« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
November 30, 2005
Yay and ugh.
So in happy news...I just got the bid from my yard guy about doing a bunch of work and it was not an outrageous amount of money (yay!) and it will get done next week (double yay!). Things are going to look so much better out there soon. The big project is installing a patio made of paver stones. I will finally be able to move my gas grill off the wood deck (big, bad fire hazard) onto the patio, and have much more room for people to come over when the weather gets nice. There will also be a small walkway from the bottom of the deck's stairs to the patio so you don't have to tramp through the dirt/grass to get there. And then he's going to pinestraw the backyard and put mulch all through the front yard. And finally, install some kind of gutter tubing that will stop the water from washing away all the mulch. Wheeeeeeeee ha! The only remaining project will be dealing with the grass in the back yard--there will be some re-seeding at some point, but I need to save up a few pennies for that.
So yay for home improvements, especially ones that will be done before my parents visit for Christmas. But I'm feeling really rough this afternoon, so I'm thinking about using some sick time. Because all I can say is: ugh. Body. Hurts. (sigh.)
Posted by hannah at 2:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 28, 2005
Way behind....
I have yet again been a bad blogger. I feel like I"ve been busy, although the truth is, I had plenty of time to relax over the holiday. And yay! for relaxing.
So what have I been up to? It can probably be summed up in a few verbs...
Cooking/Eating: We've been trying to eat out less, so that means more cooking, which is a good thing since I love it. With the winter weather, I have been all about soup. Made chili last Tuesday, and then a chicken & chorizo soup this weekend. For Thanksgiving, I was in charge of making the pumpkin pie and the mashed potatoes. In honor of the total gluttony that is Thanksgiving, I added a wheel of Brie (with the rind cut off) to my Yukon gold potatoes. Sooooooooooo good. Angela was in charge of the turkey breast which she did in this rotisserie thing, which tasted great & was also awesome because it left the oven available for other purposes. Thanksgiving turned out really, really well.
Watching: Saw Rent on opening day. I love the stage version, so it was a little weird to see how they changed it but overal, I thought it was quite good. I'm hoping to see it again this week. Went to see Dolly Parton at the Gwinnett Center on Friday night. LOVE HER. I would go see her perform again in a heartbeat. Also saw the 2nd Harry Potter movie--Angela got all 3 movies on dvd for $5.88 each at Target on Friday. So I've just got one more to go before I can see the next one. Watched the Georgia/GA Tech game on Sat. night, which was mostly painful but very good at the end.
Shopping: So, number of presents bought for other people: Zero. That's bad. But I think I'm officially done buying house stuff to make the family Christmas visit go smoother. (Well, I say that, but then remember that I want a new tablecloth, and need to get the yard guy to do some work before they get here. Oh well...) Anyway, I picked up a 15" LCD tv at Target for $188 on Black Friday; also an electric griddle from Kohl's, which made absolutely wonderful multi-grain pancakes on Sunday morning. And I think today that my Kitchenaid Artisan stand mixer is arriving. How much do I love Amazon? So very, very much. Everybody else is selling them for $250-$270; I got my pretty black one from Amazon for $174, with no tax & free shipping. I mean, how could I resist that? I will be doing more cooking in the near future, believe me. I've even cleared a space on the kitchen counter for it. I AM SO READY.
Decorating: We put up the Christmas tree yesterday, and it looks pretty good. Now if only I'd get some shopping done so that there would be some presents under it. It felt a little early to do it, but I'm hosting the office holiday party on Friday, so I felt like it needed to get done.
And now it's time to get back to working. Sigh.
Posted by hannah at 9:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 9, 2005
Mexico!
I swear that I carried around my camera a lot while I was in Puerto Vallarta, but I don't really have much in the way of pictures to show for it. Total number of picture with people in them: 1. Here are the folks...
Apparently I was really fired up about taking pictures of the sunset, however, because I came home with like 10 of them...
These were actually taken in downtown P.V. along what they call the Malecon, which is a walkway along the beach. What I loved most about the Malecon was the totally crazy modern sculptures along the way...
This one was my favorite:
Here's a close-up of the statue on the ground...
And finally, a token shot of the pool at the hotel. I'm not sure it really captures how looooooooong the pool is. And the beach is right behind it, although I didn't spend much time in the ocean. Really, most of the time you were guaranteed to find me under a palm tree because I sunburn really, really easily. SPF-30 was my bestest friend.
Posted by hannah at 3:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Coffee is good for you...
So says the Journal of the American Medical Association... (link)
...which is excellent news as I can't function without it. And it's probably good that it may lower blood pressure as some work stuff may make my head explode this week.
However, in happier work news, I'm like this close to getting a paper submitted to a journal today.
In less happy news, I'm already starving this morning. What is up with that? I'm intrigued by Chip's move to the South Beach diet. I don't know much about it other than reducing sugars and starches during the first phase, which sounds nearly impossible since it's nearly Thanksgiving. I keep swearing that I'm going to start cooking more from Cooking Light, but haven't made much progress yet. Maybe after the holidays?
Posted by hannah at 10:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 8, 2005
Back...
So I'm finally back in Athens. Whoo hoo!!! I love to travel, but after about two weeks on the road, I was very ready to get back. Well, except for the work part. I got good at being really really lazy when I was in Mexico, so waking up for work yesterday was hard. Today...still hard.
But before Mexico was L.A. I had such a great time while I was out there. I've actually never spent any time there, and now I find that I want to figure out how to get back out there. There's just too much to see & do out there for such a short trip. The highlights were seeing a good friend from grad school who teaches at Cal State Long Beach now, lunch with Bonnie at Cholo's (green corn tamales are a new fave), and the tour at the WB. The tour was such a blast and I am still so happy that I got to go. I even managed to take a few pictures (which is rare as I always forget to)....
The famous WB water tower
They've moved the Central Perk set from Friends into a warehouse, but put everything back exactly how it was for the last episode...
But the best part was getting to run around Stars Hollow. I don't have pics of us wandering through Richard & Emily Gilmore's house, but here's the town square...
And Lorelai's front porch (which is on the back side of Sookie's house...crazy!)
Anyway, it was a great day. We walked through a bunch of sets for Without a Trace and Two and a Half Men, saw a rehearsal of the George Lopez Show, wandered through warehouses of movie cars and furniture for sets, saw all kinds of set design workshops, ate in the cafeteria (where I saw Lauren Graham who is freakin' TALL in real life...she looked really tired though so I didn't say anything to her), and walked through the backlot.
Oh, and the conference went well too. :-)
Next up...Mexico pictures, but maybe not til tomorrow. Gotta get some work done...
Posted by hannah at 9:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack