Schmitz Bitz

The Stages of Waiting...

2011-11-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

I found this article on an online adoption magazine and could not agree more with this woman. I have to say I have experienced every single of these emotions on our adoption journey so far. She adopted from Ethiopia, but I substitute the word "Russia" in my mind...and it pretty much sums up how I've been feeling. Jay particularly laughed out loud about the sane husband comment... I have to say it's kind of reassuring to know I'm not the only person who's ever felt this way.

Needless to say, we're still waiting people, paperwork, blah blah blah. Nothing more to say except I can't wait for Stage 18 (see the highlighted at the verrry end.)

The Stages of Waiting

Are all the bewildering ups and downs I've experienced during our wait typical of the international adoption process? by Julie Corby

63 9 E-Mail8

Fifteen months ago my husband and I filled out an application to adopt siblings from Ethiopia. Are you familiar with the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross model for the stages of grief? It consists of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I feel like the waiting process during our adoption has taken me through similar distinct stages. While it may be true that the only thing that Dr. Kübler-Ross and I have in common is that she was a psychiatrist and I need a psychiatrist, I believe that these "Stages of Waiting" do, in fact, exist.

Stage 1 Relief. My husband and I have finally landed on the same page regarding our family building. We agree on the country. We agree on the agency. We agree to the expense.

Stage 2 Joy. There is a light at the end of a long, nine-year tunnel. I've become a member of a club that has, up until now, excluded me. I have a spring in my step. I can walk by a playground without weeping. I can talk about preschool. I'm childproof. I tell everyone I know about our plans.

Stage 3 The win/win-naiveté-Melissa Fay Greene Stage. I read There Is No Me Without You. I think, not only am I helping myself, I am helping Africa. We want kids, and millions of orphans need families. It is a win/win situation.

Stage 4 Ethical questioning. Many Ethiopian children placed for adoption are not actually orphans. In fact, a lot of them have parents, as well as siblings. They are relinquished because their family cannot afford to feed them. This is when I start wrestling a lot: "If I really cared about Ethiopia, I would take these thousands of dollars we're paying in adoption fees and donate them to an organization that would do everything it could to preserve this family."

Stage 5 I am a selfish jerk. My white, privileged need to have a family is much stronger than my need to help Ethiopia. My mothering hormones are not going to be dissipated by my concern for struggling Africans. I am a jerk.

Stage 6 Bargaining. I am a selfish jerk, but I agree to change my need. This is when I announce to my husband one morning, "I think that we should adopt a 12-year-old from Ethiopia, instead. We will make sure that she is a true orphan, an only child, and HIV-positive. We have good health insurance." (At this point I think my husband, who likes more than anything to make a decision and stick with it, is starting to wonder why he ever married me in the first place.)

Stage 7 Outrage. Why doesn't everyone know how bad things are around the world? Why aren't people doing more? Unfortunately, this outrage turns into self-righteousness and a judgmental attitude, which send me spiraling back to...

Stage 8 Guilt. I feel guilty for judging, guilty for adopting, guilty for eating. You name it, I feel guilty.

Stage 9 Resolve. I will do something. I will raise awareness. I will start a project that will help. I will make a difference.

Stage 10 Renewed optimism. It's OK. We will move forward. I'll call our agency and write the check for the third payment they requested. I will continue to read about parenting. I will do my best to be a mother to these two children.

Stage 11 Doubt in the adoption. Are we doing the right thing? Our agency has worked in Ethiopia for a long time, and I am fairly confident that they operate in an ethical manner. But really, how would I know? I do know that the program has changed dramatically in the past year, because so many more people are choosing Ethiopia.

Stage 12 Doubt in myself. Am I too (insert any of these adjectives here: old, dejected, cynical, impatient, selfish) to adopt?

Stage 13 Doubt that it will ever happen. We know several couples who applied after we did who have already received their referrals, have traveled, and are now happily ensconced with their new families. Is this just one more thing that works out for everyone except us? I have days when I believe that we will never get to adopt. This feels precarious, and reminds me of a feeling I've had before. Our four pregnancies didn't work out, so why did I think this would? (This stage also involves envy, but envy is so yucky, let's not give it its own stage.)

Stage 14 Disillusionment. This is when all of your warm and fuzzy feelings about adoption don't feel warm and fuzzy anymore. They feel messy and worrisome.

Stage 15 Exhilaration. A couple of weeks ago, I was at home with my husband and our dogs. All of the sudden, I thought, "This is going to happen! We are going to be parents! There will be children here, in our house, SOON!" I grinned like an idiot. This stage lasted exactly 90 minutes.

Stage 16 Unexpected, renewed faith in humanity. Where have you people been all my life? There is something special about the adoption community. It takes someone with a big heart, I think, and at least some sense of adventure, to adopt. I am so grateful to have met so many incredible people on this journey. I mean it.

Stage 17 Joyful, Uneasy anticipation. The uneasiness may disappear when we get our referral, but maybe it is important to always feel uneasy. Being a prospective adoptive parent is complicated. Obviously, the people who are really going through something are the birth families and the children. Their losses are much more difficult and devastating. If I am lucky enough to become a parent, I must continue to question. I will do my best to remain observant, to monitor agencies' activities and message boards, to help those who come after me, and to help those who are left behind.
The feelings of joy and anticipation are substantially less complicated. In January 2008, our social worker let us know we were Waiting Family #103. Today, we are Waiting Family #3. We want this more than anything. I can't wait to see my husband be a father. I can't wait for my parents to meet their grandchildren. I can't wait to sing someone to sleep, to make someone laugh, and to bandage a skinned knee. We are ready for our joyful, uneasy, happy ending.
Julie Corby is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. She and her husband will leave this month to adopt their children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (Yep, Stage 18. Euphoria! The phone rings, and everything changes.) Follow Julie's story at theeyesofmyeyesareopened.blogspot.com.
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Orphan Sunday

2011-11-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

"If you're clinging too tightly to your things, to your plans, to your comfort and convenience, to your idea of what your family should look like -- God cannot move in your life." I shared a few months ago one family's journey to their children through adoption. (Also known as the video that made us all cry)

Today is Orphan Sunday. People all over the world are raising awareness for orphan care, foster care, and adoption.

I'm kind of bummed out that I'm just now learning that Orphan Sunday is a thing. I feel like we should have done more. I feel like next year that will have to change.

The Eastern European version of the Orphan Sunday website posted this video. You don't need to understand Russian to get it's message.

All I know is, halfway across the world in an orphanage, two little people have already drastically changed the way we view our things, our plans, our comforts and conveniences, and our ideas of what our family should like.

True Happenings of a Third Grade Teacher

2011-10-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

True Happenings of a Third Grade Teacher:

"Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-Tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries"

"Mrs. Schmitz? Why would bunnies need so many cell phones?"

(Mrs. Schmitz slaps hand to forehead...)

Learning a little

2011-10-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot going on around here. We finished our end of the homestudy! Woot woot! We've completed some online training. Yeahhh! And we're doing more paperwork! Hooray!

We're also trying to learn a little bit of Russian. This week we are working on 3 basic phrases:

Yes - sounds like "dah"
No - sounds like "nyit"

Hi - sounds like "priviet"
Bye - sounds like "paka" or "paka paka" (my favorite)

Please/You're Welcome - sounds like "pah-zhal-sta"
Thank You - sounds like "spa-see-bah"

Then I found this Youtube video of the Russian (cryllic) alphabet song and about laughed until I cried.

Sing along, everyone! Does that make anyone else's head want to explode?

The Mysterouis Egg

2011-09-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

I love my job. Like "have to drag myself out of bed every morning still because I hate waking up... but once I'm there can't wipe the smile off my face" - love my job. Kids are so much more creative than adults, and I love that I get to see into their worlds every day. Sounds hokey, but they inspire me. Okay, that sounded just as hokey on computer screen as it did in my head.

Here is a piece of writing by one of my third graders. He approached me today with this piece of paper cut in an oval shape and said,
"Hey Mrs. S. I just cut this out, now what should I do with it?"

Seeing as he was supposed to be writing, not cutting his writer's notebook into random shapes I said,
"How about you write about a mysterious egg found by scientists, and that's the egg they found." How's that for a consequence? Way to go, teach. : )

Well, this is the product. I think it speaks for itself. I present to you....The Mysterouis Egg. (Oh come on, he had the right letters just in the wrong odre. You know what he means!) (Did you catch my joke?) (Is a joke really good if you have to point it out?) (Do I overuse parenthesis?)

Nobody knows. : )

Progress, Progress, Progress!

2011-09-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

It seems like we've been checking a lot of things off our to-do list lately and it.feels.great. I know I'm not the only one who is feeling this way when Jay sends me emails with exclamation marks in them! Gosh it feels good to be making progress!

So what's new? Here's a quick photo-phone-dump to give you an idea.

These two mugs have had to go get our fingerprints done, send in some immigration forms, and get our background checks started. All things to get the ball rolling, rolling, rolling.

Our kitchen table has officially turned into paper-chase central. It looks like this at all times, and we just eat in the opposite corner of the paperwork. See the salt and pepper, they prove my point. If our dinner has any spilling potential, Jay makes us eat at the table in the basement. We spent a lot of time on these documents, and would hate to mess one up with a pizza sauce splatter!

This week marked the start of Cyclone football! We get really geeked out to be back in the town of our alma mater, and although the Clones aren't the best team ever, it's a nice excuse to tailgate and get that "college" feeling again!

We took a detour on our way to Ames and bought a crib. Yikes! Our homestudy has started and we were told we need to begin getting our house "kid ready". Well, kids need a place to sleep, and I had a coupon. So...check! Another thing off the list.

I couldn't resist having a crib in a box in my house. That is too much for this girl to handle! So we spent all day Sunday taking EVERYTHING out of the two upstairs bedrooms we currently use as a guest room and as an office and repurposing the spaces. We now have a kids room (Holy cow I have a kids room at my house!!!) and a guest room that also works as an office space.

Here is the kid's room with the crib up and the day bed in it. It is not decorated and you can bet big money the wall color will change - but it makes me feel like we've made a lot more room for the little ones in our life. The closet is empty and ready to be kidafied. My newest itch I need to scratch is decorating. Ohhhh how I love decorating! I know these things are not important, but they are fun, and I'm enjoying it right now!

I realize this room could sit kidless for over a year easy, and I'm okay with that, this is part of the process for me. It helps me to slowly picture these little people that are going to enter our lives.

This week felt like bigtime progress and left a big ole smile on my face. This is the first week we've really felt like we made substantial movement, as most weeks are full of waiting on something or another. In the meantime, Jay and I are enjoying every moment of being DINKS (double income no kids), but also excitedly preparing for our kids. Next week: home visit!

Big News наша семья растет!

2011-08-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

We've been noticeably absent from the blogosphere lately, but that doesn't mean that nothing noteworthy has been happening. We visited a zoo, we bought a chair, oh yeah, and...

WE'RE ADOPTING!!! (and we couldn't be more excited)

Yep, we're adopting. Not one, but two babies. Read that sentence again. The number two is not a typo.

Yep, we're adopting two babies.

From Russia.

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

P.S. Lots more details to come! We know this adoption stuff is new for most of you, too. : )

NUH-BRASS-KUH is so very long and boring.

2011-07-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Cleaning out the CRV

2011-07-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

The hubbins and I are hitting the road tomorrow for some quality time and a little vay-cay-shun. Oh, how I love vacations!

I've heard you're not supposed to tell people on the interweb when you'll be leaving your house, you know, for fear of robbers. But our neighbor and his dog will be watching over the abode while we're gone, so I'm not too concerned.

That's a real dog, I'm not kidding.

As I was cleaning out Zippy the CRV today in preparation for our journey, I came across a bag in the trunk I had taken with me to a meeting towards the end of the school year. And lo and behold, what did I spy with my little eye? My breakfast! That I never ate.

That's a real banana, I'm not kidding.

Turns out, bananas don't make much of a smell when they rot. Sidenote, good thing I redid my nails today. They looked atrocious.

Well, I think that's about enough food deliciousness that one person can take in a day. But seriously, someone is watching our house while we're gone, and they are a bada**, and they own a gun, so watch yo'self.

Rocky Mountains, here we come!!

Summer Projects

2011-07-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Author's Note:
I know we've been absent from the blogosphere for a while now, and I don't really apologize for that. When we aren't blogging for extended periods of time, it usually means 1 of 3 things:

1) We're busy. Something time consuming is going on or our days are filled with nothing blogworthy.
2) We're sick of writing blogs.
3) A combination of the two.

This absence has been brought to you by door #3!

I (Kelsey) just finished a class where I was required to write for 3 hours every other day. Sure, I could have filled those hours writing blog upon blog, but I decided to push myself in another direction. I didn't really feel like blogging once my "sacred writing time" was up.

Now that class is over, and I've had a week of watching nothing but Bravo!, I'm getting the itch to take on some summer projects.

I got this cute print at Sturgis Falls a few weeks ago, and it needed a place in my kitchen. Really the only place it could go is above our table where I already had this served-its-purpose-but-doesn't-do-a-whole-lot-for-me piece of art that I snagged at TJ Max.


It's the picture in the background - it's the only one I had of it. I forgot the "before" shot to this project.

So in true Kelsey thinking, I thought to myself, "I can totally reuse that frame, and mat my new print myself. Can't be that hard."

Good thinking, genius. After a quick trip to Hobby Lobby to discover my piece of matting board would only be $4 due to a half price sale, I had to give it a go. I started with these tools.

And I flipped over the existing frame to see what I had to work with.

I used my scissors and the screwdriver to pop out the cardboard backing, and I used that to trace a stencil of the size I'd need to cut my matting.

Then I cut, very accurately as you can see, my matting with a razor blade. I had to do this in the basement because of the ungodly heat outside and to not ruin our carpet, and it was really hard to see. There, that's my excuse.

Next, I measured the print to be centered on the board, and attached with scotch tape. (I wonder how long until it falls?) Flipped it over into the frame, and secured.

I pried these little doo-hickeys to hold it all in place. The scissors were very useful for this.

Then I discovered little bits of cardboard and tape inside the frame, tried to take a picture of it, left the flash on, and just got my own reflection. (Ashley Schrage shakes her head) Then my camera died, so you guys still get to see this picture. Hee hee.

After removing the cardboard and the tape, I redid the doo-hickeys and turn it over and -voila! Crooked art work! (Bangs head against ottoman.)

After several attempts of little crummy crap removal, a little to the left and a little to the right, and realizing the mounts for the frame were on the side not on the top, I finally got it right!

You can officially cross off "custom framer" from the list of potential jobs I would take if I was no longer a teacher. I was super crummy at this project, and it was not very enjoyable. I like the end result, it's a little more personal than the other print, and the total cost of the project was 14 smackers.

$10 print + $4 matting board + $0 for framed art we already had = new art on a budget

You are Beautiful

2011-07-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

Today I'm lovin' things that make me giggle. And this? This makes me giggle. : )

Happy Thursday, ya'll!

Fruitful Friday?

2011-06-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Does a strawberry smoothie at Sturgis Falls count as a "Fruitful Friday?" Because Jay and I had 3 of them today. Just sayin'.... We're out and about enjoying the most beautiful summer day we've had this year. But I'm trying hard after several scoldings to get back on this bloggin' train - so see you Monday?

Things I Love: My Dad

2011-06-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

I realized today that I didn’t get my dad a Father’s Day gift. It’s 3 days past Father’s Day, and it just now hit me. I didn’t even remember a card – that’s really unlike me. I’m usually the one on the ball with gift-giving for holidays and special occasions. My brother’s the one who shows up with a gift wrapped in the Walmart sack he just purchased it from. Not me.

I spent Father’s Day with my dad at the site of my parent’s weekend cabin being built. Although it’s only currently a big hole in the ground, it’s a place I see spending many future days. I can’t wait for weekends watching my dad be a Grandpa and teach my kids to fish, swim, and hike through the woods. The cabin can’t help but become a place full of memories.

Of all the dads out there, I think mine’s pretty great (I think my mom is too, for the record, but it’s not Mother’s Day, now…is it?). My dad is the kind of guy most people meet and instantly admire. He’s genuine, hardworking, and has a heart for helping people.

- - -

Every year on my birthday, my Grandma likes to call me early in the morning and tell me about the day I was born. Her favorite part of the story makes her cry, but the story’s not complete without telling it.

“And then your dad brought you out, all bundled up, and he leaned over and kissed your forehead and said ‘I’m always going to take care of you little girl, I’ll always love and protect you’ And he sure has, Kelsey, he sure has.”

It’s true, he has.

Dad, you are a great many things to me.

(In no particular order)

Coach.

Although stomping inside and pouting after you made me run after each ball I flung over your head might not seem like the best way to show my appreciation. I did. I appreciated every game of catch, every softball practice, and every event you were present for on the sidelines.

Financial Guru

You taught me from a young age that debt is a four-letter word in our household. You stressed the importance of saving and opportunity cost (though you didn’t call it that at the time). But when it came time to enter the “real world” you gradually released my training wheels and let me ride – I’m not sure if I’d have stayed on two wheels if you’d had flung me out on my own without guidance.

The Voice of Reason

You’ve seen me run the gamut of emotions when it comes to making a decision or handling a situation. In my most distressed and confused moments, I can call you and you know just the right thing to say. You have a gentle way of presenting all sides of the story, and I always feel better after talking to you.

