Thoughts from my own corner of the world

Shuttin' this one down...

2011-10-25T21:20:00.000-05:00

I know I mentioned a few months ago that I was contemplating making this blog private. I decided at that point not to do so, but I have been thinking about it ever since. In the end, I’ve decided to shut this blog down and start up a new one. Some of the things I didn’t want to mention on a blog I still don’t want to mention – I know they’ll work themselves out one way or another. Other things I didn’t want to blog are now common knowledge for at least the people who really needed to hear about them from me personally. So, with that, I’m shutting down this blog.

When I say I’m shutting down, I mean that I’m not going to post here anymore. I don’t want to officially take it down – with the exception of the past several months, which have seen an extreme lack of posting, it’s been a good chronicle of the past 6 or 7 years of my life. I’ve blogged about some really important life experiences, as in the birth of my Godson, poured my heart out, as I did when I lost Sepp last summer, and have been able to share fun and funny moments and musings about life in general. Plus, it never ceases to amaze me when someone emails me about a post from several years ago, as many have regarding my IUD experience. All of that is why I think it’s important to leave this blog up.

The main reason I can’t, or don’t feel like I want to, post here anymore, is the URL. For those who have not heard, within another few months I will not be mrsj2004, but will legally be going back to the maiden form of my name. I feel that ultimately it’s the best decision for me, and it’s one that has not been taken lightly.

Before I made it I had the ears of a few very close friends and members of my family, and had been seeing a therapist for a couple of months. The circle of family and friends has expanded as I’ve told people, and the visits to the therapist will go on for the time being. Right now I’m still struggling to make sense of the situation and what’s happened. I don’t know that I’ll ever have a complete sense of resolution, but I’m looking forward to closure at some point (hopefully) soon.

Once everything is official, I’ll probably post something here. If not, I’ll at least post something on Facebook. On that note, if you’re someone I’ve met or become friends with through Trey but I haven’t unfriended you, it’s because I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and your families over the years and value your friendships. If you’re ever in Chicago and need a place to crash, a tour guide, or someone to have drink with, I’d love to hear from you. On the flip side, if you want to unfriend me I won’t be offended.

I have barely begun to set up a new blog, which can be found at: http://viktorialuise.blogspot.com

I’m calling it “Life in progress” and while I can’t promise I’ll post much for the next few months, I am looking forward to writing again and hope next spring will be better for that.

Overdue on my haikus

2011-08-28T12:01:00.002-05:00

I really did intend to post haikus weekly, but this week got the better of me with trying to be off next week. No promises for the upcoming weeks either, since both Labor Day and German Day are coming up. Here are three goodies for now (which I'd like to have in italics - can't quite figure out how to do that on my phone):

In honor of the bad weather on the east coast this weekend, here's one I came up with after almost getting stuck on my commuter train one evening - fortunately, Godi was nice enough to come rescue me!

Large piece of metal
Stuck on the tracks waiting
Will not blow away

This next one was inspired by what was the only Millennium Park concert I attended this summer (gotta do that more often next year).

A Brahms symphony
Millennium Park tonight
Lots of wine consumed

The final one for this post is about the very beginning of my vacation - getting in to DC on Friday night.

Capitol dome lights
Metro over Potomac
Welcome me tonight

Hopefully I'll have a few more from this trip, and from the festivities and events upcoming!

Haiku for the week

2011-08-18T20:45:00.000-05:00

Just a short one right now, coming from my phone:

Chicago at night
The most beautiful city
Nothing can compare

:-)

Haikus for the week #2

2011-08-09T08:47:00.002-05:00

Two weeks in a row now! Maybe this will be the trick to get blogging going again...

First is from Friday afternoon and is referring to the Cubs. They've been horrible this year - their longest winning streak this season has been 3 games, and that only happened once:

Six in a row now
Armageddon may happen
This very weekend

They went on to win their game on Saturday, too, making it 7 in a row. Sunday they lost, but it was a good game. Last night was rained out, but they start up again tonight!

Next is from the weekend, from spending time with my cats:

Chipmunks are outside
Playing in my flowerpots
Great kitty TV

And here's from this morning, after feeling a little blue last night because of the rain and gloominess:

Beautiful and bright
The sun shines for me today
Keeps me glowing now

Have a great week!

Yes, I'm still here - haikus for the week

2011-08-02T15:54:00.004-05:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Life has been a little rough for the past few months, the reasons for which I either a) cannot talk about in a public forum, or b) do not yet wish to disclose. I do have some bright spots in the summer, too, which I'll try to write about later this week or next.

In any case, since I still log in to read others' blogs, I figure I should do an update every once in a while because maybe some of you look forward to my blog updates the way I look forward to yours. I figured I'd start with a couple of haikus I came up with last week. I don't know how I got onto a haiku kick, but I hope I keep it up because I'm getting a kick out of it. :)

Disclaimer: the only thing I really know about haikus is the 5-7-5 thing. If there are any other rules and I'm breaking them, sorry.

Thoughtful haiku:
Steamy Chicago
Cloudy, dark sky looms above
A sticky, sweet day

Slightly humorous haiku:
Stuck on a held call
No end in sight for me yet
Crappy music plays

Enjoy!

Random stuff post

2011-02-08T17:51:00.003-06:00

Before I get into the meat of this post, I just want to say "happy anniversary to us!" Yesterday was seven years, which we celebrated with a wonderful dinner - it's so nice to go on a fancy date every once in a while. Seven years is the Copper/Wool year, and my gift was a beautiful round candle sconce made of coppery material. I gave him a pair of sheepskin slippers and a certificate for him and a friend to do a bacon & beer tasting (they use big copper kettles to make beer). He liked it. :-)

Ok, first random thing - how many of you have private blogs? As much as I don't want to, I'm thinking of going that way. Truth is, that as much as I'm happy to share my opinions (i still get people asking me more about my IUD experience from time to time) there's a lot I haven't written about lately, and not getting it out isn't good for me. Thoughts?

Next random thing - I totally loved that everything was shut down last week because off the blizzard. I would be in full support of another two feet of snow provided we get two days off this time.

Next - whoever came up with the idea of giving fire stations snowmobiles so they could transport people in emergencies needs to get a huge raise and a promotion.

Next - I learned last week that the German words to the Schubert Ave Maria are really based on Sir Walter Scott's poem, Lady of the Lake. It translates into a prayer to the Virgin Mary, so, though I knew it wasn't a translation of the Hail Mary, I totally thought it was at least sacred. I wonder if that means I can't sing it in church anymore (Evi, do you know?).

Next - Trey and I are working together tomorrow morning, playing and singing for a memorial service for a friend's father. It's a sad occasion for sure, but it's always so nice to work together.

Next - Trey's recital is scheduled, which means his thesis proposal is in, which means he's so close to being done with school. I'm soooooooo thankful, as it will lighten my load considerably.

And....my stop is next, which means it's time to pack up and get off the train. More soon. :-)

Things I appreciate - one-liners

2011-01-07T08:57:00.003-06:00

I know Sarah mentioned in a recent blog post that she's worried about slowing down so as not to miss the little things in life. This is something I've tried to be better about over the past year or so, and while I'm sure it will be an ongoing process for me (I feel like it takes A LOT of energy not to go through life with blinders on), I have gotten better about it.

Case in point - one of the things our receptionist does every day is send an e-mail to support staff asking them to send her a list of who's out of the office. Since we have over 200 people here and we're on 3 different floors, she can't see everyone, so having a list from each department makes her life a lot easier. I'm cced on these e-mails, and though there's really no reason for me to even open them, I've started doing so because she's found all of these funny little one-liners with which to open the e-mails. Some of my favorites of late have been:

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

In the winter my dog wears his coat, but in the summer he wears his coat and pants.

Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat says to the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'

When a new hive is done bees have a house swarming party.

A cat ate some cheese and waited for a mouse with baited breath.

The marine biology seminars weren’t for entertainment, but were created for educational porpoises.

They're short, sweet, and on the days you really need them, will make you laugh out loud. :-)

Have a great day everyone!

Condo update!

2010-12-22T13:04:00.001-06:00

Just in time for Christmas, I’ve got some good news!

I’ve been pretty quiet about what’s been happening with regards to our condo situation, partly because the small group of us that have taken the lead on trying to fix our situation have been working with an attorney. Since no suit has been filed yet, and you never know who reads these things, I didn’t want to say anything. However, after a major happening yesterday that will hopefully make things better a little more quickly, I feel safe giving this much of an update.

Background – a refresher:
-Our property taxes have been double what they should be 2 years in a row. Since we’re in a condo, we can’t do anything to fix it ourselves – the Association has to do so for the development as a whole.
-Our developer is currently the Association. After several attempts at contacting him and the company managing our property, no one has been able to figure out whether or not he’s filed tax appeals. We haven’t gotten clear answers.
-Part of why our taxes are so high is that the developer filed a petition to have his lowered for 2008, claiming that the units he owned were vacant. They weren’t vacant – he’s been renting them out, but the county never checked. My tax bill for 2008 was almost $6,000. His, for the same size unit, was around $1,200.
-The county forgot to fix this for 2009, and denied all of our property tax appeals.
-A bunch of us are either close to foreclosure or bankruptcy because of this, or will be if any major emergency (like a major appliance needing to be replaced) happens.

Since September a ton has happened:
-We discovered that the developer should have turned over the Association to us no later than August 30, 2007. We sent a letter requesting a turnover in mid-September. He ignored us.
-We found out that the Association must furnish financial records within 30 days of a request to do so. We sent a request around September 21st. He ignored us. No furnishing such records within the 30 days is illegal.
-We learned that we could force a turnover meeting with 20% of owners petitioning, but after sorting through all kinds of tax records to determine who owned what, and factoring in the developer’s friends/associates, we figured that we had just under the 20% we needed to force a meeting.
-Through one of our resident’s fathers, we found a lawyer willing to help us for only a smaller retainer fee, and no hourly fee until we gained control of the Association – this was a Godsend.
-The small group of us (the unofficial board), despite the fact that everyone’s overpaying on their taxes, and that Christmas was less than a month away at the time, convinced most of the other individual owners & investors to contribute to the retainer fund, and we more than raised the money we needed to.

Yesterday’s fiasco:
So, a couple of weeks ago, on December 11 to be exact, we get a letter in the mail stating that the developer, as president of the Association, has called a meeting for December 21 at 10am – that’s 10am on a Tuesday, the week of Christmas. Calculated move so no one would be there?

Anyway, the purpose of the meeting was to amend the Condo Declaration, and once we sorted through the legalese, it turned out that the amendment would have been given the Association some pretty broad power. Though the developer claimed it wouldn’t be used to its full extent, the fact of the matter was that, if passed, it would have given the board power to make financial decisions that normally would require a vote by the entire ownership.

So, a few of us took off of work or otherwise made ourselves available in order to vote “no.” A bunch of other folks signed proxies so we could vote “no” for them – I had proxies for 10 units aside from my own. The proxies ended up not being necessary, because the developer ended up bombarded with questions about the financial status of the association, why the board hasn’t been turned over, why there’s been a gross lack of communication, etc. A meeting the developer thought would take 5 minutes and everyone would vote “yes” during, ended up taking an hour and 10 minutes and leaving him dumbfounded. We caused such a big stink that the vote was canceled!

The developer avoided answering questions, and kept claiming things like, "I don't know," "I don't open the mail," and "I don't read all of this stuff." I asked him point blank what his tax bills for 2008 & 2009 looked like, and he said he didn't know. I pressed, asking for an estimate of his highest tax bill, and he said, "Around $6,000." I said, "That's not what the Cook County Treasurer's website says." Squirming ensued. HA!

Oh, and did I mention he’s firing the current management company? A new one is taking over on January 1. The person in charge was at this meeting yesterday, and when our attorney, who was there incognito, questioned management co lady on some incorrect statements she was making with regards to condo laws, management co lady told our attorney that she was wrong and should go talk to a lawyer. A few of us almost peed in our pants trying not to laugh!

Where we go from here:
Our attorney has now officially sent a letter, stating that we want the association turned over, and if an amicable agreement cannot be reached, we’re going to file suit. It’s still going to be a long bumpy road, but I feel like we’ve just had a major victory!

Our situation:
After we were able to convince everyone to contribute to the legal fund, I decided to do what I said I wasn’t going to do and took a 401(k) loan. If this gets worked out within the next 8 months or so, I won’t need to do another one – keep your fingers crossed for us!

And that’s all for today – happy holidays everyone!

Train blog!

2010-12-13T07:39:00.003-06:00

Dude, so now that I know I can blog from my phone, maybe i'll get to blog a little more. You'll all just have to forgive the lack of capitalization of some words & any random misspellings.

Real quick for this morning-congrats again to Sarah Ford! I've got the VCR set to record, and by that I mean Trey is hitting record before he leaves, and can't wait to watch you on the Today show!

I'm on round 2 of concerts, but still sort of in the middle of round 1 - Wicker Park did our "Star of Wonder" program paddy weekend, and will be caroling at the bean this Friday, and CCC did our first performance of our Spanish Christmas program last night. We got a good turnout despite some awful weather, and we were excited by all of the Spanish looking people in the audience. We were on TV earlier this month, and are singing live on the radio this Wednesday afternoon.

Church is busy this year, but not quite as busy as last year which is nice. Yesterday morning I did the "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion" from the Messiah, and for Christmas Eve I get to do all of the recits preceding "Glory to God," which always makes me happy.

Condo crap, which was as messed up as ever, may have gotten more messed up over the weekend. Still, I'm slightly more hopeful than I was a few months ago, so much so that I did what I said I wouldn't do & took a 401(k) loan. We'll see.
Pulling into the station, so more later!

Church blog

2010-12-12T11:29:00.001-06:00

Test , shame on me for trying this in church, but I've heard this homily twice this morning. :-)

Gettin' my drink on

2010-10-13T06:27:00.002-05:00

How is it that it's been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged? At least I can say that there's been fun stuff going on lately...

This Monday I was lucky enough to have the day off for Columbus Day and had a really fantastic day. I started off with a voice lesson, which was a lot more relaxed than normal since I wasn't in a huge rush getting there or going back home (normally I go after work and need to get to the Metra right after). One of my goals right now with the new rep I'm choosing is to do a little bit of French, a language that had really eluded me. I found a piece that's fits my voice so perfectly I'm actually motivated to it - the Jewel Song from Faust, which is going to be awesome once I get it worked up. :-)

That link, by the way, is a clip of Joan Sutherland. She passed away over the weekend, but was one of the greatest sopranos of her time.

Anyway, after my lesson I took the train the rest of the way downtown and met up with Trey, who'd gotten us signed up for a wine & spirits tasting on the Sears Tower Skydeck (ok, it's called the Willis Tower now, but that still sounds so wrong). The weather was wonderful so the sky was nice and clear, which meant incredible views. We actually got to see clouds rolling down over the lake, and then over the shore and into the city on the north side - so cool.

The tasting was put on by one of the huge distribution companies in Chicago, so there was all sorts of great stuff to try. Trey wasn't expecting much from the wine, but was plesantly surprised. Probably my favorite wine experience of the evening was the stuff the McManis folks brought - it was good, I learned that it wasn't very expensive, but it was fantasic for the price. The couple that owns the place and makes the wine were actually pouring, which was cool - they were neat.

(sorry, no more links as I need to finish this up and get to work)

Favorite liquor experiences were:
-Pritchard's whiskey & such from Tennessee - Mr. Pritchard was pouring himself and was a delightful southern gentleman. The guy had to be over 60, but I just wanted to stand there and flirt with him all night. His stuff was great, too.
-Bakon Vodka - dude. Best. Shit. Ever. Best bloody mary. Seriously. The guy who worked for this company is one of the luckiest guys in the world.
-Smoked Salmon Vodka - tried this after the Bakon stuff. Take everything I said about the Bakon and take it up a notch. In-sane. So good.

That's all for now - hopefully I'll have a bit more time to post about my performance with Trey's band last weekend (10/3). The next couple of weeks are going to be insane though - Texas this weekend, and CCC concerts the next...

Early blog update

2010-09-30T05:17:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's 5:15am, but no big deal since I've been up for about 2 hours already. Can't complain too much since I slept really well earlier this week and this whole waking up around 3 or 3:30 has been happening about once a week, and ends up being very productive time for me. What have I been doing with it? (warning, this is more of a property tax rant until the bolded line further down)

Well, right around the time the newspaper story came out in the Daily Herald, folks around here finally started to get together in an attempt to do something. I feel sort of like I'm starting a company, the main problem being I don't get to choose my employees. That translates into a pretty high level of frustration at times because while there are some people who are willing to put time & effort into things, they're also people who have been slower to catch on to the complexity of the situation and, in my opinion, have a level of optimism that's almost too high as a result (well, maybe we should wait a few more months to do anything, because sometimes if the county admits they made a mistake on your taxes, they'll just fix it on your second installment...sure.).

I guess at the very least, this is excellent management training. If and when I decide to start looking for a new job, I will be so much more marketable because of this experience. :-)

Our personal update: at this point we did pay the October mortgage bill because a) Trey's extra student loan money came through, and b) because someone in our group found a lawyer who seems to be willing, excited even, to take on our case. This has been the exact opposite of what we've been running across - if we can find an attorney willing to work with condo people, they won't touch us because we're not part of the Association. Never mind that we were supposed to take over the Association a month ago and so far the developer hasn't responded to anything.

I also need to take a moment to vent about some of the comments on the Daily Herald story. The one I like the most is the person who made some kind of comment about how I'm probably one of those stay at home moms who would rather lose her home than get a job. Then there's the whole slew of people who talk about the fact that people who purchase homes and don't plan for emergencies are irresponsible - I'd agree with them, except that I can't see how this would fall into that category.

I'm sorry, but double property taxes for two years in a row (2008 & 2009) and the high probability of having to pay at least 150% of my taxes for the foreseeable future is not an emergency. I would estimate that if this doesn't get fixed, it would translate into an extra $8,000 or so over a period of just a few years. Now, if I needed a new furnace, refrigerator, stove, etc., all at the time time it would be one thing, but having to shell out that kind of money because of someone else's screwup is just not acceptable.

Ok, I'm done with the tax rant - only I have to make it quick because it's time to go workout. :-)

Other than all of the property tax crap, life is pretty good. German Day this year was a ton of fun. Our bar did 310 kegs for the weekend, which was excellent according to our beer distributor guys - not sure if they just said that because they wanted me to go out with them Sunday night after the fest closed because I looked hot in my dirndls, but the weekend was really busy, and tons of fun regardless.

Other than selling beer - I sang for the opening on Friday & to start the program on Sunday, and I marched with the kids in the parade. Funny thing, too, is that I think this was the first year I actually had fun marching in the parade. We had the most kids ever (20 as opposed to an average of about 10 a year) and the ones we had were the squirrely & energetic but well-meaning ones, and that probably had something to do with it. :-)

Coming up this weekend is Trey's second concert with the Spring Valley Concert Band featuring me as a soloist. I'm doing my Adele aria and the Vilia-lied that I did for Sopranorama and for a performance at the Northbrook library last month - I figured that I worked so hard to get those under my belt I might as well get some more immediate use out of them. Next week, however, I'll get cracking on some new challenges, getting some arias ready for next summer.

Gotta go for now - hope everyone's doing well. I'll catch up on everyone else's blogs this weekend!

Newspaper story about our taxes is out

2010-09-14T23:35:00.002-05:00

Here it is:

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=407968

My disclaimer is that I didn't think my taxes would be as low as they quoted in the good faith estimate (I thought they'd be about $3K a year) so I wasn't represented in the best light in that respect. Yes, buying was going to make things tightER, but without the property tax mess, we would've been fine even with Trey taking a pay cut when he went back to school & took his retail job. Heck, we would've been fine even if he'd have stayed in the retail job for a couple of years after finishing his master's. There are a lot of negative comments because of people who jumped to conclusions, but toward the late 30s, early 40s, they start to get better. I posted comment 46, and it sounds like someone else who used to live here posted 43.

Also, this wasn't posted on the paper's website until late today, so we'll see if it gets to the front page of the paper tomorrow, as the writer thought it would be placed there originally. I'll post an update.

Summer fun stuff - non-music related

2010-09-02T05:18:00.002-05:00

I woke up a 4 this morning and couldn't sleep. I hate that. There are some good points, though - I loved in Siggy for a little while, I'll be able to get in a long workout, and I'm getting in a blog post. :-)

I was trying to think of fun stuff this summer that wasn't musically related, and really, it's mainly been things that've happened in August. We did go to Texas at the end of May but that seems like ages ago, plus I already wrote a little bit about it. Here are a few good things that have happened:

Cubs games: yes, they're sucking this year, but at least they won the afternoon we saw them play the Cardinals. That was actually one of the best baseball games I've been to overall - the weather was perfect, the game was exciting, there was good people watching, and all of that sort of stuff. They almost won when we saw them play the Brewers a week and a half later, but no such luck. Oh, well. I really gave up on them around mid-June this year, and I'm so mad they traded Derrick Lee (to Atlanta) that I haven't gone out of my way to watch them much over the past couple of weeks. As we say in Chicago, "there's always next year."

Cleveland road-trip: Trey and I took advantage of not going on the Donau trip this year by doing a weekend getaway (Donau was farther away and therefore pushed to early-August rather than being held over Labor Day weekend). We started off by sleeping in (!), and then went to a baseball game at Jacob's Field, or whatever they call it now - this is year 1 in Trey's and my quest to visit a new ballpark every summer. LOVE the ballpark! It's so cute, and so cheap, I cannot believe it was so empty. Seriously, I bet it was only about 40% full, which is not only a shame, it's downright shocking compared to what we're used to with Wrigley. I think the thing that floored me the most was the been vendor who not only used my name after checking my ID, but remembered it when I went back for refills a few innings later.

After the game we spent way too long looking for someplace for dinner that wasn't either way too crowded or more than we wanted to pay. We ended up failing, but not before Trey tripped over something on the sidewalk and cut his toe open. We were right next to the really nice mall downtown, only it was after 6 so everything was locked up. Fortunately a security guard found us some bandaids and some disinfectant wipes.

Day two was spent at the Rock n' Roll hall of Fame, something I was excited about going back to (I visited in the fall of either 1998 or 1999) and was happy that Trey was not bored with. The coolest thing in my opinion? They have Johnny Cash's tour bus parked outside. They let you go inside and point out highlights (like June's compartment being decorated in her favorite light blue color, and Johnny's compartment's wood paneling coming from their farm). LOVE IT!

Our evening was spent at Great Lakes Brewery, which I love now even more than I did before. True the food at the brewpub was mediocre, as I'd been warned about, but the beer is all out of this world (Glockenspiel anyone?). I learned that they're super eco-conscious, too, which will have me buying their beer more often.

Our last morning was spent touring the cargo-ship turned museum in the harbor, but not after Trey got a really fun message in the morning. He was practicing in the hotel room as he often does when we travel, and when he was finished he stepped into the hallway to get some ice. He opened the door to find a note that said, "You are cool. Thumbs up! :-)" He was always self-conscious about practicing in hotel rooms, but now he won't be anymore!

Camping: Ok, so I'll make this quick because this is getting too long already, but this past weekend we got out of town for a camping trip. Now, I'm not the outdoorsy type, but I consented on the condition that the place we went had showers and flushing toilets somewhere on the premises. Dude, the place Trey found was awesome - we were the only people there the first night, and the place pretty much backed onto a cornfield. It was quiet, roomy, and even impressed the friends we went with who go camping all the time. The bathrooms were cleaner than I was expecting, and I could've brought my blow dryer because they did have outlets.

