Thankful for Gluten Free diets...

Recently I was reading a list of healthy snacks to take to work. Baby carrots? Yup. Home made trail mix? Sure thing. Yogurt? Have it every day.

I wondered why this was - I'm not a generic healthy eater, and typically I get the mix of whatever is most healthy and most convenient.

But due to the non-gluten eating status of my life - the healthy stuff is the most convenient I can get! So very grateful for that these days.

First weekend in 2012

I have been remiss in blogging, simply as the beginning of the year began with a bang! Not literally, of course, however we had a beautiful influx of guests, including our grandparents!!!

Grammy Ona and Pop-pop Tom drove out here to visit. It is always so much fun to have visitors! They took us out to eat (yahoo!) and then we went to the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum. Here are some pictures from the day:

Let me tell you - the way to go to this museum is with a pilot! And a smart one to boot. Here is Pop-pop Tom watching a live feed from the space station, while next to the Enterprise. Very cool.

So pop wanted to see the jets, and I wasn't sure why, however I followed along. He saw this one, turned around and stated "I flew this one." Which is totally cool! My favorite part was the young man who was reading about the plane who also turned around and asked me "He flew this plane?!" I nodded, also incredulously. It was really neat.

 Here are the two INTPs in my life reading dutifully about something cool. They both seemed wrapped up in the complexity of the machinery. I think they look cute (especially the one on the left - Grammy Ona may disagree though... ;o) )

Speaking of Grammy Ona, she was indeed there. I was moved as they both stood by the Enola Gay talking about the plane and, most likely, its most renowned flight. (You can see Grammy Ona's Purse... pop certainly isn't carrying it!)

I wish I could have captured a picture of the IMAX film we watched "Red Flag" - however you can't quite catch an IMAX movie with a phone camera... that's the point. It was fun to chat afterwards about Pop's days working in Nevada.

Thanks for visiting!!!

Spacial Relief

First, we are tremendously excited to be hosting Jon's sister this upcoming week as she scopes out the place for her family to live! In preparation I decided to get a few things done around the house, as I mentioned before, including containing all our keep-sake memories and various papers we've collected over the past year or so.

We completed that task last night, and I'm shocked by the relief I now have walking into this room. I did not realize how much energy it takes away from you on a daily basis to know there is chaos in your home, and even more so to see it and live with it.

Right now on my left is carpet I haven't seen in months. On my right is more carpet I haven't seen in months. On top of my desk are all the things that were on the carpet. [haha, just joking!] I walk through the kitchen, living room, dining room, and craft area and breathe a sigh of relief. I look out on the balcony and can enjoy the nature rather than looking at the mess. The pile on my desk seems much easier to tackle than it had before, and in general I feel so much more willing to take on new tasks.

Lesson learned? There is no time like the present to put off what you feel like doing tomorrow. It makes today so much better.

"Spring" Cleaning

Today I got umption in my gumption to clean the house on this holiday. Inspired by the arrival of guests in a few days, I decided to get a lot of the chores done around here that were piling up. The day was brilliantly interuppted by calls from quite a few family members, which was a lovely distraction.

Now I am going to list all of my accomplishments, not to brag, but more so to encourage myself with the daunting list of everything else left to do!

- Got wood at Home Depot to cover the hold in our sewing table, spray painted it black, so now it looks nice
- Spray painted a bulletin board from church to see if that looked nice. It does! Just have to figure out how to get paint in the crack.
- took down the tree and all Christmas decorations
- cleaned off balcony, including throwing out old plants, cleaning out our poor dying vermicomposter (sorry guys, can't have you and your odd flies in the house this year), and sweeping it all up.
- cleaned and organized the craft area
- Did a lot of dishes
- vacuumed the house
- began - and nigh completed - going through our memorabilia in the office to make it look less like one big ginormous pile.
- made a grocery list.
- miraculously cooked dinner
- got some good storage boxes from office depot
- got our Colorku board all set up in a safe place.
- put our vacuum cleaner together after having to clean it out thoroughly
- Oh! Laundry! We did some of that too.


Sounds pretty good! Here's what's left:
- Discovered 3 boxes of *stuff* left over from graduate school and who knows what, including office supplies and piles of paper.
- Jon needs to finish a huge pile of memorabilia (consequence of having an organized wife - the bachelor boxes of stuff no longer cut it!)
- Sara needs to clean off all the stuff on her desk that she found during this process and needs to find a home for.
- Figure out a way to improve the bulletin boards
- Grocery shop - having food would be very very nice.

Now if you have read my to-do list thus far, impressive! It was nice to have a day away from the computer and feeling relieved about some of the necessary accomplishments around here. Now here's to the next holiday, when we can finish a lot of it up!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year all! We rang in the New Year by pausing "30 Rock,' giving thanks for the blessing of the past year and hope for the new year, and then kept watching 30 Rock.

I don't know what it is about that show, but I can't stop watching!

Today we also de-Christmased our home, went to church, had fondue with the Dallands, took Sunday afternoon naps - (the best!) and just enjoyed being around each other. I love Sundays.