2011: When did we hit another decade?

About a month ago I realized I would have alot of free time in December because classes would end. So I thought, hmmm, maybe I can finish up any resolutions from 2010 and have something to blog about. But I flipped back to my blog in January, and I did not write about any resolutions. I have a vague feeling that I did resolve to do something this year, but I can't quite remember what it was.... darn Alzheimer's. Or perhaps I was channeling Calvin last year....

So my resolution this year is to write down my goals so that I remember what they are :)

In class we learned that behavioral changes are best done with small, easily achievable goals, so unlike traditional resolutions, which try to change every aspect of your life, I am keeping it simple.

1. My husband and I joined a gym before Thanksgiving, and it has been pretty easy to find time to go without any school or work to fill the days. So my goal is to continue to attend the gym at least three days a week. I also found this cool website which allows you to track more specific fitness goals, and they have 'feats' you can accomplish. You can also be motivated by your friends on the website. A couple of friends and I have a competition going for the first three months of the new year, so I think that will also help keep me on track with this goal.

2. Last semester I took snack foods to class. Sometimes it would be peanut butter crackers, or crackers and tuna, or junk like m&ms. Most of the time I forgot a beverage, so I would buy a soda from the vending machine. So my goal is to bring my water bottle to drink water during class, and to bring at least one veggie to snack on, like carrot sticks.


Happy New Year!

2010: The Year of the Tiger

So not quite all of the pictures line up in the right month, but you get the idea. It was quite an adventurous year. I have enjoyed the holidays, to relax and spend time with family and friends.

For more pictures and descriptions, I also tried a snapfish album.

Jeans

Remember when I told you I was working on home movies, and I teased you about the jeans I used to wear in 1993? Well, from the clamor of all of the comments, I could tell you wanted proof.

This SNL skit is what I think I looked like in 1993.



And this is what I really looked like in 1993.


I finally submitted to the trends this year and bought one pair of straight leg jeans. I just hope I get a better sound track than Boys 2 Men "In the Still of the Night"

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

My favorite christmas music comes from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It is a combination of rock and christmas, which is fantastic. Their concerts are amazing light shows and fantastic music. TSO always play with a live orchestra, and my favorite member of the band is the one who plays the electric violin.





The Wizards of Winter was the first one I found online a couple of years ago with an amazing house light show.


Christmas Eve in Sarajevo is probably their most famous song, and someone has created a great light show.


Christmas Canon is a personal favorite, I used to play that song on the violin all the time. My sisters and I would love to do this version in church some day. This video gives you an idea of what their concerts are like.


A Mad Russian Christmas is a Nutcracker song redone.


Queen of the Winter Night has an amazing soloist live in person singing.... She truly has an amazing voice to do all of those ah's. I can tell you, on the violin they are tough, I really don't know how you make a voice sound similar.


On the more traditional side, we have the TSO interpretation of Come all Ye Faithful.


And we will round it out with a TSO classic: This Christmas Day

Snow Day

Growing up in Maryland, we would usually get a couple of snow days. We would get all bundled up in layers of socks, snow pants, coats, hats, gloves and scarves. You know, the kind of clothes that force you to waddle out of the house.



Then there would be sledding, snow fort building, stock piling of snow balls for the impending war.... Go to minute 4:14 for a classic snowball fight.



Then we would come home, soaking wet, and lay our gloves and scarves over the heat vents to dry. Mom would have hot chocolate ready for us, with marshmallows. She would also bake cinnamon rolls. We would get warmed up, and maybe when we were tired of the snow we would watch movies.














There were two very large snowfalls that I can remember. One happened when we were living in Maryland. My brother's best friend was sleeping over, and got stuck at our house for days. My finals were delayed for a week or two, which was fantastic.

The second one happened when I was in college. The snowfall in 2000 was so deep that the University shut down for almost a week. After a couple of days in our apartment, we were bored with the movies we had, so my roommate decided to drive to Blockbuster. We returned victorious, with a stack of movies. Next thing we know, there are knocks at our door. Our neighbors wanted to trade brownies for the opportunity to watch a movie :) It was a pretty good deal.

That belongs in a museum. So do you.

You know this routine. Two older people sit down and start talking about the old days. Back in the old days, we didn't have cars. Back in the old days, we had to walk up hill both ways to get to school. Back in the old days.... It highlights the changes across generations. Here is my version.

I got my first cell phone when I was 17, which was a big deal.