All in all it was a relaxing weekend - wine tasting, window shopping, and eating smores really did the trick and helped me temporarily forget about our tax mess and the surrounding issues. It was cute to see Trey get all into it, too. He insisted on cooking most of our dinner each night over the fire (well, over the coals he'd banked after making the fire). I think he got a little reminiscent, too - I went to bed around 12:30 Saturday night, but woke up at 3 to find him sitting by the dying fire. Cute. :-)

And now...all hell breaks loose. This week it's been back to things almost every night - Monday was chore night for me, but I also had my picture taken for this newspaper article about our tax situation (more on that when it gets published), Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday rehearsal, Friday night gig. Glad I've got Monday off - I'm not quite used to this yet!

Have a great long weekend all, I'll try to post more soon - at the very least I'm hoping to post a link to this newspaper article over the weekend.

Fun stuff this summer - music update

2010-08-17T06:29:00.004-05:00

I've done a lot of complaining and dwelling on sad events lately, and the complaining's not over, but aside from the huge tax issue and losing Sepp this summer has been a great one. Here's some of what's been going on, musically speaking:

Wicker Park Choral Singers concerts: WPCS continues to be a wonderful group of which to be a part. After our concerts our conductor sent an e-mail with thoughts on how the group is doing, and where he sees it going, and from what I gathered it will continue to be an outreach group. It's funny, and it probably has a lot to do with the personality of the group, but while the volunteering nature of the group sort of takes the pressure off, it also makes me want to be more committed to this group.

Our concerts this time around were called "Angels & Demons" and all of the music had to do with...yup, angels or demonic characters. There were some choral favorites (Elijah Rock), some general crowd pleasers (an arrangement of Billy Joel's Lullabye) and some new/out there stuff (Will Todd's Angel Song II, and Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble by some Swedish guy who's not yet 30). All really neat music, alot of which was new for me.

Aside from the creative programming, the folks who run the group have been looking for more performance opportunities for us. This time around we did 3 concerts - one in Wicker Park, one in St. Charles, and one downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center. While all of them were great, the one in Wicker Park was I think the most special for me, which is funny given that it was a 90 degree day in Chicago and the church was well over 95. Physiologically it probably had something to do with the heat and the fact that I was pushing so much air, but I had another one of those orgasmic performance experiences - you know, one of those times where everything seems perfect, you feel elated, and you can't feel your body. The other concerts were great, too, but not that good!

That all got me to thinking about another question: if I could have either a) orgasmic musical experiences, or b) orgasms for the rest of my life, but I had to choose only one, which would it be? After not much thought I chose A. I finally remembered to ask Trey about that this weekend, and he agreed. I figured he would, and I'm glad he did.

Recital: At the end of July I was part of a recital with a couple of other girls in the area. I'd been far to edgy about it for months, probably because I hadn't done a recital in years, had gotten out of the habit of memorizing my rep, and picked hard stuff. I'd decided on the Vilia Lied from Merry Widow, and Adele's aria from Die Fledermaus, and up until about a week beforehand I was seriously thinking about canning the 2nd piece.

Well, it's amazing what practicing a 1/2 step up, and what singing in a live space, will do for you. I felt great vocally, and felt like it was easy. I didn't get nervous breathing issues, and my leg shaking thing only crept in for a few seconds at the end of my first number (I did the Adele aria first to get it over with). It just all felt very comfortable. Hooray!

The three of us did a few numbers together, including "Three Little Maids" from The Mikado, and "How do you solve a problem like Maria" from Sound of Music. I think the audience got a particular kick out of the latter, since we found little habits to wear.

Something else that was particularly cool was that Trey and I did a piece together. Richard Strauss wrote a piece called "Alphorn" for soprano & horn. He's putting it on his fall recital for school, and we decided to do it at my July recital first. There's just something so...and I can't quite find the right word to describe it...but something so ____ about performing with someone you have such chemistry with to begin with.

Kindergruppe: Last fun thing - I found a German version of "O, Susanna" for the kids to sing, the idea being that we'll perform one verse in German & one in English. The first time we went through it at practice they were looking at my like I was crazy, but I think that might have something to do with some words that are a bit more complicated. We spent a long time working on the German and when we were finished I figured they were spent, but they actually requested that we sing through the English verse. The next time we had practice they did much better, so I think this is going to work. :-)

I'll leave it at that for now. Next post - road-trippin'. :-)

Art therapy & other feel-good stuff

2010-08-06T20:43:00.006-05:00

(Before I get into this post, I promise I won't dwell on Sepp too long, but I did want to write a little more about him. Also, I'm not blogging on a Friday night because I'm depressed, I'm just taking advantage of some down time since I'm babysitting Logan & he's off to sleep, and since tomorrow I'll be running around trying to get stuff together to get out of town for a few days.)

Last Wednesday I decided that even though I had the rest of the day off, I didn't need to spend it working, doing chores, or doing anything else too productive, so I spent some time getting started on some arts and crafts. My projects stemmed from my wanting to put together some kind of shadow box for Sepp, along with the huge sale they were having on frames at Michael's - buy one get one free on a bunch of different brands & types of frames and display cases. Hooray!

First, here's what I put together for Sepp:

Just in case the picture's not big enough, the box is somewhere around 6 1/2 by 9 inches, and about an inch and a half deep. I made copies of a bunch of different pictures, in an attempt to get his personality down - Trey said I did a good job. Anyway, I've got him in his tent, him under the covers, a couple of kitten shots including the first night I had him (right under his name), a bird watching shot, a jungle kitty shot, and a shot of him & Siggy from the first night we got Siggy.

I also included part of his collar (the rest I made into a key chain for myself - hope that's not too morbid), his ID tags from throughout his life, and part of his pet passport. He's got some Q-tips, because he always liked to fish them out of the garbage can and eat the ends off, some leather mice because he LOVED them, and a homemade piece of cheese because the only time he ever got pushy about begging for our food was when we were eating cheese. I'm still on the lookout for a not-so-ghetto piece of cheese, a gecko charm, and I need to add some dried catnip, but I want to wait a few more days until it's dry enough to spray some hardener over. I spent several hours over the course of a few days putting the box together, but I felt great when it was done.

Aside from that I also spent much of Saturday working on some other wine-related projects I've been meaning to do. One of them is a framed piece of the labels from the wine Trey and I served at our wedding, along with some other Delaney stuff, and I think it looks awesome. I'll have to post pictures of it and my other art projects around Christmastime - I can't post until then because the rest of my projects are gifts for some other folks.

On a slightly different note, the timing on the art therapy thing and my reflection on it is funny to me, because on a listserve subscribe to the topic of fear of death has come up recently. It's caused me to reflect a little more on my view of death, and how after I get over the initial sadness, I've done well buying into my viewpoint that death is really a joyous occasion. Sure there are continued moments of sadness, and there will be for years, but having great memories to draw on and knowing that your loved one is in a better place waiting for you is such a wonderful picture. I've realized, too, that my mother really deserves a lot of the credit for this, since after my dad died she continually encouraged us to think of all of the funny things dad did, and all of the good times we had together.

The last thing I'll say about all of this is that I've finally decided what I want in terms of another tattoo. I think last time Sarah Ford and I were together we were talking about tattoos, and I mentioned that I wanted another one but a) I didn't feel like I was at a turning point in life and b) I didn't know what I wanted. With Sepp's passing, however, comes a transition, and I think the perfect thing to get will be a little black cat. I'm thinking I'll put it on my foot, unless that'll be too bony and hurt too much. Trey thinks I'm insane, but I was expecting that. I am going to go with the same rule I went with when I got the first one: now that I know what I want, I have to wait at least 6 months - if I still want it, then I can get it. Since my birthday is in about 6 months, it'll make the perfect gift for myself.

Ok, enough for now. I'm on vacation this week, which will begin with Trey and I doing a long weekend in Cleveland, and end with my cleaning out some closets and having more time to blog midweek. I've got a couple of condo updates (no resolution on the tax situation, but a slight update to the plan), and promise I'll write about the good stuff that's happened this summer. :-)

My Seppie: 7/31/01 - 7/28/10

2010-07-28T15:37:00.006-05:00

We lost our Sepp today, but as sad as it is for us, it was better for him this way.

Without getting into too much detail about his illness, we suspect he had some form of cancer or leukemia. Whatever it was, it seemed to hit him quickly - we didn't realize until about a month ago that he seemed a little skinny, and based on his activity level and behavior didn't feel that there was a major concern until about two weeks ago.

We've long been of the feeling that it was not in the best interests of any of our guys to go through any kind of major procedure (surgery, chemo, etc.), so after a few days of treatment with medication didn't help we knew that we had to let him go. I'm glad that we were able to do it for him while he was still himself, and before he started experiencing pain. But, enough of the sadness for now. Here's a little eulogy of my very first special little guy...

I adopted Sepp on September 18, 2001 - he was about 7 weeks old. I knew he was perfect for me when I picked him up and he boldly put his little paws on my chest, looked me straight in the eye and meowed. I took him home and he hid under the bed all night, and for the next two days sat behind my refrigerator and howled all day while I was at work. At least, I think he howled all day - he was quite loud when I came home at lunch to check on him, and when I got home after work. Once he got over that, things were fine. He quickly became friends with everyone who came over, flopping down on them, climbing into their shoes, or just wanting their attention.

He was a very playful and sneaky kitten, too. He liked to do things like hide behind the couch or around a corner and jump onto your leg while you were walking by. Unrolling all of the toilet paper was big fun, as was knocking the African violets & the aloe plant off of the kitchen window sill. After the fall I got him I could no longer keep plants in the house. That was Ok, though - he made up for it by being sweet. He loved to cuddle, and he spent every night sleeping on my pillow right above my head. These two things continued, albeit less frequently, even as he grew and took up more room on the pillow than my head did.

Since I was living in Milwaukee when I got him and frequently spent the weekend in Chicago, Sepp was very used to riding in the car. I figured since he was used to it I might as well take him out on a regular basis, and I took him pretty much anywhere people would let me. The summer after Trey and I met, he came down to a few of Trey's community band concerts and sat very nicely on the blanket with me the whole time. I think he rather liked getting out and exploring the world. He especially liked being outside because he could munch on the grass.

Once Siggy came along, Sepp's temperament changed a little, which made me glad I ended up giving him a laid-back kind of name (it took me 4 days to name him, and I almost went with Wolfie because he seemed mischievous). Sepp, who I took care to train very well, effectively took charge of the house and trained Siggy for us. Sepp knew what was and what wasn't allowed, and if he caught Siggy doing something that wasn't allowed, he'd do a little yell and haul off and smack his new little brother. From then on, he acted like a grump most of the time, but still loved to cuddle and be sweet with us.

When Trey and I moved to Italy, we couldn't imagine not taking our boys along. Sepp spent a very happy couple of years between sitting on the second floor landing, where he had a nice view of the majority of his kingdom, and out in the screened-in porch...until he figured out that he could push the screen door outward and make a quick getaway. Still, though, Sepp's being out on the porch made for good entertainment for us, since that's where he caught his geckos.

See, Sepp loved playing Jungle Kitty, and was quite a little hunter despite being an indoor only cat. In Italy, he'd catch geckos on the porch, run inside to the corner, and look at me with this panicked, "What do I do now?" look on his face. Eventually he'd let them go, and on the off chance they were alive, he'd play with them until they were dead. One of them actually got away and made it safely behind the entertainment center - Sepp sat and waited for it to come out, not moving for 4 hours. :-)

Sepp also had this thing for hanging out in boxes. Sometimes, he'd take whatever he caught, which was usually one of those fuzzy toy mice, back to his box on the floor and hoard/guard it. Here's a great picture of him having stolen one of those fuzzy toys on a pole & string and taking it back to his tent. He ran off with the whole toy, pole and all.

Once Willie found us, Sepp became a little more of a loner in terms of his relationships with the other cats, but he was still as sweet as ever with us. He was always the most intuitive of our guys - if you were home from work because you were playing hooky he'd just hang out in the room with you, but if you were home because you were sick he was right there curled up next to you. He spent his last few days sitting mainly in Trey's closet, something totally uncharacteristic for him, but came out last night and this morning I think so that we could spend time with him. He let me pet him and sob for as long as I needed to.

I will miss his asserting that he was the cat in charge, and really the one of the five of us who ran the place. I'll miss his coming in to the bathroom to say hello if you didn't have the door latched all the way. I'll miss his gorgeous, almost black coat everyone always told us was so beautiful, and the little white spots on his chest, neck and back toes. I will miss having to spell the word b-r-u-s-h, because if I said it and didn't start doing it to him, I'd be in trouble. I'll miss his sneaking out onto the patio so he could munch on some grass, and then meowing in protest but obediently going in when we told him it was time to go inside. I'll miss his jumping up on the bed at night, all but demanding either Trey or I lay on our backs so he could sit on our chests. Finally, I'll miss his letting his guard down, showing us his baby face while cuddling.

I looked through my Cornell Book of Cats and found that at the end of the Geriatrics chapter is a small section on euthanasia. The last paragraph reads:

Unlike humans, animals seem to have no concept of death. There cannot be apprehension, traumatic fear, or panic when the inevitable occurs. There is simply unending, peaceful sleep.

Goodbye Seppie, and thank you for all of the memories, and for the incredibly unexpected amount of joy you've brought to my life over the past 9 years. Like all of the wonderful and dear people I've come to know, love, and have later lost, you will always have your very own special place in my heart.

Letting go

2010-07-24T09:08:00.000-05:00

So, I haven’t blogged in a while. Fortunately there’s Facebook so people still know I’m alive.

(Run on sentence alert) In any case, I feel like the past month has been one of the best, most fun and relaxing I’ve had in a long time. Late June/early July Kristin was in town, and I got to spend an whole day with her, Mark, Karen & Logan, Trey and I have had more time together, I had a really great round of concerts with Wicker Park at the beginning of July, and I have a recital coming up tomorrow that has been a lot of fun to rehearse and put together. On top of that, it’s just been a fun summer in Chicago with the Hawks Stanley Cup, the Transformers movie filming, and the fact that we’ve got summer weather for the first time in several years.

At the same time, there’s been a horrible undercurrent of stress, most of it related to financial stress that is a direct result of our property tax situation. I’ve felt like if I do start blogging, all I’m going to do is complain, and I really don’t want to be one of those chronic complainers, because frankly I think those people are a pain in the ass and no fun to be around.

Anyway, I think last weekend kind of put me over the edge stress wise, because of several smaller things: a) I’m going to need new tires before winter, b) I’m going to have some car repairs that will cost more than we can technically afford at the moment, c) Sepp is sick, and while we’re not going to take any heroic measures for him, even an exam and a blood test at the vet costs an insane amount of money (more on all of that in a separate post later on), and d) our air conditioner is not quite working properly. I came to the realization that we’re finally getting to the point I’ve been dreading ever since this whole issue came up.

As a reminder, in February of this year, our mortgage payments went up 35% as a result of the property tax screw up because our taxes are paid out of an escrow account. Anyway, I estimate that if we wipe out what we’ve got in short term savings, we’ll be Ok with mortgage payments through the December payment. At that point I could screw with my 401(k) and take a loan from there, or we could use the extra student loan money that Trey will get above and beyond his tuition for the year and go through April, May if we’re lucky. The huge problem is – I have no confidence whatsoever that the situation will be straightened out by then. If it’s not, we’ll have to go into foreclosure with no backup resources, probably not even a deposit for an apartment.

I should add, just as a reiteration, that we are responsible with finances (bought a house we could afford until things got screwed up, don’t have any credit card debt, don’t go out to each much, brown bag lunch every single day, clip coupons, etc.) but I think that at this point we’re almost living so carefully that it’s ridiculous. We do go to a couple of baseball games a year, but we bring in our own food. We go to the opera a few times a year, but sit in the cheapest seats. We’re doing a long weekend in Cleveland in August to get out of town for a few days, but we’re doing it on the cheap. We drink wine, but we drink the $3-4 a bottle wine. Long story short, I do consider having a little fun essential to not having a nervous breakdown, and frankly, I don’t think we do quite enough of it.

So yesterday, Trey and I got to go to Wrigley for the first time this year (and the Cubs won!). We had a few extra minutes once we got back to the Addison stop on the blue line, and there’s a little German restaurant/bar right there we’ve been wanting to try, so we stopped in for a beer and had a nice long talk. We decided that we’re going to make our September mortgage payment, and then we’re just going to stop paying. We figure that when our fall tax bill comes due, we won’t be far enough behind on the mortgage that they won’t pay it, so the county won’t seize our cars or those kinds of assets because of non-payment of taxes.

I also know that the foreclosure rate in Illinois is so high right now that the court system in really backed up – we could easily end up living here for another 6 months before we have to move. There was actually a story in the Trib the other day about the skyrocketing foreclosure rate in the NW burbs, and our condo development was mentioned specifically because of the screwed up tax situation. Anyway, even if it’s just a few months, we won’t have totally screwed ourselves financially, aside from wrecking our credit for the next decade, before we have to leave – as much as I love my mother and appreciate her help, I don’t want to have to move in with her.

Despite all of it, I still have a glimmer of hope that this will all work out before we have to move. That being said, I feel completely powerless that we’ll be able to get anything done to resolve the situation ourselves without taking it on as a full time job. So, if plan A, plan A being some kind of miraculous resolution, doesn’t work then plan B is just to let it all go, and that feels so good.

Stormy weather & tornado safety tips

2010-06-24T12:12:00.004-05:00

I don't know how things have played out where y'all are, but we've had some pretty nasty weather around here lately.

Last week Friday, I looked out the window around 4pm to see an almost pitch-black sky. A co-worker commented that the dark sky behind all of the tall buildings made things look like a scene out of Ghostbusters. Trey called me to say that his store had lost power, and they were experiencing what had to be 60 mph winds. Then the skies opened up. I was seriously concerned, so I gave my boss some safety tips (she and I were the only ones left here) and got very little work done for the rest of the day.

On that note, here's a safety tip: if you're ever in a modern high-rise building, the safest place to go in the event of an emergency like a tornado will be the stairwell. You're away from glass, and modern stairwells are highly reinforced.

Anyway, things had calmed down considerably by the time I left at 5, but the storm itself left downed trees all over Chicagoland and lots of people without power. Tony lost power, and as of Sunday it still hadn't come back on.

Then yesterday was another great day. I had a 7pm rehearsal, which meant I had to leave work by about 6:10. I figured I'd leave a half hour earlier and spend some extra time walking, but decided to do otherwise when I looked out the window and saw the downpour. I figured that by 30 minutes later, things would be relatively ok. Not so much.

I left at 6:10 with rain still coming down in sheets. On my 10 minute walk to the El, my skirt & the bottom of my shirt were both soaked, and my little umbrella allowed for water to drip in between my back and backpack - it was like taking a shower and having my clothes washed at the same time. I realized halfway through my walk that the tornado sirens had been going off the entire time - I'm so used to ambulance sirens that I didn't think anything of them initially, until I realized that they'd been going off continually. At that point I was only 5 minutes away from the subway so I just kept going, but it was still a little freaky.

On that note, another safety tip: if you're in a city walking around outside and tornado sirens go off, go down into to the subway if you're close to a station.

In any case, I'm just about done with rain and storms for the year. Today we have sunshine, but it looks like we'll have thunderstorms again just in time for the weekend...

A few minutes of updates

2010-06-14T11:43:00.003-05:00

I've enjoyed reading all of your blogs for the past few weeks, but since I haven't actually gotten a chance do write anything myself I'm stealing 10 minutes - let's see how much I can write about:

-Work has been crazy: we just finished our annual enrollment, and I kicked ass on everything I did personally, which was processing most of the benefit changes and a bunch of other stuff. I'm glad this only happens once a year, though. As accomplished as I felt last Friday when I left, I would kill myself if every week was like that.

-The Blackhawks vibe: is insane around this city. Last week they did a parade & rally downtown, which, despite my careful plan of re-routing my walk to work, caused me to get to work 15 minutes late. It was still fun, though. I had a great shot of the end of the parade route, and saw a bit of it as it came around the corner from Michigan to Wacker. I got to listen to most of it on the radio, and was getting the crowd's cheering in stereo. At the end, they shot fireworks off of the Michigan Avenue bridge, and since I wasn't actually looking out the window at the time, I was a little freaked out at first - I had visions of a plane crashing into the Trump tower or something. All in all, though, it was so cool to see the hundreds of thousands of people down here, and to continue to watch the hero's welcome this team gets wherever it goes in the city.

-Church Choir is over for the summer: I do have to sing a few times over the summer, but I'll actually get to sleep in two weeks in a row starting this Sunday! Ahh...

-Wicker Park Choral Singers: is going to have an awesome concert. It's called "Angels and Demons" and we're doing it in early July. We've managed to get ourselves booked for the Chicago Cultural Center for a lunchtime concert, too. I really just love singing with that group.

-Trey is done with school for the year: and has actually been out for a couple of weeks. I'm still pretty busy, but with both of us not quite as busy the house has been clean for a week and a half straight! Well, there's some deep cleaning that needs to be done, but I'm waiting until I have a few days off in August to do that.

-Logan's first birthday: is this week, and his birthday party is Sunday. He's walking now, and I had a good visit last weekend while Tony & Mel were babysitting. Tony's dog, Murphy, did not quite know what to make of Logan, but Logan loved him. :-)

Ok, my 10 minutes is up...hopefully I can catch up a little more soon!

Texas post

2010-05-20T09:47:00.003-05:00

The title of this post has very little to do with the actual contents, only to do with the geographic location in which I am currently sitting. Meme's back room on Silver Lake Court in Haltom City, TX would be more specific. Anyway, I'm sure there will be more blog before the extended weekend is over, but so far the highlight of our trip was Samuel's T-ball game last night - but more on that later.

The past two weeks have been incredibly nuts. I think it happens every year that I think after the CCC spring concerts things will calm down, but there's always another stretch I forget about. This year it ended up being Mother's Day weekend that was insane, and last weekend was still pretty busy. Mother's Day weekend had me running Kindergruppe practice on Friday night by myself with 45 kids since Evi was out of town. Two brand new kids showed up, too, and their moms came up to me afterwards telling me about how impressed they were that I kept practice moving so smoothly and had such control over the kids - I'm glad I had them fooled!

The rest of the weekend saw me doing a rehearsal on Saturday morning, singing 4 separate church services by the time all was said and done, coaching the German School kids on their singing for the Mother's Day program (they sounded great this year!), and having lunch at mom's Sunday afternoon. And people are still serious when they ask me about when I'm going to have children. Seriously?

The week that followed was one that should have been relaxing at work since my boss was on vacation. Instead, all sorts of hell was breaking loose, which resulted in my putting in more hours than I'm used to (something for which I am not paid enough to do and therefore do not do regularly) and missing a deadline on a major project of my own. Fortunately, everyone was understanding on my project, which will now wait to be completed until the beginning of June. The funny thing is, that as crazy as things were last week, they're even crazier now, and I'm not there. :-)

Last weekend was slightly more relaxing, but still busy. Trey and I had one of those weekends where we both had big concerts at the same time in separate places. It turns out my cousin Joey had a piano recital earlier in the day, and so I told him we'd all sort of be performing at the same time. I should've shared my philosophy on performance days being special days (borrowed from a pep talk given by Dr. Reynolds before a SWE concert at UD), but I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to do that sometime soon.

