Five flaws of mine that I'm OK with

Keep in mind that this is not a comprehensive list. If it's not on the list, that does NOT mean that I think I am perfect in that regard. So no need for some of my more charming anonymous commenters to chime in with some other perceived flaws of mine that aren't on the list. If they aren't there, maybe that means that it's a flaw that I'm aware of but am not OK with. Or it just didn't make the cut. Just a thought.

1. I procrastinate. A lot. But I seem to have a very sharp ability to calculate exactly how much time it will really take me to do something, and do it properly, and I manage not to procrastinate beyond that point, so everything still ends up getting done. But this is a dangerous flaw because when I make these calculations, I allow no room for error, so if something unexpected comes up, I would be screwed. So far this hasn't really happened (or if it does, the only thing I lose is some sleep), but theoretically, it could. So I'm glad I'm not in college anymore, is what I'm saying. I don't miss those all-night paper-writing marathons. Ugh.
2. I don't eat enough vegetables. And I don't eat all-natural, or grain-free, or any of those other things. But I eat pretty well, and I'm losing weight steadily, and I eat some vegetables, and I take my vitamins. So I'm OK with this. Could I get better? Yes. Is it a top priority for me right now? No. Sorry.
3. I'm lazy. This probably ties in to the procrastination thing. I don't like to get up to get a drink when I'm comfortable on the couch. I often don't feel like cooking dinner. I put off things that I don't feel like doing (currently: taking the dog to the vet for a heartworm test before buying her summer meds). But, I'm not lazy to the point of letting things go completely. Our house is relatively clean, I eventually do get off my ass and make dinner, I will get the dog tested shortly, well within the standard Denver time frame (different from most due to the altitude)... it'll all get done. But yeah, Torsten suffers from this because he ends up bringing me a lot of glasses of water. But I'm OK with that because I will also get out of bed in the middle of the night and bring him a glass of water if he wants one. So it all evens out.
4. I am defensive. My immediate reaction to criticism is to assume that the person criticizing me is wrong, or doesn't understand the full picture. The reason I'm OK with this flaw is that if the criticism is legitimate, I usually come around to it eventually. After that initial snappy reaction, I will think about what's been said and decide if it holds merit or not. That's my saving grace in this situation for sure.
5. I'm too laid back about some things. Sometimes this is a great thing but sometimes it gets me into trouble. My default assumption is that everything is fine. The problem is that I'm almost always right so in those times when everything isn't fine, I often don't find out right away. I assume that every cold and other sickness is fine and will go away on its own. I assume that every little problem with our house is no big deal. That's why we didn't check the pipes for a year after we moved in even though we knew they had been leaking before and might not have been fixed properly. Whenever Torsten worried about it I told him I was sure it was fine. Then one day he finally removed the wall panel to check and lo and behold, there was a leak. Luckily there was no water damage and it was an easy and cheap fix, but it could have been a lot worse and we wouldn't have known. I still think it's better to sometimes underestimate an issue than to constantly freak out about every little thing, however.
   

What's your favorite cake?

I have finally found an excuse to bake. The friends we're having dinner with on Sunday have asked us to bring dessert, and I was thrilled to agree. Plus, the friends are our neighbors so I can even put the cake on our lovely cake stand and just carry it next door, instead of having to pack it in something more practical like a tupperware container.

So! Now I need recipes. Maybe this is gruesome, but this is the same family who lost their baby last summer, and after that happened I baked them a cake using my standard recipe, and I don't want to bring that cake to them again in case it reminds them of that experience, you know?

So, Stephanie, who is also a master baker, suggested this recipe to me, and I am leaning toward using it, despite the fact that is has coffee in it and I hate coffee, only because Stephanie also hates coffee and she still swears that the cake is delicious. But before I commit completely (by which I mean, purchase the ingredients I don't already have on hand), I thought I'd take a wider poll.

What's your favorite cake recipe? All suggestions are welcome!

Things making me happy right now

Forgive the bullets two days in a row. That's just where I am right now.

• Plans for dinner with two different sets of lovely local friends this weekend. So excited about this.
• The cheerful row of yellow and red tulips in full bloom in our front yard right now.
• The weather--sunny and warm--even though I know it's not going to last and this weekend is supposed to be fairly gross, weather-wise.
• My new clothes. All of mine were too big so we waited in line for a sale for the first time in our lives and got 50% off at Old Navy (given to the first 50 customers at their Stuff and Save sale last week). Now I have a nice new set of jeans and basic tops, in what feels like a very small size (relatively speaking). And it was very affordable.
• Torsten's company. He is doing amazing work, developing great relationships with potential future clients, and laying the groundwork for an awesome marketing campaign. And the best thing, in my opinion, is how happy he is. As soon as he quit his job all the stress and negativity just melted away. He is working only a little bit more than the insane hours he was already working for his last job, but he is so much more relaxed. He is enthusiastic about every aspect of this company, and is totally cutting-edge with the technologies he discovers and the partnerships he forms. Even if this company never makes him the money he was earning in his past job--though that seems pretty unlikely to me--it will be worth it just to see how much happier he is.
  
• Seeing my cycle continue to be normal. I'm on my fourth month of charting and everything is proceeding without any red flags or causes for concern. Of course this doesn't mean there isn't something going on that isn't detectable through charting, but it still makes me feel so much better about my health and my body, just seeing that my cycles are so regular.
• The fact that I leave for France in two weeks. Seriously! That is so soon.
• The Rockies! Torsten went to a business networking event and won two club tickets to an upcoming game in a business card raffle. So cool! We have been wanting to go to a Rockies game but thinking we really shouldn't spend the money. Heart!
  
• Watching Torsten with Montana. He is so cute how he talks to her and plays with her. It kills me every single time.
  