A Handy Man

I hope by the time I’m old like you, (ha!) I know how to do a fraction of what you can. You’ve shown me that a little elbow grease goes a long way, and that I’m smart enough to figure out just about anything myself. From our first project of transforming an old kitchen table to my little cottage that was a diamond in the rough – I learn so much working by your side.

Mr. Right-About-Everything

You are obnoxiously right about any topic we debate. Do deer shed their antlers once a year? That’s ridiculous. But apparently true. From trivial topics to serious stuff – your answer is always right. And it annoys me!

A Giver

Although you’ve never gone right out and said it, you’ve made me believe my talents are a gift from God. Your example has taught me to use my gifts to help others – in big ways and small.

A Protector

Since I was a little girl, you’ve let me know I’m loved and watched over. I’ve always known I have two special angels in heaven taking extra care in what I do. I know from time to time, you’ve called on them for reinforcements, and those beautiful angels have wrapped their wings around me.

A Father

As I’ve grown up, I can’t remember an important moment that you haven’t been a part of. You’ll always be the reader of bedtime stories, and the one who taught me to ride a bike. You’ll always be the one who had confidence in me, even when I couldn’t find it in myself. And you’ll always be the dad who calmed my nerves with a game of catch and father-daughter dance practice the night before my wedding day.

Thank you Dad, for keeping your promise to your little girl.

Good Dancing or the Best Dancing?

2011-06-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

I Like to Read

2011-05-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading two books on my Kindle. One of them is by acclaimed author Cormac McCarthy callled Blood Meridian. The other is by Lemony Snicket and is part of the fictional author's A Series of Unfortunate Events series. Blood Meridian is considered by some to be one of the best American novels ever written. Lemony Snicket is technically a series written for children and young teenagers. Blood Meridian is, thus far (like all of the Cormac McCarthy books I've read) AWFUL. Lemony Snicket's books are AWESOME (I've read them once before).

Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" in all its glory.

So what makes a good book? Some people will tell you it's the writing. Yeah, I suppose writing matters. If I spent my entire walk through your book tripping over commas and bumping my head on typos, it will distract from my enjoyment. I get that. That said, I just finished a great book called One Day by David Nicholls. There were an alarming amount of typos, but I cared so much about the two central characters of the book, I couldn't leave their world even when the book wasn't in my hands.

"If you're going to read only one book about grocery carts, make sure it's The Road." --Oprah

Other people will tell you it's the idea. Another one of Cormac McCarthy's overrated books is called The Road. It won a lot of awards. Oprah liked it. It's about the end of the world. It also sucks. I love post-apocalyptic stories as much as anyone, but this one is about a man and his boy walking through a dead world with a shopping cart. Every now and then they have a tense moment. Yippee. Sometimes when I walk through Hy-Vee with my shopping cart I bump into someone I don't know but who knows me, and it's tense for a bit until I remember who they are. That doesn't mean that I should spread that story out over 250 pages.

The situational plot doesn't really matter. Whatever neat concept the book is going for doesn't matter. A plot can involve dinosaurs, furniture, or British people, but the only way a book will be good is if it features characters I like. That's the problem with Cormac's books. No one is likable. They all kill each other. Also, he doesn't use quotation marks. I don't know why he doesn't do that. Being a literary author, I'm sure he has an overly pretentious reason. I probably wouldn't understand his overly pretentious reason because he probably stated said reason with too many big words.

This book is violent, sexist, racist, and filled with a bunch of drunks, but somehow it still manages to be boring.

On a happier note, do you know what has a compelling story? Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. If you would have told me a rather dark story about an evil Count Olaf making the lives of three orphans miserable could be funny, sweet, and meaningful, I would have said, "Olaf is a good name for a Count." Then I would have taken your suggestion and read the first book. Then I would have enjoyed the first book and read the next twelve of them. The three orphans laugh together and support each other at every turn. The books make me literally angry at the naive, stupid adult characters in the book not named Olaf. The author also has some of the best random asides of any author ever. For instance, he started chapter three in the fifth book of the series "The Austere Academy" with the following:

"The expression “Making a mountain out of a molehill” simply means making a big deal out of something that is actually a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came about. Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they have never caused anyone any harm except for maybe a stubbed toe if you were walking through the wilderness without any shoes on. Mountains, however, are very large mounds of earth and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes two countries fight over who really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy or wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a war or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe."

Source: Snicket, Lemony (2009). A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy (pp. 31-32). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition.

Compare that to Cormac McCarthy, who would write something like this:

I am a character. I don't have a name. The book will keep calling me the Kid or the Man or something. I'm talking right now but you don't know I'm talking because there are no quotation marks. This will get very annoying as time goes on because I'm not doing this for any reason. I'm so sad.

Source: McCarthy, Cormac (2013). Cormac's Next Crappy Book (pp. all of them). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition.

A good book for you to read this summer.

I will leave you all with this: summer is coming. You need to find something to read. Cougar Town won't be on TV until the fall, so you need to keep your brain occupied. You can only handle so much exercise before your heart explodes so start reading. I'd suggest you read Lemony Snicket because it's great. I'd also suggest Harry Potter. Or, if you're an adult that refuses to acknowledge most of the best stories are kids stories, read The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon or Catch 22 by Joseph Heller or, better yet, anything the great Kurt Vonnegut ever produced. You can even read Cormac McCarthy. I know a lot of people like him. Either way, just read. It's good for you.

The master: Read Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse-Five.

This is just a great picture of Ian and me...

2011-05-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Iowa Girl Eats

2011-05-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hey all you blog lovin' peeps! I found a new foodie blog that I'm enjoying these days. We tried two recipes off the blog this week, and both were delish.

The blog is called Iowa Girl Eats and you should definitely check it out. What I especially like about the site is that each step of the recipe includes a picture, which helps us recipe reading impaired cooks.

Recipe #1 was Mozarella Stuffed Bruschetta Turkey Burgers.

Speaking of recipe reading impaired, I totally botched these the first attempt when I didn't quite read the recipe fully, but after a quick trip to Fareway, round 2 was a success. The burgers turned out great and it was a nice escape from the traditional tasting burger.

An image from Iowa Girl's site, but ours turned out looking this good. Hard to believe.

Our only modifications were that we skipped the balsamic vinegar glaze, the bruschetta was plenty flavorful on our own. We also learned that these burgers are not such great 'leftover' food, so next time we'll make only enough for that night.

Recipe #2 Cheesy Chicken and Brocoli Casserole

Ever since we've got gluten free (yes, we're still at it) casserole dishes have been sort of non-existent. Most casseroles call for "cream of ___" soup, and most of those soups contain gluten. Darn. There ARE some gf "cream of" soups, but my experience with them and baking is that they are, for lack of a better term, nasty. So needless to say I was pumped to find Iowa Girl's casserole didn't need any of those things.

Okay, that's not the finished product, that's just the chicken. But Jay and I agreed that this seasoned chicken would make a yummy main dish for a meal on it's own. Breadless nuggets? Barbeque sauce? Skewers?

Our meal was major yummo. We substituted the flour with cornstarch and used a gf chicken broth from Trader Joes. Jay especially loved this recipe, and I think it will be on the "you should make that again, Kels" list.

Thanks again to Iowa Girl Eats for all of your delicious recipes, we'll definitely be trying some more!

Journey

2011-05-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

I love quotes! :)

Basic Food Groups

2011-05-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

The Things I Learn About Grilling

2011-05-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, Kelsey blogged about how every spring we have the same "initial" grilling experience. We always get ourselves amped up for some freshly grilled burgers only to learn the gas seeped out of the propane tank (SAFETY!) over the ridiculous winter we choose to live through in Iowa.

Usually the new tank of propane solves the problem. It sort of did this year, at least at first. We grilled the first burgers without a problem. The second burgers worked all right too, though they grilled a whole lot slower. We tried brats next and...nothing. The grill seemed sort of hot, but it wouldn't light. This got me worried. But to understand my worry, we must cue some mystical flashback music and journey back in time.

BACK IN TIME: Last fall, when the winds started to pick up (just kidding the winds in Cedar Falls are always picked up, always), my grill made the executive decision to move away from my half-deck and position itself on the edge of the patio. This always happened while I was at work, but here's how I think the scene played out:

The Grill: "Life is so hard. I just...I just...I just want to jump off this stupid patio and end it all."

The Drain Spout: "Um. Please don't. You'll land on me. You'll crush me real good. Also, I don't think you tipping over will do anything but get you dirty and annoy Jay."

The Grill: "Jay? You think I care about what Jay thinks?"

The Drain Spout: "I don't think you think anything. You're a grill. I just don't want to be crushed. For if I am crushed, I may never spout rain again."

The Grill, ignoring the Drain Spout, tips over, off of the patio, and crushes the Drain Spout forever (for I refuse to replace it).

This scene (or something similar) happened three times last fall. I'd arrive home from work, expecting to find my belongings in perfect working order, only to find the grill tipped over in the backyard on top of the drain sprout. I'll spare you the gory details, but in case you've never had a grill tip over, the insides of the grill: the grates, the grease deflectors, the old, crusty pieces of cheese that never seem to melt away, go everywhere. Also, grills are heavy, and they really aren't very fun to pick up and put back into position.

How did I fix this problem? I tried various bungee ropes. Those didn't work because I don't know how to use bungee ropes. Then it occurred to me: the grill has wheels. Wheels that lock! If I locked the wheels the wind would stop coercing my grill into suicide. Problem solved!

BACK TO THE ALMOST PRESENT: It nagged at me all winter, but I thought for sure the grill would be broken. I've seen better items break after three hard falls (RIP N64 Controller... I really hate the Rainbow Course in Mario Kart 64). I wasn't surprised when the brats would not cook. Being the technical wizard I am, I started to investigate.

It appeared that the spark that is supposed to ignite the gas wasn't sparking, so I bought a new igniter at the hardware store. When I opened the igniter (which I wasn't at all excited about paying for or replacing), I noticed it came with a battery. Interesting. I didn't recall my igniter having a battery when I initially assembled the grill. Of course the day I initially assembled the grill has many dark spots in my memory because of how the engineers thought everyone who would assemble this grill had eighteen joints in their arms, no bones, and x-ray vision.

So this past Saturday, I thought to myself, "Before swapping out this here part, I should just check to see if this Double A battery just needs replaced." Problem solved!

Here are three valuable lessons you should learn about propane grills:

1) They need propane in the propane tank in order to light.

2) The wheels lock. If the wheels are locked the wind won't continue to blow the grill onto the ground, and you will have fully functional drain spouts in your backyard.

3) Electric igniters have batteries. I don't know how often you need to change the battery, but I'd recommend whenever your igniter appears to not be igniting.

The Secret Shame

2011-05-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Spring cleaning fever has hit our house, and we had to come face to face with a big project that has been looming on our horizon for quite some time now. We've tried to avoid it, but it was sort of a circus full of elephants in the room and it had gotten way beyond awkward. Guests would come to our house and ask,

"What's behind that door?" Nervous glances exchanged.

"Door? What door? Oh, there's nothing back there."

Nothing but the secret shame. Here she is in all her glory.

Not much exercise happening on that treadmill.

See that freezer in the background? With a tv in front of it? And a rug on top of it? We used that a lot, too.

Shoes were stored on that shelf, and then it broke. And then it stayed that way.

At this point, you get the idea. We kept it secret for a reason. After 9 hours of a tag-team, kick-ass pattern of sort, purge, organize, restock....we ended with this. Sanity restored. Hallelujah.


That's right, the shoes are not only organized, they're categorized.

All of my bins still awaits labeling (I'm trying to convince my man friend that I've earned a labelmaker), but I now have a bin for each and every thing possible. There is one for each season/holiday, one with purses, one with bags, one with hats/mittens/scarves, nostalgia bins, camping bins, etc. We cleared out plenty of room to exercise, and a special stool to watch someone workout. Haha, just kidding.

Wait, there's a FLOOR in this room?

We can now use the freezer without a scarecrow, a boob tube, and a down comforter getting in the way. What a weird sentence that was.

That's my small pile to go to school.

Shockingly enough, the find of the day was NOT the floor. See those big gray tubs in the background of the picture above? We found a Christmas tree in one of them. A Christmas tree. A full-sized put-it- together-piece-by-piece Christmas tree. Umm, it doesn't belong to us. And we don't know where it came from. And we don't know what to do with it.

On that note, if you are missing your tree, or you'd like to take a seemingly nice one off of our hands next winter, please let us know. We'd be happy to oblige.

Happy spring cleaning!

Cousins: We'll let Ashley's blog do the talking : )

2011-05-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Click Here!

Ashley's Blog

Grocery Getter

2011-05-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Jay has been elected the Official Temporary Team Schmeebs Grocery Getter. Hoooray!! He was knighted into his position this afternoon.

I hate going to the grocery store, he doesn't mind it, so the chore defaults to him. Even though this is a temporary position, because I'll take back over the duty when summer begins, it seems to be a good solution for now. Grocery shopping is not so bad when you can go during the day, but there is nothing worse than going to the grocery store after a day of work. Okay, so there is plenty worse, but I just don't like it. Geesh.

I am Jay. King of Groceries.

He was pumped that the 90 degree weather allowed him to ride his bike instead of taking the car. Gas is just too darn expensive these days. The Fareway employees were less than thrilled, however, when he showed up and was drenched in sweat.

Jealous much?

The added bonus of this incredibly green (yet shockingly red) bike is that transforms into the cart once you get to the store. Who doesn't love transformers? And, no bags necessary folks. The clerk just scanned the items and placed them back into the tub when he was finished checking out. Cha-ching!

Say "cheese!"

Sadly, Jay's bike of awesomeness is not our first attempt at being a little greener and having some fun with getting groceries.

Okay guys, that was just a joke. You obviously know that's not us, because we'd be driving a John Deere tractor!

A Tribute to Mom

2011-05-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be Part 3 of my very epic tale on budgeting. That said, because I left you all hanging right as I was getting to the good stuff last week, I'd intended to actually write Part 3 of the blog yesterday. That way I wouldn't run out of steam prior to my deadline. That did not happen. Instead, after returning from a brief trip to the Quad Cities, I decided to mow my yard. As you all know, one can't mow the lawn and write a blog in the same night. That's impossible. So rather than rush through Mundane Monday, I'll write it later this week.

Instead, I thought in honor of Mother's Day, I'd write a Top Ten List dedicated to Vick Schmitz, a rather cool mom. Without further adieu, here are ten of my favorite things about my mom:

10) Irrational fear of the police: If you looked back on our childhood, you'd think my mother was a wanted felon. Every time we drove by a cop, she'd suspiciously look in the rear-view. One Christmas there was a story about a mother of three kidnapping her children and driving them across the country in a mini-van. That same Christmas, my mother of three happened to be driving a mini-van. She spent the entire drive to Grandma's convincing us that each cop was staring at us. I think this fear of hers might be why I have never trusted authority.

9) She makes a snack bar that consists of pretzels, peanut butter, butter, M+Ms, and peanuts (or something similar). They are so good, but they are terrible for you. When anyone would want to stop eating them, she would tell them, "Keep eating them. They're good for you. They have pretzels in them." That's a solid argument if I ever heard one. To this day, she refuses to acknowledge these bars are probably 400 calories each. Instead, she's named them, "Health Bars."

8) This is her favorite joke: If Jose had a brother, what would his name be? Answer: Hose B. Once, when she'd had too much wine, Mom and I had the following exchange:

Mom: Tell that joke.
Me: What joke?
Mom: The funny Jose joke.
Me: If Jose had a brother, what would his name be?
Mom: Hose B! (laughs hysterically)
Me: But Mom, what would the name of their triplet brother be?
Mom: (confused) I don't know?
Me: Hose C.
Mom: (cries from laughing)

It might literally be the worst joke of all time, but she loves it.

7) She lives Hakuna Matata: Shortly after the Lion King came out in theaters, our family bought the soundtrack. Once, while driving down University Avenue blaring Hakuna Matata as loud as possible, Mom ran two red lights and went about twenty miles over the speed limit (note: my memory might be exaggerating this). Either way, the song Hakuna Matata means a problem free philosophy to most, but it means near death to my siblings and me.

6) She does not like Matthew McConaughey: We don't know why. She just doesn't. She claims to have a reason, but really, who can passionately dislike Matthew McConaughey? I can see not really caring about him, but adamant hatred?

5) I'm pretty sure she has secret magic powers: As a child, back in the days before DVRs and fancy digital recording devices, we had one VCR. On that one VCR, we needed to tape two shows that were on at the same time. One of them was a very special episode of Saved by the Bell (the last episode where the gang worked at the summer resort) and one of them was something else (my memory is good but not perfect). I to this day have no idea how she pulled this off, but she managed to tape both shows on the same tape. It was amazing. So was Saved by the Bell.

4) The most loyal person in the world: Seriously, don't do anything to any of her children. She won't like you ever again. Even after the children have forgiven you, she will remember. She even has our back when we screw up. Good Mom, that one.

This picture was taken the same day as the one at the end of this blog. It's impossible to find pictures of mom though because of her insistence on photographing every detail of every event. Due to that, she's hardly in any pictures. You'll notice, if you read the top ten list carefully, her penchant for taking photos is not one of my favorite things about her.

