Check one off the list!

New Year's Resolutions time once more, folks, and as you can see, I have totally succeeded from last year! My first goal was to stop procrastinating, and I'm writing this 3 days early. I saved New Years! On to 2012!

1. Fit into that one pair of pants. You know who you are, pants, aka, my Nemesis of Christmas. You caused me a lot of pain, suffering, and undignified pants-wearing habits. So, even though you aren't my pants, and I will probably never need to wear you again, this year I will defeat your evil, skinny ways!

2. Stop getting fries at Burger King. This might help with number 1. Anywho, my initial goal was to eat at BK less, but then I realized that I could still get burgers, which I really like, if I cut out their grody fries, which I totally don't.

3. Read all my church assignments during the week so I know what's going on in RS and Sunday School. Yes, this is a repeat goal from last year. And the year before. Actually, I did much better last year than I had before, so I figure if I keep making this kind of progress, I will probably be 100% on this one in about 20 years.

4. Get a passport. In case I need to quickly flee the country.

5. Read some children's classics. I finally read Winnie the Pooh last year (loved it!!), and this year, I'd like to knock out The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland.

6. Shop more at the farmer's market. First of all, it makes me feel cool. Second, they have good stuff. Third, I'm pretty sure it's good for the earth. Fourth, sometimes the people from Ace of Cakes shop there! So I'm going to do it.

I think that's enough to be going on for a while. I'd say the next year at least. Good luck with all of your resolutions, faithful readers!

'Tis the season!

I like to do it up right at Christmas, and by "it," I mean my house, and by "up right," I mean decorate it like there's no tomorrow. I've had some special requests (Hi, Mom!) to see the awesomeness, so here goes.

 

I got this nativity for $1! Awesome, yes?

 Crabs for Christmas! Yay! I live in Baltimore!

 I don't think anyone appreciates how awesome my wrapped bannister is, but it is really neat.

Jeffrey, my Christmas fish! Isn't he pretty? I will keep him, even after Christmas is over.

 Stockings hung by the chimney with care. I made the one in the middle, and I made the money that paid for the other two. Not made as in "made on my own printing press," but made as in "earned when I was working."

 Our Christmas tree! Kate cut it down herself. Very manly and tough. Plus, there's candy in all those little red boxes. :)

 Dollar store wreath! Actually, it cost more like like $5 plus labor, but I didn't charge myself for that.

 The tiny gingerbread house I made at Maren and David's.

For our last FHE at church, we also made gingerbread houses. You can't tell from the pictures, because there's nothing here for scale, but the one we made at FHE is about 5 times bigger that the one I just showed you. Anyhow, it was a group project type of thing. My group was Leah, Monica, Sabrina, and moi. I think we did a pretty good job!

 The back of our house, as decorated by me.

 Sabrina's side of the house, complete with climbing vines and a tiny snowman.

 Lean's side of the house, plus a really good view of the front porch as made by Monica.

 The front of the house, complete with stained glass windows, done by Monica. Notice the tiny snowman, plus the awesome roof done by Monica and me, and the red brick chimney (with smoke coming out).

Creepy gingerbread representation of me, as done by Leah. I made the skirt, though.

Ta da! My house, decorated for Christmas. There's a lot more, but I didn't think you'd want to see 500 more pictures. Have a Merry Christmas, y'all!

 

Happy Birthday to Me!

That's right, faithful readers! About one month ago (I am a slacker at blogging and at life), it was my birthday! We shall not mention my age or my birth year, because I don't want people to be able to stalk me through the internet. Yeah, that's what it is.

Anywhoodles, I had a great birthday. First of all, you can't go wrong with a Halloween birthday. You get to dress up, plus people give you candy! And when they find out it's your birthday, they give you extra candy! My lovely coworkers gave me great presents, including some super awesome Harry Potter pencils, a Butterbeer scented candle, Butterbeer earrings (they look like little bottles. They're so cute!), and Butterbeer flavored cupcakes. Mmmm...cupcakes...  Also, I have really nice church friends, who had a party for me and gave me socks! Apparently, they noticed my well-documented affection for socks. Good times.

The library team in our Halloween best. You can't see my HP scar in this picture, but I had several children convinced that it was real. I am just that skilled with makeup.

Then it was time for my present to me: another trip to New York City! I went with Kate and my friend Jessie (who also documented our fun times on her blog). When we got to NYC, we met up with Niki (who was already there because an international friend had been visiting), and Larissa, our awesome friend in Brooklyn who let us stay with her. Niki and Larissa spent a lot of the trip pretending to be embarrassed by Kate, Jessie, and me, because we inadvertently wore matchy red jackets, but I know the truth. They were just jealous.