Things I collect

• Squashed pennies. I don't buy the crappy ones in rest stops, where the choice is a Bible verse or an American flag, but I will buy pretty much any other one that I see. I like them to be mementos of an occasion, so if we're somewhere in particular (and let's face it, we usually are, if there are squashed pennies to be had), I want the location to be on the penny. In fact, even though I know it's ridiculous, I still regret the choice I made when we were in Petrified Forest National Park. They had an ugly Petrified Forest option or a nice Painted Desert option (the Painted Desert being part of Petrified Forest National Park), and I went for the ugly Petrified Forest option because that was, after all, the name of the park. But then we actually went through the park and I loved the Painted Desert way more than the Petrified Forest, and in fact remember it as one of the absolute best parts of the trip, and we even have a framed family photo taken with the Painted Desert in the background hanging in our hallway, and I wish I had gotten the Painted Desert penny. Oh well. Live and learn, right? And maybe I should look at this as an excuse to go back someday.
• Monopoly sets. Not just any, of course. I like them when they are meaningful or fun in some way. So, I have Toulouse Monopoly and Chicago Monopoly (Chicago is one of my favorite towns) and Millennium Monopoly and Retro Monopoly. I would love Denver Monopoly but I don't think it exists. Of the editions that do exist, I most covet National Parks Monopoly. So gorgeous.
• Beanie babies. I don't collect these anymore (the craze is so ten years ago, am I right?) but my mom owns a toy store, and I worked there during the height of the fad, and I ended up with quite a few of them myself. And I still have pretty much all of them. One thing that made me happy was that when they came out with the line of Zodiac beanie babies, the rat (which is the sign of 1984, when I was born) was purple. CHECK! I will definitely be holding on to that one for a long time.
• Photo frames and albums. Call me old-fashioned, but I still print photos. Not every photo we take, not by a long shot, but the shots I especially like. And I put them in albums and I frame some of our favorites. So whenever I see a frame or album that I like (though I've stopped doing this since we implemented the spending freeze), I buy it. Even if I don't use it right away, eventually I will. And I always do. Right now I have one unused frame and one unused album. That's as low as I like my reserves to get, really. So I guess I better hope that Torsten's company makes a sale soon, huh?
  
• One thing I would like to collect: pitchers. My mom collects these, and they are beautiful AND useful, and a great gift idea for her. My dad got her a beautiful flowered Tiffany pitcher a few years ago, and I'm thinking now that I'm an adult I should start collecting something lovely and grown up like pitchers that give people an excuse to buy you really nice things. And pitchers ARE useful, and we don't have nearly enough, though we do have one that we registered for and received as a wedding gift that I love love love.

What about you? What do you collect?

On the canal

A couple weeks ago it occurred to me to ask our next-door neighbor if there's an access point to the High Line Canal anywhere around here. Turns out, there's an entrance less than a mile from our house. The canal is 66 miles long and cuts across the entire city, so I guess it's not too surprising that we live near it.

The nice thing about it is that it's not just a canal--it's also a trail, a beautiful wide flat trail perfect for walking, running, and biking. The trail follows the canal pretty closely, through residential neighborhoods with gorgeous fancy houses, green fields (including some with horses), ponds, and public parks, all with the beautiful mountains visible to the west.

It had been raining for days and days, and much as I appreciated the rain, when the weather cleared up and the sun came out on Saturday afternoon, and Torsten was on a brewery tour with a friend, I took advantage and walked the dog down to the canal. I didn't bring the camera or anything, but I did have my BlackBerry so I took a couple photos.

I crossed the bridge from the street onto the trail, and it was like a whole different world. The water was calm and creek-like, despite the rain. There were even ducks (ducks!) splashing and playing in the canal. The fields on the other side of the trail were lush and green. The trees were flowering and everything felt peaceful and idyllic.


Montana and I walked about five miles altogether. During that time we passed maybe 10 or 15 people, evenly spread among walkers, runners, and bikers. Everyone was friendly, just enjoying the glorious weather. The path was perfect, mostly flat and winding beautifully, always alongside the creek. The dog was in heaven, watching the ducks and diving after the occasional rabbit.

It was so blissful that I didn't even notice the five miles. I just walked and enjoyed the view and the atmosphere and the weather.


I still can't believe that such a paradise is so close to our house. This will be the perfect walk to take with a baby or a toddler in a stroller, or the perfect bike ride with older kids. And in the meantime it's the perfect walk for just us, us and the dog. I can't wait to go back with Torsten.

What about you? Do you have any hidden gems in your neighborhood?

Rainy days

It rained most of yesterday, on and off, and all last night, and now it's raining steadily and shows no signs of letting up. It's supposed to keep raining all weekend, in fact. I don't think we've gotten this much rain since we moved to Colorado. But it's great! I don't mind it at all. It makes me think of happy yards and happy crops and happy farmers. Colorado is a semi-arid state so I think we all appreciate the rain when it happens.

Of course, I work at home so I don't have to deal with commutes that double in time when it rains, or my hair getting all frizzy and my work clothes getting wet. So that helps me appreciate the rain more.

Still, I like it because it's good for us and hopefully it's a sign of good things to come, production-wise, for Colorado farms this year.

Look at me, all thinking about rain in terms of farm production instead of in terms of "Ugh, where's my umbrella?" Is this some sort of sign of being... grown up? Am I the only one who looks at rain this way? What do you think about rainy days?

Refresh

I've been feeling tired the last few days--I think because I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last weekend. It's this weird thing about being an adult with a schedule... I can't sleep late the way I used to. In college I could sleep until well into the afternoon. Even when I was 22 or 23 I could easily sleep until 11 a.m. or noon. In fact, Torsten used to get up in the mornings and sneak out of the room and quietly close the door behind him so that I could keep sleeping.

But now? I hardly ever sleep past nine. I am usually awake by 8:30 on weekends. That's only 45 minutes later than when my alarm goes off during the week. This is VERY UPSETTING. But there is nothing I can do about it! I seem to have adjusted.

(Perhaps this bodes well for my ability to adjust to even less sleep once we have a baby someday? I'm going to tell myself that this is the case. It makes me feel better and that's already worth it, right?)