In case the sound from the old VHS tape (yes.... back in the old days movies weren't recorded on your cell phone and automatically put on youtube) doesn't come through, I got 15 free minutes a month. Yes, that is a two digit number.... less than 20. This phone was only good for one thing... making very short phone calls.

Contrast that with my sister, who got her first cell phone at the age of 16, which was a big deal. But for slightly different reasons. She got unlimited texting, free mobile to mobile, free nights and weekends, and hundreds of minutes a month. She can fit her phone in the pocket of her skinny jeans. The idea of roaming is almost obsolete. Her phone can take pictures, and also comes in her favorite color: red.



Back in the old days, the best time to reach us was at home, with a phone attached to the wall.

Dream a little dream for me

I woke up this morning and had the weirdest feeling. I could have sworn I had done something so awesome, it would be blog worthy.... but then I realized I had just dreamed it.

I am sure you are clamoring to know what I have been up to with my free time.

The house is on the market, so Tim and I are maintaining a high level of cleanliness. Most days we operate at Def-Con Mom level, beds made, no spit in the sink, no dirty dishes. But on days we have a showing, we amp it up to Def-Con Grandma level. Unfortunately, one showing gave me 5 minutes notice when I wasn't home, so they saw the house at the Mom level. Their comments said the house showed beautifully. Perhaps Tim is right, my Def-Con Grandma level is too neurotic :)


I have had a couple of study sessions to prepare for my exams, which are now over. I am glad I have friends in class to study with. It makes it easier to handle the stress of finals.


Tim and I joined a gym, and I have been going to some classes and swimming in the pool. What cracks me up about the gym classes are the parts of the routines I can't do. Apparently I have no core strength at all, so the one teacher came over and was trying to show me how to do the exercise, and then finally gave up and said, uh... do this until you have enough strength to do it the real way.


I have also been working on converting home movies to DVDs. What, you thought I finished that project? Oh no.... just 1991 and 1992. There is still years worth of cute footage of my sisters to get onto DVDs :) Can I just say that 1993 was a really bad year for me and jeans? Who said that acid wash almost-white jeans with a high waist, folded hem to make them tighter, with a tucked in turtle neck and socks above the boots was a good look? Seriously..... this is why I have nightmares about wearing "straight-leg" jeans now!

My mom invited me to hang out with her and my sister. We made Christmas cookies and decorated. It was awesome. Especially the cookie dough. I wish I had gotten a picture of our cookies, one gingerbread man had just gotten out of the "pen" in an orange jumpsuit.


Then I hung out with a friend and her daughters. She was making some cake balls for a church activity. Apparently these are the rage, but it seems like alot of work for something that only imitates a delicious chocolate bon-bon.



Also, we have been trying several new recipes with our farm produce. Unfortunately, with the snow this past weekend and the record low temperatures, we will be postponing this week's delivery. So it looks like next week's meals will be Bertolli.


So... who wants to come out and play next week?

The transformation

I am sure you watch HGTV, just like I do. One of the mantra's on the show is that the house you live in is not the house you sell. Here is the proof for me...

The original foyer, and the "staged" foyer









The couch has had several positions over the years.... and the walls needed to be toned down












Final staged result











The dining table has come and gone and come back












The fireplace has changed from shabby to chic, along with a much more manageable TV size














The kitchen had a two stage approach, first, get rid of the border and the wall color, then clear out the clutter.

































Pink bathrooms scare buyers.













An over-personalized master bedroom makes way for a more mature, neutral room






















One empty guestroom and a craft room becomes two staged bedrooms












Finally, the best signs are the places you never photograph:













I am amazed at how much you can change your house by boxing up most of your belongings and decluttering. The best advice the stager gave me was to flip the way the rugs were on the floor in the foyer and kitchen, and to group pictures together on the same wall, rather than on walls near each other. It was surprising how long this process took, because some of the painting I got done before I went to Japan. But now it is done, we just have to maintain the cleanliness and hope someone buys.

Thankful Thanksgiving

The annual tradition begins...