3) She's convinced Justin, my friend from high school, stole spoons from our house. How? Quote: "He always left with our spoons as he ate our ice cream." There are a couple things wrong here: Justin never, ever to my knowledge ate ice cream at our house. If he did, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't steal a spoon. Second, I don't think he took one spoon let alone enough spoons to necessitate Mom formulating the thought Justin stole all of our spoons. I'll admit, the spoon shortage at Casa de Schmitz was a little troubling, but I'll do what I'll always do, blame Anne and Dallas.

2) Creative and talented: The woman is a master with fabric. She makes the best greeting cards of any human I know. In fact, I can't shop for a Hallmark card because 1) none of them are at all funny and 2) I think Mom's cards are so much cooler. She also cuts various pieces of fabric and makes large prints. In eighth grade, when her very fat eighth grade son lamented over the fact he had to retire his favorite YAGA shirt, Mom recreated the image with pieces of fabric and framed it for him. It was so cool. Mom is so cool.

Mom recreated this shirt for this idiot. Such a cool shirt.

1) She's just awesome: I know I've joked around throughout most of this list, but the fact is we Schmitz children have a really cool mom. She'll listen if you need to vent. She'll joke around with you if you feel like it. She has ample amounts of beer and candy at her house. But most of all, she's made it abundantly clear she will do anything for any of us. All of us Schmitz kids grew up with a mom we considered a friend, and I think that's a big reason all of us kids have become such good friends with each other. While obviously I was very easy to raise and caused hardly any problems at all, it couldn't have been easy raising me alongside Dallas (ugh) and Anne (yuck). But somehow she did it, and for that, I wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

Two of the best Moms ever, the future best Mom ever, and one lucky guy.

Let's be chickens.

2011-05-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

Seeing as it's Cinco de Mayo, I feel there really would be nothing more appropriate than blogging about my undying love for margaritas. Do you? Well, I thought so too, but there really is not a whole blog post available on that subject at this time. And pish posh, too obvious.

I always do, margarita, I always do.

So instead of talking about the happiest beverage on earth, I'm going to blog about.... the mail! Hold on to your seats, folks. The mail's here. Let's be chickens.

(You'll be thinking about those 15 seconds of footage all day, promise.)

In my opinion, there are 4 types of mail.
Type 1: Junk Mail - Useless to all, looks friendly and promising, yet fulfilling only to our garbage.
Type 2: Bills & Statements - Forwarded on to the billing department.
Type 3: Mail for Jay - Could it be? Something other than a bill or junk? Yes!! Ahhh man... it's for Jaaaay.
Type 4: Mail for Me! A card? An invitation? A magazine??! Yippee!


Got this baby in the mail today from Barb - seriously heel clicked in the driveway as I opened it.

That's how I feel when I get Type 4 mail. Super excited, smile on my face, clucking all around and flappin' my wings. My friend Barb, she's rockin' at sending Type 4 mail. Pretty sure I'd get a card from her on President's Day if they made them. I dunno, maybe card sending is her love language. But getting a random card from my friend makes my week.

Here we are celebrating College Roommate Appreciation Week.
Card received in mail one week prior. Love you!

Many a New Years Resolution have been dedicated to get better at sending Type 4 mail. Because Steve and I can't be the only ones out there who gets ridiculously excited to get something like a card or a magazine - can we?

I wonder what animal Steve pretends to be when he gets a magazine?

And yet every year I fail miserably. Probably because of my irrational fear of the post office and my utter inability to plan ahead, but whatevs. It's the thought that counts right? Okay, not so much on this one, slacker. My "brainwaves happy thoughts invisible card" doesn't quite have the same effect. Darn.

Please help! Is this a plant or a weed? (cast your vote in comments)

2011-05-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

Grilling Season!

2011-05-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Every springtime, a day comes where the first grilled meal of the season is necessary. Since the weather has been unusually cold and rainy, it's amazing that day has just now come. Last night, we finally decided to bust out the grill for the inaugural summer style meal.

'Tis the season for ketchup, mustard, and pickles!

So Jay opened up the grill, and click, click, click....silence. Click, click, click, silence.

Jay: "Dang it. I think the grill's broken."

Kelsey: "I doubt it's broken, hun, it's just probably out of gas."

Jay: "I really think it might be broken. Remember how it fell over 3 times this winter?"

Okay, not our grill, but would only be shocked to find this due to the fact that I can't grow a plant.

We have this conversation every year. It was out of gas. You'd think we'd learn our lesson by now.
We have learned a little, just not when it comes to proper grill care.

Ahh, spring! :) Sidenote: Clean sliding glass door.

Year 1: "Broken" grill. Kelsey pouts, Jay pouts. Groceries go bad at home, and grill doesn't get "fixed" for weeks. We go out to dinner.

Year 2: "Broken" grill. Kelsey accuses Jay of not remembering this from last year, Jay runs to Walgreens to exchange gas tank, they eat grilled food at 9PM pouty moods.

Year 3: "Broken" grill. Kelsey and Jay take mutual stupidity points for doing this 3 years in a row, and laugh hysterically while shaking heads at each other. Jay runs to Walgreens, Kelsey whips up potatoes on stove, and mushrooms in oven.

We're still stupid, but eventually, we got 'er done!

Maybe next year we'll learn our lesson! Thank you, oh spring, for finally arriving. You make grocery shopping and meal prep so much easier!

A Budgeting Tale (Part Two)

2011-05-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

This will be a text heavy blog. Unfortunately there just aren't that many pictures that symbolize, "a couple coming to their senses and making a sound financial plan that works for them." Unless you want me to post a bunch of emoticons of various smiley faces, which I don't want to do.

Last week I talked about a scare I had with an alternator and an empty bank account. I mentioned putting myself on a strict budget up through Kelsey's and my wedding...

Sidenote: In case you were wondering, which you probably weren't, I did chip in for my portion of the bills at Kelsey's house...since it wouldn't have been fair to not pay for cable at my apartment and just mooch off of her cable. I just wanted to be clear.

...Then Kelsey and I got married. I assumed she'd just naturally want to follow my great budget. After all, who wouldn't want to live in squalor whilst watching an arbitrary number on an online banking website grow? Evidently the answer to that question is Kelsey.

We started to argue about finances. We'd immediately combined incomes upon getting married, but we didn't talk about how we were going to approach shared finances. I tried to stick to my $100 allowance every fifteen days while trying to get Kelsey on board with the idea. Here's some bullet points as to what we disagreed about:

Kelsey and I overly critiqued how the other spent our "allowances." I saved it and spent it all at once. Kelsey would spend $10 here and $10 there. We didn't understand why the other spent their money the way they did. We questioned everything. Bottom line: I'd put us in a situation where we had to constantly worry about any dime the other spent.

The allowance system didn't account for evenings out on the town together. For the first time in our eight years together, picking up the tab actually became kind of awkward. If it was Kelsey's idea to go out, why should I pay (and vice versa)? Bottom line: We were a married couple now. We should probably spend some time together outside of the house every now and then. We should be able to enjoy those times together without worrying who is picking up the check.

Clothes. Car troubles. Stuff for the house. Who covered these expenses? At the time, I didn't think we needed to decorate the house much. At the time, I thought those should be Kelsey's expenses. To Kelsey, those should be shared...or they should come from a different account. Bottom line: Stuff started to come up. We needed to know how to pay for stuff. We didn't know how to pay for stuff.

Life had changed. We now had double incomes and half the bills. Yet I created an environment where we'd feel bad spending money on something we actually needed--like gas or bread. Bottom line: Saving money is good. It helps alleviate stress. Creating an unrealistic budget for no reason other than to try and prove something isn't good. It helps build stress. We needed to find a way to save responsibly without feeling guilty for every dime we spent.

I should mention throughout all the arguing, we never considered separate bank accounts. Instead we created fourteen different accounts within our shared bank account. We created four checking accounts and ten saving accounts. I'll go into the saving accounts next week, but here is a quick rundown of the checking accounts:

Deposits and Bills: This is our "primary" checking account. Every paycheck either one of us receives deposits into this account. In addition, our bills are paid from this account. On the first of every month, I transfer money from this account to the as-of-right-now-mysterious savings account. The excess amount each month (which was an amount agreed upon by Kelsey and me) goes towards "Mutual" expenses...date nights, gas, etc.

Grocery: To help us budget our food purchases, we created a separate account to buy food with.

Jay's Fun Money and Kelsey's Fun Money: These accounts were what alleviated a lot of the financial tension we faced. Each month we would each receive the same amount of "Fun Money." The "Fun Money" came with an agreement: Neither one of us could ever, under any circumstance, question how the other person spent his/her fun money. If I wanted to save mine for two years and buy a pony, so be it. If Kelsey wanted to plant hers in the backyard to see if a money tree will grow, good for her.

(It wouldn't grow. I would dig up the money and take it. Do you honestly think I'd let my wife just bury money in the backyard? Besides, I'd probably need the money to buy food and shelter for my pony. Salt licks and stables aren't cheap. What a horrible idea fictional Kelsey!)

Truthfully, I'd love to list all ten of the savings accounts right now, but I'm tired. Also, the TV show Castle is really good and keeps distracting me. For now I'll leave you with the brief descriptions of the checking accounts listed above. I'll go into a bit more detail about them next week, alongside the saving accounts.

There Was Baseball

2011-04-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

My friend Kameron is in a band called Minus Six. My favorite song of theirs is called, "Good Days" because of the following verse:

I sure hope sometime we'll reminisce
And we'll laugh and we'll talk
And remember way back when
When we would sit back and never worry bout a thing
We just prayed that that grass came up thick and green
So we could lay down at night and wish on the stars up above us
That's what we liked to do when we were young
And now all we want to do is you-know-what
I guess that's part; I guess that's part of growing up

I couldn't find the song on Youtube, but I recommend you spend the $.99 on i-Tunes and check it out. What I like about that lyric is the playful "all we want to do is you-know-what." It's not often people lament the fact they are now you-know-whating. The song also talks about baseball and the Fourth of July and all those memories from childhood we like so much.

Cover Art to Minus Six's "Hidden Deep in the Green." Buy this album. Kameron's wife is pregnant. He needs money.

The song reminds me of part of my recent adventure to sunny Los Angeles. To me, the highlight of our trip was a Dodgers game. I know a lot of people think they hate baseball, but I think there is something ingrained in our Americana that appreciates live baseball. There is really nothing like it. There's just something about sitting outside on a warm afternoon or night and watching a game unravel. The hot dogs, the diet soda beverages, and, in my case, the excessive spending on t-shirts.

After the game, there were to be fireworks. We knew the fireworks were coming, and we spent most of the game pretending to be excited for them. When the game ended and people were leaving, we'd ask people with faux enthusiasm, "Why aren't you staring for fireworks?" We were jaded, but really, they're just fireworks...

Yippee...woo hoo!

....or so we thought. Prior to them turning off the lights, they opened up the gates and let people walk out onto the field. The field! A real baseball field! Where real baseball players play real baseball!

Dan: Sorry ladies, he's married. He's just teasing you with his "I'm sexy" look.

Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the unexpected surprise of being on the field, but the six of us started to act like giddy, carefree children.

Jeff: Giving one last tip of the cap to the fans after a stellar performance.

We kicked off our flip-flops and squished the grass between our toes. We jumped up and down. If memory serves, we even put our arms around each other and swayed back and forth for a bit.

Steve: I don't know what he's going for here. Seduction? Indifference? Foolish?

For that moment, we weren't jaded adults. Our jobs didn't matter. It was just fireworks, loud music, and friends.

Jesus, I mean Jon: The most jaded guy I know...just as giddy as the rest of us.

That something about baseball I alluded to...I think it's because the simplicity of the game brings us back to our childhood. Like the Minus Six song, baseball helps us remember way back when we would sit back and never worry about a thing.

Joe: Stand up Joe. That's bad posture. You'll hurt your neck.

Before responsibilities, before pressure, before fertility struggles and mortgage payments, there was baseball. And there still is.

TOMS

2011-04-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

They arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, and I've been smitten ever since. Yes, they're my TOMS.

If you haven't heard of TOMS, they're a super-fantastic (whoah cheerleader!) company that matches shoe purchases with shoe donations, one-for-one. Pretty rockin', right? I think so.

In Covey language, we call that a win-win. I win because I get these cute, lightweight, super comfortable shoes. And some child in the country of Argentina, Armenia, Burundi, Cambodia, China, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Hondorus, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Niger, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, or Zambia wins because they get a pair as well.

(Worldliness test: Did you recognize all of those as countries? I will admit, there were a couple I hadn't heard of before. Dang you, Iowa naivety.)

I love mine so much and I don't even need a pair of shoes. I can't imagine how excited a child receiving their first-ever pair of kicks would be to get some TOMS. I mean, I hope the kid who got my donation got a pair made with really cute funky fabric. Can I request that?

Dear TOMS,

Please give my donation of 1 pair of shoes to a child in need. Also, can you make sure her shoes are made with extra cuteness and the fun fabric? I'd appreciate that.

Sincerely, Kelsey

Okay, maybe not so much. Also, I think I would about die of heart-spilleth-over if I was ever involved in a shoe drop. You know, go to the country with the company and drop off some shoes to some kids. My eyes would probably be swollen shut from all of the beautiful happy tears I'd shed. Maybe I should get going on my second letter....

Dear TOMS,

I just bought my first pair of TOMS, but I really like what you do. Can I come along to deliver my one pair donation myself? Your job is cool. So is mine, I'm a teacher and I have a summer vacation.What I'm getting at is that perhaps you could schedule one of your shoe drops over the summer and I could go? I'd appreciate that.

Sincerely, Kelsey

Lovin' my TOMS!

los reys impresionantes

2011-04-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

You crack me up.

2011-04-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

Author's Note: I'm sorry about the way this post is written, I couldn't resist. I really couldn't. I tried to write it like a normal human being, but it wasn't possible. Please proceed with heavy eye-rolling.

Maybe it's been the eggs-traordinary suggestive nature of Easter marketing, but we've been eating an egg-ceptional amount of eggs in our house lately. I kind of forgot that I like hard boiled eggs, and I'm not egg-sactly sure Jay had ever eaten one in his life. Either way, they're egg-streamly yummy.

Egg-cellent.

What's handy about eggs is that I can boil them in advance, and I'm egg-static that we can use them in a lunch or a breakfast really easily. Now that's egg-citing. Or, if that's too egg-stravagant for your taste, you can just pop them in your mouth...


Jay was egg-splosively angry this day...

I've been egg-sperimenting with lunches lately and my lunch of choice has become a hard boiled egg, diced cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and some honey mustard in a salad.


Delish. It egg-ceeds my egg-spectations.

Do you have any egg-samples of how you're using eggs in your kitchen? Or how your ridiculous wife can't resist a silly play on words? You are welcome to share either!

As for me, That's all yolks.

And We're Back: A Budgeting Tale (Part One)

2011-04-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

After a brief break from blogging, we're back. We're sorry to leave you hanging like that. Before I get into the meat of my blog, a few schedule updates and housekeeping notes:

1) During the summer I will only be taking one class, and it will be on Wednesday nights. This should help the consistency of the blogs seeing as I'll be able to start sharing in the blogload again.

2) We've decided to change "Thorough Thursdays" to "Things We Love Thursdays." We decided the Monday and Thursday blogs were starting to become the same week after week. And by the same, we mean both days were becoming quite dull. This change allows us to talk about projects and/or distribute business/life advice on Mondays and recommend fun stuff we like on Thursdays.

3) It should be noted: in roughly one hour from this moment in time, I will be completely caught up on laundry...that means every single towel, white, and colored article will be washed...for the first time since the fourth grade!

And now...the blog. What should I write about? What is the most entertaining thing I can discuss? Budgeting. Yep, budgeting. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into detail about how Kelsey and I budget. That will come next week (or maybe the week after depending on how far I get tonight). Tonight I want to tell Part One of when I realized I couldn't buy whatever I wanted, when I wanted. Essentially, I want to tell Part One of when I realized it was time to grow up.

Budgeting is actually fresh on my mind at the moment since I'm reading a book by the very intelligent Dave Ramsey my father-in-law gave to me. For those unfamiliar, Dave Ramsey is a financial guru who has helped countless people get out of debt. While I'm not in debt, I do like to read about how millionaires became millionaires. Click on the picture of the book to go to Amazon and buy a copy. I honestly think if you're struggling with money, Dave Ramsey could change your life:

I don't have a story as engrossing as Dave's. He was a millionaire in his twenties, lost his fortune, went bankrupt, and then worked himself back out of debt into a millionaire again.

What I do have is a simple story that made me realize adulthood arrived. One Saturday in October shortly after my 26th birthday, I went to start my car. It would not start. I swore at it. It still did not start. I got out of the car and kicked the tire. Still, nothing. I'd tried everything. I asked around and someone who knew about such things told me it sounded like I needed a new alternator. I then Googled alternator. I still was not sure what an alternator did, but I knew having one replaced costed around $500.

The problem? I didn't have $500 of disposable income. I'd just purchased an engagement ring the month before. After a year of living at home, I now had bills again (roughly $1100 a month). Two months prior to my car dying, I took a pay cut to start at John Deere. When I read "$500" my stomach dropped. I wanted to cry. I started to think of all the stupid purchases I'd recently made. Two weeks before that I'd ordered $400 worth of DVDs on Amazon to fulfill a collection that mattered to no one but me. I'd bought an Xbox and three games the previous August. I bought a Wii and two games the month before that. These purchases coincided with several wasted dollars on fast food and pizza.