Anyway, so, I've been feeling a little tired but yesterday was a nice fresh day. There was a thunderstorm in the afternoon, and it rained briefly but pretty hard, which was good for the yard and hopefully good for the wildflower garden we've planted. There was some hail in there but I don't think it did any damage, even to our budding plants. The tulips still look bright and lovely and healthy.

And I cooked dinner last night. We've been grilling a lot recently but last night was cooler and there was rain so I made baked ziti, which was delicious, and then cleaned the kitchen until it sparkled, which was quite refreshing. Nothing makes me feel better than a completely clean kitchen. In fact, a kitchen with a pile of dishes or a counter covered in crumbs makes me feel tired. Maybe that's why I've been feeling unmotivated all week.

Anyway! Delicious dinner, with plenty of leftovers, a clean kitchen, a nice refreshing rain... what more could you ask?

Well, one more thing. I've been meaning to take a photo of Torsten and Montana with my BlackBerry to set as my background, and kept forgetting to do so. But yesterday Torsten randomly picked up the dog, and I was right there holding my BlackBerry, so I took a photo. And now I DEFINITELY have my new background:


THERE. Now there is nothing more I could ask for.

The turquoise room

I love love LOVE our turquoise room. It is so peaceful and beautiful and so unlike all the other rooms in the house. At least once a day I walk down the hall and just stand in the turquoise room and admire how lovely it is.

The dog likes it too, because it faces west and gets a nice big patch of sunlight in the late afternoon. Almost every afternoon she can be found lying peacefully in that patch of sunlight.

The room is still totally empty. It is not Torsten's office and it will not be anything else until it is a nursery. Both of us are very careful not to call it "the nursery," though, because it isn't, not yet. We generally refer to it as "the turquoise room." Because it is.

I am dying to decorate it. But I am not going to decorate it now, when I am not even pregnant. Even once I am pregnant, I am not going to decorate it until I am out of the first trimester. So the room is destined to stand empty for quite some time. But that is OK. It is still one of my favorite rooms in the house.

It is beautiful. And right now it embodies a lot of hopes and dreams. At this point that is still a positive thing. I could envision a scenario down the line where this room could cause a lot of pain if we aren't able to realize our dreams as easily as we hope. But even if the room never serves the function we envision for it, it is still a beautiful room and can do nicely with another purpose if need be.

But still. Right now, it is our turquoise room, our spoken and unspoken hope for a baby, once we're ready. It is our hopeful future nursery.

When we took off the light switch covers while we were painting, we could see layers of paint from years past. There was the beige it was when we painted it, and a muted blue, and a yellowy cream, and a candy pink, and a white. Years and years of history in the form of old paint.

Our house is 47 years old. In that time this room has had at least six different paint colors. I wonder how many uses it's had. I wonder who has slept there before. The bright pink makes me think it was once a little girl's bedroom. I am guessing that if and when we make it a nursery someday, it won't be the first time for this room. It is a Once and Future Nursery. I hope.

Right now, it is still just the turquoise room. But it is also so much more.

Nesting

We did yard work this weekend. We scooped all the dog poop, mowed the lawn, pulled the weeds, and pruned the bushes that frame our driveway. And, the tulips on our front lawn are blooming, though we had nothing to do with that. The bed of tiger lilies is also starting to sprout, and we planted a bed of wildflowers in the backyard, too. We have high hopes for our vegetation this year, obviously.

Anyway, now that the yard is all neat and pretty, and the weather is lovely and sunny and warm, and we've been grilling out most nights, I've been feeling very nest-y. I'm sure it's nothing like the famous pregnancy nesting, but it does give me a faint glimpse into what that must be like. I want to organize and decorate and plan and cook.

Except, I don't exactly want to cook... I want to BAKE. I want to bake bread and cookies and fancy cakes. I want to bake things that I have no idea how to bake, even at sea level, much less at a mile above. I want to make my kitchen look like this:


Right down to the homemade cake on the little cake stand (and I actually own a cake stand like that already). And hell, I'd take that pantry too, while we're at it.

And, you know, I CAN bake cakes, even at altitude. But then what do I do with them? We don't need a bunch of cakes lying around the house. And I imagine I'd get sick of all the baking. And it would be an expensive and highly caloric new hobby.

Basically, not ideal. So what I really want to know is, how come when spring comes and I get all domestic and nesty, why do I channel all that energy into useless desires? How come I don't suddenly get the desire to come up with a new domestic filing system, or scrub the baseboards?

All I'm saying is, sudden bursts of energy are great and all, but next time I'd like to request that the energy be of the more USEFUL variety.

What about you? Does spring cause any nesting desires in you, or is it just me? If so, how are they channeled? Do you bake too, or do you end up with sparkling baseboards? And if the latter, do you want to bring yourself and your nesting instinct over to my house for a few hours?

Encounters with lost dogs

On Saturday evening I was involved in my third Lost Dog Rescue Operation since we moved into this house a year ago (and in fact, today is the one-year anniversary of the day we moved in, so the timing of this post feels very apropos).

The first one was last fall, I think, during a huge snowstorm. A dog showed up on our lawn, if you can call it a lawn still when it's covered with a foot of snow. He was dirty and wet and covered with bits of ice and shivering. I saw him through the window in the morning. I was still wearing my pajamas so I just threw on my snow boots and down coat and ran outside to follow him up the street. I caught up with him a few houses away, and called the number on his tag, and spoke to the owner's sister. The owner wasn't home, but the sister gave me the code to open their garage, so I was able to put the dog in there where it was safe and warm and dry, and close the door behind him so he wouldn't get out again before his owner got home. The owner's sister thanked me profusely.

