back from indiana!

and it's a whirlwind week! we just got back from trivia (and lost) and had the worst service EVER. sample dialogue includes:

me: "will our food be out soon?" (inner monologue... it's been an hour)
waiter: "oh.. um.. i'll check on that. what was it you ordered again?"

ahhhh... we were there much longer than usual but ah well, at least we had some good friends with us to pass the time!

i'll blog more later, have some errands to finish!

my grandaddy.

although i tend to avoid blogging about more serious things, i didn't want to let such an event pass without acknowledging it here. my grandaddy passed away on tuesday. cassie and i were able to fly to arizona last week and see and talk to him. he was the best grandaddy anyone could ever want and i'll miss him very much. below is a slideshow of pictures the family put together for the funeral.

the sun sets on the gulf of mexico (and i forget to watch)

while we were in captiva, we watched a beautiful sunset and it reminded me of a poem i wrote years ago about when i was working on the oil rig in the gulf.  i've posted the poem before, but here it is again (with a picture of the almost gone captiva sunset) :)

The Sun Sets on the Gulf of Mexico (And I Forget to Watch)

He asks how long I think it will take the sun to disappear
after it touches the water. Thinking of a movie I saw once
where the sun seemed to disappear almost instantaneously,
I tell him thirty seconds.

“No,” he says. “It takes three minutes.”
Silence lapses between us as fiery light falls
on black water between the breaks of the waves.
He is talking but I am thinking of what to say
next. My gaze is on the water. I hear him
pause, so I smile in what I hope is a valid response,
turn back to the sun on the water.
I forget to pay attention to his watch.

Instead I watch the water until the light fades,
fascinated by the way the sunlight
is carried back to us from the horizon,
dancing along the blackness.
Remembering the sun,
I ask him, “Is it really three minutes?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something like that.”

ooh.... ow... ahhh....arghhh!

i am super sore from playing tennis lastnight (and that's exactly what i sounded like during the game).  nate and i played each other and only got through 1 set (close game, i finally lost 6-8) and then i gave up 2 games into the second set.  i had a headache, and my ankle and my back hurt!  nate said i sounded like an old woman ;)

but we're going to go again today, maybe i'll get him this time ;)

also, cleo has developed some crazy allergies and looks like a 'puffer-fish' between gettng little bumps and hives all over.  i took her to the vet friday and she's now on 3 medications... 2 are pills and 1 is a twice-weekly shampoo.  but hopefully it'll make her all better!  nate has created a spreadsheet of the pills so we can check off each time they are administered (he's a total dork, i know ;) )  but also- he wants me to INITIAL it.  there are two of us that live here so figuring out who checked off the sheet shouldn't be that difficult ;)  he thinks that's a totally normal request, what do you think? :)

epcot mexico

a few shots from epcot mexico recently -- i had them and thought cassie might like them so i put them in a collage ;) (made with mcp actions)

paper and ink studio - giveaway :)

Paper and Ink Studio is having a giveaway on her blog, 50 'call me cards' and 25 matching notecards.  Her work is absolutely beautiful, and all you have to do to enter is comment on the post on her blog before tomorrow (saturday) night!  from her blog, you can also get to her site which has all her products.  i've ordered some of the custom notecards and loved them!

http://www.teamcarstens.com/paper_ink_studio_/2008/11/november-blog-giveaway.html

oregon trail!

did you ever play oregon trail?  i used to play it all the time as a kid and this imagined monologue from mcsweeney's is hilarious :)  you may not appreciated if you didn't play the game, but here's an excerpt from the monologue titled 'No Son of Mine Plays Oregon Trail Like That.':

I once completed the trail having survived three broken wagon wheels. It took me 10 days to find an Indian to trade with for the third wheel, and I still scored 6,000 points. The other day, I saw you quit the trail immediately after your wagon capsized in the Kansas River. You lost only an ox and a hundred pounds of food. I drank myself to sleep that night.
Speaking of food, it almost seems like you don't even like to hunt. When you do, you fire randomly at anything that moves. Let me make it simple for you, son: a bullet costs 10 cents, a pound of food costs 20 cents. If you're not averaging a half pound of food per bullet, you're wasting points. So I hope it was fun firing 10 times at that squirrel, which, I feel obligated to add, you never actually hit.

rock the vote!

okay, so that was a slogan from a few years ago, but i'm so excited to see how the coming years play out and i'm so excited to have been a part of the entire process.  now that all the election hulla-baloo is over, i feel like we should all break into a dance of a high school musical "we're all in this together" moment but maybe that's the disney cast member in me talking ;)  but seriously.. red states.. blue states... no matter, it's the UNITED STATES!

hello from captiva!

we're on the beach just outside of fort meyers enjoying a BEAUTIFUL weekend with glen, suzie & ben (jackson will be here tomorrow).  the weather is perfect and we're walking distance to the beach!  i want to hire suzy as my vacation planner.  they'll be here for just about a week and we're just joining them for the weekend.  we just finished playing tennis and it was so fun!  i haven't played in years and am excited to get back into it :)
hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

the new carpet!

finally wading through some long overdue tasks on the new computer -- here's some pictures of our new carpet. it was freakishly clean because we were having company, fyi ;)

we still need to paint in here!  and get a new window shade.. and put stuff on the walls... this room's on deck.

motown philly back again!