Yesterday we had what I thought was a relaxing morning and drove up to Milwaukee to catch a flight to DFW, and last night we had a fun time watching Samuel's T-ball game. Have you ever seen a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds play T-ball? I had not, and I think it was probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Samuel's team is the White Sox - last night was my exception to the rule of cheering against the White Sox. Hopefully next week I can post a few pictures - I totally forgot the cord for the camera.

More later this weekend - hope everyone's having a good week. :-)

Red light cameras

2010-05-04T10:22:00.003-05:00

So, last week I open the mailbox to find an envelope containing a $100 ticket and a picture of Trey's car, clearly identifiable because of the "Misplaced Texan" bumper sticker (just for the record, I opened the envelope because it was addressed to both of us and I didn't yet know what it was for). I think Trey thought I would be mad. In actuality I was relieved it hadn't happened to me as I've gone through some very yellow lights in the city, and know that there have been pictures taken. I guess they'll only mail you a ticket if you start going into the intersection after the light turns red.

Anyway, Trey was irritated enough to a) visit the intersection to make sure there was a No Turn on Red sign (there wasn't) and then b) watch the video clip. It ended up that he didn't quite stop before turning. This is still irritating.

Do you guys in other states have red light cameras? They've been up in the Chicago area for about 2 years now, and are the subject of much controversy. The general consensus of the public is that the camera are up as an easy revenue builder for the cities & towns that are putting them up. The cities maintain that the cameras are there for safety reasons, but there have been groups that have put out statistics indicating that the incidences of accidents at red light camera intersections have actually gone up (there are signs indicating there's a camera, and people freak out, stop suddenly, and are rear-ended).

Thoughts? I'm still irritated. I think that traps like this one and speed traps are dirty tricks. This comes from someone who has gotten several speeding tickets in her lifetime, but has only been involved in one traffic accident that wasn't even her fault.

More April updates

2010-04-27T11:41:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I didn't get to blog over the weekend. I could've on Saturday, but I was getting work for work done. This is not a routine thing because I firmly believe that I don't get paid nearly enough to do work work outside of my 8:30-5 hours (with an occasional day that goes until 5:30 or 5:45 on days I have rehearsals and a bunch of time to kill after work). Anyway, I digress. Here's the rest of my earlier update:

Easter - I realized I don't have too much to say about this. It didn't feel like much of anything special this year, and I wonder if that's because it was relatively early again? Next year I think it's super late, which I think will make for a more spring-like and Eastery feeling.

Something of significance was my Saturday night Easter Vigil feat. I ended up having to sing 3 psalms in the dark, and had the entire choir up in the loft praying for me and then wondering how I accomplished it all. I'm rather proud of myself for it. Let me explain a little...

For Easter Vigil in a Catholic church, you're supposed to do 7 or 8 readings with a psalm in between each, plus the gospel (this church does 4 readings, 3 psalms). Only thing is, they don't turn the light on until it's time for the gospel. The readers had a nifty little book light, and I'd found myself a little music light in the sacristy. I even checked it to make sure it worked. Problem was, very soon after I got into my first psalm that the batteries were dying. Fun! There was a very dim light that allowed me to see fuzzy words, and fortunately I was familiar with all 3 psalms, but it was a little nerve-wracking nevertheless. I think I ended up being the hero of the hour, and people were still talking about it at church the following week.

Babysitting - this has been lots of fun recently. I've actually realized my goal of a Logan visit/babysit once a week for the past few weeks, and I think he definitely knows who I am (how soon do babies begin to differentiate between people?). A couple of weeks ago I went over while my mom was babysitting, and spent an hour and a half or so crawling around on the floor with him. Shortly before I left I went to the bathroom, and he crawled over and was waiting for me at the door, and then he screamed when I left. It was so cute. :-)

German Club - first, I'd like to say that the fact Donau has Wifi is awesome. I spent a couple of hours at the General Meeting (clubs from all over the US meet once a year, and this year we hosted) doing work work, Facebooking, and working on my Kindergruppe newsletter. It's just too convenient!

The other thing I was going to mention was related to how cute my Oma can be sometimes - there was a dance a couple of weeks ago at which the Kindergruppe was dancing and I was in charge. There was an extra kid, so I dance with her rather than making any kids sit out. Well, before our last dance we're waiting for the music to come on, and Oma yells really loudly, "Now, aren't you gonna do the worm dance." I told her to hold on a second because that's what we were doing next, but seriously. I think everyone around her laughed, and I just wanted to smack my head on a wall.

Other than that, the Cubs are back up to .500, I think my winter butt jiggle is finally under control, and I can't wait until Trey's officially done with the semester and we're home together a tiny bit more. On the agenda for the next 2 weeks, however, is to pick a couple more pieces for the recital I'll be a part of in July, and to schedule taking the GMAT. I'm thinking August looks good...

Have a great week!

April updates

2010-04-22T09:16:00.002-05:00

I'll probably work on this post little by little, for the rest of the week, but such is life. I may get list-y also, but that's better than not posting. :-)

Easter - (coming tomorrow/this weekend)

Running - As much as I like running, I've never been an outdoor runner. Not only do I find that I feel more productive if I can run on a treadmill and watch the news, it also wears down my endurance much more quickly when I run outside. Well, a few weeks ago I had a couple of days in a row that I couldn't get out of bed on time, so I ran over my lunch hour in order to get a workout in. I kind of liked it. The next week, I took a lunch hour to go running just because thought it would make me feel better, and I found I really enjoyed it.

Now I can't get enough of this running along the lakefront at lunchtime. My route the past few times has been to go down to the riverwalk at Michigan Ave, walk to the Columbus Ave. bridge, then run the rest of the way over to the lake, and down to the Shedd Aquarium and back. Not a bad little jaunt at 3.65 miles for the run, plus the walk to get started and cool down afterwards. when the weather's nice, it's BEAUTIFUL! I get a bonus when the Cubs are playing in the afternoon, since I can catch the first couple of innings of the game.

Best part is, that it's also completely doable in 55 minutes, which includes time to change and "rinse" off with my adult baby wipes. I like it so much that I'm already having to restrict myself - I've decided I cannot do it more than once a week, and I can't go out if it's over about 72 degrees (I get to hot and can't effectively clean up that way).

Babysitting - (coming tomorrow/this weekend)

German club - (coming tomorrow/this weekend)

Disorganization - I'm to the point that my life has been too busy for too long and I'm feeling completely disorganized. This has resulted in my getting far less accomplished while I've been home over the past few weeks - I feel like I deserve to veg out because I've been so busy, but that doesn't help the clutter in my house, which makes me feel more disorganized and frazzled, which makes me feel like I deserve to veg out. I really need to break this mindset, and am looking forward to life after this weekend, since I realized that for the weekend of May 1 & 2, all I have is Kindergruppe Friday night, German School on Saturday, and church on Sunday morning. This means that I'll have most of the day Saturday and all afternoon/evening on Sunday to slowly get my life back in order - hooray!

Ok, that's all for now - more later!

What's been goin' on

2010-04-03T12:13:00.002-05:00

I realized yesterday that the only blog I'd looked at since last week was Logan's, so I spent some time reading all of yours. I'm not commenting, so as to be able to spend a bit more time getting caught up on my own life, but...

-Karen - I wouldn't feel bad about Chris. He's obviously a healthy kid, and if he's getting distracted, then maybe that's his telling you he's read to stop, too.
-Katrin - congrats on the apartment expansion.
-Jen J - I can honestly say that you're the first zoology major I've ever met.
-Sarah W - I know you didn't blog about it, and I know I said something on FB, but I'm sorry about Buster.
-Justin & Holly - I, too, get annoyed about blog-stalkers. Though sometimes it is necessary to censor what we write about because we don't know who's reading, we never would've met Katrin had Karen decided to password protect.

I think that covers the blog posters of late...

Things here are nuts, in both good and bad ways. First, the bad:

-Jacked up taxes, part 1: our condo development got a meeting Wednesday night with the Palatine Township Assessor to discuss our screwed up property tax situation. Unfortunately, nothing was actually fixed because the person from the Cook County Assessor's office who specializes in condos was not there. The Palatine Township collected our 2009 appeal forms and promised to set up a meeting with our development because the assessment levels are screwed up in such a way that they've never seen before. For 2008's taxes, we have to file a Certificate of Error, but I'm not sure it'll do any good to file before we have said meeting, because the assessment levels will not have been corrected.

-Jacked up taxes, part 2: aside from the assessment levels being screwed up, we have this issue of the Special Service Area (SSA). The SSA was created so that the Village of Palatine could lend the developer money in order to make improvements to the property so that the conversion from apartments to condos could take place. At closing, I signed a piece of paper that said I agreed to pay $600 a year for 30 years to help pay back on the SSA. Well, somewhere along the line this all got screwed up, too. Most people in our development paid over $1,200 in 2009 (2008 tax year). It's not a separate item on our taxes, so now I'm worried that we didn't actually even pay into it in 2008. The developer and the Village are involved in some major finger-pointing on this one.

-Jacked up taxes, conclusion: my feeling is that things are so screwed up that I'm not sure they'll ever be fixed. If nothing is fixed within the next 6 months, I think that we'll have no choice but to foreclose. Sure, we could take out a loan to help cover the taxes for another couple of years until Trey has a more normal job and our income level goes back up. What I'm not willing to deal with is the long-term loss on the investment. I'd rather cut my losses now, rent for another decade, and deal with the credit score repercussions for a few years, then buy something when and if we find it.

Work has been insane this week, and will probably continue to be nuts until about mid-July, so I wasn't able to follow-up on Wednesday's meeting this week. I guess that'll have to wait until Monday. The good thing is, if I can get enough work done this afternoon, I may have enough time during the day Monday to actually make some phone calls.

Now, the good stuff:

-Agreement: Trey and I are in agreement on the foreclosure idea if it ends up coming to that. It actually makes the situation feel not nearly as bad knowing that we feel the same way about it. We met a bunch of other people in our development at Wednesday's meeting, and it also helped us feel better to know that there are plenty of other people getting screwed, too. :-)

-The weather: Wednesday and Thursday this week were beautiful - low 80s, even down by the lake. Thursday I was really stressed out and had female issues going on that ibuprofen was not helping, so I carved out an hour for lunch and went for a run along the Riverwalk and part of the lake between the river and Navy Pier. The Riverwalk is one of my favorite walks in the summer, but I think that run was one of the highlights of my week.

-Funny baby toys: I got Logan a little toy piano thing, planning to give it to him as part of his Easter "basket" tomorrow. Well, I'm glad that when I was bringing it in to the house, I managed to keep bumping the Demo button, because I discovered the thing plays melodies that are horribly out of tune. There's NO WAY we can give this to Logan. Some of the toy's tunes are so bad, they made me laugh so hard I was crying. For all of you musicians out there, imagine Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with a slightly raised 6th and 2nd, with a ostinato going on underneath that's about a 1/4 step away from the key the melody is in...like Charles Ives arranging nursery rhymes. It plays other tunes, too, some of which are worse, but you get the idea.

-Good music: Wicker Park Choral Singers had our spring concert last Saturday, which now ranks up there as one of my most memorable concerts/music moments ever. The music was all about the transitions from evening - twilight - nighttime - morning, but obviously there's plenty of symbolism in there, too. There were definitely some intense emotional group things going on for a while, something I think is truly amazing and that makes me respect all of the others in the group that much more (sorry that sentence was grammatically stupid, but you get the idea). Coming up next weekend and the following weekend is CCC's Grounded: Songs of Our Majestic Earth.

-Flower day: each year right around the first day of spring, our building's management group hands out daffodil buds to us as we're coming in to the building. By the end of the day they've usually started blooming, and by the end of the week they're smelling great. I love that week.

Ok, enough for now. I really do have to get back to work, and it would be nice to try and clean my house a little before going back to church - Easter week is always busy, and this year's no exception. Sacred Heart is actually just finishing up with a renovation project, and the installation of a brand new pipe organ, making things more nuts. The formerly 1 1/2-second delay that we didn't have to worry about at all during construction is now about a 3-second delay, making things challenging for the cantor. Luckily I was off the hook Thursday night and Friday, but I am cantoring both tonight and for one of my two masses tomorrow. But, when I'm done it'll be time for mimosas. :-)

I may be quiet again for the next couple of weeks, but I promise to keep reading your posts. Happy spring to everyone, and Happy Easter (or belated Passover) to anyone who celebrates!

Texas plans

2010-03-20T11:57:00.002-05:00

I put this on Facebook last night, but since status updates don't show up on news feeds for more than a couple of days, if that...

We'll be in Fort Worth while the Cubs are down there this year! I checked the Cubs' schedule last night, thinking that the Rangers would be up here this summer, but this is even cooler - woe couldn't have planned it better if we tried.

Currently, we're planning on attending the game on Friday, May 21 at 7:05pm. If you are interested in joining us, please contact me asap, as we would like to purchase tickets by this Friday, March 26. We're just getting the $20 upper deck seats, and if we can move down we will.

Our travel plans are as follows: we'll be in Texas from May 19-24, arriving at 2:30ish on the 19th, and flying out around 3pm on the 24th. We'll spend the first few days at Trey's dads, and the 2nd part of the trip will be spent at his mom's. Hopefully we'll be able to see lots of folks this time around. :-)

Good weekend

2010-03-15T09:54:00.002-05:00

Despite the Spring Ahead weekend being my least favorite of the year (I HATE it because of the hour of sleep lost), I had a great one this time around! Here's what we did...

Friday night - Happy birthday mom! We all got together at Oma's house for pizza, all of us being Oma & Ota, mom, Godi, all 4 of the Rill kids, Trey, Karen & Logan. It's always fun when we can all get together, especially when it's not a holiday (read: there's no holiday stress/tension). Most everyone left by 8:30, but Trey and I ended up staying and chatting with Oma & Ota until about 9:30.

Saturday - Trey played a suburban St. Patrick's Day parade in the afternoon, and in the evening we invited ourselves over to our friends' house. Well, we didn't really invite ourselves over - the he of the pair recently had foot surgery and hasn't been able to get out of the house, so we did take-out Thai food (yum), played games, and drank a lot of wine. We hope he was doing Ok Sunday because it was really the most wine he'd had in one evening since the surgery.

Sunday - After normal church things in the morning, I spent the afternoon at Donau for elections. I brought my laptop with, figuring that I'd get most of the next Kindergruppe newsletter done, but thanks to the fact that club now has Wifi (!), I got the whole thing done plus a bit of other work. Hooray for multi-tasking! After that I got to pick up the framed canvas print that Trey's mom sent up a couple of months ago - I'll have to take a picture and post it. It's our 3rd Christi Gause original...well, I guess it's not actually an original since we just have a print and not the original painting, but it's cool nevertheless. :-)

Last week we also booked our plane tickets to Texas in May - we're actually flying out of Milwaukee this time because even factoring in for gas and 6 days of parking in Milwaukee, we're saving over $100 doing it that way. One of the itineraries included in the list was flying from Milwaukee to O'Hare, and then on to Fort Worth, go figure. We're losing half a day in Texas, but it's half a day of getting in really late at night, and then sleeping in while everyone else is at work, so not really a very quality half day anyway.

Last thing in my update - Happy birthday Mark! It's today, and he's 27. Wow, my baby brother with the baby is 27. Crazy.

Tired update

2010-03-05T15:36:00.002-06:00

So, I got lab results, and there's nothing wrong with my iron levels or with my thyroid. I don't have those exact levels, but when I talked to the doc's office, they said everything was normal. I have been feeling less tired the past few days, but I've still be spacey.

I have one other idea, that I didn't think of until last night while I was talking to someone else about this...(TMI alert) I'm wondering if the days when I've been really exhausted, like last week when I called in sick, have anything to do with PMS (I called in sick Thursday because I was so tired I could barely get out of bed, and Friday my period started).

Thinking back a couple of months, I called in sick NYE, really because of a nasty cold but also because I was completely worn out - I wonder if I was more worn out because it was the day before my period started than I was from the cold. Also, since the beginning of December my cycle has also gone from about 6 weeks to exactly 28 days. Have I had less energy overall because my cycle is shorter? I think I'll need to start keeping a journal about this. Anyone else's thoughts and experiences would be welcome

On a completely different note, my cholesterol is great. The last time I had a fasting cholesterol test was about 2 1/2 years ago, and my total cholesterol was 235. Last year in May, when I did non-fasting finger-prick test, it was something like 210. This time - 189. I don't think I've EVER had a total number under 200 - never in my lifetime. All of the individual #s are great, too - HDL is 66 (awesome!), LDL is 106, and triglycerides are 83.

I have no idea why it's gone down so much - I stopped hormonal birth control just over 3 years ago, so I guess that would explain the drop from 235 to 210, but now a year later I've got a drop of almost 20 points? The only thing I can think of in this respect is that I started eating oatmeal for breakfast almost every day, as opposed to my Starbucks wheat flax braid, and snacking on Cheerios a lot. Crazy.

Anyway, that's enough for now - have a good weekend all, and I'll write about something more interesting next time. :-)

Tired

2010-02-23T16:54:00.005-06:00

I actually started to write this yesterday...here's what I started with:

I've been meaning to blog forever, but life has gotten in the way just a little bit. That doesn't mean it's been bad, just busy. :-)

Here's some of the random stuff that's happened, and that I've been thinking of:

-Last week on my birthday the sun came out for much of the day. This was significant because the sun hadn't been out for a few weeks at least. It was also sunny on Friday. This really made for a great birthday gift. :-)

-Although I love coffee, I drink tea most of the day at work because a) coffee has way more caffeine, and b) I drink it too quickly. Last week I re-stocked my tea supply at work, and one of the boxes I bought was a variety of Yogi tea. I love it because on each tag it's got a little inspirational saying. I hope that's not too dorky, but I really do like it.

Other than enjoying the sun and getting a few smiles out of my tea bags it's pretty much been life as usual. I've become concerned, though, because I've felt unusually tired lately. It's normal for me to be a little fatigued for a couple of weeks at especially busy times, but never for two months straight and in a relatively calm period. It's also normal for me to be a little tired in winter - harder for me to get up in the morning, have a bit less energy, etc. - but I feel like it's been way worse this year. I'm to the point where I feel like working out in the morning, and really working out at all, is turning into a struggle.

I called in sick today because yesterday late afternoon my throat started to hurt when I swallowed, which I think is stemming from my being simply exhausted. I called & left messages for everyone at about 6am, and went back to sleep until 11. I haven't been able to sleep that late for months, even when I've tried. I've tried to figure out what the issue is, too:

My diet is normal, and healthy. I've even plugged everything I've eaten into my Blue Cross Blue Shield tracker, which confirms that I've got a good ratio of Carbs/Protein/Fats.
I've never gotten a ton of sleep - I've always averaged 6 1/2 hours of sleep on weeknights and a little more on weekends - but I've been upping it lately, and I've been waking up less frequently during the night.
For a while I thought that maybe it was because I'd been less active right after Christmas an in to January, so for the past month I've made a very conscious effort to stick to my workout routine, and to make sure I keep up with my daily walking (to & from the train station, and a short walk at lunch).

I can't figure out what else it could be, save something like a low iron count or screwed up thyroid, so I'm calling my doctor and getting myself in to see what she says. Anyone else have any insight to this?

Good stuff for me!

2010-02-08T16:40:00.005-06:00

I hope this is the beginning of a good few months for me. I'm feeling good after some recent events, and my birthday is coming up, so that's always fun. This weekend was a really nice time all around...

I guess it began with a bit of unpleasantness, when an after-hours thing at work Friday caused me to be late for, and ultimately miss Kindergruppe (hope things weren't too nuts for you, mom, but roads were slick, so I'm glad I didn't stick to my original logistics plan).

Saturday was nice, though - grocery shopping & a little bit of house straightening up before babysitting Logan and then having folks over for dinner. Logan is too cute with his trying to scootch around, and we had lots of fun singing and playing with my neat blue water bottle. I felt really bad when I made him cry after laughing at him - he was in his high chair, and I was feeding him some oatmeal but he kept playing with his feet. He ended up pulling his sock off, sticking it straight into his mouth, and I laughed so hard I made the kid scream for 10 minutes. Oops - hopefully he'll forgive his Godi. :-)

Saturday night dinner was a hit - I found a recipe for Gorgonzola stuffed chicken with nutty brown rice that was super easy, but I think very impressive as well. Trey got everything started, and it wasn't until about 8pm while I was driving home that I realized I forgot to pick up the asparagus we were going to serve along side. Fortunately there's always plenty of broccoli in the freezer - I had to laugh when I was complimented specifically on how good it was (Jen: "Wow, this broccoli is really good. What did you cook it with?" Me: "Uh, salt & pepper." Jen: "How'd you cook it?" Me: "Threw it in the microwave in a casserole dish for a few minutes."). I aim to please.

Sunday was our 6th wedding anniversary. After my normal church things in the morning, and Trey's concert in the afternoon, we I celebrated by blowing way too much on an incredible dinner at Joe's in Chicago. And no, not Joe's Crab Shack - Joe's, the place that's famous for stone crabs. We were lucky to have a gift card so we could totally splurge, too. :-)

I'm really glad that I noted it was our anniversary when I made the reservations, because it gave us the perfect little booth in the back - it was quiet and a little dark, which gave us a chance to have a very private feeling dinner. I was planning on getting all mushy and going into a speech about how I feel like we've had a really good year despite Trey's job "transition" and the crap with our property taxes, and though the atmosphere was perfect I felt like we were having too much fun to really get gooey, so I just mentioned it and we kept having fun.

The funniest part of the day, however, was when we exchanged gifts. The 6th anniversary is iron, and I decided to get him something for the garden - ended up with a gazing ball on an iron pole (post?) that had iron shaped into a bird at the top. He admitted that he had a hard time and he felt bad just getting me something for the house, but that's all he could think of. He produced a decorative iron tower thing that had really neat candle holders on it that I really think is cool...only the bag the candle holders were in made be laugh, since it was from the same store I got his gift from. I told him he was going to laugh when I brought out his gift, but I think it went over his head until he actually saw it. It's fun how we think alike. :-)

I finally got a little bit of good news today - I did actually get my very small raise. 4.5% on top of not very much is still not very much, and it's certainly not really a promotional increase, but considering how things are going here I'm pleased. Lots of folks are getting promotions in title but not in salary, and lots of directors who are putting salary increase requests through the Executive department are getting shot down, so I feel like I won!

Ok, enough for now - hope everyone's having a great week!

Feet

2010-02-04T09:24:00.002-06:00

This is so totally stupid I have to post about it...

So, I don't know if it's the shoes I typically wear at work, but by the end of the day when I'm changing out of them my feet always get REALLY smelly. I decided to go buy some foot powder spray, and sprayed it on this morning in my office before I put on my knee-high stockings & work shoes.

Whoa! Bad idea. I think I've just about fumigated myself out of my office. They should have a note on the can about not using the stuff in enclosed spaces. At least I do have an office, though, so I have a more private space in which to use it.