The second one was sometime this past winter, on a mild day. The dog was wandering from house to house when I came across her while walking Montana. She had a rabies tag but no ID tag, so I called the vet whose number was listed on the rabies tag and gave them the ID number. They told me that they couldn't give out the owner's information, but they could give my phone number to the owner, and that they could tell me the dog's name and that they would like me to please hang on to the dog until I heard from the owner, and if I didn't hear from the owner by that evening I should call them back and they would take care of the dog until they tracked down the owner. So we kept the dog in our yard all afternoon, until we heard from the owner. The dog desperately wanted to leave the house, and managed to chew half a board off our gate before we noticed, which meant that we had to tie her up in the yard so she wouldn't destroy our fence. When the owner came, she didn't seem particularly thankful or appreciative, and just said that they had a hole in their fence through which the dog escaped. I don't think it's a mystery how they got the hole in their fence to begin with.

This most recent time, this past weekend, was the scariest. I was driving home from the grocery store and saw the dog walking down the street. He then crossed the street right in front of my car, causing me to hit the brakes pretty hard. Then he walked onto our lawn and sniffed around for awhile before continuing up the street. I parked the car in our driveway and walked up the street after him. I caught up with him a few houses away. He wasn't wearing a collar, which is why this was scarier than the other times.

I knocked on the door of the house whose yard I caught him in, and they said it wasn't their dog and they'd never seen him before, but they were able to lend me a leash and collar, so we brought him home. We weren't sure if he'd been gone for awhile or what, but it was dinnertime, so we gave him a scoop of food and he scarfed it down right away. Then we gave him a treat and put him in the yard with a bowl of water. We tried to call the Dumb Friends League to see if they could scan him for a microchip, but they were already closed for the day. So, we figured we'd hang some signs in the neighborhood, see if anyone called, and if we hadn't heard from anyone by Monday, we'd call them and bring him in.

So we made a cute little sign. Really, it was cute! It said "Found, brown male dog, maybe lab mix, about 70-80 pounds, older, no collar. Call [our number]." And then Torsten took a picture of the dog and we pasted it into the Word doc and printed out a bunch of copies in black and white. Then we walked around the neighborhood to hang them up. We had only hung two of them and were walking down the street carrying the rest when a guy drove by, rolled down his window, and said, "Hey, have you guys seen a chocolate lab anywhere?"

It was so exciting! I had had visions of having to give him up to the shelter, and drive him there and everything, and in the meantime take care of him and have him sleep in our garage in case he was the destructive type, and having to worry about finding a no-kill shelter, and potentially removing him from his neighborhood instead of just letting him be to find his own way home. But we had never seen him before and had no idea if Home was anywhere nearby, or if he would have to cross busy streets and potentially get hit by a car to get there, you know? So it seemed safer to keep him in our yard and try to find the owner ourselves. And it worked out!

The story was, as it turned out, that the family had literally just moved into the house that day, and while they were hauling stuff the dog escaped, and they didn't notice right away, and when they did notice they panicked, and he wasn't wearing his collar because it was packed. (And no, I didn't ask why they would possibly have packed his collar instead of just letting him wear it... it did seem strange, like, their kids weren't naked, you know? They didn't pack all their clothes, so why would they packed their dog's collar? But I couldn't think of a polite way to ask this question, so I just let it go.)

Anyway, they were VERY thankful, and the guy had two little kids in the car who were very glad to see the dog, and the guy asked us if he could keep one of our signs so he could show his wife how nice the people were who found the dog, and he told us where he lives in case we ever find the dog roaming again. So all's well that ends well, I suppose.

But, my question is, am I the only person in the neighborhood who actually picks up stray dogs? Is this not the norm? The reason I do it is that Montana is absolutely the type of dog to run out the front door and down the street at the first opportunity, and when that happens we panic that she will get hit by a car, or never come back for whatever reason, and I would be THRILLED if a neighbor picked her up and called us to let her know they had her. So I try to extend the same courtesy to other dog owners in the neighborhood. And two out of the three times that I've done it, the owners have seemed very, very thankful that we picked up the dog.

So, is it weird that I do this? Would most people just notice a dog running around the neighborhood, shrug, and do nothing? Do people think it's better to let the dog run so that it can find its own way home? What would you do if you saw a strange dog on your lawn, clearly unattended?

The surgeon has left the building

Yesterday I called my surgeon's office to make an appointment for my one-year post-op appointment. It's still a month out and they told me back in January that there was no need to call in advance for an appointment, but I'm going to be in France on the actual one-year mark so I was hoping to schedule it a week or so in advance and get a fill at the same time, so I called a little early to schedule.

(By the way, the only reason I was there in January was that when I called to make my six-month appointment--which should have been in November--they didn't have an appointment available for the next two months. But they told me at the time that it was just because of the holidays and that May would be wide open for appointments.)

So, you can guess where this is going, right? I called a month in advance and they STILL didn't have any appointments left until JUNE. JUNE. So then I said, OK, let me make my one-year appointment for June and then can I make an appointment sometime this month just for a fill? And they said no, even just for a fill it'll be the end of May.

But, they had an excuse. Their excuse is, my surgeon has left the practice. He's no longer affiliated with the hospital. He's moved to a new hospital where he will be setting up a brand new bariatric department. Which is actually kind of cool.

I actually knew that already, that he'd left, and at the time I didn't worry about it because I hadn't actually seen my surgeon since last May. I work exclusively with his physician's assistant, who was also present at my surgery and who does all my fills, and the practice's social worker and nutritionist (whom I've met a couple times each--once before the surgery, once at the three-month mark, and once at the six-month mark).

But what I didn't know was that my surgeon took his assistant with him. His assistant was my primary point of contact at the office and my primary source of care. She and I met about once a month for the first six months, and every 2-3 months since then. She knows me, and I know her. We're friendly, and she knows my whole history. She knows exactly where the port is on my band and how to do a fill for me quickly and painlessly. She knows my exercise routine and exactly what to recommend when I have questions. She's great.

So, I decided to follow my surgeon and physician's assistant to their new hospital. Really, I see no downsides to this. Here are the upsides that I see:

1. I stick with the same main sources of care that I've had since my surgery.
2. I don't have to wait two months to get an appointment for a fill that takes three minutes (or less) to do.
3. The new hospital is actually closer and more convenient to our house than the old hospital.
4. Because I'll be one of a small number of patients in the practice, at least at the beginning, I have more direct access to the doctor himself with questions.

