goodbye 2013

Last day of 2013!   We've had a relaxing break at home, and even tackled a home project.  We now have 3 shelves in our workout room to be able to store and organize the cable box, new bluray player and dvds.  This project will make all the difference in getting us both to use that room more often - netflix streaming while I work out, yes please!

Its not as exciting as a holiday trip, but something that we'll enjoy for many days/weeks to come.  We've come a long way in our at home projects, found the studs pretty easily and only ended up with one extra hole in the wall (a HUGE win for us!)

We have no big plans for tonight, just fixing a pot roast, and will have champagne at midnight (or maybe at New York's midnight) and protect our big bad dog from the fireworks in the neighborhood.   We've been hearing them all week, and he's not a fan....

I had to post our pizza picture from yesterday, it kind of (if you squint) looks like a firework (or maybe an amoeba).   Its our first attempt at a completely homemade pizza.   We had a tough time getting the dough to spread out and part of the odd shape is because we then had a tough time getting it onto the pizza stone, it stuck to the peel.

The flavor of the crust was good, but since it was uneven parts were still doughy.   We ended up having it as an appetizer and ended up going out for a pizza....It was made with a lot of love, but we need to work on the skill level....we'll try again with the other part of the dough (and after reading a bit more on how to do it).....some of the most memorable meals are the cooking fails....

I'm glad this is one of the last meals of 2013 and not the first of 2014 -- we might worry that it shows what the year will be like, I try not to be superstitious but do find myself wanting to make the beginning of the year great to set the tone for the year.

Have fun celebrating and stay safe!!!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.    We've watched way too many Christmas movies, the classics for us are National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story and Home Alone.  We also baked cookies (with mixed results), and this week have been able to celebrate with both sides of the family.

My last day to work for the year was Dec 20  -- hooray for working at a university!   We debated taking a trip, but decided to just enjoy the break, celebrate with our various groups and stay close to home.

Our festivities started on Saturday when we celebrated with Kevin's mom's side of the family -- lots of food, family and fun that day.   I'm not the biggest fan of a white elephant gift exchange, but learned to just take it as a fun activity and don't get my heart set on any one gift.   We do get a lot of fun stories from it each year.

My parents came up on Monday and we had Christmas with them, my sister and her fiance (still love that I can call him that now!) that day, complete with some homemade Texas chili -- sis' fiance and Kevin made the chili while my sis and I baked cookies - chocolate cookies with mint Hershey kiss on top, and a few with reese's bells instead (K's idea).  

We spent Christmas eve with my in-laws and exchanged gifts with them last night.  This actually worked pretty well so today we could focus on thei kids' gifts.   We went back over to my in-laws for Christmas dinner and opened gifts with our niece and nephew and played with them.  You really do need 3 adults for each kid, for the assembly of some of their gifts-- the dollhouse our niece received took several of us to assemble -- and was a hit with both kids!    I still hear about the Barbie McDonald's my dad had to assemble the middle of the night and all the stickers he had to put onto it...but boy, did I love that toy!

 Our gifts were easy open and go for our niece (thank you Melissa and Doug) and the books and puzzle we got our nephew will be enjoyed later in the year.

They were overwhelmed with all the toys and also loved playing in the box the dollhouse came in!

Its been a fantastic few days, and I know that I'll enjoy the next few days off....

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Parade is on tv and this year I don't have to cook since we're headed to my in-laws for dinner, hooray!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

We have so much to be thankful for and are excited to have a new member of the family - we have a future brother-in-law since my sister is now ENGAGED!!!

Stores have been trying to get Christmas started earlier and earlier, but we resist - only Christmas thing  I've done is buy a new tree topper.  December can be all about Christmas but November is reserved for Thanksgiving in our house!

Charcot-Marie-Tooth

I started this post way back in March 2013 but didn't know what to write.  I was inspired by a documentary we watched this week to go ahead and finish it.

Until I met K, the abbreviation "CMT" only meant 'country music television' to me.   It has another, much more important, meaning: Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome.   Its a terrible to remember name for a disease that is much more common than either of us realized.