It might be healthy, but damn if it's not expensive.

The bottom line: I wasn't using my savings account to save. I was using my savings account as a checking account. I needed to make a change, and I needed to make it fast. I'd soon be married, and I'd soon have "real" expenses: mortgages, landscaping, furniture, yuck.

I decided to limit what I could spend on "fun" expenses. I gave myself $100 every fifteen days to spend on restaurants, videogames, movies, bars, anything. I took out the cash every paycheck and if it ran out, that was it. I was out. I couldn't get more. Thems the rules.

I also started to seriously evaluate my bills. I had a $90 cell phone bill for a phone I used once or twice a week. I had a Mediacom bill of $80 that covered Internet, cable, and phone for my apartment. I paid $60 for a parking spot each month. My apartment shared a brick wall with the out of doors, so my heating and air conditioning bill was nearly $250 every month. All that combined was $480 for bills on top of my $650 rent.

These women are very concerned about Bills, Bills, Bills. Also, one of them is Beyonce. I bet the other three wish they were Beyonce instead of being whoever they are.

Around this time I was spending pretty much all of my time at Kelsey's house. After work, I'd usually stop by my apartment to change clothes and get my mail. Then I'd spend time with Kelsey and Dottie until they went to bed. Afterwards, I'd drive to my apartment and read until I fell asleep. I rarely turned on the TV. I was never at my apartment during the times I'd need to pay for a parking spot. Basically, I was wasting a lot of money on stuff I thought I needed but never actually used.

I quickly cut all the unnecessary apartment expenses. I stopped air conditioning and heating the place during the day. I'd use blankets in the winter and wear tightie whities in the summer. I'd survive.

By combining the bill cutting and the hard budgeting, I was able to start watching my bank account grow each month instead of break even. Sure, I had to defend my innocence when friends and family started to call me "cheap," but it was worth it. I started to feel more secure in my finances, and I got used to living like a near hobo. I could have lived that way forever, but fate intervened.

Kelsey did not want to a be hobo.

When Kelsey and I got married the following July, she didn't take too kindly to becoming a hobette. She didn't understand why a couple with two incomes couldn't occasionally enjoy a treat here and there. I started to think about it, and I didn't understand it either. But that is a story for another Monday. Next week I'll explain the system Kelsey and I created together after a few months of marriage...it's a system we still use today.

As for my car, I lucked out. The alternator was fine. I simply needed a new car battery (cars have batteries! who knew?) and a new something or other that connects a car battery to a car. But the scare changed me. I can still feel the drop in my stomach and the fear in my chest. I didn't want to feel that way again, and thanks to some planning and some adjusting, I haven't.

Vacation from Blogging

2011-04-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

We'll be back to this blog business soon. Things have been busy, and neither of us has felt totally inspired to write anything in the past week. But we've vowed to be back soon, as we wouldn't want to let all 11 of you down. I can't imagine how your lives are even continuing not knowing every excruciating detail about ours. :)

See you soon, promise.

Kels and Jay

The Junk That is Everywhere

2011-04-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

I don't consider myself a pack-rat or a hoarder, but for some reason stuff just seems to pile up in our house. Our unfinished area of the basement, which was clean just last year, is overflowing with a spare table, a giant "boob tube" HDTV (the first ever made I think--it weights 900 pounds), decorations from every holiday, and various exercise items. How does this happen? If there is an empty drawer in this house, Kelsey and I will fill it. Then we'll forget we filled it. Then we'll assume we had a reason to fill it, so we'll keep it filled.

Next Friday I don't work (what a Good Friday...har dee har har), so I'm hoping to tackle either the garage (because the shelves I installed last summer are now overflowing with unorganized everythings) or the unfinished basement. At some point, I want to go room by room and purge the drawers of things we don't need. For instance, do I need over 100 t-shirts when I'm pretty sure I wear a rotation of six or seven of them? Do I need to keep my old cell phone, of which I don't even have the charger, in my nightstand drawer?

This does lend the question though: What do we do with all our junk? We had a garage sale last year, but we don't really have any big ticket items that would bring in buyers. It's just a lot of stained, faded clothing. Do I dare bring tens of hundreds of bags to Goodwill and risk the forced volunteers working the unload dock glaring at me?

What do you all do when clutter overload is starting to take over the house?

A Tale of Embarrassment

2011-04-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

I had a professor in college who said he had calcium deposits in his brain. About once a year, usually in February, the calcium deposits started to move in such a manner that he would freeze, mid-sentence, for ten to fifteen seconds. Then he'd resume his sentence and have no idea he paused through ten to fifteen seconds of his life.

The opposite of that happened to me tonight. I had reverse calcium deposits I think. It was "final presentation" night in my marketing class. I knew the content of my team's presentation inside and out. I could have told you my material without any slides or notes. I was rehearsed. Everything was going to go just fine thank you very much.

There were six of us in our group. We started to present. Tom started. Good job Tom. Then Bill. Next was Larry. Who of course transitioned to Matt. He handed off to Greg. Next it was my turn! I nailed my slides. I gave a demo of a website we created. I explained in such good detail that even a child born with a Skittle brain (mmm...Skittle brain) would understand why they needed to buy Italian sausage.

Once I finished my last slide, trouble brewed. I'd rehearsed my material, but I never considered what I'd say when I needed to transition back to Tom for our wrap-up. One would think I'd say something like, "And here's Tom, with our wrap-up." But no. Oh no. Sweet Lord do I wish I said that. As the transition approached I got inexplicably nervous. Then a cell phone went off. The ring tone was the Mario song from the underground worlds. As soon as I heard duh duh duh duh duh duh, my brain broke. The reverse calcium deposits shifted around, and I could not shut up.

I finished the material on my slide without a problem, but then I said, "And here's Tom to present our geographic transition plans and our results and our, evidently I can't walk and talk at the same time, and our um, um, um." Only it was one million times worse than that. It's the first time I've ever been in front of group and felt that rattled. Normally my ego carries me through without a problem. I think the fact I started the presentation very tired combined with the distracting Mario theme song that made me think of last week in LA when my friends and I decided we were going to beat Mario 3 whilst drunk in order to save my brother-in-law's life (long story...suffice it to say Joe lived and all is well in Koopa Kingdom), doubly combined with the fact I couldn't think of a relatively easy transition on the fly caused me to look like an idiot.

After the presentation, I immediately made a joke about it. No one in the class seemed to notice my word vomit that much. My group said it was more hilarious than anything. But still, I don't expect that from myself, so I felt like an idiot.

There is probably a metaphor in here somewhere about making sure you are prepared for everything--including life's transitions--but I'm not going to make it. Sometimes a funny story is just a funny story, and it need not be bogged down with subtext.

Inadvertent Banana Humor

2011-04-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Grad School Fuel

2011-04-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

Since I lashed out towards Travelocity last night, I thought I'd focus on a good business tonight. As mentioned countless times on this blog, I'm currently in grad school. This requires that two nights a week I drive an hour out of town for class. Sometimes I have time between work and class to exercise. Other times I have to leave straight from work for class. Either way, I don't have time to come home and cook a prepared, healthy meal for my drive to school.

Enter Wild Basil Foods.

Specific details about the company can be found at their website linked above. The company offers a line of all natural snacks.

I first heard about Wild Basil Foods last year when Kelsey attended one of our neighborhood's "girls' night" events. Laura, the founder of Wild Basil Foods, brought some food samples to the party. Kelsey came home from the party and mentioned the food she'd tried and told me I'd like them. At the time, I was eating the occasional "power bar" for a meal. I didn't like resorting to a power bar because God knows what's in them. They literally tasted like chalk.

Chalk gives you power. That's why teachers are so great.

Truthfully, I meant to check out the website right away but completely forgot. Then I ran into Laura at our neighborhood Christmas party and asked her more questions about the snacks. Transition to a few weeks later when Kelsey and I went gluten-free right as I was about to start grad school, and I needed something fast, with no gluten, I could eat on the way to, from, and during school.

To that end, Wild Basil Foods has been a godsend. They offer several different bars. I've tried the five gluten free bars. All of them were good, but I'm particularly fond of the Lemon and the Super Chocolate.

I know most of Wild Basil's products are technically snacks and not meals, but when accompanied with fruit and/or almonds, they make a satisfying meal. At any rate, I think I'll be happier with myself than all the people who stop and pick up McDonalds on the way to every class!

If you're interested in trying some natural snacks (they'd be great for road trips), try Wild Basil Foods.

How Not to Run a Business

2011-04-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

If you follow me on Twitter, you are well aware that I was in Los Angeles for the last few days babysitting Suri Cruise. While I had no problem getting to LA, I was worried I would never be able to make it back. I'm going to walk you through a time-line of interactions with Travelocity that outlines how you, or anyone, shouldn't run a business. If you want to skip the time-line and scroll to the end, (marked in bold below), here's a quick executive summary: Travelocity dun' almost ruined my trip.

Sometime last fall: Joe (my bro-in-law) and I purchased tickets on Travelocity for a trip to LA. We planned to depart from Des Moines on March 30th and return to Des Moines on April 3rd. On both the departure and arrival flights we'd be making a connection in Denver.

Monday, March 21st: I received an email and a call from Travelocity notifying me that there had been a change to my itinerary. What happened? My departure flight had been moved up a half hour. A fairly minor change. I bring this up only because they called me for this seemingly insignificant detail and nothing else during the next week.

Tuesday, March 22nd: I received an email from Travelocity once again letting me know my flight had changed and to call them with any questions.

Thursday, March 24th: I received another email from Travelocity letting me know I no longer had a return flight scheduled and to please call them right away. I called them on my way home from class. I did not get past the beautiful hold jingle for the entire 60 minute drive home. I hung up and decided to try again the next day.

Friday, March 25th: I called Travelocity and was told that on April 3rd, Joe and I were going to be stranded in Denver because our Denver to Des Moines had been canceled. Here was our exchange:

"Um, no. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to get me from LA to Des Moines on April 3rd."

"Oh but your flight from LA to Denver is still good so there is no reason to change that one."

"Yes. There is plenty of reason to change that one. I don't care if I fly through Denver. I have no affinity for that airport. I'll make five connections if I need to--just get me home."

"But sir, you are still booked for LA to Denver. Are you telling me you don't want this flight?"

"I'm looking on the Internet right now. I'm looking at your website right now. There is an earlier flight out of LA to Denver that allows me to catch a different flight to Des Moines. Can you change the flight?"

"Oh. That's a good idea. Yes."

So Travelocity Agent One changes my ticket. She told me I would receive confirmation in 4 to 6 hours. I was on the phone for 57 minutes and hung up happy, thinking it was resolved.

Sunday, March 27th: I realized I did not have confirmation yet. I checked my information on Travelocity and saw that I was now booked for a departure flight leaving Denver at 11:00am FOR Los Angeles. I would then have a 96 hour lay-over in LA before boarding a fictional plane heading towards Des Moines. Huh? I emailed Travelocity and told them my information was wrong, and that I needed updated ticket information. I received an email that night with the information for my bizarro flight. I emailed them back and said, "Please read what you are sending me." They said, "We can't fix this over email. Please call us!"

Monday, March 28th: I called Travelocity and spoke with Travelocity Agent Two for 63 minutes. They told me what they told me six days prior: everything's okay. You'll get your new information in four to six hours. I didn't have the information after class, so I called them again. Travelocity Agent Three told me I'd have confirmation in four to six hours. I was on hold for forty-five minutes before I heard this.

Tuesday, March 29th: Still no confirmation. I was angry. I was only scheduled to work a half day that day, and I had to spent 82 minutes on the phone with Travelocity. I called them, and Travelocity Agent Four told me that, "Oh. Those flights are full. You won't be able to return until April 4th." I told them that was completely unacceptable. That I'd been on the phone for over four hours with them for the last week and have been given three guarantees my flight was okay. I told the guy I knew he wasn't the one I'd talked to, but I'm not hanging up the phone until I had an updated itinerary in my hand. The guy started to say there was nothing he could do. I made it clear to him there was something he could do. I was on hold forever, but I got my itinerary.

Wednesday, March 30th: Joe and I fly to LA.

Saturday, April 2nd: On the way to an LA Kings hockey game, I tried to check in to our flight by my phone via United's website. The website wouldn't let me check in. It said my ticket wasn't confirmed. I called United and after being on hold for over 20 minutes, I was told I needed to call Travelocity as Travelocity needed to send United updated ticket information. Oh Good!

I called Travelocity and explained the situation. Travelocity Agent Number Five told me that they would send me confirmation in four to six hours. I politely said goodbye to my friends as they went into the hockey game. I then stood outside and talked to the Travelocity guy for over ninety minutes. I missed the first two periods of the hockey game. At one point I was told he'd send me my confirmation in 24 hours for a flight that left LA in 12 hours. He kept telling me he'd call me back. I told him I wasn't going anywhere. I finally got the confirmation and was able to check-in.

Sunday, April 3rd: Joe and I arrive to the airport to find out he doesn't have a seat assigned and might not be able to fly. He was. But still, one more wrinkle.

The End: Look, this was a very long story. I probably didn't need to go into daily detail. I bring it up for the following reason though: Travelocity really screwed up. I understand flights get canceled. It happens all the time. But to continuously tell me everything was okay when everything was clearly not okay was inexcusable. I have no vested interest in any of the online travel agencies. Before this trip I could have cared less about using Orbitz, Priceline, Travelocity, etc. But Travelocity made me care about who I won't use...them. They lied. They gave false assurance. Worst of all, I don't think they took any notes in my file because I had to continuously tell a different human being my story every time I called.

I'll write Travelocity a letter. I'm sure I'll get some nominal travel voucher or something like that, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that I spent over a week worrying about something I shouldn't have had to worry about. Then I missed two periods of a hockey game I was supposed to watch with my friends. I can't be bought off. I'll remember that Travelocity, due to whatever system quirks and issues they had, caused me to miss an experience on my vacation. They can throw all the guarantees and traveling gnomes at me they want, the bottom line is still customer service, and they dropped the ball.

In an era where consumers can switch companies instantly, businesses can't afford to lose customers. They need to make sure they have robust customer service processes. I don't care if I'm calling India for customer service, but at least give me a way to talk to the same representative every time. I don't want to talk to Hank one day and Mark the next. Customer service should be personal. People should be able to talk to the same person. Also, don't just have the phone go straight to a, "thank you for your service" message. Have it ring a few times. Have someone answer the phone and say, "Thank you for call, can you please hold?" That automatically makes me think you care. Having me call in and right away hear an obnoxious jingle that repeats every fifteen seconds does not make me think you care. When the music ends after twenty minutes, and all I hear is the same voice saying, "Your call is important to us," back to back non-stop for ten minutes...you don't care AND you have crappy automated phone software. It's not that hard to differentiate yourself with customer service these days. In a world of canned, scripted corporate, "thank yous" and "hello sirs," there is room for a company to show genuine concern. Travelocity had the opportunity and failed.

Triple the Trouble...

2011-04-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows how much our family loves dogs. Since moving to Cedar Falls, Dottie has had a lot of playtime with her friends Maggie (my mom's dog) and Millie (Jay's mom's dog). She has done really well adjusting to having two friends around to play with quite frequently, and seems really sad when there isn't another dog around.

So in an attempt to grow our little family bigger.....

Meet our new....

Puppies!!!!

Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney!!!

Yah, I know you think we're crazy. But I think this will be a great addition to our family! We are so blessed!!!

APRIL FOOLS! :)

Nooooooo!!!!!

2011-03-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

These appeared in the middle of the living room today. Seriously, where are they coming from??!?!?!?!

Doggy Heaven? Happy Tails and Sunny Sidewalks!

2011-03-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

Me Like Cookies

2011-03-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

(That was a Cookie Monster reference, not bad grammar)

Yes, me does. Discovery of the day?

I can make monster bars/cookies gluten free! (As long as I get my hands on some oats that are "safe".)

Can I get a woo-to-the-hoo?

Monster Cookies
1/2 c butter
1 3/4 C peanut butter
1 1/3 C brown sugar
1 C sugar
1 Tbsp corn syrup
1/2 Tbsp vanilla
2 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1/2 C chocolate chips
4 1/2 C rolled oats
4 oz. M & M’s
Mix all together and then bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes Be careful not to over bake. As the cookies come out of oven, press M & M’s into cookies.

Timeline of Dirty Dishes

2011-03-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

The battle of the dirty dishes is evolving. If meal preparation and the cleaning of the aftermath is nothin' but a thang at your house, then you probably won't relate to this post. Those two chores seem to be monumental at the casa de Schmeeblitz, thus, they warrant a timeline.

Summer 2008: "You cook, I clean" is established. It's logical and fair. Most of the time "You cook" consists of eating out and carrying out. Consequentially "I clean" consists of throwing away leftovers or wrappers where appropriate. See also: You fly, I buy.

I love Azteca!!!

Summer 2009: Jay and Kelsey move to Cedar Falls. The era of eating out ends. Buh-bye delicious Quad Cities cuisine.

Why would leave a place with such great food?

Winter 2009: Grilling season is over, so Kelsey does most of the cooking. Jay slowly changes definition of "I clean" to mean loading the dishwasher, and leaves the big pots and pans for Kelsey to handwash. Kelsey also unloads dishwasher. She thinks this is bunk and tells him so.