In fact, when I called to set up an appointment I was told by the receptionist that they haven't started seeing patients yet but that she would give my message to the surgeon and then call me back. An hour later, my phone rang and it was the surgeon himself. He remembered me well, even though he does many surgeries every week and hadn't seen me for almost a year, and we had a whole nice chat. He was very friendly, gave me all the details on the new practice he's setting up, told me how to transfer my records, and made it very clear how glad he was that I'm choosing to stick with him and his team.

Then he told me, we're hoping to start accepting patients in early May but it's a slow process and I can't make promises. So, if you want a fill in the meantime I'd recommend that you go to the old office. And I told him that the old office had a two-month wait time just for a fill. And then he told me, OK, he'd set me up to come in for a fill even before he's officially opened up his practice. And since he hasn't received his insurance approval yet, and can't delay billing, he'll just do it for free. (Normally, fills cost a $30 "specialist" co-pay, or, if your insurance doesn't cover it, it's a $50 "self-pay" rate.)

So, yeah. Basically, he is awesome, and this is working out really well. A free fill! A $30 value! (Not to mention the reimbursement he's not going to get from my insurance company for the rest of the cost of the fill.) Direct access to the doctor himself! No wait times! A much shorter drive!

The only thing I can think of that is even a slight negative is switching social workers and nutritionists, but I only meet with them once a year from here on out and I'm sure the people at the new practice will be great anyway.

So basically: win win WIN. Happy Friday!

Book club

Back in February, Chelsea sent an email out to a bunch of her Denver and Boulder friends asking if anyone wanted to start a book club. People enthusiastically agreed, and added more of their own friends to the list. We decided, via email, to alternate meeting locations between Denver and Boulder (about 45 minutes apart) each month, to host the first meeting at my house, and to read The Elegance of the Hedgehog as our first book. By the time I sent out the Evite, there were a good 25 or so people on the list, and about 15 of them attended.

It was awesome! I knew a few of them already, had been reading the blogs of a few more for years and was thrilled to put faces to names, and got to meet a big group of fantastic local women. Feelings about the book were mixed, both as a group and individually (I still don't really know what I thought of that book, over a month later). Everyone brought yummy treats, and there were copious amounts of wine. We spent maybe half an hour or so talking about the book, and the rest of the time just chatting and getting to know each other. The conversation we did have about the book was interesting and useful, but the rest of the conversation was even better.

So anyway, last night was the second meeting of the book club, up in Boulder at Doni and Ashley's place. It was awesome. Not quite as many people made it, but there were still maybe 10 of us, and a lot of us had met at the previous book club, so the conversation flowed very easily (helped by more copious amounts of wine, I'm sure). The book we had read this time was Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, which, while a fun book, didn't lead to quite the level of conversation that the last book incited. I don't think we talked about it for more than ten minutes, total. But it was interesting to hear what the others had to say about it, and the non-book-related conversation was excellent, too. We all stayed for hours and had a great time.

The next meeting will be next month, back in Denver, at Rosie's, and we will be reading Middlesex. A few of us, myself included, have read it before, but we all remember liking it and are looking forward to reading it again. And it should provide plenty of conversation fodder, if I recall correctly. I am so excited about our next meeting!

It's just so NICE to meet a whole group of interesting, smart, friendly, fun women who all live nearby! And many of us are bloggers and/or Twitterers, so there was quite the lively discussion about social media and its role in our lives, too.

I know it only meets once a month, and it's just a book club, but it makes me feel so settled here in Denver, and so happy to have a whole group of wonderful people to talk to about interesting things. I guess there's a reason that book clubs are so popular as to be kind of cliche.

What about you? Are you in, or have you ever been in, a book club? How well did it work? How long did it last, or has it lasted? Any tips for making them successful over time?

Suspicious minds

Remember how I mentioned that we were having a couple of leak issues , and had called a plumber to come take a look? Well, he came on Monday. And it was the awesomest experience ever. I think this was one of those cases of expecting the worst and having it turn out much better than expected, the kind of thing you can't fake.

We called the plumber because we did a spot-check of our plumbing through the wall access panels and discovered that the master bathtub leaks. Also, when Torsten moved his office down into the basement, a space we rarely used before, he noticed that when certain sinks and appliances were run, he could hear a dripping kind of noise in the ceiling that was quite alarming.

So, the plumber came. He was recommended by our realtor and he was really nice. He spent about an hour at our house. He investigated the bathtub and determined that the gasket holding the overflow valve in place wasn't tight enough, and was therefore letting water through. He told us he could fix it for about $180. Or, he said, we could just put silicone sealant around it, ourselves, for about $10, and that should solve the problem. And if it didn't, he'd come back and have another look.

Then we brought him downstairs and he listened to the noise and said that it's just the pipes expanding when the hot water goes through them. So that was a huge relief because we had both had visions of cutting into the ceiling and thousands of dollars spent, and it was so nice to find out that we wouldn't need to do that.

Plus, he said that even if we did ever get water damage in the basement ceiling, it wouldn't be a huge deal. The water would become visible almost right away through blistered paint, and we could address it fairly easily and inexpensively if/when it ever does happen.

Then he told us he'd give us the name of an irrigation guy he knows to find out if our built-in sprinkler system is functional, and went on his way without charging us a penny.

So! $10 project this weekend and all our plumbing problems will be solved! HEART.

It was just generally a huge relief to have an impartial expert in our house. He praised the construction and said that all the appliances were expensive and high-end and installed correctly. And that was SO NICE to hear.

The thing about buying a house like ours is this. The house was a fix and flip. It was built in 1963 and totally renovated by the guy who sold it to us, who was a builder who bought the house when it went into foreclosure a few years ago. He did an awesome job. He basically gutted the house. It has brand new everything--hardwood floors upstairs and down, totally redone kitchen and bathrooms, newly finished basement, brand new lifetime roof, new furnaces, new water heater, new electrical panel, new paint. From what we can tell, he didn't skimp. He used high-end materials and the construction seems solid.

