On Wednesday the Chop and I close on our new house in MA. I’ve lived in RI since I moved to the east coast six years ago.. in fact, I’ve lived within the same 20 miles the entire time.. and it’s starting to hit me how weird it’s going to be. We’re moving over an hour north, closer to work for both of us, right on the commuter line into Boston and in a great town near good friends, so we’re happy.. but it’s still an adjustment.

We’ve been hitting all our favorite restaurants for the past couple of weeks, and packing like fiends. My mom is coming out (yay, mom) on Thursday to help us move/clean/etc. and we hope to be totally out of here by Sunday morning.

The house is gorgeous and we were incredibly lucky to find it, as a contractor owned it before us and he did loads of updates (three bathrooms, refrigerator and freezer drawers, landscaping, etc.). If it wasn’t for the recession (boo, recession), we wouldn’t have been able to afford it for five more years (or anything in the town for that matter). I’ve attached some photos below from the listing sheet, and hopefully by this time next week I’ll have some we took ourselves.

And for something totally random… my four-year blog anniversary is the 25th, the day we close on the house. Interesting… 🙂

On New Year’s Day a friend of ours was walking her dog in the snow. He suddenly started screaming and lo and behold, he had essentially impaled himself on a metal spike hidden in the snow.

It was in a public park and so she wanted to start a website to draw attention to a few things… mainly that there is no 911 for pets and that the parks system should be taking better care of the area. Her dog is 90 lbs, which is why he survived with only(!) a three hour surgery and 20 stitches. Had it been a kid or a smaller dog, they would’ve died.

I built the site for her over the weekend and today she, and the site, were on the 6 o’clock news.

Our work made the news!

🙂

We spent Christmas on the west coast, and while it was as entertaining as ever, it was not without stress. Amazingly wedding chatter was kept to a minimum, but only because my dad is quitting private practice and that was the talk of the house. It turns out that we have to get his new schedule before we can pick a date, so we were off the hook. Instead we were snowbound (hi, WA cannot deal with snow—something like 300 plows for five major cities?! please) and played a lot of Mario Kart (possibly the best group game for the Wii).

New Year’s was spent watching the snow fall (a lovely seven inches) and eating dinner at our favorite restaurant. I know, I know, we’re SUCH party people, lol. We ended up heading to bed around 2AM and frankly have spent most of today overcoming hangovers, LOL.

2009 should be interesting. The Chop and I are heading to Ireland in March (for a very much needed vacation), I’m heading to Vegas in April to speak at a conference (kill me now) and we’re hoping to get married in September or November up at Sunday River in Maine. We’ll see though, lol. I’m still all for eloping in March.

Happy New Year. 🙂

I SWEAR TO GOD: if McCain wins, I will leave the country.

No ifs, ands or buts. I’m out if he’s in.

Alright, I found this via the Very Good Taste blog and it’s really entertaining. He put together a list of 100 food items every omnivore should try, and it’s a little scary how many creepy things I’ve tried—61/100 on this list.

Instructions
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare — no way in hell
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses — extremely stinky cheese, gag
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper — i’d like to keep my mouth not on fire
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi — bleh
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects — only if I was stranded on a desert island.
43. Phaal — see #26
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini — gag
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads — so many no ways, no hows, nu uhs
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian — cannot get past the smell
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis — double gag
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill — so disgusting
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish — dirty water fish, bleh
95. Mole poblano — amazingly, you can do something bad with chocolate
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So the Chop got a full time job (yeah, it’s been awhile), but the crappy thing is I was really used to having someone else at the house with me all day. Sigh. Now it’s just me and the crazy animals and honestly, they are not the best conversationalists without Chop to do their voices.

I’m starting to check out the area where he’s working (50 miles north), and aside from central air and no oil (omg, the oil bills), my house preferences aren’t very specific. Well, it’d be nice if it was perfect and only cost $200,000, but I know when I’m beat, lol.

We’re both still doing a lot of contract work, hence the silence. After you’ve spent 12 hours straight working, you lose your will to update a blog. 🙂

Our adorable dog has decided food is not really her thing. We’re not sure if it’s the weather, she’s ill or she’s just being cantankerous, but whatever it is, it’s driving us crazy.

We’ll put out food in the morning, but she usually won’t touch it till after 2PM. Same thing with dinner.

We’ve heard that dogs change their diet in the summer (the heat), and when we took her to the vet, he thought she seemed fine.

So either she’s trying to drive us insane, or this is normal. Anyone know?

I read a lot of blogs and one thing I’ve noticed? For most of them a) their blog is their job (damn it, I wish mine was!) or b) they are stay-at-home moms (and yes, they have it very hard, but at least their kids eventually go to sleep!).

Ever since the Chop got fired (going on six months now), I’ve taken on more contract work. It’s good in some ways (money), but bad in others (hi, I work 15 hours a day). He does contract work as well, but as he doesn’t have a job that requires eight hours a day, he gets more rest and more playtime (bastard).

Sadly, this means I blog way less. Way, way, way less. And it’s sad, but seriously, do you want to read about how I built a new website today, a coworker got her car repo’d at the office (I KNEW she was sketchy when they hired her, omg) and how Internet Explorer will honestly be the death of me? I didn’t think so. (Well, OK, maybe on the coworker, but she’s a total fruitcake, so I try to ignore her.)

So I’ll read blogs to relax my brain… but writing my own? Less relaxing.

(P.S. Flipping Out is on and quite honestly, it might be the funniest show on TV as Jeff is totally INSANE… it’s making summer work so entertaining!)

Edited to add:
As a random aside, what the hell am I writing about that makes a John McCain ad show up on my Google Ads?! I SUPPORT OBAMA!

A teacher I had in high school wants to be friends on Facebook.

Does anyone else think that’s just weird?

I watched Bella last night (the Porkchop is on an all-basketball-all-the-time streak until the playoffs are over, so I must entertain myself away from the living room), and it’s seriously one of the greatest movies of the year. It reminds me of Once, in the sense that it’s an indie, it has an unconventional plot and ending and the music is incredible. In other words, get thee the DVD.

I just spent the entire morning deep cleaning the kitchen, in the hope that the ants will go away and never come back. I’ve put out traps, we’ve sprayed outside the house and still they come! I’m thinking of calling an exterminator.