, A day of fun Priceless!

Funny husband

This is my weekend to work overnights and Saturday morning I got home from work and went right to bed. Brian was off to a volleyball tournament (which they won) right after I had gotten home from work. When I woke up the next evening and went to get the mail, I noticed that the garage door had been left open. Here is the conversation that followed.

Me: Honey, you must have forgotten to shut the garage door when you left this morning.

Brian: Really?

Me: Someone could have stolen me.

Brian: They would have brought you back.

Glasses.... Be gone

In about 15 minutes I am traveling to an eye clinic, where I hope to get rid of my glasses and contacts for good. Well, at least until I am in my mid-40's when I will need reading glasses. I am having LASIK performed. Wish me luck, I am certainly nervous and I will surely be taking advantage of the sedative that they offer!

My first card making class

I recently went to a card making class. It was really fun! The good thing about this class was that it removed the most difficult part of card making- the creativity. I went to the location and she had 6 card stations set up with a display. She had all of the stamps and ink right there. Here is the collection of cards that we made.
The women there were really fun and I actually had met two of them on the bus when I used to ride to school. Small world.

Here is a close up of my favorite card that we made.

Blood alcohol -vs- the breathalyzer

Last weekend, I was made aware of a court ruling that could have me visiting the courtroom a lot more in the upcoming months. It turns out that the breathalyzer is under fire due to the company that manufactures them. They apparently won't release the breathalyzer's computer software that the courts are requiring in certain cases. Here is a link to the Star Tribune article. To combat the potential of dismissed cases, local precincts are now opting to do urine or blood alcohol tests instead. Hmmm, I wonder who does the blood alcohols? Yep, you guessed it, lab personel. This past weekend, I worked my overnights and I drew 3 legal alcohol levels. My coworkers each drew 3 as well. That is 9 total. I don't mind doing them as I know I am helping the cases, but it takes officers off the street for an extended amount of time versus the breathalyzer and me away from the lab work I am doing for 20 minutes. The actual blood draw only lasts about 5 minutes but the paperwork for chain of custody takes an additional 15 minutes. More importantly what I don't want is another piece of mail like I got last week.

This is my subpoena, I am to appear in court for this case. There is still the chance that it will settle out of court, but they have to send it to me anyway. I have never received a subpoena before, but apparantly what they ultimatley ask is how I drew it. For instance, the ask about the expiration date of the kit, they ask whether I checked to make sure the required powder was in the collection tube, and whether or not I used an alcohol pad to disinfect the area. Simple questions, but a little nerve racking never the less. I guess I just have to think of my willingness to do whatever it takes to help revoke the drivers licenses of the guilty!

Fondue

We had Ardella over to our house last week as a thanks for watching our house while we were on vacation. We decided to fondue! Brian was in charge of the oil fondue and I was in charge of the cheese fondue and dessert. We dipped steak and shrimp in the oil. Brian also decided to try cheese curds in the oil, but they really didn't work too well.

In the cheese fondue we dipped potatoes, bread and cauliflower.... Well we really didn't dip them in the cheese as the fondue pot was a candle pot and didn't really keep it that warm. As you can see from the picture, it was a little gloppy. You might also be wondering why it is pink. Our recipe calls for a dry cherry liquor. We only had grenadine, so we get pink cheese! I think it is prettier than plain light yellow cheese anyway.

For dessert, we had chocolate covered strawberries. We didn't have another fondue pot, so I had dipped them earlier and placed them on a plate.


Here's to good food, good company, and good fun! Thanks Ardella for taking good care of our house!

Musings of a lazy Saturday.

After reading my title, I realize that it really wasn't a lazy Saturday per se. Just a Saturday in which we did not have a single plan. Those Saturdays don't come around very often, in fact the next one is September 19th. Anyway, back to my musings. I really wanted to call them random musings, but my dear husband advised me that since I was thinking about them, they really weren't random at all.... so here are my random musing in a very orderly fashion.

1. "Country lawn" -vs- "Town lawn": All of my life, until this past fall, the only reason to rake leaves was to jump in them. Now we seem to have taken on a whole new process to keep our lawn "acceptable". We raked in the fall, so that the leaves did not get matted down and kill our grass. We raked today to get the rest of the leaves, but also to remove some of the dead grass. I have also found out this week, that we should fertilize and put down an inhibitor of crab grass. What!?!? Shouldn't we let mother nature take over? I also like the look of dandelions. I don't think our neighbors would be very happy with a dandelion yard, but we need to find some environmentally safe fertilizers if we are going to use them. I don't want our rivers any greener than they already are. Ok... some of these thoughts may not have made sense, but how did our "farm lawn" always turn out OK?