 

We even walk in sync. That's how awesome we are. No wonder they were jealous.

The first thing we did (besides sleeping and eating, which are things I do all the time, so they don't seem exotic) was go to the Empire State Building! It's really, really tall. And after you ride the elevator up to the 80th floor, the workers will tell you that it's much faster to walk the last 6 flights of stairs, rather than waiting for the elevator. They're not entirely wrong. It was pretty fast. But they're big fat liars about it only being 6 flights of stairs. I definitely counted 8. Luckily I have Sheera power, so I handily made it to the top. I thought we might lose some of our party on the way  up, though.

So yeah, the Empire State Building is crazy tall. I took about a million pictures from the top, just to prove that I was there. Also, I actually remembered to bring my camera and to get new batteries, so it seemed like I ought to take advantage of that. 

 

My favorite of my Empire State Building pics. I look pretty!

Also, the views (you can basically see the entire city, and since it's ginormous, that's a big deal) are totally awesome, so I took about a billion pictures of those. Here's a few that freaked out Mom. I told her I leaned waaaaay out to get them. JK. She was just freaked out because you can tell how crazy high up we are.

Look at how little the cars are!

 

This one kind of freaks me out, too, if I'm being honest.

We spent a whole lot of time up at the top, admiring the views and attempting to get really cute pictures of ourselves on all sides of the Empire State Building.

 

Admiring the View. This picture is a lie. I did not have any quarters for this machine.

 A pigeon that freaked me out at the top of the Empire State Building. Doesn't it know how high up we were? How did it get up there? Why did it get up there?? What does it want from us?!?!?!

Then we had to spend some time in the gift shop, of course. I really, really wanted one of these gorillas for my collection (why yes, I do have a collection of gorilla stuffed animals. Thank you for asking!). But since the price of one Santa-hatted gorilla was only $1 less that the fee to get to the top of the Empire State Building, I couldn't really justify it.

 

Curse my public servant salary!!!

After our trip to the Empire State Building, it was time for everyone to indulge me! Because it was birthday! So we went to the main branch of the New York Public Library! I mostly wanted to see everything, but even more than that, I mostly wanted to see the lions. Do you know about the lions? They're ginormous marble lions out in front of the library, named, appropriately enough, Patience and Fortitude. That's appropriate because those are two of the main virtues you need to work in a public library!

 

Fortitude! 

Patience!

The library was just as amazing as I hoped it would be. It's almost like a museum, it's so pretty inside and out. And there's a gift shop! My "Shhhhh!" t-shirt was a great investment. In my happiness.

 There were many steps and columns. It was most tranquil.

I don't know why this picture is so little, but look how pretty the inside of the library is! Look!

The other awesome thing about the library was that I saw a celebrity! A librarian celebrity! I read a blog on School Library Journal's website by a children's librarian at NYPL. And almost as soon as we stepped into the library, I saw her! I'm afraid I might have gone a little swimfan on her, but rather that being freaked out, she was super nice, and said it made her feel like a rock star! (True story, we communicated about that through her blog post the next week.) The best part about it was that she told us about the first 90-second Newbery Film Festival, which just happened to be occurring at the library in about 15 minutes! We stayed for about an hour, watching many 90-second films about Newbery award-winning books. It was super fun! I wish we could have stayed for the whole thing, but fabulous New York City weekend waits for no woman (not even a librarian), so we missed the last half. Still, it was awesome. Plus, Jon Sciezka was there! Anyhow, you should really check out some of the 90-second films. They're very impressive and short.

After our fabulous and educational time at the library, we decided to get tickets to a Broadway show. I'll not lie, this is my favorite thing about NYC. Broadway!!! We really wanted to see How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, because little Danny Rad-cakes is in it! But it was sold out (sad face), so we had to settle for this:

The closest we could get to Daniel Radcliffe. :(

But we still really, really wanted to see a show, so Kate and I were tyrants, and made us buy tickets to Billy Elliot instead! I think not everyone wanted to see it, but they bought the tickets anyway, with very little protest. And they all liked it in the end, so I'd say it worked out. In the time that we had to wait before our show, we decided to eat dinner at a restaurant called Juniors. It's the busiest, fullest restaurant I have ever been in. There were seriously about 10 million people in there. I think it's because it's right there in the theater district, so all those hungry theater people come to eat. Also, they have excellent cheesecake, which we knew from our last visit to NYC. I wish I had taken a picture of the cheeseburger I got. It was enormous! I honestly didn't even eat my fries (or finish the burger) because I was so stinkin' full. I couldn't even stomach ordering cheesecake! But I did order a black and white cookie (which came in super handy on our bus ride back to Baltimore Sunday night).