The house still has issues, though, typical of a house of its age. The siding desperately needs to be replaced--it was poorly installed and is all warped. But we're trying really hard to wait until we can afford to do what we want with it. As it stands, the first floor of the house is brick and the second floor is done with vinyl siding. Our master plan is to rip out the vinyl siding and put in a brick facade that matches the brick that we already have on the lower half of the house so that it will be a completely brick structure. And that will be a lot more expensive than just repairing the vinyl siding that's currently in place. But we don't really want to spend money on repairing siding that we're planning to rip out shortly. So we're just hoping it can hold until we can afford to replace it with what we want.

The windows are the originals, and very thin and drafty. A couple of them are cracked and they all let huge amounts of wind in. They provide basically no insulation and half of them don't open. They too need to be replaced. Originally we had hoped to do that this year so that we could qualify for the $1500 tax credit, but with Torsten quitting his job I don't think that's going to happen. So that goes on the list.

And there are a few random smaller things as well--slightly sloped floors and uneven walls and cracked molding and all the usual stuff you get with older houses. And that's fine, really, in fact we really like that about the house, that it isn't brand new construction.

But my point is, we knew about these issues when we moved into the house. The inspector found all of them and the seller gave us credits toward the closing costs for everything we filed in the inspection objection. We didn't ask for him to address the windows in our inspection objection because we had noticed them ourselves before we made an offer and factored that in to the lowball offer we made in the first place. And, I think that helped us out, because he was so relieved that we didn't ask him to pay for window replacement that he agreed to nearly every item we did request in the inspection objection.

So, yeah. He was a decent guy and he did a good job with the house. But about halfway through the project, the housing market took a big nosedive, and around then I think he realized that he was going to lose money on the house. (As a side note, he did lose money on the house. We bought it for $70,000 below original list price, and though it was still more than he paid for the house when he bought it in foreclosure, when you factor in the cost of the extensive renovations he did, there's no way he could have broken even. Luckily, he was nice about it at the closing, if somewhat Grimly Resigned, and just said he was glad that a nice family was going to live there.)

And so, we became paranoid that he had kind of given up, and started cutting corners. Because there were little things that he didn't deal with. Like none of the bathrooms had towel racks. And the stove backsplash wasn't grouted.

So we started to worry that he had cut corners in places we couldn't see. I kept thinking of Shelly's horror story, where the builder put drywall behind her shower tiles instead of something waterproof, and the drywall got wet, and expanded, and popped the tiles, allowing even more water to get in, and they had to do a bunch of work to fix it, and it cost them over $1000, and they were LUCKY because they caught it before they developed mold problems.

We were totally convinced that our builder had done something similar. But so far, we haven't found anything. Our inspector didn't find anything either. And the plumber was very impressed with everything he saw. And that made us feel much, much better.

I'm sure the other shoe will drop someday. There are always unexpected costs involved in home ownership. But ever since this plumber visit, we are both slightly less edgy about the other shoe dropping sometime very soon, while we still only have one income. And that is a huge relief.

Assuming, of course, that I haven't just jinxed us. Knock on wood.

Why The Simpsons isn't my thing

You know that meme that's been going around where people make lists of things everyone else likes but they don't? Yeah, I'm not going to do a whole list, but I do have one: The Simpsons.

Let me say, I do recognize that the show is brilliant. It's funny, it's smart, it's sarcastic. In theory it's the kind of show I would like. It makes fun of everything and does it well.

But in practice I just don't enjoy watching it. The cartoon voices are so GRATING. That's the main thing. And also half the characters are really annoying.

So yeah. It's not that I don't get it, or don't understand why others like it. It's just that I can't take it. It is not something I would choose as a half hour of relaxing programming before bed, or whatever.

Of course, Torsten loves it, and we always have at least 10 episodes on the DVR. But when he watches it I can never buy into it. I love listening to him laugh at it, and every now and then he pauses it and tells me about something hilarious that just happened, and sometimes it legit sounds hilarious, but I just... can't get into it. So I usually read a book or catch up on blogs or whatever while he's watching it.

So, yeah. Brilliant, hilarious, iconic show. BUT AGH THE VOICES GAH.

Turns out libraries are awesome

I've been on a reading kick in the last month or two, ever since I discovered how great and easy the Denver Public Library is. They have everything--and if they don't have it, they can request it either through the Colorado-Wyoming interlibrary loan program, or through an international interlibrary loan program that they have also joined. So far I have only found two books that they didn't have, and they were able to request both of them for me through these systems.

Plus, everything can be done online. You sign in with your library card number and your last name, and you can search for the book you want and automatically place a hold, and it will show up as soon as possible at your preferred library branch. You can review your checked out and held books, and renew online.

And you can put books on hold before they come out. So, I put a hold on the third book in the Hunger Games series. It doesn't come out til August but I'm already number 46 in the queue. But that's OK, because the hold system is centralized--it doesn't matter what branch the book belongs to, when it's returned it goes to the next person on the list. And they normally have over 100 available copies of popular books. So I shouldn't have to wait too long after it comes out to read it.

Also, they have an extensive DVD collection. I just placed a hold on the complete first season of House, because I've never seen it (Torsten introduced me to the show in one of the later seasons), and it's certainly not in the budget to buy it, or to rent it from Blockbuster one disc at a time, you know?

Add to that the fact that they have a great website, with special sections for kids and teenagers, and I'm sold. They even offer electronic books, though not for the Kindle--but I'm pretty sure that's an Amazon issue, not a library issue.

So yeah, I'm a big fan of the Denver Public Library system. Truly, so far they've been able to do everything I've wanted from them. I know not every library system is like this, so I'm very glad that ours is.

What about you? Do you use your local library system? If not, why not? Do you like your library or does it have serious areas where it needs to improve?