I spilled this jello all over my mom's brand new kitchen. And myself.

Fall 2010: "We cook together, we clean together" is established. It's fun and cute for about two weeks until we keep bumping into each other in the kitchen. "Get outta my kitchen!" she yells. Oh crap, Kelsey just called it her kitchen. What did she do now???

Ahh, together :)

Winter 2010: Queen Kelsey de Dishes Dirty reigns happily as ruler of the kitchen. Jay pitches in plenty, but no real roles clearly defined. Grocery shopping is done together. Impending conflict looms.

Oh phew, Texas Roadhouse

January 2011: Jay starts class, Queen Kelsey de Dishes Dirty loses enthusiasm to be ruler of the kitchen. She chants "Dining for one...is no fun!" and pouts about her chores. Then one night, she irrationally displaces her missing of Jay into venting her frustrations about kitchentorial duties. Poor Jay gets yelled at, Kelsey realizes her folly, apologizes, and a new law is established.

Jay misses hamburgers

March 2011: It's the longest law so far. "I will cook, and I will clean the dishes. You will unload the dishwasher that same night. And if you forget, I don't make dinner the next night!" (Actually, word to my motha' on that one, she helped me think of that idea)

King of the Kitchen

Whaddya think? Good compromise? Will this one last? Or will the era of eating out Cedar Falls style begin? :)

Where have we been? We've been right here.

2011-03-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends of the Blogosphere:

I write to thee with a formal apology. You probably noticed the lack of Fruitful Friday blog this past Friday. You might have even noticed the lack of a Wet and Wild Weekend blog last weekend. We’re sorry. We haven’t forgotten about you.

When Kelsey and I started this blog (or restarted?), we didn’t quite realize just how much of my time grad school would consume. Evidently earning a degree and working full-time takes a lot of time. Who knew? Because grad school is occupying so much of my time, the stuff I normally do around the house falls on Kelsey…thus her time is now all booked too.

Our Friday blogs were supposed to be reflections on the struggles of babymaking. But here’s the problem: by the time Friday rolls its beautiful self around, neither Kelsey nor I are in much of a blogging mood. (We’re actually in a babymaking mood, but you probably don’t want to read about such things. I’ll let you use your imagination.) This has literally everything to do with the fact that the end of my week looks like this: Wednesday night is homework/laundry night. Thursday I leave home at 6:00am and return home at 10:30pm. And the end of Kelsey’s week looks like this: Wednesday she gets the entire house in order. Thursday she longingly looks out the window awaiting her husband’s valiant return.

By the time I’m done with work on Friday, I don’t really want to write poignant reflections on the womb. I want to take my wife out to dinner and talk to her for the first time in three days. When dinner and a movie (or, more accurately—Thursday night DVR’d TV) are over, we’re usually soundly asleep on the couch. As Dottie wakes us up and tells us to go to bed, the time for blogging has passed.

That’s not to say we still don’t have thoughts on child-rearing, adoption, and schtuppin’. We just want to spend some time talking to each other instead of the interweb sometimes.

Anyways, please accept this formal apology for the occasional missed blog. We’ll try not to have it happen very often…but I can’t promise it won’t happen sometimes. Just know when it does, it’s happening for the right reasons, and not because we are lazy sloth like creatures.

Thank you, and good night.

Jay

Hello my name is Kelsey, and I'm a decoraholic.

2011-03-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I can't help myself. Our kitchen wall has been 3 colors and we've only lived here 2 years. I move things, swap things, and rearrange until I like it for a while - then I like to do it all over again when I get sick of something. Our house will never be finished.

Yah, I subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens - why don't you?

Lucky for Jay, I'm addicted to decorating on a major budget. I pride myself in finding cute things at reasonable prices. I'm no Martha Stewart, but I enjoy it, and it's my house, so I guess that's all that matters - right?

My copy-cat look - complete with unkillable flowers. I prefer my plants to be death-proof.

Here are some things I'm loving right now....

This picture in my living room was originally purchased from Walmart (that's right, Walmart) for $10. It's been a nice print, but kind of blah.

It's okay, it served it's purpose

And it's been replaced by my find of the day at Old Time Pottery! The price? $30!! You want to see it up close?

I knew you did. Obviously, I'm still an offensively horrible photographer, but I love this artwork!!! It brings out the whites, the tans, the chocolate browns and blues in the living room and kitchen. LOVE IT.

Much improved

And I can't resist little things like this $5 polka dotted fish that was just screaming to be placed in our hall bath.

Because he already had a "matching" buddy on the wall.

Everyboooody! - yahhh - Rock your potty!!! - yahhhh!

Or this $6 silver starfish that I have no place for yet....

But I'd like to do something like this with someday:

Yes, that's Young House Love. Part of the reason for my addiction.

Lastly, I bought this framed photograph at the Orange Beach art fair. It matches NOTHING in my house, but I had this strong feeling that it belonged to me.

I sense a room repainting coming on....

Lap Dog

2011-03-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

Gluten Free Disasters

2011-03-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Not all of the gluten free foods we've made have been successful. Take last Sunday. Kelsey had recently arrived back from vacation. We thought we'd celebrate by making some brownies. Ugh.


It was difficult to use the mixer because the brownie mix had solidified into what could have been cement.


Dude...Brownies. Spreading out the cement mix into this pan was my biggest accomplishment last week.


I'm not sure what this has to do with gluten, but the brownie mix somehow tried to attack my foot.

After I cleaned my foot, Kelsey and I watched TV for a half an hour. While we waited, the house filled with the delicious smell of brownies. We got excited. After the baking and obligatory post-baking cooldown were complete we each tried to eat one, um, brownie?

Silly gluten-free folks...brownies aren't for you.

On top of their lovely appearance, the brownies also tasted and had the texture of dirt. Real life, genuine dirt.

Kelsey's mom has had more luck with her gluten free experiments than I have. In fact, she made an excellent chocolate cake tonight for Kelsey's birthday. But every now and then the lack of gluten will just destroy a product. Buns for instance. It's hard to have good, fluffy, flavorful buns. I'll leave you with the crushing image below: bread, failing at being bread.


Look at the flat, unrisen bread at the top of the picture compared to the mega bun in the packaging.

Who Wouldn't Want to be Me?

2011-03-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up grumpy this morning. You know the "ughh, do I have to go back to work?" feeling? Yah, that one. The grumpzilla stuck around until I hit my car, and good ole Keith Urban snapped me out of it. I was going to choose to be in a good mood today. I get to go to my job. I love my job.

I could tell when the morning bell rang the bubbling line of third graders were anxious to share their spring break stories. The third student in the door came carrying a stack of construction paper and tin foil wrapped packages.

"It's your birthday tomorrow, Mrs. Schmitz!! But I brought your presents TODAY and you have to open them RIGHT NOW!!"

Those are bedazzled corners...do you see the scotch tape across the center?

This was one of those moments I needed to stop, take a deep breath and ask myself, "Is it really important for me to have complete order of 22 students right now? Or can I stop and open these handmade gifts a student has poured her little heart over?"

Yes, I taught her that cursive

I really really really (100 times really) wanted to say, "Can we do this in a minute?" But they were wrapped in tin foil. Tin. Foil. Who can resist?

Um, hello sweet diary :)

Pretty close

Her face lit up as I opened each package and she went into excruciating detail of how she made, personalized, and wrapped each item.

It says "Schmitz" but she ran out of letters

I wore the necklace all day. It never untangled, and the scotch tape gave me a rash on my neck. But I was told many times it was beautiful.

A second card

And the "you have to open the best present last, Mrs. Schmitz!" That's a purse. She sewed it herself. I think the handles are made of ripped t-shirt. So freaking cute.

Watch out, Coach - here she comes

I am so glad I took 2 minutes to give a student an opportunity to make my day. Would I remember that my class was in perfect order the day after spring break - absolutely not? But would I remember that little stack of handmade gifts. You bet I will.

Maybe Mondays aren't so bad after all.

Kelsey Should Come Home Now

2011-03-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

I realized this week that if I didn't have a wife, I'd probably be dead. I'd become a sleep deprived, emaciated shell of a human. It's probably best if Kelsey comes home now. I have some strange quirks/habits that Kelsey helps me keep in check by reminding me to be human.

For instance, sometimes I don't eat. It's nothing serious, but if I don't have dinner plans I'll forget to eat. I get distracted, especially if I have something productive I need to do--homework, a project, anything. I'll just keep on working sans food. This annoys my lovely wife a great deal. We can be running errand after errand, and she'll finally, very calmly with tons of patience, ask, "When the hell are we going to eat?" I usually respond with, "Oh yeah. Food."

This week on Tuesday (retirement party), on Wednesday (study group in Cedar Rapids), and on Thursday (marathon take home mid-term work) I realized I was hungry around 10:15 at night. On Tuesday and Wednesday I didn't eat. On Thursday, I ordered Jimmy Johns...which leads to another problem I have:

I don't have any concept or respect for time. I'll start something like laundry or organizing a random closet at 10:00 at night. I'll get a burst of productivity and ride it until the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes I'll get a burst of unproductivity and unride it until the wee hours of the morning. This is a typical conversation Kelsey and I have the day after a day she goes to bed earlier than me:

"What time did you come to bed last night?" Kelsey asks.

"Actually, it was probably around 1:30am." Jay says.

"Why?"

"Well I was going to come to bed, but then the Godfather was on TV. I hadn't seen it in a while, so I watched it. That made me want to watch the second one, so I put it in the dvd player. You understand."

"No. No I don't. Who could possibly understand that?"

This week I made a pot of coffee at 8:30pm on Monday. I organized most of my iTunes files at 10:15pm on Thursday. Why did I do these things? Because I didn't have a lovely wife to, very calmly with tons of patience, ask, "What are you doing?"

Along those lines, I don't have a reminder inside of me that says, "It's late. You're tired. You have to wake up in five hours. Go to bed." When Kelsey's here, I know I need to go to bed because she goes to bed. That's my reminder. When Kelsey's not here, I just find myself waking up on couches around the house. Thursday night, post iTunes organizing, I worked on homework and then...I don't know...I woke up at 1:00am on my basement couch. Substitute that situation with a similarly idiotic situation and replace basement couch with living room couch and you have my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Clearly, I'd be be a mess without Kelsey. She's the normal to my weird. I think it's about time she gets home. I've been very calm and had tons of patience, but I want (need) my wife back.

Home Away from Home

2011-03-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

I often refer to Orange Beach as my "home away from home". We've traveled here for 11 years, and that's truly how it feels. Each year, part of the excitement is arriving at the condo we've rented to see how neat it really is in person. They're always clearly professionally decorated and just beachy and fun.

When deciding between condos this year, mom sent me three options. Two of them were adorable, and had a weekly rate around what we were used to paying. Then, there was the wild card - sparsely decorated and really cheap. It didn't take me long to decide to take a chance on door #3.

"I'll take the chipper chicken Franc" I said, quoting Steve Martin in Father of the Bride (a phrase we use in the Kuebler family when going with the less expensive choice)

Well, a wild card it certainly is.

Before you take the virtual tour, here are a few alternate titles for this post:
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
4 Gentlemen, 2 Ladies and Some Monkeys
Is That an Urn in the Corner or are you just happy to see me?
Grandma Died and gave us all of her shit
My Eyes are Burning at the Sight of that Color!

We could go on and on...So without further adieu...

First impressions are everything. So why not paint a mural of 4 waiters carrying wine in the entryway? I mean, why not?

The hall bath color is not done justice in this picture. But the mismatched crooked gold sconces on the wall add a nice balance.

Holy hell, my bedroom is scary for so many reasons. My eyes burn from the red. The tree might bend over and swallow me in the middle of the night. What happened to bend the headboard the way it is? What's with the large octagonal table?

And the monkeys. The scary, scary monkeys. This should never be on anyone's wall. Ever.

They're everywhere.

If burn your eyes red weren't bad enough, let's enter the brightest yellow bathroom you've ever seen. Go Cyclones?

They liked the color so much they decided to pain the bathroom door as well. Look closely at the tea set in the corner. That matches the theme of scary monkeys...

Oh, phew! There are some more! On that chair cover. Caps for Sale?

Headed down a stark white hallway, a single giraffe hanger is used as decoration above a pantry door.

This laundry room looks harmlessly lime green at first, until you realize the bird cage with the crimson candle and the backless time-out chair.

And a mirror hung too high to see into, with ya know, 3 large bells.

They ran out of ideas when it came to the kitchen, so they kept it completely white. Sadly, despite the discolored fridge handle, this is the best looking room in the place.

But fear not, we have a harp playing cherub in the wet bar, accompanied by an elephant carrying wine corks and a little water damage to boot.

The living room boasts ugly draperies, a huge urn with sticks and grandma's rocking chair. Not to mention the beheaded giraffe you saw on Monday's post.

Heading into mom's room, the dangling "chandelier" smoke detector adds ambiance.

Look closely at that rod on the left. Apparently the word "level" was not in their vocabulary.

Zebra rug, palm tree and pink bed skirt. Another broken headboard. A light that does not work. Par for the course at this point.

Another one of grandma's heirloom nightstand a bit more animal print. Raarr.

GOLD!!! (It's really shiny in real life)

Not too bad, all things considered. 'Cept the painting is literally on the edge of the wall, the sconce has another gaudy candle, and that big planter has nothing in it.

Okay, so this is certainly NOT our home away from home. Thank God it's got a kick ass view.

Bama Buddies

2011-03-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

The Day I Burned 1000 calories

2011-03-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

It started innocently enough.

Dougan likes shopping.

"Hey Kels, do you wanna go to Old Time Pottery this morning?"

Heck yes! I thought that sounded like a great idea.

If that were my truck, I'd fill it with Adirondack chairs, just sayin'.

Why such a great idea? Because I love to find a good deal, and Old Time Pottery is a wonderful mix of really cool or really crappy discounted items for your home. It's like a treasure hunt to find something of value amongst a lot of junk, and that's definitely part of the fun.

Most of the time, you find gems like this American Flag Condiment set. Perfect for your 4th of July party.

No Jay, I did not purchase this.

Or this scene of ceramic bears at the barber shop.

Who's interested in buying this? Bears? Barbers?

And witty signs for your front door to let all of your neighbors know you have the best house in the hood.

Don't worry, THIS was on clearance

But every once in a while you find a diamond in the rough. Like this mirror I found a few years back for just 15 bones.


Mirror found at OTP, dresser found at Jay's childhood home

Or this rug I bought for our living room that same day for just $30.

Ha ha - look at Dottie!

I did find a few great items there today, and I can't wait to share them with you. But we'll have to save that for another night for 2 reasons. 1: I am exhausted. 2: You want to know how I burned 1000 calories today.

Well....OTP led to one shop, which led to another, which led to another. And whaddya know? We've been shopping for literally 12 hours. I found an online source that tells me I burn 89 calories an hour while shopping.

So take 89 x 12 = 1068 calories! Woot to the woot!

Speaking of a lot of calories, this would not be a full disclosure blog if I did not also admit to you that I ended my night with buffalo chicken pizza and a mini blizzard from Dairy Queen.

But we're going to focus on the calories burned, not the calories eaten that offset them. : )

Don't worry, it's got a GF crust.

And who said shopping wasn't good for you?

Beachwear

2011-03-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hi ya'll! from the land of sunny skies, sandy beaches, and sweet tea (pronounced swayt-tae)!

Mom and I arrived safely in Orange Beach Saturday night and have been enjoying our home-away-from-home for the past 2 days. Although I'd hardly call this year's condo "home".

Teaser alert: Our condo leaves much to be desired, despite it's rockin' views, so look for some MTV condo cribs later this week, and be ready to ask yourself "what were they thinking?"

Beheaded giraffe in a Memories of Home candle? Wha???

Apologetically, I must admit that our forecast for this week in Bama looks to be the best we've ever seen. We're usually lucky to hit a 70 degree day, and the weatherman promises high 70s and sunny all week.

Extra warm weather? I'll need extra big flip flops!

We're keeping mom underneath her "amazing technicolor dream umbrella" (coined by A.J.) and we decided to invest in some hats to keep our skin protected from the sun. Because, sometimes, life's a beach, and then you fry.

The view from the shade

So we headed on down to the Shark Store to check out the best merch in town.

I tried on this bonnet, because that's apparently in style, and I legitimately had to convince mom that she could not purchase that visor.

Little House in the Rice Fields

Next, mom tried on a "beverage inspired" sun protectant.

Dual-purpose

We totally rocked these fedoras, but decided they didn't match our swimsuits.

Plaid is rad.

And finally, Mom settled on cowboy-hat meets straw-sun-shade....

She would only let me post this picture of it.

And I ended up with sombrero meets gaudy-Kentucky Derby.

Don't worry, Rachael IS wearing a swimsuit

Ahhh, Mondays! :)

Bachelor Weekend

2011-03-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

As Kelsey talked about throughout last week, she left Friday afternoon for a sunny vacation in Alabama. Because of this, I am a bachelor for a week. If this weekend is any indication, I don't know if Cedar Falls can contain me.

This was the picture Kelsey sent me while I was at work today.