November 1
1. I am thankful I still can enjoy birthday dinners with my family
2. I am thankful for skype to keep in touch with grandparents
3. I am thankful for Project Runway

November 2
1. I am thankful for Pandora because my playlist was getting really old
2. I am thankful my mom and dad taught me how to paint houses by letting us help them as kids (remember those closet doors at noblewood?! hahaha)
3. I am thankful for a nice neighborhood you can walk through

November 3
1. I am thankful for a job on campus
2. I am thankful to be working on a Masters degree
3. I am thankful for friends to celebrate birthdays with

November 4
1. I am thankful for my mom helping me to paint the living room ceiling
2. I am thankful for Tim taking down wallpaper and painting the bathroom
3. I am thankful to be done with the painting projects for now

November 5
1. I am thankful for a weekend getaway
2. I am thankful for pretty snow that sticks to the grass and not the road
3. I am thankful for Tim's coworkers who have a fantastic cabin

November 6
1. I am thankful for heated seats
2. I am thankful for christmas tree farms
3. I am thankful for the Blue Ridge Parkway

November 7
1. I am thankful for a strong husband who can move furniture
2. I am thankful for the Amazing Race
3. I am thankful for Bertolli frozen dinners that truly make it possible to throw it in a pan and slap it on the table

November 8
1. I am thankful for gift cards from our wedding
2. I am thankful for home improvement stores
3. I am thankful for the fast removal of christmas hooks

November 9
1. I am thankful for getting grades on some assignments
2. I am thankful for excellent classmates who make studying easier
3. I am thankful for my sister and I's favorite Mexican place in Chapel Hill

November 10
1. I am thankful for a husband who speaks spanish
2. I am thankful for a good realtor to find services like carpet cleaning
3. I am thankful for fresh, clean sheets

November 11
1. I am thankful for fresh vegetables from the farm
2. I am thankful for 1.50 movies
3. I am thankful for the invite to hang out with my mom and sister

November 12
1. I am thankful for friends who get holidays off and call to hang out
2. I am thankful for outlet malls
3. I am thankful that my husband's stuff has arrived from Japan, so this will feel more like home

November 13
1. I am thankful for the time to do homework
2. I am thankful for gorgeous North Carolina weather that make outdoor activities like frying turkeys fun
3. I am thankful for a good group of friends to enjoy dinner with
4. I am thankful to discover that root vegetables taste really good with maple syrup

November 14
1. I am thankful for Tim's friend who helped put together a shelving unit
2. I am thankful for my nervousness going away halfway through my lesson
3. I am thankful for mashed potatoes that taste almost as good as mom's

November 15
1. I am thankful for the progress on my house list
2. I am thankful that I can have fun trying to be the "favorite" sister
3. I am thankful for Krispy Kreme

November 16
1. I am thankful for a morning run outdoors
2. I am thankful for friends who help out with the long house list
3. I am thankful for Tim who slices all of the vegetables and meat

November 17
1. I am thankful for a seriously clean and empty house..... Maybe I don't want all that stuff in boxes to ever come back :)
2. I am thankful for a husband who helps me realize when I am being overly neurotic
3. I am thankful for beautiful fall flowers on my table

November 18
1. I am thankful for a shiny sink
2. I am thankful for carpet cleaners, who worked hard while I did homework
3. I am thankful for a great review of the house by our realtor

November 19
1. I am thankful for the sun shining through my windows that warms up my whole house
2. I am thankful for quesadillas which make really good lunches
3. I am thankful for a weekend of new recipes that involve farm fresh produce

November 20
1. I am thankful that I could run in the turkey trot with my mom
2. I am thankful for the confidence to try a new recipe from the food network, pumpkin custard, and the fact that it tasted really good
3. I am thankful for a warm shower and a relaxing couch after a race

November 21
1. I am thankful for friends who have fun games to play
2. I am thankful for two great dinner recipes: beef stirfry with cabbage, and tortellini soup with kale.
3. I am thankful for Sundays that include home teachers, helping people, and relaxing

November 22
1. I am thankful that the photos are done of the house
2. I am thankful for giftcards
3. I am thankful for beets, which tasted surprisingly good, and for being forced to try new things

November 23
1. I am thankful for free printing on campus
2. I am thankful for a good visiting teaching companion
3. I am thankful for chocolate cake

November 24
1. I am thankful for pop-out windows that make cleaning them easy
2. I am thankful for time to get outside and walk in this gorgeously sunny 75 degree November North Carolina weather
3. I am thankful for pies

You mean to tell me that you argued your way from a C+ to an A-

Totally based on my powers of persuasion, you proud?
I couldn't be happier if they were based on real grades.

I couldn't find an actual clip of that scene.