Scary books scare me

I recognize that the title of this post is a tautology, but it's true. Even if that isn't the point of a book, even if it's a book about something else entirely that contains a scary event, it scares me. It makes me feel tense and worried.

I don't do well with scary movies, either. Or scary TV shows. I watch 24 with Torsten, and I enjoy most of it, but at parts I have to look away, and afterward sometimes I feel stressed and nervous.

I think the parts that bother me are the moments of suspense. I don't like it when Jack Bauer is creeping around a room looking for something and the music is suspenseful and I know he's going to get jumped at any second. I don't like it when the innocent main character is hanging out with someone we think she trusts, and she thinks we trust, and then we find out we can't trust anybody.

I don't mind explosions and gunfights and special effects. I just don't like scary silent parts when you know something's coming and you don't know what.

I guess this fits in with the fact that I generally do not like surprises, and you can psychoanalyze it all you want and tell me I'm a control freak or whatever you want. But really I just don't like being shocked. And I don't like anticipation. That's what really gets to me.

And I've always been that way. I've described before my long-standing hate of the game Perfection. I just don't do well with partial information. I'd rather something come completely out of the blue all of a sudden without me having had any inkling of it, or I want to know far in advance and have plenty of time to prepare.

My point is, I stupidly read a book, a book that I LIKED, really I did, that had a kidnapping in it and a main character who suddenly found herself surrounded by people who could be dangerous to her, and even though it was just a silly novel and I finished the whole thing in one day and of course it had a lovely ending and so on, I was tense. Tense from the moment the event happened in the book, through the end of it and on through the rest of the evening and even once I got into bed. It took much cuddling with Torsten before I relaxed enough to fall asleep.

My point is, I am a mess. A big wimpy mess. Please tell me I'm not alone.

What's your real age?

One of my Tumblr crushes, Katie, posted yesterday about an online test that tells you your "real age," versus your chronological age. So, of course, I immediately clicked over and took the test.

I was a little worried, mostly because of my high BMI, but also because Katie is healthy and athletic and she got a real age result that was a couple years higher than her actual age, so I was envisioning the thing telling me that I am 50 in terms of health and if I don't fix things soon I will age to 80 over the course of the next three years.

But I took the test anyway, and entered in all this info about my health, including metrics like cholesterol, blood pressure, and resting heart rate, plus health conditions and family history, and then a ton of questions about diet, exercise, and lifestyle. Then I waited for my results, telling myself that I'd be happy with anything in the 20s.

And... it said that I have a "real age" of 22.9. Almost exactly three years younger than I actually am.

Now, I have to say, I think this is a flawed test. I mean, my BMI is high. And while I generally have a pretty healthy lifestyle, and I eat pretty well and I exercise regularly, and I don't drink or smoke or engage in high-risk behaviors... I am no Ironman, you know? I have a lot of weight left to lose and I don't work out seven days a week and I don't eat enough vegetables and my grandmother had breast cancer. How could this test say that Katie, who is so healthy, is several years older than her actual age, and then tell me that I am several years younger? It just doesn't make sense.

But still, ridiculous as it was, it made me feel better about my health. Like oh, it's not just me who sees this health indicators as being meaningful. And oh, maybe my BMI isn't the be-all and end-all that all those people who love to scream and shriek about the obesity crisis would have you believe. Maybe it's just one piece of a much broader picture. That's what I've always thought, but I wouldn't have thought that a website like this would agree.

Anyway! Now I want to find out if it skews down for everyone and Katie just somehow gave an answer that upset the test. So! Go take the test, and then come back here and tell me what it said your real age is compared to your actual age, and what you think about it. I'm dying to hear what everyone's results are!

On parties

Is it weird that I like to think about the big parties that we will throw when we're older? Because I do. Not often, but sometimes.

I've never been a big party thrower. We like to have people over for dinner, and we had people over for the Super Bowl once or twice, and I enjoyed hosting the book club, but we haven't really done any proper parties, big ones with music and lots of people, unless you count our wedding.

But, you know, our house is great for parties. I could definitely see holding holiday parties here, or indoor-outdoor summer grill parties, or dinner parties, or birthday parties... really, any kind of party. I'd love to hold baby showers and whatnot here, too.

But, right now, we hardly know enough people in Denver to throw a party. Pretty much everyone we know in town would have to come in order for it to qualify as a party. And the budget doesn't run to big fancy parties at the moment anyway. But really, it's the friend thing. All of our friends here have lived here longer than we have, and have real, deep connections. Point being, I wouldn't be the go-to person for hosting a baby shower for, well, anyone, you know what I mean?

I know that will change with time. And that's why I imagine parties in the future. Throwing a surprise party for Torsten for some major birthday (40? 50?). Graduation parties for our kids. A 10th or 20th or 50th anniversary party for us. An annual holiday party for all of our friends. That sort of thing.

I want to do that. I want to get to the point where we have the social network to do that.

I feel pretty settled here. I'm meeting people and spending time with people I've already met and it's been very nice. I think we've adjusted well in our first year here, and made some good connections that will last.

But I can't wait until I feel like we're a staple here, we have a group, we're grounded, and everyone knows to plan for our annual holiday party, or whatever. Even though I imagine it'll be a few years before we get to that point.

What about you? Do you host parties often? If not, do you think you'll start doing so at some point in your life? What kind of parties would you like to throw?

Pleasantry

Despite the fact that Duke won the championship last night (GROSS) in a game that was painfully, heartbreakingly close (ARGH that half-court shot, it was SO BEAUTIFUL and SO CLOSE), I'm feeling satisfied these days. Just... generally pleased with things, my life.

Even though a lot is in flux right now with Torsten's new company, our tight budget, knowing we want to have a baby soon, and so on, I feel good about where we are now. Looking forward to where we will be, sure, but waking up feeling peaceful and happy and going to bed the same way. And the time in between waking up and going back to sleep is pretty nice too.