On Friday, after I dropped Kelsey off at her parent's, I wasted no time in going out with another woman. In fact, I dropped off Kelsey and picked up a woman at the nearest corner. (for those that don't know, my parents and Kelsey's parents live diagonally across the street from one another)

It was about 4:30 when I had supper on Friday. When Kelsey's gone, I rebel. I eat early. Real early. None of this 5:00 stuff. No way. 4:30.

After supper I dropped mom back off at her corner and went home. I immediately hit the hard stuff. We were out of Diet Coke. The chocolate milk was dwindling. So I cracked open a Sprite. A real, 130 calorie Sprite. It was a delicious and thirst-quenching blast of lemon AND lime. After one, I got greedy. I wanted one more. About halfway through the second can, I started to feel a little woozy. I tried to read. I tried to watch TV. Then I passed out. Hard. There I was at 7:00, dead to the world on the couch. (it might have had something to do with studying until 3:00am on Wednesday and not getting home from school until midnight on Thursday)

The hard stuff. Makes you crazy.

Normally, Kelsey and I sleep in on Saturdays. Not this Saturday though. I got up real early--5:30am--and went to work. After work, I met my father-in-law and brother out for ANOTHER early supper. Two in a row. Take that Kelsey! After dinner, I once again went home. I did some dishes and some laundry. Kelsey usually does the dishes, but not this time! Then I worked on homework. During my homework I rewarded myself by absent-mindedly drinking the leftover half can of Sprite from the day before. It was flat and awful and knocked me right back out. At least this time it was 8:00pm.

Dottie is confused by my new laissez faire attitude. She stared at me throughout question 2 of my stat assignment.

Kelsey called to wake me up later in the night. She'd arrived safely. I told her about all the my hijinx. She said I was a big rebel and told me to calm down. I told her I didn't shave that day, and I didn't plan to shave Sunday. I could tell she didn't even know who she was talking to. She was impressed with my bad-assery, just as I'm sure all of you are now.

Home At Last

2011-03-11T16:40:00.000-08:00

I love reading blogs. My favorites update nearly daily, and to me, it's like a good book that never ends. Throughout our journey to growing our family, I've become particularly fond of blogs about people in similar situations. I'm drawn to stories about families forming, fertility, and adoption.

I often find new favorites by traveling down the link trail...a blog, to a blog, to a blog. That's how I stumbled upon the doozy of a video I'm about to share with you. This is a real family's story of bringing home their two newest children from Uganda. If it looks professionally done, it's because it was put together by two of their crazy-talented friends. And no, those aren't actors - that's just their beautiful family. Seriously, I dare you to watch this video and not cry.

Home At Last from dan owens on Vimeo.

Okay, so if you loved that mushy feel-good kind of stuff, and you have time beyond the daily 3 minutes you commit to reading our blog, check out their full story over at their blog.

Happy Friday, ya'll! :)

P.S. - If you consider yourself in the self-proclaimed "I'm addicted to reading blogs" category- email me, and I have plenty more I can share with you! There's no shame in it.

Flashback: 2007

2011-03-10T18:16:00.000-08:00

So...I take a lot of pictures that I do nothing with. A few make it to the blog, some maybe facebook, but most just sit and take up hard drive space on my little white Mac. I would love to be a scrapbooker, but that would require printing pictures, planning pages, and many trips to Hobby Lobby. That's way too many steps.

4 years ago, I tried my hand at some digital scrapbooking, and I was mildly pleased with the results.

But that was literally 4 years ago, and I only made it through 5 pages and one vacation. I made a vow I'd print more pictures after that, but I can count on one hand how many times I've printed a picture since then.

So...do I throw in the towel and concede that "modern day" photo albums exist only online? Have you found a neat way to do something with all of the pictures you take? Have you found any digital scrapbooking or photobooks so-easy-dummies-could-use-them that would be useful?

I'm feeling the itch for a project!

Orange you glad it's Wednesday?

2011-03-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

An Ill-Timed Return to the Extreme

2011-03-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Way back in September of 2009 Kelsey and I needed to lose some weight, so we signed up for a ten-week exercise session at Farrell's Extreme Bodyshaping. It's a fairly regimented fitness program that combines a balanced diet with six, short but intense workouts a week. After the ten week program, I got a bit overzealous and signed up for more.

Originally, Kelsey and I went at 4:30pm, but after our initial ten weeks I switched to 5:00am. I actually had consistent attendance at 5:00am from March until about October. Then I made the mistake of sleeping in "on accident" one day. It turns out, I liked sleep. It also turns out, I hated waking up and leaving the house when it's cold at 4:30am. I decided to put my membership on hold.

This week, I returned...and oh boy, I should have waited.

Here's what the program entails when you initially sign up:

Six "extreme" workouts each week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are cardio/kickboxing days. Each class starts with about five minutes of punching and kicking the air, stretching, push-ups, etc. It's just hard enough that you think, "this will be an effective workout," and just easy enough that you think, "this will be easy." Don't think that. It will be so hard, and you will want to cry afterward. Here's an example of the daily warm-up (watch about ten seconds of the video...you'll get the point):

You agree: that looks easy enough. It's just some people looking weird and kicking the air. But after that nice "demo" comes the hard part. After warm-ups, we put on boxing gloves and pull out big punching bags. The instructors will then have a different routine every day where they will call out various kick/punch combos whilst intermixing push-ups, planks, burpees, mountain climbers, knee jumps, pyramids, and more. If you don't know what some of those things are, congrats.

This really isn't the worst thing ever...

...this is. Burpees. Over and over again. Burpees.

Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are admittedly easier sessions. They consist of resistance band training designed to improve core strength. I don't know what means, but I've been told it's important. The core is key or something like that. If the core in humans is key, then we are the exact opposites of apples because apple cores just get thrown away.

If Farrell's has taught me anything, it is that we are the opposite of apples.

The class builds on itself. Week 1 is challenging but designed for newbies. As the ten weeks progress the class gets much more challenging. Even the resistance band days get harder as the instructors change up the exercises and add in extra ab work. Ab work must help the mythical core.

As I said above, I restarted Farrell's yesterday after about a five month (much needed) absence. I did start to miss it. It's like a fun sort of torture. That said, I definitely should have waited three more weeks to come back. Why? They are currently on Week 9. Nine. Nueve! They are pretty much kicking ass right now.

I pumped myself up all day Monday, "I can do this. I did this for over a year. This won't be a problem." Then I arrived at class at 3:30pm (my new start time on days I have school) and see Katie. Katie. They call her the Nazi because her whole goal is to kill you. Her classes have not gotten any easier in the last five months. About twenty minutes into the class when she was having us repeatedly jump as high as we could and try to grab our knees in the air then drop and do push-ups, I realized Week 9 was not a good week to start. Today, when I was holding down my 48th squat, I confirmed Week 9 is not a good week to start.

Me.

That said, I'm glad I'm back. I'm glad I'm going in the afternoon again too, because it has a different vibe. The morning instructors were great, but they seemed more predictable. I appreciated this because I don't want a lot of variety thrown at me at 5:00am. The afternoon and evening instructors are more tortuous. Katie isn't the only one who makes it her mission to make us suffer. It's hard, it's challenging, but also: it works. It's also fun.

However, in the forty or so minutes I've written this blog, I think I got rigor mortis. Maybe it's best if I just have Kelsey cover me in a blanket and let my sore body sleep on the couch tonight.

Vacation Planning...

2011-03-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

We're T minus 4 days until vacation, and it's time to start throwing together the details of our trip. Since this is our 11th year spring-breaking to Orange Beach, the details come about quite naturally. But as to not give my mom anxiety, because she's already packed and pretty much ready to go, I'll start to get my stuff together as well.

Life Rule #1 - Keep your mama happy

I won't bore you with the details of the beach-appropriate gear, flip flops, and other things that will generally make you jealous I'm going on vacation and you're not, but I will share with you a sneak peek of what happens on a road trip with my mom and I. Because isn't it just as much about the journey as it is the destination?

'Bama 2009

Essential #1 - The Tunes
Every road trip with mom begins with Keith Urban "Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me?". We stick our "hand out the window as the car drives by" and belt it out for all of Hudson Road to hear. It's the perfect send off. Because really, who wouldn't want to be us?

Later down the road, mom subjects me to two (sometimes three) of her favorite road trip CD's. What are they - you ask? Tom Jones Greatest Hits - I mean, what 26 year old doesn't love Tom Jones?

I'm your sex bomb.

And....(wait for it)....Evita. Don't Cry For Me Argentina, I'm used to it by now. And quite frankly, I've embraced it.


The truth is, I never left you.

I put both of these CD's in the "I know all of the words to these songs but shouldn't" category. (The third, if you're curious, is Carol King Tapestry. Geesh, doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?)

Essential #2 - The Grub.

If you know my dad, he is a totally efficient human being - in fact, he gets very bothered by inefficient processes. So while traveling with him, we don't spend much time dilly-dallying about. Stop for a meal? Nah, we'll pack our own. Now Dad's not coming this year on vacation, but tradition is tradition, so we'll pack our cooler like we usually do.


A ham sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "Sorry, we don't serve food here."

In the cooler on any Kuebler vacation you can find: Diet Pepsi, water, Dr. Pepper if the boys are along, and about 100 mini ham and turkey sandwiches on tea rolls. Okay, maybe not quite 100, but you need a lot of ham sandwiches when you're in the car for 17 hours. Other mandatory car snacks include chex mix, licorice, Cheez Its, and some sort of chocolate or cookie.

Essential #3 - The Fam.

My favorite part of family vacation is, well, my family. Although we live literally a half a mile from each other and talk almost every day, mom and I gab the entire trip to Alabama. We talk about past trips, future trips, and who knows what else. We sing along to songs I still shouldn't know the words to. We watch the temperature outside rise each hour we go on. We take crazy side trips to the best shoe store ever created on some random Alabama road. And if all else fails, I make mom play the game "Guess what song I am whistling" - which she hates, because 1) apparently my whistling is off-tune because I laugh too much and 2) she can't whistle and it makes her jealous.

'Bama 2008

Ahh, I love spring break road trips! Speaking of, I better get packing. I guarantee mom just read this and wondered If she's blogging, how can she be packing? Whoops, sorry mom! :)

Donating to the Alumni Association

2011-03-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

I often am told I never help people move. I always have "convenient reasons" why I can't help. I haven't helped my brother move the last six times he's moved. He often reminds me of this.

Three weeks ago, this was all going to change. Dallas (my bro) and Jamie (his wife) were going to close on a new house, and I was going to drive to Ankeny and help them move. Then, thanks to a banker's snafu, the closing had to be pushed back one week. This meant the moving would be pushed back one week...to a weekend where I had plans I couldn't cancel. So for the seventh consecutive time, I couldn't help my brother move into his new place (sidenote: he moves too much). The conspiracy theorist in me believes he orchestrated this entire delay just so he could continue to give me a hard time about never helping him.

I didn't so much care that I couldn't help move (he had plenty of other able-bodied men and women folk to move boxes). I was disappointed I wasn't going to see his new place right away. My brother rarely gets giddy over anything new (unless it's a brand new Weezer CD or something), and he'd been geeking out over this house for weeks (rightfully so). So this Saturday, after the Long Island Strawns left our house on Saturday morning, Kelsey and I left for Ankeny to visit Dallas and Jamie.

And wouldn't you know it? On the way to Ankeny is Ames, home of the wonderful, majestic Iowa State University and our mighty Cyclones. The last few times Kelsey and I have been to Ames, the ISU Bookstores were closed. This was too bad because I've been wanting to buy this shirt...

...because it represents the College of Business from which I earned my degrees. I also think it does a great job representing just how angry I am every morning at 5:00am when my alarm goes off, and I realize, "Oh yeah. Work."

Here's the problem though: It's impossible to buy just one shirt at a college bookstore, so I bought two. Then I bought a coffee cup. Then Kelsey bought two t-shirts. Then we picked up some other assorted merchandise. Seventy-five dollars later, we escaped the bookstore.

We did manage to avoid this $100 quilt that one of you can buy us for a gift someday.

In truth, getting out of Ames with only $75 dollars of damage would have been quite a success. Unfortunately, instead of driving straight towards the interstate, we drove down Welch Avenue. Welch Avenue is Ames' college bar area. It features an ever-changing line-up of bars, a Pita Pit, a really bad Chinese Food restaurant, and a couple more t-shirt shops. We weren't going to stop...but there was a green shirt in the window of DogTown. Honestly, a green shirt! It's almost St. Patrick's Day. We had to stop, right?

The shirt was green and featured a clever play on words! Who could resist? Not us. We each bought one. To be fair, the St. Patrick's Day shirts we impulsively bought in Ames last year weren't very cool. This year's shirt is much cooler. Before we could check out with just our green t-shirts, the person at the store said, "Oh by the way, everything in the store is 50% off."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"Even the sweatshirts?"

"Even the sweatshirts."

"What about this hat?"

"Even that hat."

"Everthing?"

"Everything!"

Kelsey and I went crazy. In addition to my St. Patrick's Day shirt, I bought five more t-shirts (one of which features our new logo...which looks like Louisville's logo...I'm not a fan...yet). Kelsey bought four more t-shirts. We both bought sweatshirts. Kelsey bought a coat. I bought a hat. It was awesome. $150 later we left. Really, that amount was quite a steal for what we bought. We'll now never have to buy ISU clothes again.

The mighty Iowa State Louisville Cyclone Cardinals.

But we will. We have a serious addiction. Maybe it is because we only make it to Ames once or twice a year or maybe it is because ISU's attire is just so much better than the stuff they sold when we went to college, but we always seem to go on some crazy shopping spree every time we are there.

Kelsey couldn't resist a 50% off hooded sweatshirt with polka dots.

After our brief, pricey sojourn to Ames, we made it back to the interstate (after making sure Walnut Place was still standing tall) and back on our way to the other Schmitz's new pad.

And what a pad! Their house was great. They'd moved in only two weeks ago but it already felt like a home. They'd wasted no time putting their decorations around the house and filling the walls with character.

Ever the hosts, Dallas and Jamie welcomed us right in.

It was fun to walk around the house with Dallas as he showed off each room. He and Jamie were clearly very proud of themselves (as they should have been), and Kelsey and I were glad we could share in their excitement. Well done, Brother Man.

Long Island Fridays

2011-03-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

Long before Fruitful Fridays existed in blogworld, Jay and I had a college Friday tradition: Long Island Fridays.

They started in our yesteryear at Iowa State, (Jay's junior yesteryear... to be exact) when he met a dude named John. They both were business majors and took the same classes. They were both funny dorks. They both liked video games. They both had amazing-beyond-belief girlfriends. They both had no interest in going out to the bars like typical college students.

So one Friday, the boys got together, ordered pizza, drank CocaCola with a dash of Long Island mix (or was it the other way around?), listened to music, and played video games. Thus, a friendship was born.

After a couple of Fridays without their dorky boyfriends, the amazing beyond-belief-girlfriends decided they should be friends as well. And Jess and I got in on the pizza, the CocaCola, and ignored the video games completely. Then, a tradition was born.

We went on to spend many of our "Long Island Fridays" in college with Jess and John. Of course not every Friday was pizza and staying in. We ventured out to movies, played late night kickball, tailgated, and took weird trips to Target where John and Jay tried to convince the other to impulsively buy more videogame systems.

Now, over the years, the four of us have done some growing up. We've graduated from college, found jobs in the real world, became happily married, bought houses, and this fall, a baby was born.

Jay and I finally got to spend our first Friday since baby Strawn was born with Jess, John, and little Madyson this weekend. She giggled while we ate pizza. She watched in awe as Jay and John played NBA Jam on the Wii. And she chimed right in with some of her own babble while Jess and I gabbed for hours. Madyson's a great addition to the Long Island Crew!

Tinsel Trouble

2011-03-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

Fake Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree,

I'm writing you today.

It's been 50 days or so,

since I put you away.

At one point you were beautiful,

and kept our home well lit.

But I'm tired of finding your needles

on our carpet and our shit.

I've vacuumed the house at least five times,

I've cleaned from floor to ceiling.

No matter how much I scrub and wash,

they keep reappearing.

Fake Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree,

I know without a doubt,

If I find any more of your remnants,

profanities I will shout.

Study Buddy

2011-03-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

Gluten Free Loopholes

2011-03-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

Let me say this: the gluten free diet has been pretty easy for me. I don't eat a lot of breads. There is a weird gluten free fake spaghetti I can eat. I pretty much live on coffee, almonds, and gum throughout any given weekday. Sometimes I throw in a can of kidney beans. On the weekends I eat tacos in corn shells. None of my main foods have gluten. This type of eating is leftover from habits formed during our Farrell's Extreme Bodyshaping days.

The Farrell's diet consisted of six small meals six days a week. The six meals had to be a balance of protein and "good" carbs (fruit, whole grains, etc...no candy). On the seventh day, we could eat whatever we wanted. I usually started those days with two Egg McMuffins, had something dripping with grease for lunch (a Steamboat Garden's Tugboat anyone?), and O.P. pizza for supper. And beer. Lots of beer. I usually had more pizza after the beer.

