TV premieres

Kevin is very excited about the new football season starting. I'm looking forward to it but must admit that I'm more excited about the new tv season.

Looking back on what we started watching last year, most either didn't make it (Traffic Light - I was bummed when it got cancelled) or didn't hold our interest (V, the Event), but we'll still give the new crop of shows a try. We usually give them a try because there could be one out there that we like enough to keep watching. A new show from last year, Happy Endings, is now a favorite! With the DVR we can try them out and pick and choose what we like. We usually DVR it all to watch without commercials and will even more this year with K's school schedule.

Most of the new shows coming up don't interest me - like the Playboy club and the Pan Am show, but I do want to see the new one with Christina Applegate, I still miss Samanta Who and can't believe she's the same girl from Married with Children..

More than trying out the new shows, I'm looking forward to the return of our favorite shows. My top 3:

I need to find out where Fringe is going to go - Peter suddenly doesn't exist?!? How can Olivia overcome that?

Big Bang Theory

The Good Wife

What shows are you looking forward to?

the semester is off, gonna be a doozy!

I'm so glad its finally the weekend. Working for a university, the fall is really hectic - and judging by this week, this semester is going to be even busier than past years. The students are back in classes and the campus is bustling with activity (and construction)...even my Friday calendar was busy (thats usually my time to catch up in my office). I had a meeting for a new committee that I'm on, and later in the day I was called into a conference call already in progress (while I was in another meeting!) It is good work that we're doing, I just hope I can keep up with it all...

Kevin's first day as a TA went well, he is assigned to a specific class - a junior level class - and will attend that class along with his own classes. So far his assignments for that class are to take roll, take lecture notes, and grade quizzes. Right now, he's working on a paper due for one of his classes on Wednesday, they don't waste any time!

Its going to be a busy semester for both of us, don't be surprised if the blog is fairly quiet...

Strange school supplies

Kevin's 'school supplies' are kind of strange this year. He didn't really need any of the usual supplies and he's still using the netbook we got last year (and taking over my kindle when he needs it for an ebook!). He's been wanting a ceiling fan in the loft. He spends a lot of time working on the computer there and since its upstairs it gets warm up there. He bought it yesterday and tried to install it, I helped him but we didn't get the wires matched up right - confusing since there are 3 switches to control that light. His dad came over today and helped him finish installing it, looks good!

We had a great day with our niece and nephew, and their daddy, Kevin's brother.

They brought over our nephew's birthday present, a BB gun, and set up some coke cans as targets. They even dug out Kevin's old gun and it still works! I'm not sure who had more fun, the 6-year-old or the 30-something boys. They played off and on all afternoon, with lots of breaks since its so hot outside, another 100 degree day. Seeing that gun, I can't help but think of the movie "A Christmas Story" since I think thats basically the gun our nephew has.

Our niece is so cute, following her big brother everywhere he goes and she loves to open and close the doors for everyone, not sure whether she wanted to be inside or out, I think she just enjoyed playing with the door. She is a chatterbox, unfortunately we're not real sure what she's saying a lot of the time, once we can - watch out, she'll talk our heads off...

Our nephew stayed at our house while niece and daddy went home to take a nap, and it made Kevin's day since he was able to stay home with our nephew while I went to the grocery store. I left them watching "Finding Nemo" but pretty quickly they were out shooting guns again.

We made a great meal of sliders -- fresh made at the meat counter at the store, on King's Hawaiian bread rolls (love that bread, its a little sweet), fries, and homemade ice cream.

Kaden was a big help in making the ice cream, he and Kevin measured out the cocoa and he helped put ice into the bucket. We should've made sure the cocoa was fully dissolved into the water - there are some surprise cocoa blobs in the ice cream, but will do better next time. We made this recipe since it was the easy (faster) way to make ice cream...

Good luck to Kaden on his first day of first grade tomorrow!!

The only one who didn't have a great day is Smokey. Having kids around stresses him out, which we knew. but this was the longest he's been around kids in a while and it stressed him out so badly that he had a seizure soon after they left - he had one almost 2 years ago after a busy busy day around Christmas. We've definitely found his trigger -lots of stress. He is fine, it only lasts maybe a minute and a few minutes later he's back to normal and now we know what to expect - the first one scared us and him...we'll have a low-key night tonight.

The Help

I finally went to see "The Help" last night, and I LOVED it!

Its been out a week, but it took a while to coordinate schedules, mostly my calendar since this has been the busiest week! My sister and I each read the book so we made a girls night out of it, and Kevin was happy because he didn't have to go see it..

Of course they had to simplify some things from the book and leave things out, but all in all it was pretty true to the book -- I did wish they'd left one scene the same (what happened with Constantine) but understand that it worked better in print then on the screen)

I was skeptical about Emma Stone playing Skeeter, but she did a great job and you really forgot it was her. The actress playing Minnie was right on!

Go see this movie!

I see why my mother-in-law is #107 or something on the waiting list at the library for the book, it was very popular already and the movie just catapulted its popularity.

Looking at it from today's views its hard to think there was ever that much separation between races, but it really wasn't that long ago and unfortunately some people still hold some of those views. I found myself thinking of my grandparents' maid, Eunice, and what she would've had to say about working for a family in Louisiana, she lived through that time so I'm sure she could've told us a lot.

summer wind down

Summer is definitely ending, work is picking back up (although it never really let up this summer!) and Kevin already has reading assignments for his classes - he starts back to school in one week. I think we're both ready for him to go back. I know he enjoyed the break, but this summer has had its moments when I've been frustrated that I'm so busy and he has all this time off, we knew what we were getting into but having a spouse back in school is tough some days.