 

This...is not a picture that I took. I stole it from the interwebs. But yeah, imagine this, with about 5 times as many people, and that should give you a good idea what it was like.

After dinner it was time for us to see Billy Elliot: The Musical. For those who don't know, Billy Elliot was a movie made about 11 years ago, about a little boy who lives in Northern England in the 1980s during the coal miners' strike. In 2005, Billy Elliot was turned into a musical with music by Elton John! Fancy! Also, it won a bunch of Tony's when it first opened on Broadway. Anywho, Billy is an 11 year old boy who starts taking ballet, kind of by chance, and it turns out that he's really good and loves to dance, but people aren't necessarily supportive of him. The play is about Billy and his dancing, and the town and the strike, and it was awesome. The boy who played Billy was amazing. He made me feel bad for having no talents, he was just that good. He was a fantastic dancer, his singing was lovely, and he was such a good actor that he made not only me cry, but Kate as well! And that's much harder than making me cry. There is some bad language in it, (especially in this one super awesome song that's goes back and forth between the miners and the little girls in Billy's ballet class), but I would still definitely recommend the show. If you want to see it on Broadway though, you better hurry, because it's closing in January!

 

He just wanted to dance, and that was my dream, too!

After the show, we wandered around Times Square for awhile, including going into the M&Ms store, which was pretty neat. By this point, though, I was super tired and I refused to take my camera out. So I don't have any photographic evidence of it, but honestly, we were there.

Sunday was our day for winding down, going to church, and then heading back to Baltimore. I ate my giant cookie on the bus. It was a great way to leave New York. I can tell why people fall so completely in love with the city. I've had so much fun both times that I've gone! I can't wait to go again! Of course, a lot of it is because of the people I was with. So thanks a bunch for being awesome, Kate, Jessie, Niki, and Larissa! You made it a great birthday trip!

Group Shot!

I did it!

I grew something in my garden, and then I ate it before a rat did!

Those of you have been following my gardening woes know that last year, my maiden voyage of front-yard gardening, was a complete and resounding failure. All of my plants died, and not one produced any sort of food. This year, I tried some new tricks, but it looked like my garden might still follow a similar course. First of all, it was, once again, really hot and dry this summer, but I was much more diligent about watering than I was last summer. Second, I actually planted these plants in the soil, instead of just in large pots.

Anyhow, things started off with a whimper, as my zucchini plant shriveled up and died in less than a week. But my tomatoes were growing steadily taller, and my peppers weren't shrinking, so that seemed like a good sign. And in August, something exciting happened: I saw an actual tomato on one of my tomato plants! It was still tiny and green, so I decided to wait for it to grow/ripen. That ended up being a mistake, because the day I finally went out to pick it, I discovered that a large bite had been taken out of it! Oh Noes! My conclusion was that a rat had eaten my tomato. I was a bit discouraged.

Then came September and the floods. Not literally, but almost. We had a whole heck of a lot of rain the last part of summer/early part of autumn. The result: my peppers started to grow! And yesterday, I was finally able to enjoy the fruits of my labor when I ate a banana (I think) pepper grown in my own front yard! I ate it in a quesadilla, for anyone wondering. It was delicious!

This is not an actual picture of the pepper I grew in my yard, by the way. I tried to get of picture of that, but my camera is dead, and going to the store to buy batteries was not something I wanted to do. But this gives you a pretty good idea. 

So that's my success story. I also have a bell (I think) pepper growing, and I'm really hoping that I get to eat it before it dies or gets eaten my rodents. My goal for next year is to be able to eat at least 3 things from my garden. Any gardening tips, faithful readers?

I'm famous!

Because I am mentioned in a very fancy pants book blog!

But first, some background. This blog was written by my pen pal. That's right, I have a pen pal! I'm cool like that. Seriously, though, I never had a pen pal when I was a kid (when most people have/get pen pals). But I always thought it might be cool, so when the lovely ladies at FYA (a site I have mentioned here before) started a pen pal club, I signed up immediately.