The biggest difference between the Farrell's diet and the gluten free diet, aside from no longer following an overly strict carb/protein ratio and micro-analyzing every content of every food, is that the "cheat day" really can't happen anymore. Even if I wanted to eat every bad food I dearly love, I couldn't. After a couple weeks off of gluten it starts to give you a stomach ache if you eat it large portions of it. Stupid gluten. That said, I've found there are three delicious products that fight and kill all cravings. With these three products gluten-free approved, I could stay on this diet forever:

The Jimmy Johns Club Lulu Unwich--there is something about lettuce wrapped around bacon that makes me feel all happy inside.

Society, I implore thee: put more stock photos of unwiches on the interweb! This one looks gross.

Chips and salsa. I don't remember when our friends from south of the border made complimentary corn chips and mediocre tasting salsa a ubiquitous staple of our TexMex cuisine, but I'm glad they did. Who doesn't enjoy consuming free appetizers before even putting a fork to their triple stacked sancho?

"I know I've already consumed 10,437 calories, but can I please have one more basket of chips?"

Ice Cream. Especially Frostys, McFlurrys, and Blizzards. As you all know, Blizzards are the best inventions of all time. They are better than cars, tvs, medicine, and babies. When Mr. Queen thought to add candy to ice cream, I'm pretty sure God threw up his arms, looked at Jesus, and said, "Yet people still question our existence! Honestly. A man just added candy to ice cream. Is there any better proof of divinity? Come on!" No. No there is not. Good job God. Good job Mr. Queen. And good job Dave Thomas, Ronald McDonald and the rest of the fast food world for copying this idea and making sure candied ice cream is available everywhere, for everyone.

And the church bells rang as a peace fell over the town.

What's better: The Godfather or the The Godfather Part II. Does it matter?

Obviously calling this a gluten-free diet is only accurate in so much that the definition of 'diet' refers to what a creature is eating. Someone could go on a marshmallow diet, and it wouldn't end well. They'd probably end up seventy feet tall and stomp around New York City all angry only to be taken down by Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, the director of Caddyshack, and a black guy. All of the above foods are enjoyed in moderation (and also of note: not all candies are gluten free so beware of mix-ins), but these foods certainly help give me that bloated, uncomfortable feeling we Americans so desire.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

2011-02-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

I've had the opportunity to attend two amazing professional developments in the past year. Last week, I spent a whirlwind experience at a summit in Phoenix. I am searching for the words to describe how much I learned and how excited I am to put my new knowledge into place. The second was earlier this fall when our school was trained in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (a Stephen Covey training).

After both trainings, I have come home and pretty much word vomited all over Jay about what I learned. I'm just like that, I can't contain myself. He is such a trooper and listens intently (or acts like he does). He even allows me to solve his problems by using my Covey methods, sometimes he's aware of it - sometimes he's not. When he doesn't know it we call that "Coveying his a**" - my specialty. : )

So tonight I thought I'd share Habit #1 with you.

Habit 1: Be Proactive.

Your life doesn't just "happen." Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. You choose sadness. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.

Tonight, I am proactive. I am carefully designing how to spend my time. I choose to sit on my couch and cuddle with my puppy. I choose to leave the dishes in the sink and shamelessly watch the Bachelor. And I will intermittently text Jay weird, funny, and flirty things while he's at his boring statistics class in an attempt to make him smile. Isn't that proactively pursuing a life where I allow myself to relax a little, enjoy the small things, and make my husband happy? Does that qualify? I think so. : )

No Focus

2011-02-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm glad Kelsey finally came home Friday night because I noticed something when she was gone this week: I can't focus on any one thing. I had several things I planned to do while I was Mr. Bachelor this last week. I was going to finish the book I was reading (Infinite Jest). I was going to watch two movies: The Kids are All Right and True Grit (the new version). I planned to start Dave Ramsey's new book. I wanted to clean out the unfinished area of the basement (or start to).

What did I do?

None of the above. When Kelsey is here, I have no problem reading...but I didn't get any reading done while she was gone. I couldn't concentrate because whenever I'd start reading I'd think, "I should be doing one of the activities I can't do when Kelsey is around (ie watch a loud movie)." But then I'd start a movie and think, "what a waste of time."

So I'm glad Kelsey is back. It's easier to focus when she's here. I'd make a terrible bachelor.

The More Things Change...

2011-02-25T15:38:00.000-08:00

With Kelsey being gone this week, I had to fill my time somehow. Normally I fill my time by talking to and hanging out with Kelsey...so there was definitely a void. I decided to call one of my good friends (who is now an illustrious veteran of our United States Marines) Justin and see him on Tuesday night.

Justin was arguably my closest friend in high school. At any rate, I probably spent more time with him than anyone else. Then college happened. I went to Iowa State (after a brief sojourn in Mankato). He went to Iowa. We've kept in touch, but going from seeing someone every day to seeing/talking to someone once or twice a year changes the dynamics of a friendship. No more is time able to be spent just sitting around in comfortable silence. Time needs to be filled with the act of, "catching up."

This was quite a change for Justin and me because we spent most of our time together in high school watching TV, and by TV, I mean WWF wrestling. Before you judge, realize that wrestling was insanely popular when we were in high school. I mean, the ROCK was still a wrestler and not a great actor in bad movies. Well for those of you that haven't heard (which is probably all of you), on Valentine's Day the Rock came back to the world of professional wrestling. Hollywood must not be making a Tooth Fairy 2.

Since Justin graduated (for the lack of a better term) from the Marines, he's been living in Cedar Falls for a bit while he looks for a job (if anyone wants to hire an intelligent, college educated Marine for something, anything, please let me know). This has afforded us the opportunity to see each other more often and move past the "catching up." When we talked about what we wanted to do after dinner, I mentioned that I'd DVR'd WWF from the night before--since the Rock might be on again. I asked if he wanted to watch it. He said of course he did.

He then mentioned another friend from high school, Brian, was in town. Earlier, I said Justin was arguably my closest friend in high school. The only reason it is an argument is because a case could be made for Brian. I occupied most of my time in high school with one of these two or both. I haven't kept in very good touch with Brian. I've received passing updates on his life from those who have kept in touch with him. But he was in town, so sure, come on over Brian.

Let's flashback to a typical (and by typical I mean every single) Monday night in high school. Justin would come over. We would turn on pro wrestling. We would worry about details of the show for some reason. We got very upset if the people we liked, lost, because it mattered for some reason? Brian would stop by at some point a half hour to an hour into the broadcast. He would pretend he wasn't interested in the show and start making fun of everything...even though he secretly liked it. We did all this in the confines of my basement. I'd be drinking water from this yellow cup:

The best cup ever. I have two. I'd pay top dollar for more of them.

Let's flashback to Tuesday. Justin came over. We turned on pro wrestling. We didn't really worry about the details of the show. We didn't even know who was winning or losing. It didn't matter. Brian stopped by at some point a half hour into the broadcast. He pretended he wasn't interested in the show and started making fun of everything...even though he was secretly enjoying it as much as Justin and me. We did all this in the confines of my basement. I was drinking water from the same yellow cup (which I stole from my parent's upon graduating high school).

We watched some other TV that night. We talked about jobs and adult stuff. We mostly just made fun of each other the way people do who like being around other just because. My understanding of the last ten year's of Brian's life are sketchy at best. I think he moved to California for a spell. He recently lived in Minnesota. Justin has been to Iraq and Afghanistan and done work he can't even talk about. He's lived in Texas and California. But there we were: the three of us in a basement, as if nothing had changed.

And really, nothing (and everything) has.

It Was Bed Time

2011-02-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

With Kelsey gone this week, I'm supposed to be on blog duty. I failed that endeavor tonight. I got home from class, played with my poor dog who has been home alone all day (except for the twenty minutes I had between class and work), and went to bed. I did that rather thoroughly, so I suppose that fits for Thorough Thursdays. For the second consecutive week I don't really have a project I completed to write about. Except...

This past weekend I was finally able to take Christmas lights down. It was sort of sad in a way. I like Christmas lights and am not really sure our use of them makes any sense. I wish we had them lit longer. For some reason we put them up in December, a month where no one is outside to enjoy the lights, and we stop turning the lights on in January. This confuses me because we can't take the lights off our houses until sometime near March when the weather warms up.

While this blog probably won't change the world, I'd like it to change every single person in America's approach to Christmas lights. Here is what I propose:

One, we put Christmas lights up in May and keep them there until September. People actually sit outside during the summer. It would be nice to have some extra light. Just think about all those hot summer nights in the big city. You'd feel much safer with a bunch of twinkling LED light strands. We would continue to call the lights, "Christmas lights," even though they are now technically summer lights. Future generations will forget why they call the summer lights Christmas lights when Christmas is six months later. We will have been on the ground level of a delightful anachronism. Good for us.

Hey are you guys there? It sure is a nice summer night, but it is so dark. I wish I could see you.

Two, for the dark winter months that make everyone sad and depressed, we will put a lot of inflatables that dance in sync to various pop hits from the eighties. Music can be piped in through the tornado sirens. Wouldn't it be great to drive into a neighborhood during the second week of December and have a motorcycle riding Santa Claus inflatable bobbing his head to Cutting Crew's I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight? Obviously it would.

Three, during the summer months no nativity sets will be allowed. We don't need a lot of plastic baby Jesuses all over peoples' yards. There are actual babies and kids outside in the summer. If we put a lot of fake babies outside, it would just confuse people. Besides, the sun would just fade the paint and the heat would probably crack the plastic.

The summer heat will crack me my child. Please leave me indoors.

Four, all the inflatables will be kept inflated throughout the winter. The music will stop piping through tornado sirens on New Year's Day when Americans and the inflatables dance in unison to Auld Lang Syne. It will be up to each individual city's mayor to declare a "take down the inflatables day." If there is a mid-January weekend with unseasonable warmth that will be declared Deflate Day and the yards will be cleaned up. NO EXCEPTIONS. NO EXCUSES. NO FEAR.

So yeah, I took the Christmas lights down this past weekend, and I'm very proud of that. I'm also proud of how I just revolutionized what I call Yard Art. I'll try accomplish a real project between here and next Thursday!

And She Finally Made It

2011-02-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

Does This Make You Want to Buy Coffee?

2011-02-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

This blog took a weird turn. Originally, I was going to write about the following commercial, and how I don't understand what in the world it has to do with coffee:

This is no secret: I love commercials. I also hate commercials. I like good advertising and, in my opinion, the above is not good advertising. Is it an entertaining commercial? Yeah, sure. Their hands move really fast, but tell me again, what was the new coffee product they were advertising. It had whip cream on it. That's all I remember. All coffee products have whip cream on them now. I don't like this commercial because it doesn't do the one thing a commercial is supposed to do: sell you something.

I was going to write more about commercials, but when trying to find the above commercial on Youtube I discovered the strange hand dancers have identities. They are Up and Over It: a strange, hypnotic Irish Dance troupe. Also, they are awesome. Here's another video of them doing their thing, which, as mentioned, is being awesome:

There are many more videos which can be found on the website I linked above. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Tasty and Tortuous Tuesdays other than McDonalds sort of serves food sometimes, but cool right?

Leadership Monday

2011-02-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

One of the managers from my last job at John Deere sends out weekly thoughts each Sunday night/Monday morning. They are usually little leadership fables, tales, or what have you. For whatever reason, today's email stuck out to me. Between the bolded words is the email in its entirety:

START

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. "The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today - one very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Every day, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO. “Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!”

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!”

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, “Behold your next Chief Executive Officer! His name is Jim!” Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

“How could he be the new CEO?” the others said.

Then the CEO said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.”

“All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!”

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust

* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness

* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment

* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective

* If you plant hard work, you will reap success

* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

--Author Unknown

END

Now sure, this story's premise is absurd, but I do like the message. I've seen countless times at various places I've worked where people try to hide every problem from those in charge in order to make themselves look better, more in control. This can create a culture of systemic lying. I hide information from my boss, who hides information from his boss, who does the same, etc. At some point, everyone is more worried about hiding whatever problems exist than actually fixing the problems. I personally don't understand this type of thinking at all. One, we're taught not to lie from a very young age...at least we should be. Two, in a world of scarce resources, if you don't let people know you have problems, you'll never get the help you need to fix them until the proverbial poo has hit the proverbial fan.

Ultimately, I think this story struck a cord with me because I've been told countless times at work that I'm, "too honest." Don't misunderstand me, I don't raise the red flag at every problem. Managers don't need to know every little bad thing that happened on any given day. In fact, they don't need to know any of the daily fires that occur. If I told my managers about every little daily fire, it would just cause them to worry about details they don't need to worry about, and it would make me look like someone who creates nothing but problems. That said, if there are actual long-term problems I'm addressing, I have no problem telling anyone who asks me. If the current culture of my team is garbage, I will say that. I will also list the five or six steps I'm taking to address the broken culture. While I might make a few people nervous by telling the truth, it's much better to let people know the plant won't grow early, rather than dealing with a large, fake plant years later.

Weekend Checklist

2011-02-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been full of checklists. To me, there is nothing more satisfying then making a list, then checking things off as they get accomplished. Well, actually, there are plenty of things I like more than checklists, but I do like making lists - okay?

Jay and I hashed out our weekend in checklist form when he came home from work on Friday, and the rest of the weekend we divided and conquered. I think this weekend was the perfect combination of chores, errands, fun, quality time, friends, and all the good stuff in between. That's what weekends are all about.

So here's the cliff's notes version of our weekend in checklist form. Booyah!

Thursday: (What? your weekend doesn't start on Thursday?)
- Conferences
- debriefing of conferences with colleagues over refreshing beverages

Friday:
- Sleep in late... because I can!
- Breakfast and a Sam's club run with mom because she's cool and I love her!
- Clean house in the afternoon... get distracted by the dog laying in the sunshine
- Cuddle with Dottie in the sunshine while watching bad television like "Say Yes to the Dress"
- Diner date with Mr. Shinyforehead
- a small enough amount of shopping that Shinyforehead doesn't mind
- Quality time with the hubby, the Dottie, and the DVR

Saturday:
- Clean the house for company - why don't we always keep our house this clean?
- Jay pick up mounds and mounds of poop now that the snow has melted (gag, gag...)
- Jay take down Christmas lights
- Pick up cupcakes downtown and smile because I love.this.town.
- Dottie run in the backyard like a little fool!
- Fareway!
- Guys have their "shower" and do manly things
- Stay home with the neighborhood ladies and kiddos and chat all night

Sunday:
- Sub plans for next week's trip
- Sunday Carlos lunch with Jayber
- Baby shower with the best neighbors around
- Finish the submarine plans and take a big sigh of relief!
- Go to bed early because I'm exhausted!

I love weekends!

Baby Fever

2011-02-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

In a few weeks, we will have a new itty-bitty neighbor across the street. We love our neighbors, and everyone in the 'hood can't wait for her arrival!

This Sunday, the girls of the neighborhood will hold a baby shower in her honor. I've been working on the details with another neighbor of ours, and it's shaping up to be a fun afternoon! As the snow is melting, and everyone is thinking of spring, it's not too difficult to find springy colors and girly details to add to the party. Why is planning for baby girls so much easier than planning for baby boys?

The guys in the neighborhood also have plans for a "shower" (if you can call it that) to happen this Saturday. They have been tirelessly planning their shower since, well, yesterday, and no detail will go unnoticed, I'm sure.

Here are some of the party details we've envisioned:

Invitations...

The Girls:

This was sent out a long time ago, ordered from a professional, created with care.

The Guys:

This was delivered via cryptic envelopes marked, "Open Soon: Time Sensitive Material Inside."

Food...

Girls:

fondue fun!


Scratch Bakery Cupcakes - to die for!

Cookies and other desserts - they won't look this cute, trust me.

Guys:

Uh...I like Mulligans

The OP is good...

Maybe head downtown?

Becks?

The decorations and details...

Girls:

Onesies and itty-bitty things

flowery and girl stuff

Bring your favorite children's book!

Guys:

Bring diapers, so we can pretend our night out drinking beer has something to do with the baby.

Clearly the guys have once again outplanned and outworked the women. We can't wait for you to arrive, baby Feldick! : )

I'm Feeling Better, Kelsey's Conferences are Done, and Our Couches are Clean

2011-02-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

Today's blog will be very short. Yesterday I woke up feeling as though a million hot blades stabbed every part of my body. My head felt like it was both caving in and exploding. It hurt to move. I couldn't eat. Blah blah blah. I feel better now. I felt bad again this morning. Then I gradually started to feel better. I went and bought a McFlurry for lunch. Then I felt even better. Then I got cocky and tried to be productive. Then I threw up a McFlurry. A thrown up McFlurry looks just like an actual McFlurry. I don't think I'm going to eat another McFlurry for a while. The weird thing: after throwing up, I felt great.

This is a picture of a couch.

Unfortunately during my debilitating illness, Kelsey couldn't wait on me hand and foot because she had conferences. I never get sick, and when I did, I got sick during Kelsey's busiest week of the year. I had to fend for myself.

This is a picture of a love-seat.

Because of this, nothing really thorough got done this week. Nothing I can blog about anyway. I cleaned the bathrooms earlier this week, but I'll spare you pictures and details. The only thorough thing of note from the last two days is that we cleaned our couches...via checkbook. We paid Professional Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning to clean them. After a few moves and a lot of dogs, the couches were starting to look ratty. After today, they look brand new! In the pictures they appear to be ordinary looking couches, but they're not. They're ordinary looking CLEAN couches. I hope you all enjoy pictures of our furniture.

This is a picture of an intergalactic spaceship to the planet Zirbuxia.