2. Cleaning: I decided to go through our upstairs closets today. We had some things that really didn't belong there, as well as just overall clutter ( I know you are all thinking just wait until you have lived there for years). When I got done with the upstairs, I decided to go into my craft room, which I cannot seem to get organized. As I was picking up, I realized that I was "cleaning" some of the same items that I had already "cleaned" from upstairs. Why is it that when cleaning, I decided that getting the item into the correct room was good enough. I only ended up dealing with it twice!

3. Mini meatloaves: It has been about a week since I have cooked. Brian has decided that he can cook again for me and to my delight has been doing the cooking this week. For those of you that don't know, a while back I had complained too much and he decided I didn't get to enjoy his cooking any longer. Today, since I figured it was my turn to cook, I made mini meatloaves. They were quick and super cute.


Enough rambling for one day. Hope that you all had an enjoyable Saturday as I have!

Have you thanked your laboratory professionals this week?

I know teachers get a day in September to be appreciated, but did you know that lab employees get a whole week. Yes, that's right, I have spent the last week being wined and dined... well maybe not wined. We had lunch every day that was sponsored by one of the companies that service our instruments. We also had prize drawings in which items were donated by a variety of vendors; I won a frisbee and a little tin bucket with a cross stitching pattern in it.

We also raise money for our Sunshine Club during lab week. The Sunshine Club send flowers to employees when there is an event in their lives, i.e. birth, surgery. To raise money, each department puts together a basket full of goodies in which employees buy tickets in an attempt to win the basket. I was lucky enough to have my name drawn for the "baking basket". It was full of goodies..... if it only came with a skill set.....

Flip Flop Weather!

I am soooo excited to say... I broke out my flip flops today. I had forgotten how good it felt going to the gym and then to change into my flip flops to go home. Yipee for spring. One thing this picture reminds me.... I need some new flip flops :)

What really happened.....

Well, for the second time since we moved into our house in late July, I have flooded the laundry room. Somehow a kitchen rag was stuck in the sink that our washing machine empties into. Since the drain was blocked, the water had no place to go but the floor. As for the Listerine and other "treasures on the warming machine", I had just gotten back from Target an hour earlier and when the flood occurred, tried to get everything out of the bags and on the dryer. At least it wasn't paint tinted water like last time.

Can you make a story for these pictures?

Rum anyone?

One thing that Jamaica is famous for is their Appleton Rum. We were such good participators that we earned A LOT of rum.

How we won the bottles:

1. Lovers Game: It turns out that one of our fellow travelers submitted our name into a drawing for participants in the "Lovers Game". It just so turns out that we were selected (much to my chagrin). The Lover's Game was like the old gameshow "The Newlywed Game", in which they take all of the ladies back and ask the guys questions. The ladies then come back and they have to try and get the same answer. Then they do the same routine with the guys in the back room. We didn't win the contest, but we still got our bottle of rum!

2. Returnee dinner: We received a bottle of rum just for showing up- again! Here we are during the cocktail hour of the dinner.
3. Beer Chugging Contest: The object of the game was to drink a bottle of Red Stripe as fast as you can. They then took the top few and made them do it again. Both Brian and I made it into the second round, but I was the one who ended up with the rum! To be fair... let me add that the second round for the boys involved drinking the beer out of a straw.













4. Relay: This was before Brian graced us with his presence on the beach, so he wasn't there. It was a compilation of activities with a team of 17 people. Activities included, rolling a basketball between the teams legs (hard to image... sorry no pics right now), passing a tennis ball with your elbows, jumping to a coffee can with a tennis ball between your thighs, a volleyball game, free throws and darts. My team won, well actually smoked the other team, so we each got a bottle of rum.


5. We earned so many points over the course of the week, that we got our last bottle. Points are accumulated by participating in activities. We played volleyball everyday and I did water aerobics in the ocean, we were part of a fashion show with our togas (more later) and a variety of other activities.


You are maybe wondering where the bottle of champagne came from. If you are not wondering, I'm going to tell you anyways. As a welcome to the resort the first night, we had a bottle of champagne paired with cheese and crackers waiting for us in our room. It was great, but since we weren't in our room very often, we didn't drink the champagne and decided to bring it back with us. I guess we will save it for a rainy day!

Canopy Tour

We made it back to snowy MN on Saturday night. We were both sad to see the sun and beach go away but as an insightful travel companion said.... "All good things must come to an end, otherwise they wouldn't be good, they would be normal". One of the highlights of the trip was the canopy tour we took. We got on a bus and drove about 45 minutes to what they called the Jamaican Jungle. We got all harnessed up and put on our helmets and gloves. and started the first hike.
We luckily didn't have to hook ourselves up to any cables, the employees did that for us! We got to sit back and enjoy the ride. We went over streams and valleys and at the fastest speed got up to about 40mph. It was quite exhilarating!

We were able to pic some oranges right off of the trees and try those, they were juicy and delicious.