Boyz II Men was at Epcot tonight!  Nate and I headed out after work and they were AWESOME.  Well... I thought they were.  Nate thought the Ventures were better, but I was in junior high heaven!

pictures...

so i finally updated more pics!  i'm only up to august though, lots more to come! :)

and now we relax!

we hosted the 'ivey olympics' lastnight :)  we spent most of the week cleaning the house, the garage, buying food, buying beer, etc.  and now we can relax!  we had a good time, so hopefully everyone else did too.  we ended up with three events (out of a planned 6 events) flip cup, darts, and wii olympics.  nate bought some cool trophies from good will and had little plaques made for Ivey Olympics 2008- ha :)

today we're cleaning the house, eating chinese takeout, and heading to buy a flash for my camera- yay!  oh, and probably some football watching (sigh) because PSU is doing well this season.

have a great weekend!

yummy sherry vinaigrette

i've been all about this dressing lately.  i had to buy a bottle of sherry vinegar for something and used like... a tablespoon, so i searched for a salad dressing recipe that included it and ta-da!  here, for your culinary pleasure :)  i highly recommend it with spinach and goat cheese (although it's good on pretty much anything):

2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Place the vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard, and garlic in a medium size bowl and whisk together until blended.  Slowly add the olive oil, whisking constantly until the dressing is emulsified.

great... someone else at work now thinks my name is ivey

it's always so awkward to correct them for some reason....

wii fitness

we bought a wii fit this weekend and it's awesome :)  nate and i have been using it both for fun and exercise (which i guess is the point, isn't it?....)  it both encourages and harasses you ("a bit too busy to work out yesterday, bri?)

as you do more exercise, you unlock more activities or reps on existing exercises.  i'm a pretty good hula hooper and ski jumper :)  definitely need to work on my balance though!

so krau-zones it is!

and the recipe is from marty's side of the family :)  apparently my german roots ;)

kraut-burgers!

so we had kraut-burgers while john and linda were here and i got a chance to take some pictures of them for this post :)  the ingredient list is quite short:

• 1 lb of lean ground beef
• jar of sauerkraut (i don't use the whole jar, but i eyeball the amount)
• 1 can of thin crust pilsbury pizza dough (or any pizza dough of your preference)

brown the hamburger in a large skillet and when it's mostly done, add sauerkraut until it looks like the amount of each are about equal (and drain the sauerkraut first!).  get the hamburger-kraut mixture nice and hot.

while that's going, roll out the pizza dough -- i usually divide the thin crust pizza dough into 8 squares.  place a square on a cookie sheet, spoon the hamburger-kraut mixture onto one half of it, and fold over, tucking in the sides.  essentially, it should look like a little calzone... but with sauerkraut.

then bake at 400 until they look nice and toasty... mmmmm.

serve with copious amounts of yellow mustard :)

we had them with sauteed green beans, and a salad.

so mom, who's recipe was this?  yours?  marty's?

and everyone else... should we rename this recipe to make it more appetizing?

disney disney disney!

we spent our weekend with john, linda and ross enjoying disney :)  well, actually... linda and i spent yesterday shopping :)  but the rest of the time was disney!

today we started off our day with some delectable french pastries from our neighbors (who make them and sell them at the local farmers' market).  here's a pic of them:

yum.  seriously yum.  those are almond croissants, pain du chocolat, and rasberry napoleons.  after breakfast, we headed to animal kingdom and it was HOT.  but we had a good day and hit all the attractions we wanted to :)  and hardly any rain, which we can't say about last week.  my highlight?  we got to see jiminy cricket!  and pocahontas.  we rarely wait in line for the characters, but the lines were quite short so:

nate took this picture of pocahontas and i and had trouble with the camera.  i ended up having to go back over to him and fiddle with it, so i apologized to pocahontas and she just laughed and said "men!"  :)  funny.

ross and john rode kali while the rest of us opted out (too wet!) but got to see them float by:

we had dinner at downtown disney and ended our evening at the california grill (at the contemporary resort) for wine and cheese and a fantastic view of the magic kingdom fireworks.  a very full, but very fun day :)

a little poetry for your weekend

by one of my favorites, sara teasdale:

I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you,

Not lost, altho' I long to be

Lost as a candle lit at noon,

Lost as a snow-flake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still

A spirit beautiful and bright,

Yet I am I, who long to be

Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out

My senses, leave me deaf and blind,

Swept by the tempest of your love,

A taper in a rushing wind.