Also, the house now smells like cleaning solution, and Dottie isn't sure she likes the couches anymore.

You Look So Danish!

2011-02-16T17:28:00.001-08:00

A Soup Success

2011-02-15T19:25:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago Kelsey attempted to make a vegetarian chili. The recipe called for two jalapenos from a diced can of jalapenos. Kelsey followed the whole recipe: added on can of chick peas, one can of kidney beans, diced a green pepper, sliced a carrot, etc etc. I don't know the whole recipe. I couldn't tell you all she did right, but I could tell you what she did wrong: she decided to add an entire can of jalapenos instead of just two peppers.

As the soup cooked, our house started to smell like the inside of volcanic taco. Kelsey couldn't smell the peppers. She was too close. She'd been in the kitchen as the smell grew from a baby odor to a tyrannous stench. Meanwhile, I was dying. I feared the smell would be firmly in charge of our house for months, years, forever. I even made up errands just to get out of the house.

Kelsey figured out something was wrong when she served the soup. We each had a bite, put on a fake smile, and tried to choke down the rest. I don't remember who said what, but here was our conversation: "Do you think it's too hot?" "Oh it's good." "Yeah. It has flavor." "Yes. A hot flavor." "Too hot?" "No."

We lied. It was WAY too hot. It was impossible to eat. I left that night for a bit and when I came back, the house still stunk.

Neither Kelsey nor I enjoy hot, spicy foods. We'll eat the occasional spicy food, but nowhere in our palate does "lots of jalapenos" exist. But Kelsey didn't quit. She never does. She made the soup again yesterday. This time she left out any and all jalapenos. It was delicious. I've already had three bowls.

I Roll Hard Through the Streets and the Culdesacs...

2011-02-14T19:46:00.000-08:00

2 years ago for Valentine's Day, Jay and I spent the weekend in Galena. It was a weekend of milestones for us. First, Jay got called to interview for his job in Cedar Falls, which later led to some major life changes for us. Second, and obviously more importantly, Jay's car hit 100,000 miles! So we stopped in the middle of the road and celebrated.

We par-tay for weird reasons!

His car has been a really nice car for us. But it's starting to get a bit beaten up, and now has been with us for roughly 123,083 miles or so.


The mirror cover has been gone for over 2 years now, and not replaced.

Obviously someone ran down the side of the road with a white paintbrush.

More dents and boo-boos

So this Valentine's weekend, we made a goal. By the time Jay is done with grad school, we want to have saved enough money for him to get a "new" car. (I use the word "new" loosely, because for us in carworld "new" means a very nice, reliable, like-new-but-used car. Not a brand-spankin' new one! We're not rich, yo.)

We would both really like for him to have a car that handles better in the snowy weather and that has a little more room. He's got his eye on some vehicles like this:


Suh-weet.

I like this one. : )

Just kidding! :)

So...if his car already has lots of miles on it, and is already kinda beat up, then why not buy a new car now? We don't believe that to be terribly practical. I'll give you two (and only two) reasons why.

1. His Altima gets great gas mileage. Switching to a gas hog when he'll be traveling back and forth to Cedar Rapids for the next 2-3 years just doesn't make sense.

2. We don't want a car payment. Call us cheapos, but we'd rather spend a few years to save the money to buy a vehicle outright than to have to make a payment each month.

Okay, you want one more reason? Fine.

3. Jay secretly loves minivans. I really think he is going to hold on to that Altima until it is socially acceptable for him to drive a van. If he bought a new vehicle now, he'd have to buy an SUV, because it would be weird for him to own a van. That's just my opinion. I mean, I'm only his wife - what do I know?

My money's on Jay's "graduation gift" looking more like this:


Hells yeah!!! it's a Swagger Wagon!

In the meantime, we're going to go get old Alty all spiffed up and looking nice. And I told Jay to splurge and get one of those ipod wires installed to help with all of the roadtrips in his future. Hopefully that will help to tide him over until the Swagger Wagon! : )

The Trip, One Week Late

2011-02-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

All week long we've alluded to a trip we took to Minneapolis last weekend. In fact, last weekend there was even a blog that was supposed to be updated with pictures and notes from the trip. It wasn't. Seeing as I have about eight cups of coffee in me, and my brain needs a break from stat homework, let me recap:

Last weekend we drove up to Minneapolis because I had foolishly purchased concert tickets for a February 6th concert for a band you should all listen to called the Decemberists. When purchasing the tickets I thought the concert was going to be on a Saturday night. When I received the non-refundable ticket confirmation email it said, "Sunday, February 6th." I suppose I should learn how to read calendars. As the concert approached, which I was very excited for, I realized that was Super Bowl Sunday. Oh good. Kelsey and I decided to go through with the concert anyways because: 1) we've watched about two games worth of football combined all year and 2) it's the Decemberists, and they rock.

It also gave us a good reason to take a quick trip to one of the best cities in these United States of America: Minneapolis.

We arrived in town a little earlier than expected last Saturday. We had dinner plans with Kelsey's best friend Allison and Allison's husband Brent. We decided to drive to the restaurant and bum around for a bit. Luckily for us there was a Container Store to occupy our time. I'd never been to a Container Store, but I'd always wanted to go there. I could really care less about containers, but both my undergraduate courses and now my graduate school courses talk about this place as a model business. Evidently people really like working there. It was a neat place--containers everywhere--but I can't for the life of me understand why their employees are so happy, friendly, and helpful. It lived up to the hype and whatever Kool-aid the Container Store's management is serving should be served at every job everywhere.

Kelsey wants our pantry to look like this.

After buying an array of exciting products: a new sink mat, portable cereal containers, wire shelves, and a laundry bin, we met Allison and Brent at a restaurant called Pin Stripes--a bistro, bowling, and bocce ball establishment (obviously). Since Kelsey and I were new to the whole gluten free thing, Allison made sure she found a restaurant that had a gluten free menu. Allison does these sorts of things because Allison is awesome. Brent's awesome too, but he definitely married up (no offense Brent--I did too). I won't describe in excessive detail the food (good) or the restaurant (also good), but I will say this: Allison, Brent, and Kelsey are horrific bowlers. They all scored much lower than my impressive and unreachable 100.

The ladies

The dudes

Jay - 100, Brent - 80, Allison - 71, Kelsey...err...40. So bad.

The next day Kelsey and I realized we had no plans, so we Malled of Americaed it. I caved and bought a new PC tablet/laptop for grad school. I love my trusty MacBook, but unfortunately the world of business spreadsheets does not.

I also bought new shoes because it was time to retire my old pair of magic Sketchers I bought in California in May of 2005. I put on my new pair of shoes and it was like walking on air. Who knew shoes had padding? The salesman tried to sell me Shape-Ups because I look a lot like Kim Kardashian. I probably would have bought them to if it weren't for that meddling wife and her disapproving looks.

This is one of two pictures I took in Minneapolis. These shoes lasted six years. Kudos to them.

After the mall we went to the concert. The Decemberists, as always, rocked. Like I said, you should listen to them. Here's a song of theirs for you, but beware, it might start you down the Youtube rabbit hole (a phrase I stole from Kevin), and you might spend all day listening to Decemberists songs:

So good. Thankfully the Decemberists gave us Super Bowl updates throughout the concert. They told us all about the ten-point deduction penalty the Steelers had and how they had to shoot a free throw at the end of the game. Unfortunately for Steelers fans, they still lost 115 to -23. I never bothered to check ESPN to see if any of that was accurate. It seemed reasonable enough.

As a side note, it was actually sort of relaxing not having to worry about the Super Bowl. Kelsey and I never really care that much about the game but feel obligated to watch it out of some sort of American guilt. Really the only thing people should feel obligated to watch on television is the World Series.

Kelsey mentioned our trip to Trader Joe's in another blog (I'm officially a damned hippie now), but I will tell you this: organic, gluten-free cheesy tortilla chips (hippie Doritos) are great. It's good to know you can take part in strange diets and still eat unhealthy foods.

The happy hippie :)

I think that about wraps this up for the night. I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. Hopefully Kelsey can add some Monday night (DONE!). All of the good pictures are on her phone which is on the nightstand next to our bed, where Kelsey currently sleeps. Hopefully the coffee wears off soon, because I want to sleep soon too. If not, I'm going to need a lot of coffee tomorrow to help curb the hangover from today's coffee. It's a vicious cycle.

Happy Early Valentine's Day

2011-02-11T21:48:00.000-08:00

I like Valentine's Day. I fully understand that it's a holiday created by Corporate America with the sole intent of increasing sales of expensive items during the slowest shopping month of the year, but I still like it. The message behind it is good: tell someone you love that you love them. Be extra nice to the person you love. Eat chocolate. Drink wine.

Consumerism aside, why do we need Valentine's Day to surprise our wives with flowers? Why do extra sappy Kay Jewelers commercials remind us to buy jewelry? If someone in your life is special, really really special, shouldn't you be telling them that every day? It doesn't always have to be with words. I had a bad day at work Wednesday and Kelsey brought home supper right away. She came through the door smiling and cheered me right up. She knew I needed that. That's why she is my valentine.

I'm by no means saying people should ignore extra special traditions on "special days" (lord knows I've gone overboard a time or two on Valentine's Day surprises). I just don't think anyone should let the "special days" be the only days that are special.

Winter Blues

2011-02-10T17:27:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard the advice: "create a life for yourself you don't need to escape from?" I have, and for the most part I feel like I live a life I don't need to escape. But when it's been -30 windchill for weeks, and we've had indoor recess for four straight days, I'm looking forward to getting out of here!
Luckily, Jay and I have quite a few warm places in our futures. Here's where I'm dreaming of these days...

Phoenix, Arizona: I (Kelsey) will be in sunny Arizona in 2 short weeks. I'm going for a conference for work, so I'm sure I won't be spending much time outside. But I am looking forward to a change of scenery, and hearing from some cool keynote speakers in education.

Orange Beach, Alabama: My mom and I will be traveling to Orange Beach for our annual spring break trip in exactly 1 month and 2 days. (That countdown is for you, Rachael) This is by far my favorite week of the year and Orange Beach is our home away from home. Ahhh, I love it.

Los Angeles, California: The Jayman will be heading to LA the end of March for an extended weekend extravaganza to visit our friend Jeff. He's going with my brother and a group of guys and they're doing manly things like drink beer and go to every sporting event possible.

Las Vegas, Nevada: I've never been to Vegas before, and I'm hoping (barring no more snow days) that I'll be rocking Vegas for the first time for my friend Barb's bachelorette party the beginning of June. It could get crazy folks. Please no more snow days!!!

Dreaming of warmer places tonight and thankful we've built a life where we can escape when we want to. : )

A Good Reason to Skip the Super Bowl

2011-02-09T18:45:00.001-08:00

Mac or PC?

2011-02-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Confessions of a Breadaholic

2011-02-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog World,

My name is Kelsey, and I love bread. No seriously, I do, it's my favorite food. I love any kind of bread. Toasted, dipped in oil, on a sandwich, buns, bagels, baguettes...okay, you get the idea, and quite frankly, I'm making myself hungry.

That being said, it will shock you to know that I have been gluten-free for 3 weeks. (Jay has too, can I hear a big "WOOT WOOT" to supportive husbands!?!?) I haven't told you, I know, please don't be offended. I guess I felt a little crazy admitting it. I was worried, being the bread lover that I am, that we wouldn't be able to stick with it.

Here's the deal: this isn't a diet thing. This is just something we're trying. It's about the fact that there's a bunch of research out there about people who've cut gluten from their diets and had crazy good results like no more migraines, no stomach issues, increased energy, and unexplained infertility go away. Hey wait, that was the one that caught my attention. I figure we've been prescribed just about any other thing in the book, why not try this?

So...anyhoo, this has been a huge "learn as we go" experience and I want to claim right now that I still feel as though I know pretty much nothing about being gluten free (or gf for you acronym lovers). I look a lot of things up online, I eat nothing of unknown contents, and I read a bunch of words I don't understand on labels. Going out to eat can get very interesting.

But this weekend we took a trip to the big cities where they had a multitude of gf options.

Allison and Brent brought us to this swanky place (which we'll blog more about later) with a yummy gf menu on Saturday night.

I ate pizza! Oh my, I miss pizza the most. (Godfathers actually has a gf pizza here in Cedar Falls, but it's just not the same!)

I had gf chocolate chip pancakes...with whipped cream on top. (As if that was necessary)

And we went to Trader Joe's where everything gluten free was marked with a handy little symbol right near the price tag. I've loved Trader Joe's for about 5 years now since my friend Anne, who I'm pretty sure doesn't read my blog, introduced it to me. They recently opened one in Des Moines, which I'm pretty sure we'll be frequenting. Jay drank the Trader Joe's koolaid as soon as he walked in the door, and I'm pretty sure we might see an all-organic Jay in our futures. Hair sold separately.

So Mr. Hippie Jay made us his favorite meal tonight for dinner brought to us by Trader Joe's. All organic, all gluten free, all delicious.

Spaghetti anyone? Yes, Schmitzes are weird. They eat their spaghetti with peas on top.

Well blog world, it's been real. I always feel better when I am just 100% honest with you. I know you wish us well in our gluten free journeys, and if you have any recipes whose ingredients don't include the words wheat, barley, rye, oats, malts, triticale, maltodextrine, dextrine, or dextrose - pass them my way!!

Taxes. Awesome.

2011-02-07T21:24:00.000-08:00

In the true spirit of Mundane Mondays, I'm going to go ahead and put the blog about our most excellent weekend on hold to discuss something awesome: Taxes. Aren't taxes great? I love paying large sums of money all year for stuff. I don't really know what stuff, but I'm sure it's all great.

Since I didn't have class tonight (my professor was in Philadelphia for some orientation thing), I thought I better take the opportunity to be productive. Last year I did my taxes on the first Monday of February. At that point all the "important tax documents" had come in the mail. I also had a free rental code for Redbox and really wanted to rent Zombieland starring Jesse Eisenberg. Fast forward to today. It's the first Monday in February. I had all of the necessary "important tax documents." And I had a free rental code for Redbox and really wanted to rent the Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new first Monday of February tradition!

Seriously though, I do like to get my taxes done early. There are two main reasons for this: 1) The longer I put off doing taxes the more likely I could lose some of the "important tax documents" that come in the mail and 2) It's always nice having already received and saved a refund when April rolls around. I did not say spend the refund. In my mind, any refund received is money to be saved. My first year out of college I ended up receiving something like a $60 federal refund. In all the past years of my life I'd received a HUGE $400 refund (it was huge at the time). I'd always spent it right away on an iPod or a Playstation. That first year out of college, I couldn't wait to get my refund. I had already spent it in my head. I was going to buy an Xbox360. Then the refund came about, and after paying to file it, I couldn't even afford one videogame, let alone a console (also lovely: my state refund that year was $15, with a $14.95 charge for filing).

I decided right then I probably shouldn't just assume I'm going to get a refund. I now take the approach that I'm going to receive nothing (possibly even pay), and if I get something great...it's going into savings. The money will eventually get spent or invested, but I'm no longer going to make a knee jerk reaction and spend it just because I had it. Nowhere be a rich man who spends impulsively.

I spent two and a half hours doing taxes. It shouldn't have taken me this long, but somewhere there was a discrepancy. I won't go into detail, but let's just say I almost punished myself for the myriad of medical expenses we've had this year (the baby stuff ain't cheap) by making it look like I was stealing from our HSA (Health Savings Account) and not actually spending the money on appropriate medical expenses. Whoops.

The good news is TaxAct.com (the software I use) has a very easy site to navigate. It also helps you compare last year's return with this year's. This helped me discover my discrepancy tonight. If you haven't already picked a tax return website, that's the one I'd recommend. It gets easier every year too because they keep your previous returns on the site, thus you don't have to input redundant information every year. I should probably email those guys and let them know I plugged them on this website. I should get some sort of referral bonus.

For those of you sitting by your computer expecting vacation blogging, my apologies. I'd recommend you go rent the Social Network or Zombieland if you are in need for entertainment. They are both really great movies to watch and do your taxes to.

Tardy Slip: The Events of this Super Weekend Will Bowl You Over

2011-02-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

We have done a lot this weekend. We want to write about a lot from this weekend. We even have pictures. Unfortunately, we are in a hotel room with bad (very bad) internet reception (seriously, it's awful...like the worst ever) so we're going to put this small post here now, then update it tomorrow with the actual happenings of the weekend.

I'm sure you are asking yourself, "Why don't you just post tomorrow and not write this posting you're writing right now?" and that's fine. You can ask yourself that. I wouldn't make a habit of asking yourself questions about what other people do though. Psychologists have debated the motivations of humans for years and there is still no consensus. You might think you have a leg up on your psychological evaluating because you actually know us, but you probably don't have any real advantage. I know I don't understand all of my friends. Especially Ian. He's my good friend from high school. He lives in Texas. So do two of our other friends: Barb and Dan, and guys, Texas is AWFUL. Why would anyone live there? No one knows, yet so many people live in Texas.

Seriously though, it's late and you probably shouldn't be making decisions right now. If you're honestly thinking that you should quit your job and become a psychoanalyst, you shouldn't. I mean, maybe you should. It might be your passion, and you might really love it. All I ask is you hold off on doing so right this second. Get some sleep, and maybe think about it a bit more tomorrow. Okay? Okay.