Anywho, now I have a pen pal. And her name is Meredith! I know what you're thinking, but it's not me writing myself letters so I will feel popular. It's actually another person whose name is also Meredith! She lives near Boston, and in spite of the name of her blog, is not a librarian. So you can see that we are, in fact, two separate individuals. But she's awesome, and a totally great pen pal. Every time I get a letter from her in the mail, it puts a big smile on my face. There's just something about getting mail, and getting mail from someone who is only my friend through the United States Postal Service. Hopefully we will be pen friends for a very long time.

There you have it! My 15 minutes of fame! BTW, in case you haven't already done so, now is the time for you to go back and read the fancy pants book blog that mentions me. I'll wait. Welcome back! I wish that my blog about pen pals could be as clever and filled with action figures as hers, but let's be honest. Even if I had action figures, I could not put them on this blog. My camera's batteries are dead.

I am boring

Hello friends and family! I realized today that I haven't posted in almost a month, but then I realized why: I am boring. I don't think a single significant thing has happened to me in the last month except that my shows are back on. Whee!

After thinking about it for a while longer, though, I realized what the problem is: I have been blogging a lot (like, once a week a lot) for work, and it's using up my creative energy! So, I am going to link you to my work blog, and you'll see why I can't think of anything clever to say here. 

If you decide to read it, you should start with George in New York and work your way up from there. It's pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. Enjoy! Or not. I don't know your life.

Next up: Plague of Locusts!

I have survived 2 separate natural disasters in one week: an earthquake and a hurricane! First up, there was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia last Tuesday that was felt all the way up in New York. So we definitely felt it in Baltimore. I was at work, talking with some coworkers at the circulation desk. We heard something by the windows, and thinking it might be the window washers or some kids messing around outside, I said I would go and see who it was. Before I had taken two steps though, the entire building started shaking, and people were freaking out. My branch manager yelled, "Everybody get outside!" And to set a good example, she reached the door in about 1.2 seconds.

After about half an hour outside trying unsuccessfully to use our cell phones (I gave a helpful speech about why an earthquake might disturb cell phone service to a bunch of children), we were told we could go back inside. Then about 5 minutes later they changed their minds and told us all to go home. And I had only been at work for about three hours! I ended up spending the afternoon with Maren and Grace, making tropical squares, hiking in the woods, watching The Electric Company, and eating dinner. It was a really nice day. Thanks, earthquake! The only damage at work-some cracks in the walls that might have gotten bigger. The only damage at home-one of my pictures tipped over. All in all, my kind of natural disaster.

My second natural disaster was Hurricane Irene. I'll admit, this one wasn't as pleasant as the earthquake because:

1. We knew she was coming. So we spent a lot of time getting really nervous about her. 
2. Even though I got out of work 2 hours early on Saturday, I have to use my own time for it. Boo! 
3. The main storm hit while I was asleep, so I didn't even get to appreciate it. 
4. There was apparently some kind of leaking by the front door of my house, so it is now freakishly hard to open and close it. We're really hoping that it will dry out in a couple of days and go back to normal. If not, our landlord says he'll come and shave down the doorframe or something. I don't know. 
5. Church was canceled. Of course, I had already made my food for munch and mingle, so now I have a ginormous bowl up substandard (I messed up the recipe) German potato salad to finish off, and I don't think I can do it. Plus, having home church is way hard. You can only do churchy things for so long by yourself before you start to go crazy. 
6. The tree in my front yard was almost completely blown over in the storm! I should have taken some pictures of it before I staked it up, but I didn't think to. So you'll just have to trust me. It was leaning over a lot more than this. Also, trust that it is a heavier tree than it looks. I literally could not get it to stand up any taller than this.

But by far the worst thing about the hurricane was the power outages. We got lucky at my house, and the power never even flickered. But I'm pretty sure that was just our street and a few houses around the corner. A good portion of the rest of the neighborhood was still without power as of this morning. Maren and Dave had no power for about 42 hours. Several of the libraries in the city have been closed because they have no power. And most tragic of all, the schools have been closed! The first, blessed day of school was supposed to be Monday, but since many of the city schools had no power, they have been off for the last two days. It just isn't fair. I was supposed to be free! Free!!!

Update: Since typing the above, I have heard that school is starting tomorrow! I'm saved!

Anywho, those were my two natural disaster experiences. Since I have gone my whole life without living though any natural disasters, it's pretty amazing to have had two in one week. I can only conclude that this trend will continue and try to prepare. I think we'll be facing a plague of locusts next, but for our fourth disastrous occurrence, I can't decide what it will be. I'm torn between Rise of the Machines and Zombie Apocalype. The way things are going, we might get both! But rest assured, unless it's the Rise of the Machines, I will be blogging about it!