Anyway, since all of us girls are so glamorous but don't always feel like it, I thought I'd share a story about one of the not-so-glamorous things in life to make us all feel a bit more fabulous. :-)

Random stuff

2010-02-01T09:13:00.003-06:00

I really have been reading all of your blogs. If I have a little bit of time today or tomorrow, I'll actually comment. I have also been wanting to post more for a while now, so here are some of the random things I've been thinking about lately - I'm putting them in alphabetical order by topic:

Elections - do primaries get as crazy everywhere else as they do here? I realize there are some major races this time around (governor, county board, and senate seat), but there are some candidates for whom we've gotten three separate mailings already, and there was actually someone at the train station this morning walking back and forth with a sign for a certain candidate. The worst part is, while I'm still going to go vote tomorrow, there are a few offices for while I may not actually vote for anyone because they're all so phony.

GMAT math - I think I may need to take a math review course before I take the GMAT. Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that - I'm going to take the GMAT this summer (either June or late August, depending on when we can get to Texas). I'm stuck on the math, though - there's this one problem in the review book that I've done about 4 times, and I can' get it right. It's one of those with fractions on top and bottom of a larger fraction. Maybe I should take an actual practice test first, though.

Heat wraps - those Thermacare pads made for when aunt flo comes to visit are the best things on earth. The worst part about this IUD is that I get cramps every time, and lately they're BAD for at least a full day. Every couple of months they're so bad I'd call in sick were it not for too much going on at work/meeting I have to be at/something else I'm in charge of. I wish I would've discovered these Thermacare things 2 years ago.

Karma - I got some great karma back last week Thursday, when someone called me as they were getting off the train to tell me that I'd left my train ticket in the seat ticket holder. That's such payback for the time I found an almost full 10-ride ticket, called the phone number on the back, and mailed it back to the person it belonged to...along with the $3 that was stuck to it. It also makes me really glad I write my phone number on the back of my ticket!

Pregnant people - I've found that I have this sort of knack for knowing that people are going to tell us they're pregnant. I had this feeling that Mark & Karen were pregnant, and a few days later Mark called to tell us they were expecting. When Karen E called to say that she was pregnant I'd figured it out before she said it. The last time I went to a show at the Goodman with Laura, I just had this feeling that she and Scott were expecting, and sure enough she told me beforehand that they were due before the end of the year. Last night Trey got a phone call (I won't say from who, just in case they haven't told everyone) - I asked, "Is it X?" and Trey nodded. I said, "They're pregnant," and though X didn't say anything until the end of the conversation, I was right. Right now I have this feeling that someone else is going to make an announcement, but I want to wait and see if I'm right. :-)

Sunlight - I've been physically exhausted lately, and the only reason I can think of as to why is that there's been almost no sunlight here for the past month. I'm thinking like 3 sunny days since January (none of which I've actually gone outside during), but the rest of the time has been overcast. I know SAD is more like depression, but I bet you can actually just feel physically exhausted for lack of sunlight, too.

Time - one of the worst things I think someone can do is demonstrate that s/he does not value my time. Whether or not it's intentional, it's something I really have a hard time forgiving. What's even worse, is when you point it out to that person, they acknowledge it, and then they do it again. I'm just not sure what to make of it. Part of me wants to believe that this person just does not have a clue, but another part of me is telling me that if this person was concerned about anyone but him/herself, s/he would figure it out. I'll write more about this some other time, it's just really been bothering me lately.

Work dreams - I almost never have dreams at all, but last week I had a dream that a girl I know got married at the beginning of November and I just now realized that I'd forgotten to put together her benefits paperwork, and now I was going to have to explain to my boss that I was three months late getting this stuff out. Now, this girl really did get married in real life, but I don't work with her. Plus, as non-micro-manager as my boss is, she would never let something like that happen.

Ok, gotta get back to work for now. Hope everyone's having a great Monday. :-)

Jeez, I'm not deaf!

2010-01-21T08:52:00.002-06:00

So, I long ago realized that the commercials on Comedy Central are quite a bit louder than the actual programming. Whenever Trey and I were watching South Park or the latest standup special together, we'd always have to turn down the volume during the commercial breaks.

I've realized over the past couple of weeks that it's not just Comedy Central anymore. Discovery did it the other day while we were watching Mythbusters, and some of the other channels we watch regularly are doing it, too. It could be that it's been going on for more than just the past few weeks, but when you don't watch much TV it takes longer to notice this kind of thing.

I never sat & thought about why Comedy Central did this, but now that other channels are jumping on the bandwagon and my annoyance level with the situation is increasing I couldn't help but begin to wonder. The only thing I could think of is that someone figured out that most people get up and walk out of the room, or at least away from the television, during commercials. Therefore, in order to be effective, the commercials needed to be louder.

Any other thoughts?

You know it's been too long since you've blogged...

2010-01-17T16:13:00.003-06:00

...when your brother calls you to make sure you aren't dead. Seriously, Mark posted some cute pictures of Logan in his new bathtub last weekend and was worried about me since I hadn't commented on them yet. (The bathtub, by the way, is this inflatable rubber duck. they put Logan in, and threw in about 30 other little rubber ducks - the picture was too cute!)

There was quite a bit goin' down this week - Trey and I both started up with all of our regular weekly rehearsals, and Trey started school. I'm back to doing Wicker Park this spring (hooray!), so it's both Wednesday and Thursday nights for me.

Being off on Wednesday made things a little better (it was an unpaid Furlough day, but it was still nice to be off), and since Trey was done with class and home by 2:30, we took advantage of a few free hours in the afternoon to look at new computer desks at IKEA. Looks like we can get something fabulous for less than the amount of gift cards we got for Christmas!

At work there was both good news and bad news this week - the bad news came in on Monday afternoon at around 3 o'clock, and for some reason, it got to me first. I picked up my phone only be informed that one of our employees had passed away over the weekend. This is the first time in the company's existance that an active employee has passed away very unexpectedly. We got grief counselors in the next afternoon, and everyone seems to be doing reasonably well, but we'll see how the next couple of weeks go.

The good news I got on Thursday - I found out that I'm not actually going to have to ask for the promotion & raise I was going to ask for in my performance review next week. My boss sent us all our evaluations to look over prior to our meetings, and she's recommending me for slighly more of a promotion than I was going to ask for based on all of the extra responsibility I've taken on this year. Go me!

Ok, that's all for now - I have to go hit the workout room before it gets too late. Have a good week all!

Still here...

2010-01-07T16:54:00.002-06:00

No, I'm not dead - it was just crazy before Christmas, I was sick the week after Christmas, and this past weekend was busy either relaxing, doing more singing, or helping out other people who were sick. Now we're all healthy, so woo-hoo!

Some quick updates:
-Trey loved the cuff links and the movies. :-)

-I sang 4 masses between January 1 and January 2. One of them was a funeral, which I got booked for when my mom e-mailed me to ask me if I was available (I said I was), then updated me with, "Ok, I'll let you know when the man dies." What?!?!

-Logan is the cutest baby ever (no, I'm not getting any ideas) - we had lots of fun together on Saturday afternoon. I was watching him while his sick parents were napping, only Logan, having discovered his voice, was yelling and woke up his dad. :-)

That's all the time I have for now - happy Thursday!

Go me :-)

2009-12-21T15:58:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I have to post something about this, because I'm excited - someone came to review the CCC concert last Tuesday night, and I was mentioned in the review. :-)

Here's the link: http://www.chicago-splash.com/publish/Entertainment/cat_index_chicago_performances/Chicago_Chamber_Choir_Review.php

Go me!

Quick holiday update

2009-12-14T11:53:00.002-06:00

First of all - thanks to those of you who weighed in on the Snuggie question. I actually found something much better within my budget...Yesterday Trey's cufflinks broke after his gig. He was a little dismayed, but mentioned he could super glue them like he did the last time they broke. Every year there's something that pops up last minute for him. Here's what I found this time:
http://www.cufflinksman.com/novelty-silver-corkscrew-wine-opener-cufflinks.html

:-)

Things have been busier since Thanksgiving hit, and will be picking up over the next couple of weeks with Christmas approaching. Here are the highlights:

-Last night & tomorrow are Chicago Chamber Choir's A French Christmas concerts - we were actually John von Rhein's (Trib's classical music critic) pick of the week last week, beating out the Chicago Symphony's annual brass concerts, and Music of the Baroque's brass/choral concerts.

-Last Wednesday, members of CCC, myself included, were featured on ABC 7 news. Here's the video.

-I'm again doing the Music Box Christmas show with some other CCCers and big gay Santa. It's totally become my favorite thing to do, and I recommend it highly to anyone in Chicago who's never been. It'll have me singing Friday (probably) & Saturday evenings, most of the day Sunday (after normal church singing), and all day Wednesday.

-I got to babysit Logan on Saturday night. He's so cute, it's ridiculous. Since he's normally sung to sleep, I got to take that part over for the evening. :-)

-Christmas Eve will be busy - I'll be in Church from 6pm until approximately 10:30pm. I get to go back the next morning at 10am and will hopefully be done by noon. It will be busy for Trey, too - he's in church from 4 until 6-ish, then again from 10ish to about midnight.

-Fortunately, my mom has consented to move the normal Christmas Eve festivities to Christmas Day, meaning a) I will be able to relax and enjoy them, and b) I will be able to spend it with Trey. :-)

Something else I'm very excited about: since I'll have down time inbetween the three Music Box shows I'm singing on Sunday, it means that I'll probably even get my Christmas cards in the mail on the 21st! Also, I may be able to log on and post a little during my downtime later in the week. If I don't, and if I don't get to post again before then, have a great holiday everyone!

Christmas gift poll

2009-12-10T14:00:00.002-06:00

So, I'm working on Trey's Christmas gifts and would like your opinion on an idea:

Should I get Trey a Snuggie?

Now, there are basically two camps on Snuggies - you either love them or you hate them. I hate them, but find us discussing them on a regular basis. For the life of me, I can't figure out if when he jokes around about them he's just joking around, or if he really wants one. I suspect that he might really want one. He's quirky enough. Thoughts anyone?

Tax woes

2009-12-01T15:52:00.002-06:00

Warning - this is really long....

Sorry I've been so quiet lately - after vacation I was trying to catch up with life, then last week was Thanksgiving, and all the while I've been trying not to freak out about a property tax issue we've been having. I think yesterday I finally got to where I was about to a) take steps to resolve it, and then after some bad news b) have a breakdown and cry for a while so that I could c) regroup and continue working on it. Here's my situation:

Among the mortgage papers we signed was one regarding a special services tax levy - basically the condo developers borrowed approximately $6 million in bonds from our village to make improvements to the property, which was to be repaid by the condo owners through taxes (according to the management company, over the course of 30 years). Somewhere along the line the length of time over which the bonds were to be repaid was screwed up, and as a result so our taxes.

For the last quarter of 2007, before the special assesment was figured in, we paid about $750. Simple math would tell you that if we paid $750 for a quarter, taxes for a full year would be just under $3000. When I opened my tax bill in early November it was almost $5700.

Since our taxes are paid out of an escrow account held by the mortgage company, I called my company's customer service division asking for any assistance because I thought something was wrong with the bill (at that point we did not know exactly what the problem was). They told me to fax my tax bill to the tax services division, along with a letter stating that I thought there was an error and requesting that the mortgage company contact the the county on my behalf. I did just that, right before we went on vacation.

As soon as we got back, I called the mortage company to make sure they received the fax. They did, only they didn't contact the county, they just paid the bill. This resulted in a negative escrow balance, which if it isn't fixed, will mean that my mortgage payments will significantly increase (as it stands, they'd double) when they reassess things in October 2010. I called the management company, who told me they had attorneys working on it, and as soon as they knew something they'd contact us.

Fast forward to the day after Thanksgiving, when I get a letter from the condo association's attorney stating what they thought the problem was ("bond repayment amount to invidividual unit owners being significantly higher than was disclosed to individual unit owners"), as well as the attorney's fees, the approximate length of time this would take to be resolved (2-3 years), and a final line that unit owners were still responsible for paying taxes in the interim.

Now, if this were a one-time tax bill error that could be resolved by the time the mortgage company reassessed things, or if all I had to do was make up the difference in the one tax year, that would be one thing. As it stands, we essentially have to pay an extra $2700 per year in property taxes until this gets resolved (and checking with Onkel Rich, it looks like it will take that long).

Dump this on top of an income reduction for another year and a half while Trey is in school, and an emergency fund that's not really funded, and I was just about having a nervous breakdown (can you tell I pay the bills in the house and tend to carry all of the stress?). If we stopped putting the small amounts we do into IRAs and 401(k)s, and stopped putting away what little we do for vacation and home improvements, we don't even begin to cover another mortgage payment every month. I do not consider wracking up a bunch of credit card debt to be a solution either because I have really good credit, so I figured we'd lose our condo and end up living in my mom's basement.

Anyway, after the breakdown yesterday, I called the mortgage company to ask about payment plans and it turns out they have an Escrow Shortfall Assistance program which would help significantly should we need it. Obviously we'd still owe the tax money, but we'd be able to spread out payments so it wouldn't hurt as much. Plus, if we don't apply until next fall, hopefully we'd only have to worry the larger payments for a shorter time because we'd be that much closer to things being resolved.

I also told Trey yesterday afternoon I felt like I was in this by myself and that I needed him to come up with some ideas in order to help out the situation. Last night we had a great talk and he really came through. He pointed out that I have an oboe, and he has a 2nd French Horn. I told him selling his horn should be a last resort because that's part of how we make a living, but I'm glad he pointed out the oboe. I've actually been thinking of selling my oboe for a couple of years, but using the money to max out my IRA for one tax year, and almost max it out the following year. Now I'm really glad I didn't get my butt in gear on that idea like I normally would do with that kind of idea.

Ok, thanks for letting me vent. I know this will get better, but it's been really stressful for the past month. Hopefully now I'll be a little bit more fun... :-)

Last of the vacation shots

2009-11-19T14:11:00.005-06:00

Yes, Lisa, we are back. Can you all tell since I've stopped blogging again? :-)

Here's the last of our vacation stuff...

We spent our day in Ruedesheim in the next town over...called Assmannshausen. Yes, you read that correctly. Is anyone else reminded of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer gets the wrong license plates?

Ah, anyway, we took the train over one town, and spent a couple of hours with a winemaker by the name of August Kessler. Our two hour visit was really a nice time, spent talking about the current economic status of the US, exchanging ideas, and of course, trying some of August's incredible wines. All of his stuff is very high-end, and we were surprised that he actually opened some of what he opened (read: the most expensive bottles he opened retail for over $100 in the US). We were sad to learn that he doesn't currently have a distributor in Illinois (or in Wisconsin for that matter) but were happy to be able to give him some suggestions of possible distributors.

The scenery around that part of Germany is beautiful, even when it's cloudy. Here's a shot of Assmannshausen from the road leading in to town:

In any case, by the time we were finished with our visit, we decided to walk back to Ruedesheim, rather than take the train. It took about 50 minutes, and would've been nicer if the bike path hadn't ended, but what can you do? I'm still glad we walked. By the time we got back, we had just enough time to pick up our luggage and grab some lunch before hopping on the train back to Frankfurt. Trey did take a few more pictures, though. Here's one of the Asbach vineyard:

Our evening in Frankfurt was nice, as well. Trey has a friend from college (or high school?) who went to grad school in Germany, then met a German guy, got married and now lives there. We found (actually I found (!)) a fun local place with good food (albeit no Semmelknoedl - those are more Austrian anyway) and good beer, and then went back to their place for some wine and horn playing.

The next morning we decided to head to the airport and do some last minute shopping there, rather than shop a little bit in the city before heading to the airport. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Frankfurt airport sucks, so sorry to those of you who were going to get gifts from Europe and instead are getting American stuff. Add to that the fact that our luggage ended up being overweight (Onkel Sepp just gave us too much chocolate!) and the trip didn't end on the best note, but what can you do? The rest of it was such a dream that I didn't care.

So, that concludes the vacation blogging. Usually being gone for a week is enough and has us ready to go home, but not this time. We missed our cats, but that was it. :-)

Trey got right back to work Saturday while I did laundry and housework, and I jumped back in on Sunday. Luckily next week is Thanksgiving and I get a little bit of a break again!

Munich & Ruedesheim

2009-11-11T15:25:00.006-06:00

So, last night I almost suggested that instead of spending the morning in Munich, we caught an earlier train to Ruedesheim so we had a little bit more time here. Man, am I glad I didn’t actually voice that suggestion (Trey later said he was thinking it, too, but he was glad for the same reasons I am). First of all, Trey wanted to have a traditional Muenchener breakfast – Weisswurst, Weissbier and Bretzeln. Yup, you read that right – he had brats, beer, and pretzels for breakfast. Here’s a snapshot:

I decided to forego the big breakfast because a) I’m still full from eating all day Sunday in Marktle, and b) last night after we went to the incredible bier hall Trey found, I was even more full. I did have a bite of Trey’s breakfast just to try everything, though. Ausgezeichnet!

After breakfast we decided to walk around the old downtown one more time because we were picking up some gifts for folks, and ran into something that we first thought was random, but soon discovered was an event we were witnessing that we probably couldn’t have planned seeing if we’d have tried. For anyone who’s familiar at all with the German Mardi Gras societies, you know that the new Karnival Prinz & Prinzessin are crowned at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month every year. Well, it just so happened that we were walking past the Vitalmarkt in Munich at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month this year.

Trey heard a band so we walked over to where the music was coming from and we saw those great hats (although they didn’t have the really long feathers) and at that point I started to realize what was going on. Seriously, we couldn’t have planned it, but we saw Prinz Edwin der Erste & Ihre Lieblichkeit Natasha die Zweite come in with their court. They were from the Karnival Verein Narrhalle. Trey got a couple of pictures (it had to be around 40 degrees or less so the Prinzessin is freezing her butt off)…

We stuck around for a few minutes and then decided to go looking for a few gifts for folks. We actually stumbled upon another one of the Karnival Societies (apparently Munich actually has more than one) in front of the Rathaus (the town hall), and this one had their own Blaskapelle, but the court didn’t have the cool hats, so we moved on pretty quickly.

After another hour or so of browsing, it was time to head back to our hotel and pick up our luggage and get on the train…

Ok, diversion. As I’m writing this we’re back to watching MTV auf Deutsch. Right now Chapelle’s Show is on with German subtitles, and South Park is coming on next in German, but the funniest thing is the commercials. Think gansta rap in German. It’s wild.

Back to the blog. We were in transit for almost 5 hours, but most of it was on an InterCity Express train (ICE train) which is really a great way to travel. Going from Vienna to Linz on one of those, we went to the 2nd class section and had to do a double take because we thought we were in 1st. In any case, after a great train ride, we ended up in Ruedesheim just in time to walk around a little bit before finding some dinner.

Trey found us a great little spot, with Schnitzel specials and great wine. His schnitzel had cheese and onions baked on top, and mine had a peppercorn cream sauce. We decided to get the Zwiebel Kuche (onion cake) to go along with it all, and Trey had to take a couple of pictures of the restaurant…

More tomorrow, after we visit August Kessler in the next town over, and a couple of wineries here!

München blog

2009-11-10T15:56:00.002-06:00

Ok, cool thing about being in Germany - you don't have to jump through hoops to type an umlaut. It's awesome that it's just another key on the keyboard. Not cool thing about being in Germany is that every time you try try to type a Y, youd end up typing a Z because the Z is in the same place the Y is in on a n American keyboard and vice versa. You have no idea how many times I've hit backspace trying to type this paragraph.

No pictures today because weäre (some of the umlauts are also normal keys like parenthases and unparaenthases) in a hotel without free internet, but weäll have more tomorrow. Last night we got in and got standng room tickets for the Bavarian State Orchestra doing some really weird piano thing and Bruckner 7. Really a fantastic concert - I think the brass was a bit of a let-down for Trezy because it wasnät perferct, but when is everything perfect?

Today we spent doing some shopping, including a 2 hour detour getting Tony a special jersey from the FC Bayern München fan shop at the stadium and a couple of dirndls for me (2 for less than €200!) before meeting Heidi& Laslo for dinner and more drinks at the Augustiner Bierhalle. Trey found the good Augustiner Bierhalle that was out of the city center - the food and drink was all about 2/3 of the price (or less) of the one at the Marienplatz and it was a better atmosphere - and I think everyone liked it better anyway. :-)

Ok, thatäs enough for now because this Z and Y thing is driving me nuts! More tomorrow from Rüdesheim!

Marktl blog

2009-11-08T16:34:00.006-06:00

This'll be another quick post since it's late and I want to get to bed...of course, I say that but I'll probably spend the next half an hour typing.

Friday morning we left Vienna for Salzburg, with a stopover in Linz to see some cousins. We had a great day with my Ota's cousin Joseph (who I've never met before), Tante Gitti & her husband Helli (I'm not sure if I spelled their names correctly), and Christian & Anita, who were here for Mark & Karen's wedding. Christian & Anita have a little girl, Valentina, who's about 10 months old and a doll.

Anyway, when we arrived Christian took us to Franz Joseph's Turm, a historic tower that gave us a great view of Linz, and told us all about this history of the city. After that we had a wonderful lunch a traditional restaurant for that part of Austria, and tried Most, which is cidar made out of apples & pears, and pretty much what that part of Austria drinks instead of beer or wine. Yum! We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a little more sightseeing and having Kaffee & Kuchen before getting on the train again. It was a lovely afternoon, and I'd post pictures but I don't think I got any with everyone in them.

We had a short trip from there to Salzburg, where we stayed in the Altstadt, the old part of the city. It's absolutely adorable, and sort of built into the side of the mountain. Many of the roads up are very narrow, and as a result, no tour buses are allowed into that part of the city. If groups want to stay in the hotels, they have to park their buses outside and walk in. I was lucky enough to find a good deal on a hotel inside, and much to my surprise, the room was not only cute, it was huge! The picture is below, but you can't see the extra day bed in there, plus there was a fairly large entryway and bathroom. Did I mention it was adorable?

After we checked in we walked around the Altstadt for a long time, looking for a traditional place to eat. I'd wanted to go to the Stiegl Keller, a very famous restaurant operated by the brewery, but we discovered it was only open from May to September. Instead, we found a place with very traditional food that also appeared to be full of locals. Trey had something neither of us had ever heard of - meat filled dumplings that were out of this world - and I had some kassler ham with Semmelknoedl. I love Semmelknoedl!

The next morning we went up to the Festung, the fortress at the very top of the mountain. Instead of taking the Festungs Bahn, the tram that goes up the mountain, we walked all the way up & back down. It was a little steeper than I remembered in parts but was great exercise and totally worth it. We stayed for about an hour to enjoy the view and take a picture of Godi's Brunne (her well), and then came back down. On the way to our next stop we had a great photo op...here's the Festung down below...

From there we had a nice walk over to the Stiegl brewery, something Trey had been looking forward to for a long time. Now, I've done a lot of brewery tours, but this was one of the coolest. As much as you learn on a tour with an actual tour guide, I think I'm enjoying all of the self-guided tours, as this one was, even more. The tour through the Brauwelt was laid out so that the first part took you through the building as if you were the beer being made. That was followed by the beer's recent history, comprised of what were some pretty neat marketing campaigns. The last part was the museum, which contained some beer-making artifacts dating back to the 1600s - Stiegl actually celebrated their 500th anniversary not too long ago.

After that it was on to tasting! Their "tasting room" is actually just their restaurant, which is open to the public and was obviously full of locals. There was a large group (the 3 tables behind me - I think I'm blocking the accordion player) who'd break into song every once in a while. It was too neat.