He's already halfway through and loving it! It will be a crazy school year, he'll have TA duties on top of the schoolwork that he had last year and I'll be even busier with my VP duties in addition to my work duties - those have been keeping me busy this summer..maybe thats why it feels like it never slowed down...

I'm really looking forward to the cooler weather - sweaters, soups, maybe some rain?!?

We've already been to a football game, the first Texans preseason game of the year. For Kevin and a lot of people fall would not be the same without football.

Chess Tournament

Kevin is running his first chess tournament today, and its going well! I came with him to help him with set-up/tear-down and also to run errands (like grabbing lunch for us both). In the downtime (I have lots of it), I've been playing with my computer, catching up on some work stuff, and will read my book later.

Our alma mater was nice enough to provide space to us (2 classrooms - one for the games and one for the checkin/waiting area, etc) at no charge, and he has 13 paid competitors, and one 'house player' so there is an even number of players. They are quite an age range, from kids of 6 to 8 to grown men, and the kids are tough competitors. the girl will represent the US in Brazil for her age group!!

Kevin just judged his first dispute, the fun part of being a Tournament Director.

He's also the sponsor of a new chess club that meets near our house, website here.

It is fun to see him in his element and with people as passionate about chess as he is!

Lefthanders Day

Happy Lefthanders Day! I missed it last year, I found out about it the day one day after it happened, so this year I'm making a point to honor it - even joined the facebook group.

I did buy myself some left-handed scissors for the curtain project, and I guess they are left-handed - they work really well!

Here are other things I've noticed are designed for right-handed people:

- my eye doctor has pens attached to clipboards to fill out the paperwork necessary to be a patient, and the location - you guessed it, on the right side. So I kept having to move the chain out of my way since it went across the page, I also tried having it under the clipboard, either way was awkward.

- the ladle for a punch bowl is right handed when it only has the lip on one side and is designed to poured using the right hand, really awkward for me. the best solution, get a ladle with the lip on both sides

- the lawnmower has the cord you have to pull to start on the right side, again awkward for me, no wonder I have to get Kevin's help to start it..

I swear, even some of my necklaces are righthanded. if the pendant can come off I just reverse it, but some the pendant won't come off and I have to hold the clip open with my right hand so i don't end up with it on backwards

PSA: Civic Visor

I drive a Honda Civic and recently received a letter about a class action lawsuit regarding defective sun visors. I happily set the letter aside since my sun visors were fine, and later that same week the driver's side sun visor split and wouldn't stow away properly....very annoying (and dangerous) since it was in my line of sight.

I grabbed the letter to read it more closely and found that they'd extended the warranty for the visors to 7 years (probably the only thing ON my car that is still under warranty), and so Kevin took my car to the dealer and got it replaced at no charge to us, woohoo!

Since then, I've found out that BOTH of Gwendolyn's visors have broken and here neighbor's broke as well...I'm starting to see why a class action was created, I don't know that many civic owners and already have 3 examples of them breaking..

The dealer will replace it OR Honda will reimburse you if you paid to get it fixed.

Here is more information on the class action.

I'll take this problem over uncontrolled acceleration, but still annoying. I'm not a car person, I just want something to get me reliably and comfortably from point A to point B.

random Carol thought of the day

I see bumper stickers on my drive in to work every morning and think they are missing out not making "spouse" stickers, they have mom, dad, grandma, grandpa...I'd totally buy a sticker saying my hubby goes to Sam...even better, "my hubby and our money go to Sam"

Last of the curtain projects complete!

This past weekend, I finally finished a project I'd had in mind for the last 6 months and had started working on a couple of months ago.

Our media room has french doors with glass panels. We've been wanting to get curtains for the doors both to block out some of the light when we watch a movie and to give privacy since it doubles as an extra guest room when my family comes to visit (a queen size air mattress fills up most of the room).

We thought about buying some but quickly saw they were more expensive than we were willing to spend, so we had the idea to make some.

I took measurements, picked out fabric (and then I made a second trip to the store since I'd bought only enough for one panel, not two). I do not own a sewing machine nor do I know how to sew very well (my experience is with sewing on girl scout patches and those didn't turn out too pretty), so I was lucky that I was able to get my friends Jay and Gwendolyn to help. Gwendolyn is the craftiest person I know, and the two of them made a beautiful art car so Jay is crafty in his own way.

I went to their house on Saturday and got their help to make them (read: they made them for me). Their experience with sewing (and her mom a phone call away) was invaluable. I had the fabric pinned, but they gave great suggestions of making another fold so we had finished edges, and so we pretty much started over, with the ironing board and a bunch of pins. Jay can sew!
Added bonus: I got to spend much of the day with both of them and their 2 cute kids. Advice to Stella - find a man who can sew and who will kill bugs, just like your daddy!

That night Kevin and I hung the curtains - they are on tiny cafe rods and they block the light really well for the movie watching and really make that corner of the room look much more complete.

Thanks Jay and Gwendolyn!

Here is a before and after shot (I actually remembered to a take a before picture!)