Kevin has it and others on his side of our family also have it.   His is less advanced so you may not notice it about him, but it affects his everyday life.   After being together for almost a decade, I'm still learning what all it affects in his life - from difficulties buttoning items (I've learned not to buy things with buttons for him whenever avoidable), holding onto things and operating his ipod, to poor balance and the knowledge he'll likely need assistance walking one day.

 There are so many things it affects for him, and as I said his is less severe.  Some of the adjustments he's done for so long he couldn't even tell you it was an adjustment.   His aunt found some attachments to put on lamp knobs that changed his day!  They've also found magnetic connectors for necklaces (less used by him, but used by the women in the family with it).  I know that the things I'm mentioning sound trivial, and in many ways they are but they can be an everyday battle.   I'll do something with my fingers and he'll look at me astounded asking how I can do it, and I just can with no thought to it...things I find easy are out of reach for him.

I want to help raise awareness about this syndrome, as common as it seems to be we probably know others with it and don't realize it.  I was inspired by the documentary we watched this week, about a young woman who has a much more severe case and has become the face of CMT.    It is worth a watch ($4 on amazon prime, also available on hulu).   More info here: http://www.bernadettecmtmovie.com/   As they say its the most common disease you've never heard of.  

A while back, Kevin's aunt (who also has it) was featured in a magazine about her life with CMT and how she finally met a pen pal she me through that same magazine.

I hope you learned a little bit about it, I know that I still have a lot to learn about it!!

November

Hello!   We've been here I just haven't felt like posting.   We are still having adventures and enjoying the cooler weather.

Some highlights from the first half of the month:

We took advantage of the weather and gaining back the hour the first weekend of November and made our annual trip to the Renaissance Festival.   We had a wonderful day taking in the sights and tasting different food and drinks.  Our food discovery of the day was at the Polish food station - pierogies, we split a plate of 6 and half were potato cheese, the other half were meat - they also had sauerkraut and mushroom but we weren't brave enough for that.   The girl working the station who recommended them said people come back for them and I can see why!    They were delicious, and we planned to get more, just never got back to it. I will have to look for pierogies elsewhere so I don't have to wait another year for them.

The entire festival is outside and we spent the day soaking in the weather and enjoying being away from technology-  there are no tvs and terrible cell coverage (which is bad if you're trying to meet up with people).  

We even had an excuse to go shopping.  We picked out some items for our niece and nephew and were able to wear them all day and knowing they would make their day when we gave them to them, the best way to shop since otherwise I buy things and then wonder at the end of the day what will I do with it?    Nephew wanted a dragon for his wrist (red and black) and we also got him a small wooden sword, and niece got a princess crown with gauzy strips off the back - very much a princess.   I wore the dragon and crown (thank goodness its adjustable) and K carried the sword on his belt.

We gave them their gifts yesterday, niece is posing with her crown, but nephew wouldn't let me take his photo - though he loved the gifts, and gave each item name, Diablo for the dragon and Gladius for the sword - his idea to find a Latin word for sword, love his curiosity!

Yesterday afternoon we went to Michael's to get K's' diploma framed, and we saw some characters.   A guy who worked there (but didn't do any work that we could see) saw History on the diploma and talked K's ear off about also being into history, but then went on to talk about a move screenplay he's writing, a trilogy, about an undead character and set in the Old West, then WWI, and finally WWII.   I didn't know what to say.  We also saw a guy come in with a poster to be custom framed, and I was expecting something signed, homemade or unique -- nope, a Mona Lisa print...and he was serious about his choices......no idea why you'd frame that in your house....We had quite the stories to discuss afterwards.  You have to find the humor in your day, I'm sure we look crazy to others some days...

Over the past few weeks we've been watching a lot of movies & specials about the Kennedy assassination.   I've learned quite a bit about it and find it fascinating, and I know we'll watch more with the 50th anniversary being observed this week.  I'd recommend the "Parkland' movie (centers around the hospital where both Kennedy and Oswald were taken).  Until 9/11, I didn't have a moment where anyone I talked to could tell you where they were, but I know the Kennedy assassination was like that for our country - my mom can still tell you where she was.

I can't promise I'll be better at posting, though I will try to share  the funny moments.  I'm dubbing my Michael's experience "the people of...", after all those 'people of Wal Mart" photos people share.....