After our visit there we had a leisurly stroll back to our hotel to pick up the luggage before heading back to the train station & out to Marktl. I was a little worried that my family hadn't gotten my last e-mail that had our arrival time in it, but I knew how to get to their houses from the train station and remembered their being only a few minutes away. Not to worry however, because as the train pulled in we could see Onkel Sepp & Onkel Peter waiting for us. :-)

We had a nice quiet dinner at Onkel Sepp & Tante Susi's and talked the evening away. This afternoon we met the whole family for lunch at the local Gasthaus, followed by Kaffee & Kuchen at Susi's daughter Susi's haus, followed by a light dinner, and then back to Onkel Sepp & Tante Susi's for another long chat. I think Onkel Sepp would talk all night long if they let him, but I think Trey and I both are enjoying it. Last night we heard the story of how he and Tante Susi came to live in the United States, something I'd never heard before - now I have to go ask my Ota more about his own journey and about how he and my Oma met & all that.

My cousin Annemarie asked before we came if we wanted to do anything special while we were here, and I replied that we really just wanted to see everyone. This visit has really been perfect, but I hope no one thinks we're boring because we've mostly been sitting around talking!

Here's a picture of us from this evening...I'm sure we'll take more of them tomorrow but in this one none of us are crying, which I'm sure will happen as we're leaving.

Vienna on Thursday - a quickie

2009-11-05T17:31:00.007-06:00

This'll be a quickie because it's 12:30am, I only have half a glass of wine left, and we need to be out of the hotel around 8:15am. I also want to work out before we hit the road so I want to be up by 6.

In any case, today was a good time - we started by visiting the Haus der Musik, a 5 story museum dedicated to music. We spent most of our time on the 1st and 3rd floors, which had exhibits on the history of the Vienna Philharmonic and on many of the major composers who lived and word in Vienna respectively. Trey took pictures of Leonard Berntstein's tux (he was a lot shorter than either of us thought) and Richard Strauss' baton, and we got to make up our own Viennese Waltz by throwing some dice (neat exhibit).

The funniest part, in my opinion, was the little section in which you could "conduct the Vienna Philharmonic." You could pick the tune they were to play, and for a few measures they'd follow you at whatever tempo you took (this type of software has been around for several years - it's actually really cool)...then someone from the orchestra would stand up and say something to the effect of, "this guy doesn't know what the hell he's doing, we can do it without them." We just about fell over laughing! Here's a picture of Trey at the exhibit, though...

After that we ventured to the outskirts of Vienna to a Weingut, or winery. This particular winery was just outside of the Vienna city limits, but most of the grapes were grown inside the city. The picture below is one Trey took just as we jumped off of the bus (public transportation to a winery!). We probably would've gotten to more than one, but we got a little lost on the way to this one, and had dinner plans.

Our dinner plans were with Katrin & Martin. We went to a little place that served traditional Austrian food, and it was wonderful (I've been craving Knoedl ever since I got here, and I got at least a taste of them :-) ). Even better was the company - we actually had an early dinner around 6:30, but went for some drinks afterwards and ended up heading our separate ways at about 11:30. It makes me wish that we were here for a few more days so we could hang out a little more - and it makes me wish that they come visit in the states sometime soon! You guys would love them all!

I'll stop writing pretty soon, but not without posting a picture I've been meaning to all week - our shower is completely see through - here's me standing in it earlier today...

Bizzare, but it's so cool!

Ok, enough for tonight - good night, and it might be a few days before I post again - I don't think we have free WIFI until next Wednesday...

Vienna on Wednesday

2009-11-04T09:18:00.008-06:00

This post won't be too long because it's already after midnight for us, but I was able to upload a bunch of pictures!

Today was supposed to be entirely musical, only I planned a little too much and the weather didn't cooperate. Since it was still raining in the morning, we decided to wait on our trip to the cemetary and visit the Mozarthaus first (where Mozart lived from 1784-1787). What a neat museum! I'd totally forgotten about having gone through it in 2001, and I know I didn't learn as much that year. They've got an audio tour now, so that helped with regard to learning things, too.

After that we stopped for some coffee and were going to visit the Haus der Musik, but the rain had cleared up a little so we ventured out to the Zentralfriedhof. The Zentralfriedhof is the main cemetary in Vienna, where the presidents of Austria and some other notables are buried, including several composers. Trey asked if he was strange because he was taking pictures of headstones, but I didn't think so...considering the headstones.

This one belongs to Johann Strauss - the waltz composer.

This one, right next to it, is Brahms'. I thought it was interesting that Strauss' was so flashy and Brahms' was so simple. True, Strauss' music was flashy, but Brahms' was anything but simple.

Anyway, we also saw Beethoven, Wolf, some more Strausses, and a few more. I know what you're asking: Did you see Mozart's grave? No. Some of you will know why. Others will not - feel free to ask.

After that we took the scenic route back to the hotel - we went via the Strassenbahn instead of the U-bahn, which took twice as long, but had us above ground and going through neighborhoods the whole time. Once we got back to the hotel, we were contemplating searching out the Haydn haus, which is only a couple of blocks away, but decided to chill for a little while since tonight was our opera night (I'll give a review later if I have time, but all in all I'm really glad we went). After Salome, we stopped at Figlmueller for some famous Wiener Schnitzel (read: really thin, but bigger than your head schnitzel) before heading home. :-)

Since I promised, here are a few pictures before I go to bed...

Here's me at the gate of Schoenbrunn palace...

And the cheetahs we saw cuddled up at the zoo. The lady (on the left) was grooming her guy.

The cutest animal at the zoo was the Kleiner Panda. He/she had a buddy, too, but this was the best picture we got. The white things in the picture are snowflakes going by.

Hopefully we'll get a little more in tomorrow, but we've got a lot we want to do, so no promises!

Vienna, day 3

2009-11-03T14:56:00.004-06:00

Before I start, 2 disclaimers:
1-I'm sorry if I have some dumb misspellings - the spell checker isn't working
2 - I'm sorry I only have 1 picture up, but Blogger is being uncooperative in that respect as well

Today we set out to visit Schoenbrun, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. I was really excited to see this palace, a) because Maria Theresa is my hero and b) because I haven't been inside. When UD Chorale visited in 2001 we sa, but I want to say we just walked around the grounds. In any case, I was really looking forward to it.

We started off doing a tour of about 40 rooms in the palace - not even close to half of it. most of it was decorated in the 1700s, so you can imagine the Baroque extravagance. Glossy white walls, or expensive Rosewood walls, with gilted gold trim. We did the audio tour, so we got a fairly detailed description of what each room was used for, when it was decorated, and that sort of thing. I think some of pieces I enjoyed the most were the portraits of all of the royal children - little kids sitting for portraits in those powdered wigs? I wonder how the royalty got their kids to sit still.

Something that struck me was that each room connected to the other. It wasn't like there were really hallways or anything. In order to get to one room from somewhere else in the palace, you had to go through someone's bedroom or study - I guess if you're a king you've got enough people around that you can partially ensure your own privoucy. Something else I thought was interesting was that Franz Joseph, who was emperor of Austria until 1916, worked about 16 hours a day from the time he was 18 until the time he died at 86.

Ok, that's probably enough about that. After about an hour and a half or so inside the castle, we moved on to the Tiergarten, or the zoo. Since it was snowing we tried to stay inside when possible, the first building we found being the rainforest haus. In there, we discovered that the folks around here are serious about hands on exhibits - on the first floor of the hothaus there's a little room that's billed as a bat exhibit. What they don't state on the sign is that the bats are actually flying around in the room with you. When we started to pull the partitions aside, I could've sworn something was flying at my so I didn't want to chance it. There were some other folks, however, who were trying to go in, and a few seconds after we turned to walk away we heard a lot of screaming. You couldn't have paid me to do that!

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and saw some really cute stuff. We got pictures of Eisbaeren for Kristin (no, not Knut - he's in Berlin), Elefanten for Karen, and got a really cute picture of some cheetas cuddled up together for ourselves. We went into the Vogelhaus, and Trey was whistling back and forth with a parrot -that was cute!

I think one of the highlights, though, was going to see the Orangutans - the zoo here has a fairly new habitat for them, though they were all in the indoor portion because (again) it was snowing. In any case, one of the cutest things was when I walked up to one portion of the glass and Sol, their youngest orangutan by a couple of decades came up to the window to pose with us. Here's a picture of her with Trey, although in her picture with me she was even closer:

After a bit more time we decided to come back to the hotel, and we decided on dinner in, too. We stepped out briefly to get some kabob (no, not shishkabob - this is totally different) and spent the evening munching while watching The Simpsons, Family Guy, and now South Park in German - though most of it is dubbed, Timmy's voice is not. :-)

Tomorrow's a musical day for us. Keep your fingers crossed that the reports of sleet aren't going to materialize because we're hoping to visit the cemetary, too.

First full day in Vienna

2009-11-02T16:40:00.003-06:00

Ok, before I start - foreign TV and commercials are great. I think we forgot how different they can be. I don't know why it's so funny to see German toilet paper commercials, but it is. Especailly fun is when you see fun American cartoons, like Family Guy, in another language. :-)

Anyway, today has been a really fun day - we spent most of the day just walking around. We started off at the Stephansdom, the main church in Vienna, and went from there (we didn't actually go in to the church, but we can do that another day). For much of the morning we just wandered around - actually, I was setting out for the Hofburg but kept not looking at my map, so we literally walked around the Hofburg until I got irritated with myself and kept actually pulled out the map. On the way there, we saw the Votive Kirche, the Rathaus, Parliment, and walked past the opera.

When we made it back to the Hofburg, we decided that the most fun part to see would be the Schmetterling Haus (the instrument museum was a close second and if we have time we'll get back there another day). What's a Schmetterling?

Here's a picture of a pretty little one I got...

And here's Trey with another one - look closely, and you'll see it in at the top of the flowers, smack dab in the middle.

After about an hour of exclaiming, "This is so cool!" and feeling like complete dorks, we walked aorund a little more. I went in search of what I've been calling "my church" and found it. I claim it as my own because when UD chorale was here in 2001 I remember walking into a church at the outer part of the Hofburg just across from the Spanish Riding School and doing some impromptu singing. I got completely emotionally overwhelmed in a good way, and I think that's when I first felt like Vienna was home. Anyway, I found it - it's the Michaels Kirche. :-)

We spent the rest of the afternoon continuing our walk, and admiring the Vienna "Walk of Fame." Here's one of the stars, and I picked this one because I found the best story about him in one of the music funnies books we found in the opera's bookstore:

Aside from the German music jokes & anecdotes books we found, I found a musical sudoku book. For you musicians out there - instead of 9 numbers, you have the 7 scale degrees to work with. Each puzzle has a few squares highlighted, and if you sing them in order, you're singing part of the theme for which the puzzle is named. It's too cool.

The last part of our walk was past the Musikverein, one of the major music halls here. We found a concert tonight that worked for us - the Cleveland Orchestra with the Wiener Singverein doing the Brahms Requiem. It was a repeat of the concert they did last night, and it was amazing (here's the review from last night). Hooray for the 6 euro Stehplatz (standing room) tickets.

After the concert we grabbed a quick dinner at the Wienerwald - Martha, Trey thought of you, and about how much you'd probably giggle seeing the word "Wiener" all over the place! - and then bought a bottle of wine on the way back to the hotel. All in all, a good day. :-)

Tomorrow it's on to Schloss Schoenbrunn and the zoo!

Vacation blog - days 1 & 2

2009-11-01T14:38:00.005-06:00

We're in Vienna - hooray!!! Since we're on vacation, and since at least some of our hotels have free Wifi, I'm going to try to blog a little every day. No guarantees, but I'll try.

Our day and a half en route was pretty uneventful, which is always good. Highlights of the journey included Trey's getting stopped while practicing in Heathrow airport by a man who asked him, "excuse me, but do you happen to know the name of that brass instrument that wraps around your body?" We also had a traditional English breakfast - well, Trey did. I had scrambled eggs with toast and lox instead. :-)

Our connecting flight from London to Vienna ended up taking off a half an hour late, but that still got us to our hotel with plenty of time to check in, relax, and freshen up a little before we met some friends for a few glasses of wine and dinner. Recognize them?

I'm sure Katrin will have more pictures - her camera's actually pretty professional - but there's a quick one for now. :-)

Tomorrow we're planning on just bumming around the city a little. We'll walk around the old part of the city, go to the Naschmarkt, and pick up our opera ticksets. I'll also have to post some pictures of our shower. It's actually a glass box in the middle of the room, rather than your standard shower in a bathroom. I'd heard about this after I booked it, and was intrigued. It's cool, but I'm glad the person I'm sharing the room with has seen me naked before.

I'll sign off in a second so I can have the mint gummi bears left on my pillow and go to bed - sleeping did not go well for either one of us on the plane last night, so we're each operating on about 2 hours of sleep - but I'll leave you with a picture of a poster we saw upon stepping out of our hotel this evening. First person to figure out why we thought it was so funny wins a prize!

Real quick

2009-10-23T09:24:00.004-05:00

Real quick post, because I've been meaning to do one for so long...and I apologize if the spacing in this is weird - that always happens to me when I post pictures.

Things have been kind of crazy, both around the house and at work. At work I've been trying to get ahead so that I don't come back from vacation feeling like I'm way behind. Factor in getting a cold that had me take a sick day earlier this week and I was really starting to stress. Fortunately, I had the foresight to work ahead on a couple of major projects several months ago, so I'm now feeling pretty good about it. I'll take a couple of things home to work on tomorrow, and while I've made it a point not to take work home with this job (I just don't get paid enough to justify doing that, and I do enough reading for work on the train as it is), the fact that I won't be here for two weeks is a good reason to make an exception.

At home I spent the past couple of weeks cleaning like crazy because Trey's mom (Christi) & stepdad (Tim) visited last weekend with Tim's brother & sil, Mike & Laurie. Even though we were busy with work & rehearsals of our own, it was good to spend some time with them. I got to spend part of Saturday with them, meeting up with them at Navy Pier after a rehearsal, which resulted in my finally trying Garrett's popcorn. I know I've mentioned several times that the smell is absolutely heavenly, but good Lord, the stuff tastes AMAZING. There's a good reason people wait in line halfway around the block for that stuff. Holy crap.

Saturday night we went out to dinner at the Weber Grill, which I've since learned is actually just a local chain. They actually cook all of the meat on really big Weber kettle grills - yes, they use charcoal. It's really cool (pictures below), and probably one of the few places I'd get a burger that was seared on the outside, but nice & rare on the inside. Mine was topped with blue cheese. Yum!

Sunday afternoon was Trey's annual fall concert with the Round Lake band, and I ended up doing all of the narration. I think it was fun that Trey's mom got to see him conduct - he's so good at it. Later that evening was the Kindergruppe's annual Spaghetti Dinner, and everyone got a kick out of the kids and their "worm" dance. :-)

Ok, that's all for now - busy weekend ahead with Chicago Chamber Choir concerts! We've officially released our CD, Hymns & Spirituals: Strength for the Journey - they're great, and would make an excellent Christmas gift for someone you love! (sorry, had to plug it)

Mike with the bronze statue of George Stevens, inventor of the Weber kettle.

Inside the kitchen at the Weber Grill - hope you can see the really big charcoal grills!

All of us out front before going in - l-r: Mike, me, Trey, Laurie, Christi & Tim.

Random stuff

2009-10-07T11:31:00.002-05:00

I've again come to the conclusion that I'm too much of a perfectionist. I haven't been posting as regularly lately partly because whenever I have a few minutes to spare, I don't feel like to have much together in terms of coherent thoughts. Who wants to read anything coherent, though? :-)

I've been exhausted for the past couple of days. I think this is due in part to my crazy kitchen cleaning this weekend, and in part to staying up to watch the end of Monday night football. I realized that I really hated Brett Favre because he was a Packer. Although the yo-yoing between retirement and playing over the past few years has been really obnoxious, it was cool to watch him beat his old team. The last quarter was awesome, and makes me wish I would've watched the whole game, rather than just having it on in the background.

I'm also attributing some of my tiredness to my not getting to sleep in on Saturday the past two weeks - Ok, I got to sleep in, but only until 7am. At least last week it was because I got a call to sing a memorial service. Anyway, I know all of you with kids are saying, "quit your whining," but one of the reasons I'm not having children is so that I can sleep until 10, or 11, or noon, at least once every couple of weeks. I've laid out my day on Saturday so that I can sleep until 9:30. Hopefully it'll work out.

I have no idea what to bring my relatives in Europe when I go visit. Suggestions?

I still have to book my hotel nights for Munich. I've found great deals everywhere else, but that city is proving to be difficult (I consider a great deal to be a 3-4 star hotel with a workout room for around $100, better if breakfast is included and/or they have wireless internet). We're going well after Oktoberfest, so it shouldn't be an issue, but it hurts that it looks like we'll have to cough up over $350 for two nights in one city.

Forgive me if I've vented about this before, but why is it so hard to find a good pair of running shoes that doesn't cost a fortune? I mean, I don't think it's reasonable to pay more than around $50 or $60 for a good pair of running shoes, but since my feet are so wide, that's not even doable. I actually bought Payless running shoes about a month and a half ago - they fit well, and were only $40 (expensive for Payless in my mind) but won't last until Christmas. My aunt told me the other day that I should look at men's shoes, because the normal sizes are wider than normal women's sizes, but I looked at the Sports Authority the other day and all of the men's shoes looked very masculine. Grr.

I haven't read the Cakewrecks blog in a really long time. I think I should devote at least 10 minutes to that this afternoon.

Did you hear about the lady who let her 13-year-old ride in a box on top of their minivan? Apparently, the box was on the roof because it was too big to fit into the van, and oh, it was safe because it was "tied to the top of the car with a coat hanger." What are people like that doing breeding?

Ok, that's enough for now...I'll try to do at least one more random post this week!

Blog break (sort of long)

2009-09-30T11:17:00.003-05:00

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth - things have just been a little too busy lately. Things are always busy in the fall, but this year it got to me a little bit more than normal...

German Day weekend was fun, though not as successful as last year. We had the double whammy of being at the bar & food tent that typically doesn't make as much due to location, and the fest as a whole being down in sales due to the economy. I had a couple of nice surprises - two different friends from high school appeared at my bar! One actually read it on my Facebook status update, and the other just happened to be there. Fun!

Other weekend highlights included the Kindergruppe being so absolutely adorable during their new Tatzelwurm dance that my mom and I were showered with compliments for the rest of the weekend. The Tatzelwurm, by the way, is the reason the kids were so cute in Detroit as well. It's a new dance that Evi got at a workshop, and the main part of the sequence is when the kids get into a "worm" - think conga line. It's easy for the older ones who can do the steps, but the little ones spend much of the beginning of that part of the dance running to catch up and giggling. During one of the Detroit performances, I kept hearing comments from all around me about how cute it was, and even had some little girls from a different city run up to me and tell me that they loved our dances. :-)

The following weekend was Chicago Chamber Choir retreat, for which we drove up to Kenosha. We did a Saturday afternoon workshop (I missed the Saturday night stuff & the Sunday morning church service) and a Sunday afternoon concert. In the workshop and for the concert we worked on & performed mostly things from our CD (to be released October 14!), and I feel like our work with the clinician was so much more productive because we were all so familiar with the music. Since I am better able to sing correctly and energetically from a physical standpoint when I know the music well, the concert was also exhausting - I loved it!

This past weekend was Kirchweih at club, always a fun event. The Kindergruppe couple that won the Strauss (rosemary bush decorated with ribbons) was a 4 year old boy and 6 (7?) year old girl who happened to be paired up. When little boy's name was pulled out of the hat and read he looked confused. I told him that he'd won and he got a big grin on his face...but had no idea. His partner was thrilled - so thrilled in fact that she carried the bush around with her all night. I seriously don't think she put it down at all. It's a big deal to win the Strauss!

Kirchweih was also the first time Logan wore a leiwl - not bad considering he's only 3 months old. :-) There are pictures on his blog - if you need an invite, let me know and I'll send a request to Karen.

Other than that - life is busy as usual. So busy, in fact, that I dropped out of Wicker Park Choral Singers for the fall. I'm blaming it mostly on Trey starting up grad school and reverting back to a time when he didn't have as much responsibility, and therefore having to retrain him this fall but pick up the extra slack around the house in the interim. I've always had more household responsibility, but it got suddenly (& what felt like exponentially) greater. That paired with all of my regular rehearsals starting in the same week, several weekends in a row of major events and/or being out of town, our upcoming vacation that still needed/needs a bit of planning, and potential visits from out of town people had must just about having panic attacks.

I feel like a schmuck, but I should be able to get back to WPCS in January. I also let them know very early on the in the rehearsal process, so hopefully it's not as bad. Plus, if I'd have had a nervous breakdown I wouldn't have done them any good anyway.

Ok, enough update for now. I may be back Friday to do a report on how Chicago reacts to the 2016 Olympic bid winner announcement. Until then...

Weekly update - lots o' German stuff, reflection

2009-09-11T10:06:00.002-05:00

This update will be quick and random, just so you all know I'm around...

So, it's September, which means that life starts going crazy with German events all of a sudden. Last weekend was the annual Labor Day Donau trip (Detroit this year), and this weekend is German Day in Chicago. The week inbetween these events is always when things start up, so on top of two crazy weekends in a row, I've head my regular weekly Wednesday & Thursday night rehearsals starting up. Makes me really glad I decided to come home Sunday night so I had Monday to relax and get organized.

First, on German Day - I've been feeling a little weird all week that the fest opens on 9/11, a day which I think will always be a somber one for most of us. The past couple of years I've listened to polka music on my train ride & walk in, but I couldn't do that this morning. I'm itching with anticipation as I normally am, but don't think I'll feel right about puttin' on the tunes until after lunch.

Second, last weekend was fun, but it was also a little weird since it was the first Labor Day trip I've been on where I've been the only person from my family there. I was in charge of the Kindergruppe (they were fabulous, but more on that in next week's post), but just hung out the rest of the weekend and got to catch up with people. I didn't even drink that much - didn't do even one shot. In hindsight I'm wondering how it happened that I went on a Labor Day trip and never had a schnapps.

Since Trey was working Saturday and Sunday, he wasn't even there, which meant that I got to flirt a little more than normal. I also found myself getting reflective, thinking about how my life would've been very different if circumstances would've been different at certain points in time, causing me to have ended up with someone else before I met Trey.

This continued on my drive home (it is for this kind of reason that I like taking car trips by myself - it's nice to have 5 1/2 hours to yourself when the road is open). After all of this reflection I still think I have it pretty damn good. :-)

Have a great weekend everyone, and if you're in Chicago, I'll be at the middle bar in the big tent all weekend!

Disturbing incident

2009-09-03T11:53:00.002-05:00

So, yesterday I was going back to the train station after work, walking along the river as I usually do. I was across the street from 33 W. Wacker, the building my Godi used to work in located just as Wacker is curving from an east/west to a north/south street. All of a sudden I hear a woman about 12 feel in front of me and on the opposite side of the planter boxes start shrieking, and see a man walking away muttering something like, "you dumb bitch, you know what you done."

For a split second no one really knew what was going on - I started to think that it was a was weird place for a domestic disturbance, but that wasn't it. An apparently homeless man hauled off and hit a woman walking back to her train. She'd never seen him before. He left a gash above her left eye that had to be over 1/2 an inch long.