It has been midterm time for me, and one of my midterms was totally harsh (to quote Cher). A bunch of my classmates and I felt that there were some questions that were not graded correctly, or not worded correctly. Also, we were concerned that the bonus question wasn't really a bonus which was dragging down our average. So we argued in class, and won all the concessions. Nice!

Monday Tim and I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some things. Wal-Mart is an amazing masterpiece of options compared to Japanese shopping. The best part was the display for Old Spice.



They have done a whole set of commercials for Wal-Mart that run as part of the display. Ladies, look at your cart, now back to me, now back at your cart, sadly, I cannot be in your cart. But handsomely priced Old Spice can, and you can live with a man an Old Spice man should smell like.

Before the Parade passes by

It was a gorgeous weekend in North Carolina with crystal clear blue skies, warm weather with a slight breeze. My sister helped me remember all the buttons for the sunroof, so I was able to drive around and enjoy the weather. We saw Buzz Lightyear in Spanish mode.




My mom and I had a great weekend looking at houses in the Raleigh Parade of Homes. An interesting side effect of a slow economy is that housing prices have really come down. There are some beautiful homes in reasonable price ranges. The most interesting model had yellow painted trim and a barn door for a bathroom door.



We also got to celebrate my sister's birthday. Mom made a fantastic chocolate cake with amazing flower details on top. This picture is not the real thing because I forgot my camera. Mom's looked better :)

The real cake:

Depressed? Isn't that just a fancy word for feeling, 'bummed down?'

At NCCU, every Tuesday and Thursday they have the 10:40 break, which is an hour reserved when there are no classes. The 10:40 break has a DJ blasting music. The goal is to dance, see and be seen. Also it gives organizations a chance to put out booths to share information. Today the counseling center had booths on a range of topics and I volunteered at the depression table.

One of the other guys in my program was also volunteering and he said this took him back to his undergrad days at another historically black college, where they did the same thing but on Fridays. I commented that I had never seen anything like this... When I was in undergrad we did have a "pit" where people could hand out information, but there were never set break times for everyone to gather.

I noticed that the other volunteer would exchange a hand shake thing with the other students as they left our table. I can't do the hand shake.

Later he commented that he was tired of the music, and I said, oh, actually, I know this song. It was on So You Think You Can Dance, and Twitch danced to it.... [I can't embed it, it was Twitch and Lauren to My Chick Bad]. That was the nail in the coffin. He gave me a look, and I knew..... I was not cool. What a bummer. But I had the solution in the pamphlets at my table... I could talk it over with a friend, or go to the counseling center. Naw, I think I will just eat some ice cream and watch reruns of So You Think You Can Dance on youtube.

There's no good laugh for a regular idea

Why I haven't blogged in two months

1. I was hanging out with my sister
2. I moved home from Japan
3. I went to my other sister's wedding (she was gorgeous!)
4. I started grad school
5. I couldn't find the plug for my computer to download pictures to blog about

I decided this blog doesn't have to be perfect. So I may or may not catch you up on the last two months.

What I enjoy about being back in the USA

A. My sister and I started our third year of dinners in Chapel Hill, and admittedly, we were in a rut. But a bunch of new shopping has opened, so we now have a new favorite restaurant.

B. My other sister and I enjoy playing games, and we have a new favorite, Monopoly Deal. We have been practicing so that when Tim gets back, we can beat him.

C. I am training to run a 5K with my mom in November. My mom is totally going to win :) At the gym, I just do 2 miles on the treadmill, so I went outside to practice the real 5K distance. It took 45 minutes. On the plus side, I can only get faster.

D. My friends and I are checking out different pedicure spots in the triangle. So far, this one in North Hills is the winner.

E. I have been enjoying the movie theater. After seeing one movie in Tokyo for $18, any movie in the U.S. is a bargain.

Soon I will be able to add dates with Tim to the list.

Food, Glorious Food

Tim and I went out to some great restaurants this weekend. We were celebrating his bonus, and trying to knock out the list of things to see in my last two weeks here. We went to the Kitchen Salvatore Cuomo, and Cardenas, which is now my favorite restaurant. These are pictures from The Kitchen, because Cardenas mood lighting meant the pictures didn't turn out well.







We went to the Yokohama Fireworks. In Japan, people dress up in their kimonos to attend the fireworks and the show lasts for an hour. It was really nice because our friends got tickets for good seats in the soccer stadium, so we weren't crowded into a tiny tiny spot near the river. The fireworks were really beautiful.