Maybe it's the weather? And work is going well, and I love being able to spend so much time outside, and I feel healthy and cheerful, and my sister is happily married and had a great honeymoon, and Torsten's company is progressing nicely, and Montana never ceases to be adorable, and I love our house.

(Even though, as an aside, about the house, I think we are in that reality-hits phase where it suddenly feels like the house is crumbling around us. A pipe below the bathtub is leaking, and when we run the sink we hear a suspicious dripping sound in the basement ceiling which we are hoping and praying is within a pipe--and yes, we have called a plumber about both of these issues--and a piece of siding on the house came loose in the wind, and then yesterday the dishwasher made some strange noises? But now seems to be back to normal? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let it be back to normal.)

Oh and also, I signed up for The Knot when I was engaged, and then after our wedding I automatically got subscribed to their married-people newsletter, The Nest. And I never read it, ever, even once, but yesterday I got an email with the subject line, "Is Your Guy Masturbating Too Much?"

I consider myself to be a relatively frank and open person, but I was grossed out by that. I mean, really, I'm all for honest talk of potential marital problems--and I assume that they wouldn't be writing about this issue if it weren't a marital problem for some--but there has to be a more tasteful subject line. There must be a less tacky way of presenting the issue.

And also, the teaser text in the newsletter itself grossed me out. It was along the lines of, "You might not have been worrying about how often your husband masturbates. But MAYBE YOU SHOULD." Like, we know that you as wives have Lists of Grievances, and they might be getting too short, so here is something frivolous to put on your list and start complaining to your husband about.

Plus, the story below the masturbation story was about healthy recipes for Easter brunch. This newsletter showed up in my inbox YESTERDAY, the day AFTER Easter. I'm just saying.

But! On the plus side! The ridiculousness of this email was the reminder push I needed to finally unsubscribe from that damn newsletter.

Huh. Maybe THAT'S why I'm feeling so happy now.

Easter hike

So yesterday, not being the religious types, we decided to take advantage of the sunny, mild weather to grill out for lunch and again for dinner, and in between the two, go for a hike. We picked a nice, short, easy-sounding one out of our trusty book, figuring it would be a good way to ease into hiking season. The hike was described as 1.5 miles each way, along a lovely creek with minimal elevation gain. (Full photo set here.)


And it was as described, truly it was, and nice and easy other than some icy slush and mud that made parts of the trail very slippery. So yeah, easy, except that when we got to the point where the book suggested that we turn around, we noticed that the trail continued and decided that we would continue with it.

The hike itself wouldn't have been that hard, really, though it did climb a couple hundred feet as we followed it up and around the mountain, except that it was in the middle of a colossal snow melt, and half the trail was slippery, squishy mud while the other half was slippery, icy slush. And, the trail was narrow with a steep drop-off, making every slip a little terrifying.


Still, we followed it for about a mile, and when we passed some people heading back down the trail, we asked them how much further it was to the top, and they assured us that it was really close and the view of the snow-capped mountains was worth it, so we continued on. Another half-mile or so and we passed another couple heading the opposite direction, and asked them the same question.


"Oh," they said. "Well, the trail is a 12-mile loop, and it has some great views. We've been walking for a couple of hours. If you keep going for another half-hour or so, you should get to some better views."

Which, you know. Fine, if you'd PLANNED on doing a 12-mile mountain loop instead of a flat three-mile out-and-back, you know? So we pressed on for a little while longer, skidding on the ice in our sneakers, came to a little clearing on the ledge where we had a vague view of the mountains through some trees, called it a day, and turned around.


Climbing DOWN some of those steep passes was scary! With all that ice and slippery mud, wearing the totally wrong shoes for the conditions, we were both relieved when we got back down to the flat, creekside part of the trail. Only the dog had seemed unconcerned, and in fact made things a little more dangerous by pulling on her leash while we tried not to slide right off the side of the mountain.


Still, the hike was lovely and definitely good exercise, and the weather was great and once we were off the mountain and pretty sure we weren't going to die, we were glad we'd gone.

However, I think we'll be waiting a couple weeks for the snow to melt and the ground to harden before we head out on our next hike.

One more thing to love about spring

I am still sick, or allergy-ridden, or whatever it is, and feeling generally thick.

However, our March energy bill came today, and it is just over half of what it was during the peak winter months. And that makes me really happy, despite the nasal congestion.

Plus, the upside of not having air conditioning: this summer, our energy bills will barely crack $50.

The timing could not be better.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Sneezy

It's April! And that means all of us here in blogland need to be extra careful not to get too excited about any Big Announcement posts we see today. I've seen it all... marriage, divorce, pregnancy, deep dark secrets... you name it, someone has fake announced on their blog on this day.

In lieu of an April Fool of some sort, I'll announce that I'm skipping the Resolution Review this month. Everything is going well, moving along nicely, but there's no big progress or anything really worth discussing in detail, so I will spare you all of that.

Instead I will complain about how the second (THE VERY SECOND, I am not even kidding) I hit publish on that post about how healthy I am, I was overcome with... a cold? Allergies? I don't know, because Dayquil isn't helping and neither is Claritin, and those are my go-to meds for those situations, and damn it, all I want to do is breathe, BREATHE, but every time I think I've cleared my nose out, I sneeze and then my nose clogs up again.

I'm thinking allergies, because my nose is SO clogged, and my eyes are itchy and watery, and my throat is itchy, and I keep sneezing and my nose constantly feels tickly, and that's not normally how I feel when I have a cold, and also, well, it's spring and I spent a good part of yesterday outside, so maybe there's some fresh new pollen out there just trying to kill me?

But if it's allergies, WHY ISN'T THE CLARITIN WORKING? I need it to work. NEED. My head feels fuzzy and I have several looming deadlines and it is really hard to concentrate, much less do coherent work, when my head feels like it's made out of the material they use on those wiry scrubbing brushes (it has a name, I know it does, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is... CASE IN POINT).

Seriously, what do you do when Claritin fails you? Is there some other miracle drug I should be turning to instead?