Passers by came in and immediately started doing what they could for this woman - about 5 people started calling 9-1-1, I called her husband for her but he didn't pick up, a firefighter who happened to be driving by drove up onto the sidewalk and had her start applying pressure to her wound. Fortunately someone managed to follow the guy who hit her and get him pinned, and another woman who was out running followed them and came back to where this was happening to say that man who'd pinned the guy down needed some backup until the cops arrived.

I'm not quite sure as to what the eventual outcome was - since I didn't actually see it happen (I was walking on the narrow strip of sidewalk between the street and planter box, so there was a small tree blocking my view) and since there were plenty of others who had seen it happen, and who had seen the guy, I decided to get going once the cops and ambulance were arriving. I figured I'd done everything I could to help and I'm pretty firm on getting out of the way of emergency personnel.

Still, it's just a little scary. Last week there was another incident of a homeless person randomly grabbing a man and holding him at knife point. It was in the middle of the day, in the north part of the Loop, in a spot that I'd walked past 20 minutes prior to the occurrence.

Not that this could've prevented what I saw yesterday, but I was going to start looking into self-defense classes to bring in to work this fall. That's just moved way up on my priority list.

When glamorous is not so glamorous

2009-09-01T15:29:00.002-05:00

So, I love working downtown, I really do. For the most part I also think Oprah is great. Put the two together, however, and sometimes it doesn't work out so well.

Next week Oprah is taping her 24th season opener starting at 5pm in the street directly outside of my building. They're going to let the audience in starting at noon, which means for the non-preferred areas, people are going to camp out overnight. Check out the map - I work in the 401 Building on the right-hand side of it. Do you know what a pain in the [blank] getting in and out of work is going to be that day? And so much for the lunchtime walk.

The city is saying that all of the pedestrian areas on Michigan Avenue will be clear. Yeah, I'm sure that's going to work very well. I'll keep y'all posted...

Random thoughts & life updates

2009-08-26T10:24:00.003-05:00

Sorry not to have posted for a few days, and thanks to everyone for weighing in on my last post. Like Martha, I'm still mad about it over a week later, but at least if there's a next time I won't feel bad being rude!

Here are some random thoughts and life updates on the past week or so:

Saturday was spent working on vacation stuff, among other things. I now have our hotel & opera tickets booked for Vienna. Tonight or tomorrow night I will be booking our last night in Frankfurt & our second to last night in Munich, and as soon as I hear from my family in Marktl I'll book our 2-3 nights in Salzburg. We're either going Vienna-Salzburg-Marktl, or Vienna-Marktl-Salzburg based on what's convenient for them. Other than that, Trey needs to do a bit more research on rail passes (we've discovered we probably won't need to rent a car at all - hooray for good public transportation!), and then we really don't have to do much more before we go over there.

All of my work on Saturday was made much more pleasant because I've recently acquired a used laptop. It doesn't have much in terms of the bells & whistles and it's in desperate need of a new battery, but it works for what I need it to work for and the price was right. It also has a wireless card already which means I can sit on my couch to work rather than in my computer room. This means that my cats can cuddle up with me, too. Sepp was very cute all morning, and Willie hung out with me in the afternoon. :-)

I'm also very excited about this Hotels.com promotion on the stay 10 nights, get one free. Their rates are better than any of the other travel sites' and they're the same as I'm finding on the actual hotel websites. If I book the rest of our Europe trip through them, it'll mean that I've got a free night to use whenever!

Last Thursday night there was a tasting a Trey's wine store. Since he wasn't working and I didn't have rehearsal for once, we went and invited some friends. We got to try somewhere between 35 & 40 wines, and a bunch of craft beers, too. Even better, the next day Trey got to bring some leftovers home - some of those bigger reds open up so nicely by the 2nd day!

The above reminded us to look at our cellar list and see what we could pull. Turns out that we've got about 3-4 bottles from Italy, and from Campagnia no less, so we're going to have a dinner party next month and do some Neapolitan style cooking. This is making me very excited!

My book club met last night for the first time in a couple of months. No one really remembered the book we were reading, partly because it'd been so long and partly because no one really cared for it, but we had a good time anyway. We sat in one of the Art Institute gardens and drank wine for a bit, which is the kind of relaxing thing I do not often allow myself on a week night. Ahh...

Ok, enough for now - have a great week all!

Rant: expectations for women of childbearing age/standards of thinness

2009-08-19T09:48:00.002-05:00

This will be a short rant, but I need to get it out nonetheless. I also need some girlfriend backup, which I know I will get here. This may be a Facebook status update if I end up logging on today, but things are a little busy so probably not...

So, yesterday I'm at the grocery store after work and having just swiped my credit card am waiting for the slip to print out. The cashier, a probably well-meaning woman around 45 years old, looks at my abdominal area and asks, "Is this your first?" EXCUSE ME? Hold the phone for a second!

First of all - how many of you know me well (i.e. know my eating & workout habits, and know that I've complained a lot in recent years that I'm having trouble finding clothes that are small enough for me because sizes are getting bigger - I've gone from a size 6 to a size 2 in some brands without changing weight or measurements)?

Second of all - how many of you have seen me recently, like within the past few weeks? I mean, my abs aren't perfect, but WTF? Granted due to the place I am in my cycle, I may be a bit more bloated than normal, but looking at me and concluding that I must be pregnant is about a ridiculous as the whole Michelle Obaba baby bump thing that won't seem to go away.

Ok, back to the situation at hand. It took me a moment to respond because I was in absolute shock, but I finally responded that I wasn't pregnant (the cashier apologized and sort of giggled) and left the store in a daze. Seriously, though - what the hell are people thinking?!?!

My first inclination was to think that I must be getting fat - I talked myself out of that as quickly as I do when I start feeling that way after looking at too many pictures of airbrushed supermodels.

Then I just got mad - I realize the cultural norm is that most women of childbearing age have or want children, but don't assume that because I do not have a small child in tow that I must be in the early stages of pregnancy. Maybe I should go ahead and buy some really snarky childfree t-shirts and just wear them all the time. Then people will probably be able to come to the conclusion that I'm not with child, nor will I be getting myself knocked up.

Furthermore, since when is it anything other than exceedingly rude to ask a woman suspected to be pregnant when she's expecting? Yes 99% of the time a lady who looks like she's about to pop is, in fact, pregnant - what about the other 1%?

Ok, enough for now. I still want to go back and punch that woman, though.

Carbondale blog & cat update

2009-08-16T09:01:00.005-05:00

I actually started typing this Sunday, but posted Monday - if it time-stamps it as having been posted on Sunday morning, that's why...

This summer I feel like I've done a lot better in terms of road trips. I guess I just haven't been as over scheduled, so getting out of town has been a little easier. Between Cincinnati a few weeks ago and Carbondale this weekend I've gotten in 2 weekend trips now and have one more planned, although that one's the annual Labor Day weekend trip so it would've happened regardless.

We visited the Garden of the Gods for some light hiking and a picnic lunch on the rock formation they call the Camel, which gave us a nice view of the Turtle. Jonathan took some pictures of us, aided by this neat little tripod thing he's got - it has short, bendy legs that can be wrapped around things like tree limbs or poles, or made into a little stand. I'll have to post a couple once he downloads them and Kristin sends them to me.

All in all we only spent about 2, 2 1/2 hours outside, and while it would've been nice to walk around or continuing with the light hiking a little longer, it was also in the 90s and very humid. Since we were all pretty drenched and grungie (grungy?) we decided to head back home. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, making dinner, and watching Burn After Reading (has Karen reviewed that one? I loved it - you will, too, if you like any of those weird John Malkovich flicks). Sunday morning it was nice to sleep in a little and just hang with Kristin before heading home. :-)

Another plus to this weekend was that while I left home, I still had a cat. I got to spend all kinds of time with Satchmo, Kristin & Jonathan's baby (check out her blog for some really cute pictures). He's very friendly and playful, and talks a lot, too, so I didn't miss talking to Siggy all weekend. The only way he'd be better would be if he were a cuddler like my guys!

Speaking of my guys, Willie is doing well (anyone who didn't see my Facebook last week - Willie went in for a dental cleaning last week and they had to yank out his 6 remaining teeth). I don't think he's been eating quite as much the past few days as he normally does, but I attribute that to his stomach being slightly upset by the antibiotics. He does seem happy, and I got a good look at the inside of his mouth yesterday when he let out a big yawn - the sockets look like they're healing over, and the rest of his mouth (roof, gums) look much healthier, as in light pink instead of darker pink and irritated.

Now that we don't have to worry about Willie's teeth (when the vet called as Willie was waking up, he told me, "Well, Willie's doing well and resting comfortably, but this is going to be his last dental cleaning..." ha!), we can go ahead and get Sepp scheduled for a cleaning the next time around. For anyone who has a pet but has never had this done - it's really expensive, especially if teeth need to be pulled out, but I'm a big advocate of it. Willie would be dead had we not had his mouth cleaned each time we did.

Anyway, that's enough for now - have a great week all!

Monday update after a relaxing weekend

2009-08-10T09:41:00.005-05:00

I got yelled at yesterday for not updating...and got yelled at on Saturday, and Friday for the same thing. Sorry!

I always look forward to August because late in the spring and earlier in the summer when things are crazy, I always seem to get the idea that somehow August will be relaxing. In recent years that really hasn't happened, but this year is proving to be different. This past weekend, for example, I had Kindergruppe on Friday, but I had absolutely nowhere I had to be for the rest of the weekend - I wasn't even singing in church on Sunday morning. I live for weekends like this, especially since they only happen about two or three times a year. I think I may actually get one more weekend in like this in August,though, which is awesome!

Ok, so what have I actually been doing? Well, spending time with the Kindergruppe for one - we've had two practices and Tag der Donauschwaben (picnic last Sunday) within an 8-day period. The kids were so cute last Sunday - I had one little boy (4 yrs old) drag his partner over to me in the middle of a dance because her shoes were not on correctly. It had the audience in stitches. I also managed to play guitar much better than I did last year - I wasn't really that embarrassed by myself!

I've also been spending time with Trey - always nice. :-) We've managed to find a few quick & easy, but very gourmet-looking recipes lately (doesn't "Pork Chops Saltimbocca" sound complicated?), have some good but inexpensive wine, and just veg on the couch together. I'm also excited for Trey that his classes start up soon. I know he'll be a lot happier being able to play more, and I know working back at Binny's the past couple of weeks have been good for him, too. So far none of his paychecks have gone to cellaring wine, and hopefully we can hold off on that for a little while longer!

I've started really looking more into possibilities for our vacation in November - I think I've got our days in Vienna mostly set. We'll probably spend a day in the old part of the city, do another one at Schoenbrunn seeing both the palace and the zoo (I know I'm a dork, but I LOVE zoos!) , take one day to go to the cemetery, see Mozart's haus and go to the opera (Salome will be playing at the State Opera one night while we're there), and spend our last day doing wine-related things. Next I'll be planning some Salzburg fun. :-)

Finally, I have been trying to see Logan at least once a week. He's starting to smile and laugh, he's strong and really holds his head up well, and is just generally cute. Here's a picture Kristin took a couple of weeks ago:

[pulled picture]

Have a great week!

Back in Chicago...with the Target dog

2009-07-29T10:21:00.004-05:00

Anyone who reads Karen's blog knows that I was out in Cinci for the weekend, being obnoxious at the Reds game in my Cubs hat. Thanks again to Karen & Jim for letting me show up and crash at their house, do Tae-bo in the living room, and lounge around on the couch the rest of the time. I had a lot of fun babysitting Nicole as well - what a bright and well-mannered child.

The added bonus of my trip out was that I came back to Chicago with several cans of Skyline, something I have been craving for months. Dinner at my house tonight will be Chili Spaghetti, 4-way! :-)

Switching gears a little, some of you know that Trey lost his job a couple of weeks ago. After a bit of the initial normal reactions associated with that type of thing, we talked it out and decided (ok, I need to give my self credit for this one - "we decided" should read "I pointed out") that there's a silver lining: Trey's been trying to figure out how to work in a music master's degree while working the normal 9-5 schedule. Bingo! Now he can finish in the 2 normal years instead of taking 3 or 4...and by then I'll be ready to do one myself, provided the route I think I want to go right now is still the route I want to go at that point.

Now, since we do have a mortgage to pay Trey does still have to work, but after sending out some applications he got set-up with a couple of different part-time jobs. One is a company he's worked for in recent years and a job he was recently saying he missed (and that might go full time), and the other is at a local aquarium store. Each is only about 10 minutes from our house, which means commuting costs will be way down. It all came together nicely by the end of the work day yesterday, so by the time I got back to Chicago I was able to completely relax with a glass of wine on the couch.

This morning I was really wishing I had more vacation so I could've taken the whole week off, but I did see something fun because I came to work today: I spotted Bullseye, the Target dog, (ha! spotted the dog!) on my walk in. You know, the little white one with the red bullseye over his one eye? Someone was walking him along Wacker drive, crossing Michigan Avenue as I passed him. He had a little red collar with rhinestone bullseyes on it. Random.

That's all for now - have a great rest of the week all!

Country music

2009-07-21T16:46:00.003-05:00

This is going to be kind of random, but here goes...I've been semi-addicted to country music lately. We have one country station in Chicago, which has been playing on my office radio almost every day for the past 2 or 3 weeks. I don't know why, but just can't get enough of the stuff. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that a few weeks ago when we were painting the living room, "Walk the Line" was on one of the movie channels.

Speaking of, last week we actually rented the movie because Trey had never seen it, and now I have Johnny Cash songs stuck in my head. I think "Folsom Prison Blues" is going to become my favorite song. It inspired me to create a Johnny Cash station on my Pandora today, too. :-)

Finally, I think that by far the weirdest thing about listening to US 99, the country station, is that they play the national anthem every day at noon. Do other radio stations do this? I've never heard it before...

I'm a Godi!

2009-07-13T08:56:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting of late - you'd think it'd get easier over the summer, but I guess work has been nuts because of Open Enrollment and all of the related follow up that I just haven't gotten to it...

The really big news of the past couple of weeks is that yesterday was Logan's baptism, and Trey and I have been given the honor of being his Godparents. This, of course, means that now I'm a Godi, too, and Trey is a Keti (pronounced sort of the like the name Katie, although the K is softer and more along the lines of a G sound). We do actually need to figure out how to officially spell Keti. Oma said it was K-e-t-i, but she's not sure. We thought it was G-ae-t-i (the ae is an a with an umlaut). I don't guess it really matters a whole lot.

Anyway, we'll need to wait to post pictures, since Trey and I were busy doing other things and didn't take any. Logan was good and pretty much slept all day, including while the water was poured over his head. After church we all went back to Mark & Karen's where Trey grilled all of the meat for much while I handed out hard candy (another tradition that Oma told us about but is not sure of the origin of) and took over cuddling with the little guy while everyone else started lunch. All in all it ended up being a beautiful day all around. :-)

The other big stuff this weekend was a concert for me Saturday afternoon, a gig for Trey Saturday night, and a Cubs game for us Friday afternoon. They ended up losing but it was fun anyway, plus I got myself a new hat (see the picture below). Over the weekend they split the 4 game series with Saint Louis, which I'm happy with - it could be so much worse!

Cubs game on Friday, 7/12 - I'm sporting my new 1914 logo hat, with the little Cubs bear outlined in red. Here's a close-up, without the red outlining on the bear.

Beginning of a short week

2009-06-29T12:28:00.003-05:00

I started making a list of random stuff last week and never quite got around to actually posting anything. That list is at the bottom of this post - first, a catch up of the past week and a half:

Seeing Nicky & Joey last weekend was a lot of fun. Trey and I took them to a Chicago Fire game which was a good time, at least in my opinion (this was Trey really being a good sport because he really doesn't like soccer) . The Fire won, we were able to get away from the guy with the really obnoxious horn thing without being conspicuous, and Trey got wished a happy Father's Day by the security guard near our section (she got a kick of of N&J each time the walked by, probably because there weren't may kids where we were seated).

My only complaint about our outing was that Toyota Park, which is out in burbs, is way too expensive - like the concessions are more expensive than Wrigley Field in some cases. I was also mad that they wouldn't let me keep the cap of the $4.50 water bottle I had to purchase since I couldn't bring one in, which made refilling it inconvenient (a lot of the arenas around here do allow you to bring in a plastic water bottle, but since Toyota Park does not allow that I had to spend $4.50 on one and therefore did not buy beer and spend more of my money there).

Other big news is that we painted more of our condo this past weekend - the first half of the living room. We went to the store to get some 8 oz. samples earlier in the week and I think we cracked up the lady at the paint counter. My idea was to do 2 colors, the darker of which would be on the back wall and the wall against the kitchen, my rationale being that the darker color would be on the wall that the light hits. Once I had colors picked out it took a while to convince Trey, and he was still very skeptical...until he painted a few spots. :-)

As of Saturday the lighter walls are done, and the darker ones will be finished on Friday. After that the only remaining summer project will be to get the Texas bathroom completed, although this may end up waiting until the fall, as it will really just mean switching the shower curtain and bath accessories.

Hmm, this post is a little long already, so I'll probably do a random post later this week. Happy short week to everyone who's off on Friday!

Thoughts for today

2009-06-18T17:51:00.002-05:00

I've been in a super good mood all day - maybe it's because it ended up not raining all day, maybe because I got to meet baby Logan yesterday, and maybe it's because life is calming down. Nevertheless, I feel like life is a lot more relaxed and fun this week.

Obviously the big news is the arrival of Logan. I'm so excited to be a Tante, and was very happy to spend a couple of hours at the hospital visiting yesterday. He slept the entire time we were there and seemed so angelic. I think even more fun was watching Mark be a dorky dad - he really is so much like our father was. :-)

I very much appreciated that Logan didn't jump the gun and try to arrive over the weekend, as Chicago Chamber Choir was recording for our soon-to-be-released CD of hymns and spirituals. We did all of our recording for the CD in one weekend, and I really thought it was going to be tedious and stressful. Surprisingly it went very smoothly and was a lot of fun, albeit pretty draining - Saturday we started at 8:30am and finished up at 5, which is a long day if you expending that much energy. We went back to record a few more songs and do some clean-up work Sunday night, but were finished much sooner than expected. I think the final product will be really fantastic. Wait until the fall!

This weekend Nicky & Joey will be visiting, something else I've been looking forward to for a while. We're taking them out Saturday night, but I can't say where in case they end up reading this. He he.

Have a great weekend all!

Logan has a blog!

2009-06-18T08:48:00.000-05:00

http://babyloganrill.blogspot.com

He's so cute. :-)

Congrats to Mark & Karen!

2009-06-17T08:41:00.004-05:00

I stole this picture from Evi's blog, but Logan Peter Rill was born last night! He was 8 pounds 4 oz and 21 1/2 inches long, and he already looks like a little fratz. :-)

[sorry, had to pull the picture]

Tante Viki is going to visit the expanded Rill family later today!

The best news story ever

2009-06-16T10:14:00.003-05:00

I saw this on the news early this morning (turned on the TV around 6):

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/06/beer-semitrailer-truck-rollover-tristate-tollway-eisenhower-expressway-illinois-state-police.html

A semitrailer hauling 40,000 pounds of beer tipped over on a west suburban highway interchange this morning and was leaking its payload on the road, Illinois State Police said.

The incident occurred before 6:30 a.m. on the ramp from the southbound Tri-State Tollway (I-294) to the eastbound Eisenhower Expressway (I-290), said Master Sgt. Robert Fierstein.
Troopers and investigators were still on the scene trying to determine what caused the single-vehicle crash, which resulted in a "breach" in the cargo area.

Other than "rubberneckers" slowing to see the overturned truck, there was minimal impact to traffic as crews tried to clean the spillage from the roadway. The driver suffered minor cuts and bruises to his face and was cooperating with police.

The vehicle was believed to be carrying Miller beer products, Fierstein said.

Here's the picture I found on our local ABC channel's website:

More Chicago stuff

2009-06-09T09:58:00.003-05:00

Glad you all liked my post yesterday. And Lisa, the thing that stops me from going in to Garrett's in the morning is that they don't open until 10am. The rest of the day there's a line out the door and (some days) halfway around the block!

I thought I'd take a moment today to highlight another fun thing about Chicago. This is something recently featured on the Travel Channel's Samantha Brown's Great Weekends program (the current picture on the show's homepage is Samantha bicycling around Chicago - looks like she's at an intersection along Washington, between Dearborn & LaSalle) which I took advantage of yesterday afternoon: the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park (I actually didn't know the fountain's name until I looked it up just now).

Here's a shot of Millennium Park - the Crown Fountain is near the bottom. The northern column is the face you see "spitting" water.

Yesterday I went out for my lunchtime walk with no set path, but I ended up walking south on Columbus boarding the east side of the park. When I got down to Monroe rather than continue & walk past the new wing of the Art Institute I decided to walk around the park instead. Now yesterday was a pretty warm & muggy day, and by the time I got to the fountain I'd been walking for about 20 minutes at a pretty quick pace. I looked at all of the people walking around in between the columns, and for the first time ever had the urge to take off my shoes and do it myself. I checked my watch to make sure I had a few minutes, and did, so I went for it.

When I was a kid I always wanted to work downtown, and even though the commute is really long and totally sucks in the winter, I still love working downtown. :-)

Chicago smells

2009-06-08T09:06:00.003-05:00

So, one of the things I miss about my former place of employment is the variety of aromas on my walk from the train station to the office. I'd walk past the Berghoff and most days of the week they'd be preparing something, and then there was the Garrett Popcorn shop at Jackson & State. I know I've mentioned that I could stand outside of Garrett's and just inhale all day.

Nowadays, my normal route to work is walking along Wacker Drive as the river is always nice to look at, and now that it's summer there are flowers and other foliage in the planter boxes. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I was going to try to walk along slightly different routes, depending on how the traffic lights were changing. This morning's walk was perfect!

I ended up walking along Randolph all the way from the train station to Michigan Avenue, and there happens to be a Garrett's at Randolph & Dearborn. Friday I walked that route but I didn't catch a whiff until I was just outside of the shop. Today, however, I could smell it from a block & a half away - maybe they had a run on popcorn over the weekend so they have to make extra this morning. Yum, yum, yum! Even better, once I passed the shop I could smell chocolate chip cookies baking for another block or so. What a nice way to start a week. :-)

Have a great week!

Chicago pictures

2009-06-02T20:10:00.014-05:00

So, I hopped onto the computer tonight fully intending to post pictures of our bedroom redecorating...until I realized that Trey only took a few and they really show more of me and the cats than the actual room. I'd take more, but then I'd have to really straighten everything up. Instead, here are a bunch of pictures I've been meaning to post for a long time.

A few months ago I mentioned that the Olympic Committee was in town - here's a picture of a building along the east-west part of Wacker Drive.

Here's a sign at Wacker & State that typically contains information on upcoming city festivals.

Here's the bridge I cross to get to my building. This is the view facing my building, but the same banner was hung on the other side of the bridge as well.

Finally, here's the lobby of my building. The banner's a little hard to see, but you get the idea.

On to springtime pictures - the tulips in the planter boxes along Michgan Avenue.

And the courtyard to the side of my building, facing the Wrigley Building...

...now a bit closer up.

Here's the random sculpture in front of my building. Everyone's always taking pictures in front of it (this lady just happened to be crossing the street).

Here's one for Martha. :-)

And another...

And a 3rd!

And now - back to laundry. Now that I'm caught up, maybe I can get some more house pictures over the weekend. Have a great rest of the week!

Weekend update

2009-06-01T12:18:00.003-05:00

So here it is, the beginning of June, and it's going to be raining for the next three days. I guess if that's the worst that happens it's Ok. It's just annoying. Fortunately, we had gorgeous weather this weekend...oh, and I peaked into the birdhouse Saturday and was able to see 3 little beaks!

Last week finished off well, and though I make it a point not to talk about work on this blog ever, I'll make a brief exception to toot the horn of my team at work. Our open enrollment period starts today, and since we're switching providers on a couple of our benefits and adding some other things, we're doing presentations for our staff. I think we were all a little afraid of freaking people out, and of overloading them - the presentation last week lasted an hour and a half - but people really received everything well and were very appreciative. We're still getting compliments on what a great job we did, how informative we were, and how professionally we handled everything. Our boss even got an e-mail from our broker telling us our medical carrier's rep was very impressed by how we handled things. Go us!

Ok, so on to the weekend - Friday night we stayed home and made American spaghetti (any time we make spaghetti we always make sure to call it "American spaghetti" because we know it's really not quite the same as the original). I absolutely love nights at home together on the couch. Even better is that all the furbabies came out to cuddle - Sepp has been a huge baby lately. Cute. :-)

Saturday we went back to painting, this time doing our hallway and entryway. I'm actually glad Trey bought the wrong color for our bedroom because now we're that much further on the apartment. We decided not to prime, which we think made the first coat take longer but saved a lot of time in the end and got it finished in a day rather than letting the project spill over into Sunday. Next up is the living/dining room, which we'll probably need to do one or two walls at a time. We also need to figure out what colors we want (we're thinking green, but aren't sure what shades), but we won't have time to paint again until July or August anyway...

Saturday night we treated ourselves to Indian food from a new take-out place in the area. The menu is actually pretty limited with just most of the favorites on it, but it makes choosing what you want so much easier!

Yesterday afternoon the Kindergruppe performed at Maifest in Chicago (see Evi's blog for pictures), which made for a nice afternoon outside and got me a schnitzel dinner to eat before my evening CCC rehearsal. I would've had myself a Hofbrau, too, but I'd already jacked myself up enough having to shout to be heard while inside the tent and I didn't want to sound like total crap for rehearsal...

Back to work - hopefully more tomorrow!

Baby birds

2009-05-27T11:47:00.002-05:00

Sorry guys, but pictures will have to wait. I just ran out of time at home last night and won't get on my computer there until at least Saturday. Such is life. And Jen, I did post a response to your fajita question, so be sure to read...

On a different note, I almost added to my post yesterday because I realized I forgot something but then decided it deserved its own post - we've got baby birds in our little birdhouse again!

Most of you know that we have 7 bird feeders, which started with just 1 (the one I got Trey for Christmas a few years ago). Well, some people across the way moved out early last spring and gave Trey a little green birdhouse because they weren't allowed to have birdhouses in the new back yard. I didn't figure anything would nest in there because it needed to be cleaned out, but as I as outside one day last summer I heard very soft peeping. It was so faint that I didn't realize it was coming from the birdhouse but it was. We only heard it for about a week or so, so I figured we had some dead baby birds in there.

Since we still never got around to cleaning it out, I figured there was no way anything would be in there this year. Wrong again! I think it was my Oma who was the first to hear it on Monday, and when I went outside to check it out I found that we definitely had some birdies. They seem to be much louder this year, and I hope we get to actually see a bit of them. :-)

Update for Monday

2009-05-26T10:57:00.001-05:00

So, last week went by way too fast, but it was successful all around. Had a great lesson on Tuesday, good rehearsals on Wednesday & Thursday, and I can't remember what we did Friday night, but that's fine.

Our painting this weekend went well, though priming sucked - I wanted to kill myself priming the ceiling. We decided that next time we paint (which may be this weekend as Trey purchased the wrong color paint and we now have a couple of cans to use) we will not prime. Anyway, the bedroom looks fantastic now. :-)

Monday we had a bunch of folks over and made fajitas - it was really a nice time, even though we ended up not being able to be outside due to some cool weather. A few folks did sit outside, but the majority of the 15 people ended up in our living/dining room!

I'll do my best getting some pictures of our weekend work up tonight...

What's been goin' on

2009-05-18T08:40:00.004-05:00

Ok, random giveaway this week - there's apparently some new Flatbread product DiGiorno is coming out with, because there's a huge truck out in front of our building with a bunch of little ovens, and everything says, "Lunch is on us Chicago!" all over it. This ought to be interesting around lunchtime...

Anyway, back to the blog. You think life should calm down, and usually it does for me by this point. I just didn't realize that some of the things that were stopping for the summer or taking a break were being replaced by other things. Here's what's been happening...

Week of 5/11-17 - Monday night I got to see a Rock n' Roll at the Goodman with Laura. The show was cool (I appreciated Tom Stoppard using U2's "With or without you" to open the second act), but the evening was better because I hadn't seen Laura in so long. Tuesday night was my Viki night/laundry night, Wednesday night was Wicker Park rehearsal, but Thursday was a special night, too. Trey debuted as the assistant conductor for the Wind Symphony at Harper College. I guess I didn't realize before the concert that he was conducting so much, but he did almost half of the program. One of the pieces he conducted was incredibly complicated, too - one of those that didn't necessarily sound difficult, just cool, but if you knew what to look/listen for, you could tell it was a bitch. :-)

The weekend started with Kindergruppe Friday night, and on my way home I swung by to see Mark at the firehouse as I needed to pick up his painting stuff we're borrowing. I'm always so proud of Mark. Saturday morning slept late (10:45!) - something I haven't been able to do in over a month! The plan was to start painting our bedroom, but when a) Trey realized his Sunday evening wine tasting was actually a Saturday evening wine tasting, and b) we realized that next weekend is a 3-day weekend and we don't have much planned, we decided to postpone that project rather than risk killing each other trying to get it done in 4 or 5 hours. The end result was a much more relaxed weekend, and a slightly cleaner apartment!

Oh, and one more thing on Saturday - I'm not really into horse racing, but I do try to watch the big 3 races each year. Obviously, Saturday was the Preakness, and I did get caught up because of the philly in the race. I cheered her on so loudly that I think I freaked Siggy out a little, but she won! It might be silly, but I really get a sense of satisfaction when a girl beats all of the boys. :-)

Sunday I had the normal church stuff and Trey had a Harper Symphony concert, and then we got to have dinner together. We did our quick, easy & very delicious pasta carbonara recipe. Love it.

What else is new?

The past few weeks have been crazy at work, although I don't know when it's not crazy around here - that is actually a good thing, by the way. After an official year and a half in, and an unofficial 6 months or so prior to that, I think HR is really a good field for me to stick in. I think I'm going to give it another 6 months to a year of evaluation, and if I feel the same way, I'll begin looking at masters or certification programs. A hazy long-term goal for me at the point I think would be to go back to true not-for-profit, the arts community specifically, and do HR or personnel management there.
Last weekend was the Mother's Day program at Donau, so I'd been helping prepare the kids' singing for that. This year didn't go so well, but there were fewer kids for the performance. We also added a new song, but probably didn't start the kids on it soon enough. "Der Mai ist Gekommen" is a standard that the kids haven't done in years, but I felt that it was definitely time to add it, especially now that one of the dances the Jugendgruppe does at Rosenball has a bit of the melody in its music.

That's probably plenty long for now. If I have a few extra minutes at home tomorrow night I'll download the pictures I took, both when the Olympic committee was in town a couple of months ago, and some of the tulip shots I took last week.

Happy Monday!

Friday randomness

2009-05-08T12:36:00.002-05:00

Sorry to have been so absent lately. I haven't logged on to Facebook in a couple of weeks either. Too much going on, and it'll continue this weekend. At least most of it is fun!

Ok, I wrote that around 11:30am. It's now 3:41 so you can tell how my week's been. :-)

My only thought for the day is: all you dumbasses who hit "Reply All" on your e-mail, stop it. It's been happening to me all day, on a couple of different original e-mails.

Ok, have a nice weekend - I'll try to finally post more later on!

Weird question for the ladies

2009-04-30T16:22:00.003-05:00

Guys - you've been warned. If you don't want to know about inner workings of your females, this is your cue to stop reading. Since Trey hasn't blogged in several months and will soon be de-listed, I don't think I have to worry about him reading this either, which is good because I read once that one of the things you really don't want to discuss with your husband, or have him witness, is your hair removal.

Now, I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but I feel like my arms are excessively hairy. It never bothered me that much until a few years ago - probably when we moved to Italy and I started wearing short-sleeved shirts and tank tops more frequently. Over there, however, I realized that if I got a tan it was better as it lightened up and wasn't as noticable. Nowadays I don't spend much time outside so it's darker, which does bother me quite a bit.

Since it has been bothering me more and more, and since recently found an arm hair that was two inches long (no, I'm not kidding), I'm feeling more and more like I want to do something about it. This has not reached the need category, especially since living in Chicago I can wear long-sleeves for most of the year, but I think getting rid of it would make me feel less self-conscious over the summer. I don't want to do anything permenant like lazer or electrolisis, as a) it's cost prohibitive, and b) I think it still needs a few more years before we know it's completely safe.

My big questions are 1) am I just a moron who should shut up and stop worrying about something stupid like this? and 2) if not, has anyone else had experience with waxing for this kind of situation?

Yer dumb

2009-04-27T14:12:00.002-05:00

Wow - two in 1 day!

Ok, new rule: you're not allowed to criticize if you can't spell. I just saw this on a bright orange sticker someone had affixed to a Chicago information sign:

"Obama is a fruad!"

Dumbass...

Monday again!

2009-04-27T11:14:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting - as I was walking to work this morning I saw a few things that I thought I should take pictures of and post, but then I realized I still owe you all pictures of the Olympic banners. Hopefully I can get those posted tomorrow night, and I'll remember my camera one day this week.

One of the most fun things I saw this morning was at the base of the Trump Tower - there's still all kinds of construction going on, and it looks like the construction workers are based on the river side of the building. Someone had put up a Blackhawks flag and spray painted "Pride [flag] is back." Fun. I think the city is rather overwhelmed at having both the Hawks and the Bulls in the playoffs. :-)

Another fun thing I saw was a pink street cleaning truck - it was pink for breast cancer awareness, but normally all of the Chicago Streets & Sanitation trucks are blue. It was funny to see a bunch of big, burly guys driving a pink truck.

Highlights from the past week or so...
-Wicker Park started rehearsing again this week - it'll be good to have a high quality group to sing with into the summer, although CCC is recording in early June, so May is likely to get crazy with rehearsals.
-I had lots of time at home! I feel more relaxed than I have in a while, though I'm sure that will change. :-)
-I drove up to Milwaukee on Saturday for the Donauschwaben annual meeting. I felt bad at not staying for dinner and socializing more, but I was sort of irritated that morning because it meant I'd not get to spend time with Trey during the day, and we'd barely spent any time together in at least a couple of weeks.
-Driving sucked on Saturday, but on my way home I swung by Alterra and now have a few more pounds of my favorite coffee on earth!
-Trey and I were able to spend a few hours together Sunday, and took part of it to go the Home Depot and find a paint color for our bedroom - painting will commence around May 16. By the way, Trey is very glad that everyone approves of what goes on in our bedroom!

That's all for now - hopefully more later this week!

2009-04-20T09:57:00.012-05:00

At Karen's request, here are some pictures (again, an apology in advance if the formatting is dumb):

My new pairs of shoes - yes, they're black, and it's probably boring to just have a bunch of pairs of black shoes, but they're the most versatile. The objective with this purchase was so I'd have a pair of pumps I could leave at work, and a pair of flats at home. Since I have such a long walk from the train station in to work, and shoes other than gym shoes are not conducive to walking long distances, I keep a few pairs of shoes at work.

And, a picture of our new bedding:

One of our main objectives here with this, other than a change in color scheme, was to get something that was not embroidered. Cats' claws make for an embroidered comforter that starts looking bad after a few years. They're all careful with their claws, and all get trims regularly, but snags happen. Plus, you'd think that expensive sheets would hold up well, but ours started getting a few holes in them recently, and the top border ripped off of one of our flat sheets a couple months ago, too - what's up with that? Anyway, the last bedding set lasted about 6 years, but I'd like this one to last longer than that.

This weekend was nice - it's always a treat to see Kristin, even if we're just running errands together. I'm not a very loud person, except for when we're together. In fact, someone was asking about Jonathan, and I pointed out that when Kristin & I get together, Trey and Jonathan like to sit back, observe, and laugh at us. :-)

The baby shower was good, too - it ended up as myself, Kristin, mom, Godi, Tante Rosie & Tante Maria all at a table together. It was nice to catch up a little with Tante Rosie, and since I can only ooh and ah at cute baby stuff for so long it was good to have a table full of good people and good conversation. I think I need to find some new adjectives...forgive me, as I'm a little out of it this morning. I never sleep well when Trey's not home.

Oh, and before I forget, you must visit Evi's blog - she has the cutest pictures of Murphy, her new grandpuppy (Tony's new dog) in her blog. He's just about the cutest thing I've seen in a long time!

Ok, back to work for now - have a good Monday!

Ending the week on a good note...

2009-04-17T16:14:00.002-05:00

Good things to finish off the week:

-I found some great bedding on sale at Kohl's earlier this week. I've been looking at different stores for a few months, but haven't found anything. Walked in there and saw the perfect thing - and walked about having spent several hundred dollars less than the full priced items. Painting will commence in May, and then well start using it!

-I think I'm almost over my post-Easter exhaustion. I got up to work out before work today for the first time since Monday (T & W I was actually able to work out after work, and I don't know how I did it Monday).

-My sister will be in town this weekend - hooray! She's crazy and I love her. :-)

-It's warm in Chicago today!

-Payless had the right shoes in the right sizes for me to be able to take advantage of the buy 1 get one 1/2 off sale today. I've been visiting different stores in the loop on my lunchtime walk several times this week, so I'm glad it finally worked out.

-Next week I will be home every night except for Wednesday, and Trey is on a business trip. It's nice to have that kind of Viki time every few months.

-The Cubs just won, making them 6-4. The best part is, my SIL Karen had never been to Wrigley Field, so now her and Baby Rill have each had their first trip and they won!

Happy weekend all!

Happy Easter - with Peeps pictures!

2009-04-11T11:14:00.010-05:00

Sorry in advance that this is all so smooshed - I've tried three times to space it out more evenly, but Blogger isn't cooperating.

I don't know what my deal is, but it feels like every year Holy Week is more exhausting. Fortunately, I've only got 2 more church services to get through, and then I can do brunch & mimosas at Evi's!

Last night Trey and I took advantage of some free comedy club tickets forwarded by some friends and saw Basile the Greek - very funny guy. We've had great luck with free tickets to the place and though there's the 2 item minimum, when you're getting free tickets paying too much for drinks doesn't hurt as much and still makes for a relatively inexpensive evening. Really the only downside was that our tickets were for the late show at 10:15pm, which was more doable than I thought. Trey was nice enough to make dinner so I could take a nap before we went out!

We made it home by a few minutes after midnight, and, as usual, all of the boys came running to greet us. Trey picked up Siggy and started rubbing him down a little, and all of a sudden said something like, "Whoa! Dude, you smell like shit!" He put Siggy down and realized his hands had picked up a less than desirable scent as well. By then I was concerned, so I sat down on the floor to play with Siggy, and sure enough, he smelled like poop.

I decided the only thing that would make getting to sleep doable - because Siggy sleeps on my pillow a lot, and if you try to shut him out of the room he screams all night - would be giving Siggy bath. So there we were, giving the cat a bath in the sink at 12:30am. Though he screamed the whole time, he was surprisingly cooperative. Willie lent moral support by sitting under the dining room table and letting out a little meow of sympathy every time Siggy yelled one out.

When all was said and done we towel dried him as best we could, but didn't put him through the blowdryer torture because I figured it was warm enough in the house. Poor cat went walking around the house really slowly, shaking his back paws as he walked, and stopping every 10 seconds or so to lick more of the water off. Fortunately when all was said and done, Siggy smelled like Pantene rather than poop.

Unfortunately, after searching through litter boxes, closets and the more remote places of the house, we couldn't figure out where the poop smell might have come from.

Ok, so that was last night. Remember last week when I was talking about the Free Peep Show going on in the one window of the Tribune building? Well, turns out they were doing a Peeps diorama contest. Sorry I didn't realize it sooner - maybe some of you could've entered it. Anyway, I know these pictures are not going to post the way I want them to, so here's what we've got:

The first is the window that was catching everyone's attention.

Sidenote - the stone to the right of the window slightly more than halfway down is from the Alamo. For anyone not familiar with the building, it incorporates all kinds of stones/building material from famous buildings around the world. The most recent addition is a piece of one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NYC.

This the what you see looking into the hole that's farthest to the left. I really like the Santa Peep.

And this is what you see when you look to the hole that's the farthest right. The Peeps roasting marshmallows around a campfire it just hysterical!

Happy Easter!

Because I've gotten this so much lately...

2009-04-07T15:49:00.003-05:00

I really do appreciate it when people realize that my name is not spelled V-i-C-t-o-r-i-a, but I always have to shake my head and laugh when someone spells it V-i-C-K-t-o-r-i-a. Come on, that just looks stupid.

I'm still alive, just busy. Lots of rehearsals & concerts, which have gone well for the most part. Have I mentioned that I love Eric Whitacre? If you ever have the opportunity to hear any of his music, do it. Saturday with Wicker Park his "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine" was on the program, and for the CCC concerts Friday & Sunday we did "Water Night." It looks like both can be heard on his website (http://www.ericwhitacre.com/) so take a look - they're under the Choral music section. All of those cluster chords in the "Water Night" just sound so cool!

Other than that, here's what's going on in Chicago:
-I took a mental health day on Friday and got my house cleaned up a little so no more gross bathrooms!
-The International Olympic Committee has been in town, and it's neat to see the city excited and with the Candidate City banners up all over even though I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. If banners & flags are still up tomorrow I'll try to take some pictures and post them.
-We had a sleet & snow storm on Sunday, APRIL 5, and I had to drive through it to get home from Rockford. It never got really bad, but there were about 10 or 15 minutes during which time my grip on the steering wheel was extra tight.

I've actually gotten caught up on all of your blogs as of today, but have only had the chance to comment on Karen's. With regards to Sarah's post, is anyone up for "Girls dump the kids on the husbands and road trip to Chicago" weekend? The only weekends that don't really work for me are Mother's Day weekend, and the first weekend in June. :-)

Happy Tuesday!

Another reason I love Metra

2009-03-31T12:27:00.002-05:00

I know I've mentioned that I love Metra for several reasons:
-because it's nice that my commute can be spent reading, putting on make-up, playing Sudoku, or taking a nap rather than irritated at what other drivers are doing for 3+ hours a day
-that I'm glad I'm not putting 80+ miles on my car every day, and burning up all of the gas that goes with it
-that I'm glad my train station is just far enough from work to get a good walk in, but not so far that I need to take a bus
-the conductors are nice

I now have another reason for loving Metra:
-not only are the conductors nice, they've got great memories and will help you out

Yesterday morning I'm on the train and go to pull out my ticket - a monthly ticket that's in a credit-card sized holder along with my CTA card and a mini train schedule - and I can't find it. I move to the vestibule so I can empty out my purse and bookbag without disturbing everyone else, and still can't find it. Fortunately, I take the same train almost every morning so the conductor recognizes me and tell me not to worry about it, that he trusts me.

Over my lunch hour I walk back to the train station and bought a 10-ride just in case, but, lucky for me the conductor on the evening train had my ticket holder - I'd left it on Friday afternoon. I don't always take the same evening train, but I made sure to take the same one out yesterday that I'd taken on Friday. Hooray! Funny thing is, that he said in his 19 years of being a conductor, and all of the tickets he's found, only about 4 people total have ever asked him the next day if he found a ticket. Those monthlies are expensive, too.

A really random/dumb thing is that I almost always write my name & phone number on my ticket in addition to have it written on the ticket holder. Last month I picked myself up a new holder as my old one was falling apart, but hadn't yet written in my info. March was one of the few months I neglected to write it on the ticket, too. *smack*

Happy Tuesday all!

Weekend in review

2009-03-30T15:43:00.002-05:00

This weekend went by way too fast, but it ends up book club is canceled tonight, so hopefully that'll help me catch up a little. Here's what transpired...

Friday night I got home and went straight to getting my stuff together for Saturday and Sunday while waiting for Trey to come home from teaching a lesson after work. As soon as he was back, we drove over to Big Bowl, used up some gift certificates and had a great dinner without spending much. Really, had we not gotten fancy martinis it would've been free, but you just have to treat yourself sometimes. My lemongrass martini was fantastic!

Saturday morning I slept in a little & got in a bit of relaxation before hitting the treadmill and then heading out for a CCC rehearsal & outreach concert in Hyde Park. I always love driving down to Hyde Park nowadays because I feel like I'm in the president's hood. :-)

After that it back north to downtown to meet Trey for a quick dinner before we saw our last opera of the year - Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart. It was wonderful - very funny, incredibly well done both musically and from a humor/acting standpoint - and a nice way to end the season on humorous note. Not only was it our final opera of the year, it was the very last performance of the Lyric's 2008-2009 season. Next year we're switching to a Saturday package (6 Saturdays) because weeknights are no longer doable, and we decided that Saturday felt a lot more relaxed, which made us glad to have had to do that.

Driving home Saturday night was much better than anticipated - the sleet/snow mix we were supposed to be getting by then was still only rain so the roads weren't yet slick. People were still driving like idiots though - a bunch of folks were doing 55 & 60 in the left lane, which pissed off the people who wanted to go faster and had them weaving in and out of traffic and doing dumb stuff. I decided that I didn't want to deal with other stupid people and got off the expressway a few exits earlier.

Sunday was spent driving to church in the snow (yes, snow), then a CCC concert, and back home for dinner and a quick visit from Mark & Karen. They brought us the most recent ultrasound pictures of baby Rill, which is now about the size of an eggplant. Fortunately, they gave us enough warning for us to get the living room straightened up and for me to move their shower gift. :-)

Monday has been spent recovering, and being thankful that I'll have a free evening tonight. Have a great week all!

The Egg Guys

2009-03-26T10:10:00.003-05:00

Lisa asked, so I'll explain...I could've sworn I've taken a picture of our egg guy shelf before, but I can't seem to find it!

It all started with the little guy to the left. We registered for him for our wedding, figuring one of our friends would think it was funny and get it for us (not so - someone who probably didn't get the joke got it with a bunch of other kitchen gadgets). Trey was really excited about Whiskie, and started using it every time we made scrambled eggs, french toast, or anything else that required the beating of eggs. To put it in perspective, the whole thing is only about 6 inches tall.

Well, my mom, Godi, and siblings all caught wind of this and must've thought it was funny because people have been on the lookout for egg guy stuff ever since. I get calls at the most random times from excited siblings about "Hey, do you have the egg guy flipper?" or "I just found a little egg guy pan! Do you have that?" Any time someone finds a new egg guy thing, they call me all excited - even Tony gets in to it. Godi even found us a Christmas Whiskie guy (who is not pictured in the catalogue).

I just visited the website, www.msc-international.com and checked out the 2009 website. They have 8 pages of egg guy stuff (starts on pg 16)! We have all but 3 of the items on the first 6 pages, but nothing from pgs 22 or 23. The next round of searching commences immediately...and maybe I'll have to have Trey put up two new shelves instead of just 1!

Lunchtime fun!

2009-03-24T14:37:00.002-05:00

Ok, so 3 fun things from lunch today:

1. I found a great pair of running shoes...at Marshall's...for $20. Go figure. I've been looking for a new pair for weeks, but have been trying to spend $50 or less, trying to find a pair that will not kill my wide feet, and that aren't pink. I'd given up on the not pink thing, and finally found a pair last week for $50. They still didn't quite fit right. Yesterday I found another, slightly better pair for $25 and returned the first pair. Now I'll have to return the ones I bought yesterday, but it's worth it because the ones I found today fit perfectly. 3rd times a charm, I guess.

Note to self: check the clearance section of Marshall's every few weeks for 8 1/2 Reebok running shoes, as that brand and that size seem to be the perfect fit, and my last pair of them came from the Marshall's clearance section.

2. While at Marshall's I found my shoes quickly, so I went walking around the store and ended up in housewares. I found an egg guy thing we didn't have yet - an egg guy pancake pan! Now we really need a second egg guy shelf.

3. Finally, something I noticed on my way back to work: in a window box to the left of the WGN broadcast booth as you're facing the building, the whole window pane is covered with brown paper. Someone's written "free peep show" on the paper and ripped 3 silver dollar sized holes in it (maybe slightly bigger). Well, you peek inside and someone's arranged all sorts of peeps into a few different scenarios, including one that's dressed up in a Santa costume made out of pipe cleaners. It's funny. :-)

Happy Tuesday!

Rainy Monday

2009-03-23T08:37:00.002-05:00

This morning is starting out to be a little gross, but I bet that will help the tulips - I saw some just starting to come up in the planter boxes along Michigan Avenue last week. :-)

This weekend was a good one - yesterday was a bunch of fun thanks to Tony getting us tickets to the Chicago Storm game. The Storm lost but I still thought it was an exciting game - indoor soccer is very fast-paced - and the friends we took along had a good time. Especially fun was making fun of the dance team, and speculating as to how the Lingerie Football League worked - apparently the Chicago Bliss plays in the same area, and they kept coming up on the scrolling calendar of upcoming events. I told the guys they could go without us girls, which prompted the request that I pick them up after the game. *smack*

After the game we went out for Indian food. Yum! Indian's always fun with a group because you get to try a lot more stuff. Trey was nice and didn't get anything vindaloo this time around - I can't handle anything that spicy as it kills all the flavor - but did try a different, less spicy lamb dish. I went with black lentils, a departure from my normal choice of anything with spinach, and the novice in the group when it came to Indian food went for some kind of shrimp with this incredible sauce. We all decided next time we went there, we'd just get that sauce and a whole bunch of nan. Yum!

Earlier, the weekend was all about German club. Kindergruppe was a short practice on Friday night because so many kids are gone on spring break and the Donau spring banquet on Saturday night was much better attended than I thought it would've been. The kids did a great job dancing on Saturday night, despite there being only 13 of them - we were supposed to have more, but a few got sick.

Perhaps the most fun was a group of 3 who were put together - the oldest, little girl G, had been in charge of such a group before and my mom thought she'd do well. When I told G, she said, "But remember that time we were dancing on the stage and I had to dance with two other people? I was really confused!" When I told her that my mom had said she did a fabulous job the last time, she said, "Oh!" sort of puffed up her chest, and started beaming. She again did well directing traffic, and her little group looked like they were having so much fun. Each time they had to polka around the circle the little girl on the outside, E, looked like she was being flung around but she giggled the whole time. It made all of the old people, well everyone really, laugh.

Ok, back to work for now...we're short today, so I hope it stays quiet!

Anyone know of any good online yoga classes?

2009-03-19T09:02:00.002-05:00

This is going to be sort of a random post...

For the yoga, I'm thinking preferably vinyasa because the videos I have are in that style, and around 40 minutes long - most of what I'm finding doing a quick search is about 20. Free is even better! I slept just a few minutes too late to go through my video this morning but I really need it. I figure that I've got enough time in between work and my rehearsal tonight to shut my office door and do it in here if I move a few things around...

On that note - they gave me a new computer at work, and my monitor is now 19 inches and telescopic. I'm not sure if looking at the monitor is making me disoriented because it's so big, or because I was actually organized enough to put in contacts this morning (not something that happens often but I really wanted to wear real sunglasses today, having recently found a couple of pairs for 75% off, which, with the additional coupon I had made them about $3 a pair). And a telescopic monitor? The steering wheel on my car is telescopic, which is a feature I love about it, but for some reason it's weird to have on my computer monitor.

On a different note, I've got some lovely daffodils on my desk right now. Yesterday as I was walking into my building in the morning, the building manager was handing out flowers and saying "happy spring" to everyone who walked by. Not being well versed in flowers and the buds not yet being open, I figured they were tulips, so I put them in a water-filled coffee mug and watched them open slightly by the end of the day. This morning I came in and they were completely open and are now something bright and sunny to look at. Hooray! My building does tenant appreciation stuff from time to time (free lunch twice a year, ice cream social in the summer, pumpkin contest with candy around Halloween), but I gladly give up the rest of the stuff for flowers like this a few times a year. :-)

On a different note, I'm excited about upcoming concerts, though it's a shame they all happen at once, and right before Easter. My schedule beginning March 25 is:
-25 & 26 - rehearsals
-27 (Friday) - off
-28 - rehearsal, outreach concert (short program of CCC's concert)
-29 - church service in the morning, concert in the late afternoon
-30 - off (book club)
-31 - off
-4/1 & 2 - rehearsals
-4/3 - concert
-4/4 - concert
-4/5 - church service, concert
-4/6 & 7 - off (have to do laundry and grocery shopping some time
-4/8 - rehearsal for Easter
-4/9, 10 & 11 - Holy week services
-4/12 Easter

After that though, I only have on rehearsal a week until May, and no concerts until July. Why couldn't this be spread out a little?

See, told you I'd ramble. Hope you've found it amusing!

Monday again

2009-03-16T09:49:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting - things have been a little nuts. My workload is slowly getting heavier due to some situations beyond anyone's control. We're all keeping our fingers crossed that things will be resolved soon, like, within the next month. It would be nice to go into summer with a slightly lighter load.

Anyway, some highlights of the past week:

-I got to hang out with Kristin on Monday night - I love it when Kristin is in town, even though all we did was stick around my apartment so I could clean a little bit. :-)

-I had a good lesson on Tuesday night, despite tiring quickly. Jim mentioned again that I should do a recital some time, and I confessed that Trey and I had half-seriously talked about doing one together, but I don't think anyone would come.

-Friday night we ordered a pizza! We almost never do this, but definitely needed/deserved it. Since I discovered a few weeks ago that there is an Edwardo's near us (the only place I know of that offers whole wheat crust on both thin and deep dish), I couldn't talk myself out of it.

-Saturday night we stayed home, got a movie and cooked. Two nights in a row - love it! I found a recipe for Chicken n' Dumplings that added a bunch of veggies and called for whole wheat flower. Trey admitted after we'd eaten that he'd been skeptical, but both of us loved it. Definitely a keeper.

-Sunday was dinner at Oma's to celebrate all of the January, February, and March birthdays. After a couple of years, we'd finally talked Oma into letting us all do more of the cooking, so she did the meat and we each brought a side or two. I organized it all, and she kept trying to add an item or two, to which I responded that if she made anything besides the dishes we'd already agreed on, we wouldn't ever come over for dinner again. Well, it worked very well, and Oma admitted that she enjoyed it and wasn't exhausted like she normally is after we have dinner at her house.

-Perhaps the most exciting thing is that I got my $200 Tiffany's gift card on Thursday! I'm sure I've mentioned the Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Points program - well, the gift card was my chosen reward after 50 weeks of logging my workouts. This is what I got with it, and I still have $35 to spare! I'll save it for next year, to add to my next $200 gift card. I think next year I'll get something like this or like this, and the matching necklace in either case. It's all very simple stuff, but I like it...and it's from Tiffany's!

Ok, I'll really try to be better this week, but no promises. Have a great week all!

Great minds...

2009-03-09T10:32:00.004-05:00

So, my sister is in town for a few days and yesterday I went over to my mom's for a little while to see her. After a few minutes, she looks down at my purse with a confused look on her face, then says, "hey, we have the same purse!" Apparently she was confused at first because she couldn't figure out why my water bottle was in her purse.

Turns out last week, both of us had been wanting a new purse (I only own 4 purses and I think Kristin's the same way), and had each finally found one that we liked on sale. In each case, it was the last one at the store. Here was the result:

I found the picture on Payless.com - it's listed as 22.99, but each of us only paid 13.99 for it. Too funny. :-)

Quick addition

2009-03-06T09:50:00.001-06:00

Read Evi's blog post from Tuesday this week. :-)

Great week!

2009-03-06T08:55:00.002-06:00

I feel like I have a laundry list of things to be happy and excited about this week:

1. "Let the Bright Seraphim" is playing on the radio right now. :-)

2. Lindt Excellence chocolate bars have been on sale at Walgreens this week - 2 for $3. Usually they're $2.50 at Walgreens, so I get them at Target where they're $2.19. But 2 for $3! Too bad they haven't had the 85% stuff all week. At least I've gotten to stock up on 70% and the dark chocolate with chili!

3. My trip up to Milwaukee on Sunday was so nice. I had fantastic luck weather wise - I was worried about getting caught up in snow, but missed it by a few hours. My driving was clear, but by Monday morning Milwaukee had gotten about a foot of the stuff. I also loved the opera I went up to see. Even more, I loved seeing a few old friends. The added bonus was getting to stop at Alterra, my favorite coffee roasting place. I only bought 3 pounds and hopefully the stuff I bought is stored well enough that it'll stay fresh. Maybe I'll have to look into mail-ordering it in the future.

4. Monday in Chicago was in the low 20s. Yesterday it got to be over 60. Today will be the same!

5. Great news on the cholesterol front, but first a little background: I've always had high cholesterol, even as a kid. When we were little (I was probably around 10) the health insurance company made all of us Rill kids see a dietitian because our cholesterol was so high. We all thought it was dumb because she was holding up plastic food like peas, bread, Cheerios, etc., and asking us how often we ate those foods vs. the non-plastic version of chocolate bars and Cheetos. We all kind of went, "duh, we have vegetables every night, and we only get chocolate after Halloween and Christmas, but then we only get 1 piece a day." Turns out the only recommendations she could make were switching to skim vs. 2% milk, and having cholesterol free bread.

Anyway, I was at a Blue Cross Blue Shield event yesterday, and they were doing free biometric screenings, which included cholesterol tests. I took advantage of it because it was a finger prick vs. a full draw, and I'm really glad I did. My total # is 226, which is actually down 9 points from 1 1/5 years ago, but I learned that my HDL is 75 (HDL is the good kind: h=happy cholesterol). When the guy explained this he said that you want an HDL number over 40, and a good range is 40-60. That mine's that much higher is great, because it also brings the overall ratio down to 3.0, and you want a ratio that's 4 or less. Hooray.

Sorry, I know that last thing might be dumb, but I'm ecstatic. This is something I've been really worried about for about the past year and a half when I learned I was still over 200 after not having been on hormonal birth control for almost a year.

Ok, good enough for now - hope everyone has a beautiful weekend!

Proposal using Wendy's Frosty goes wrong

2009-03-02T15:58:00.002-06:00

I just saw a news headline about a girl swallowing her engagement ring that I couldn't help but click on. I was insanely curious, as Trey dropped my engagement ring in a glass of champage and as I downed it and saw something move in the bottom of my glass, I had visions of my throat being cut up by what my mind instantly thought was a shard of glass.

In the story, it turns out that the dude tried to hid the ring in a Frosty! Here's the full story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29462344?GT1=43001

Random stuff for a Wednesday...err, Thursday

2009-02-26T14:20:00.002-06:00

1. I keep getting confused and thinking it's Wednesday today. Maybe it's because the past 2 weeks have been shortened and have felt horribly long, but I feel like this week is going by way too fast.

2. Last night was the 3rd night in a row I did not wake up in the middle of the night. I can't remember the last time this happened - seriously, it's been years.

3. Point #2 is even better because over the years I've become accustomed to midnight snacking. I'll wake up, get a glass of water, and have some kind of little snack like cereal, peanut butter, leftovers spaetle, or whatever's around. In order to not get fat, I'll plan for this when I'm eating during the day and eat just a little less than I should, and I'm sure this has created a vicious cycle. I'm hoping that my not waking up streak will continue, and that will help me to kick the midnight snacking thing.

4. Getting over having a cold sucks. I've only barely got a touch of it left, but the effects are lingering. Last night I sang a normal church service and my voice was shot by the end - I got all hoarse, which is mostly due to being dried out. This was despite drinking lots of water and constantly having cough drops to try to stay hydrated and keep things moist (shut up). I'm worried about my rehearsal tonight, and hope that things will be a little better.

5. I'm really excited because Sunday I'm going to up to Milwaukee to see Semele, a Handel opera. I love Handel, but I'm even more excited to see some Florentine friends I haven't seen in years.

6. Alexander Nevsky is playing on the radio right now. That's one of the few pieces I can hear on the classical station and almost immediately identify, and it always brings back good UD memories. The UD Chorale joined the Dayton Philharmonic Symphony & Chorus to perform live while the movie was being shown. Cool experience.

Happy...Thursday. :-)

Monday, Monday

2009-02-23T12:28:00.003-06:00

I've got the song by the Mamas & the Papas in my head right now. Actually, I just have the opening line going on repeat in my head, which is significantly more annoying. That happens a lot on Mondays. Oh, well.

I don't think I really remember what I have and haven't reported on recently, so here are some random updates:

-Trey got sick right after I did. Our Wednesday night opera double-bill was cut short when we decided that although we really wanted to stay for Pagliacci, the dry air was killing both of us. The extra hour of sleep did us both some good.

-This weekend we had almost nothing planned, and we canceled going out for sushi to celebrate my birthday (I decided that since I only get sushi once or twice a year, I wanted to actually be able to enjoy it). Instead, I made goulasch, which turned out incredibly well with some minor recipe amendments. From now on I'm using red onion instead of white, doubling the paprika, and adding a 1/2 cup of wine for each pound of meat. :-)

-The wine used for said goulasch was some stuff that we picked up at Aldi that was horrible (hey, for 2.99 anything is worth trying, and it's not all bad at that price). We almost poured it down the drain until Trey suggested that we freeze it to use for recipes. We put it in ice cube trays, and though it doesn't quite stay frozen, it's a great idea! We just have to make sure the bags with the mushy ice cubes don't end up under anything else in the freezer.

-Last Friday my group at work went out for our quarterly lunch out together, and since I'm the birthday this quarter I got to pick. I decided on tapas at Cafe Iberico, and though I think people were intimidated at first (one of them looked terrified when we got there and the menu had names of everything in Spanish), everyone ended up having a ball. It makes me want to go out for tapas all the time now.

-I'm very proud of Trey. If you haven't yet read his blog, take a visit and you'll see why.

Other than that my 30th passed without much commotion, which is nice. My mom took a really cute picture at the Kindergruppe's brunch last week (it's on her blog). So far, the only thing that sucks about being 30 is that I can no longer check the 20-29 box on surveys. :-)

Have a great day all!

Two in a row

2009-02-17T08:52:00.003-06:00

I'll begin by answering Martha's last questions from yesterday...First, I don't think the pasta was too garlicky because I couldn't taste it after dessert, Trey and I both like lots of garlic so that wasn't an issue, and our dinner wasn't Valentine's Day (I was just posting late). Do you really think I'd have gotten married on Valentine's Day? Goodness.

And yes, I did have the day off yesterday. It was spent taking Siggy in for a dental cleaning and being sick myself. I'm actually sitting at home now because this morning I was so stuffed up I couldn't see straight and my eyes were puffy on top of it. Could be so much worse. I could be not at home and be sick, and pissing off everyone else at work because I was there sick. Thank goodness for sick days.

Though there's always something to do and usually I feel bad for not doing it, today I'm absolving myself from work, aside from getting out the Lysol wipes for the keyboard when I'm done typing. Sepp has been very sweet, sitting in my lap and purring for the past several minutes, and even Willie has come out to say hello when he usually sleeps on the bed all day.

Siggy, on the other hand, is terrified of me. I gave him his antibiotics and pain medication at 6:30 this morning and he's been hiding from me ever since. He was actually behind the couch in this room until I sat down, at which point he hauled ass out of here. He should begin to trust me again just in time for me to give him more medicine at 6:30pm.

So, we're a funny bunch in my house right now. I just hope I'm better by tomorrow - we have opera tickets. :-)

Weekend in review...only a week late

2009-02-16T10:08:00.003-06:00

So, back to the post I should've done last Monday...our anniversary post (2/7 was the big day). :-)

Now, I think 5 years is definitely an occasion worth a major celebration - go us! Having the double good-fortune of a) it being a Saturday and b) it being in the 50s (yes, in Chicago, in February!) we decided to sleep in, take it easy, and then go out for a nice dinner. We are going on a big-scale vacation but not until the fall because timing worked out so much better that way.

Since both of us had a hankering for some real Italian food, and chose a great spot downtown called Osteria via Statto. Era fantastico! It was exactly what we wanted, and just the way a real Italian dinner should have been...except that a) we decided to eat early at 6pm, rather than wait until 9, and b) the antipasti were just tastes of everything and the pasta portions were small (I actually liked this a lot better, and we could get more of either of those courses).

We did their fixed menu option, and added the option of a wine pairing with each course, which got us started with appetizers like olives, fresh mozzarella & basil, parmesan crusted onions, and little veal meatballs along with a white from Sardinia (I think) - the wine went just as well with the sharp parmesan as it did with the sweet olive-oil soaked onion rinds that came with the olives. Our pasta course included two kinds of pasta - a wide, tubular pasta with a very garlicky red sauce, and a twisty pasta with chicken sausage and browned breadcrumbs, also with tons of garlic, and a burgundy style red - think lighter, like a pinot noir, but not too light to stand up to the garlic. Yum!

For our second course I chose sea scallops with roasted mushrooms all on a butternut squash puree, and Trey had braised pork shank that was so tender it was falling apart. The sides were some kind of cheesy polenta thing and roasted brussel sprouts that were so good I'd eat them every day, and the wine was a bolder, more cab-like red. After all of that, we decided to finish up with their Limon- & Chocolacellos, and Trey was very happy to discover that his Limoncello is much better (theirs was actually really crappy - the chocolate, on the other hand, was amazing). We thought we were done, but our waitress comped us a gelato sample (dude, gelato...ok, twist my arm), and we hadn't even told her it was our anniversary. :-)

Two and a half wonderful hours later - I love it when you can take that long at dinner! - we'd missed our train but were too early for the next one, so we went across the street to Pops and each had a glass of bubbly. While the atmosphere there was a little bit more techno-y than either one of us would've liked, we had a good time watching a slide show of a bunch of the staff on a recent (we assumed) trip to Champagne makers in France.

After that it was still warm enough to do the walk back to the train station, so we took advantage of it and strolled a little. When we got home it was time to exchange our gifts - year 5 is wood if you do the traditional gifts. Now, much to my dismay, they no longer make fishing poles out of wood, but I got away with it anyway because most of them still have cork handles. I think Trey liked it just a little bit because this weekend when I asked him what he wanted to do for dinner Saturday night he replied, "go fishing." :-)

I got some lovely candlesticks, and a really gorgeous wooden box. The box has 4 spots for photos in the 2-door lid, into which Trey had put some pictures from our wedding & honeymoon. I love it!

Ok, that's probably long enough for now. I'm going to lay back down on my couch....happy Monday!

Koala bear story

2009-02-13T15:08:00.002-06:00

If you haven't already heard about the Koala bear that was rescued in Austrailia the other day as a fire-fighting team was passing by, visit my mom's friend's Coral's blog. Entries earlier this week and today tell the story of a creature normally grumpy by nature that seemed to become fast friends with a fireman. It's really cute.

Congrats to Otta!

2009-02-13T09:03:00.002-06:00

I've got so much else to post about, but I would be remiss if I didn't call attention to my mom's blog. She has a brief entry about my Otta receiving the Bundesverdienstkreutz (pronounced "boon-des-fer-deenst-kroits"). Pretty cool. :-)

Funny note about the reception - you could tell Otta was in a good mood because he kept making everyone have a schnapps with him when they arrived. The ceremony got started over a half an hour late because people were stuck in traffic, but could've started a good 10 minutes sooner than it did because Otta just had to have a schnapps with the last people to arrive!

Random stuff...

2009-02-09T16:03:00.003-06:00

So, some random stuff for now: I'll post about my anniversary later - it deserves it's own post. :-)

-Last week Thursday the zipper on my pants broke. I noticed it on the train...on the way to work. Fortunately my shirt was one that could be left un-tucked.

-Last Friday at practice one of the newer kids had been really quiet all night and was looking a little 'deer-in-the-headlights' so I tried to strike up a conversation with him. I know he's a really big Cubs fan so I started by asking him if we was ready for baseball season. Man did that get him to open up. He kept talking and talking, and it was "Miss Viki..." this and "Miss Viki..." that. His last comment was, "Miss Viki, I'm sorry I wasn't at practice last time. My mommy was in the hospital because she had to get a baby out that died." He said a bit more on the subject and I responded in what I felt was an appropriate manner, and then he ran off to play with some other kids. Holy crap - this from kid who's probably 7 or 8. I thought about him pretty much non-stop for about 24 hours. Kids really can be amazing.

-Friday before that I was completely gleeful all day. I don't think I've felt gleeful for years. I was very excited to pick Trey up from the airport that night. :-)

-Last night we got to cook dinner together. Hooray! We made lamb kabobs for a variation on gyros, along with a yogurt-feta cheese sauce. I also got Trey to try a new grain as part of a side dish - buckwheat (I was looking for Bulgar, but the grocery store didn't have it). He liked it!

That's all - more later this week. Happy Monday!

Salty chocolate what?!?!

2009-02-06T11:31:00.002-06:00

I'm sure I've mentioned that I work down the street from Water Tower Place (it's a 10 minute walk if you walk fast). Since I generally don't have a reason to walk up there very often, I've decided that any time I do need to go I have no reason not to stop into the Lindt store. :-)

Yesterday was one such occasion - my watch band broke, and since I figured it would need to be sent back to Fossil for repair, I should just go to the Fossil store. My first stop, however, was Lindt. I never actually look around the store, I just make a bee line (b-line?) to the section with the Excellence stuff to pick up a few bars of 99%. This time I was excited to see they had some new Excellence varieties as well. They've added a 90%, when previously it was just 70, 85 and 99, so I picked up one of those.

I also noticed a new "flavored" dark chocolate. Most of you know I love the Excellence with Chili, and probably think I'm nuts because of it, so I was very intrigued when I say the Excellence With a Hint of Sea Salt. I picked up a bar of that, but am waiting to try it until Trey's back.

The laugh-out-loud moment for all you South Park fans came this morning when I was telling Trey about my discovery. He asked me if they made the Lindor balls with sea salt as well...you know, so Lindt would be selling salty chocolate balls. Ha! :-)

Have a great weekend!