Emily and Matt

Matt has been traveling on business a lot lately, so I’m having to get used to being married long distance. We spent about a year and a half dating long distance, so you think we would be used to it, but no. So now I’m compiling a list of reasons why this stinks. Why yes, it is a very productive use of my time. Maybe I’ll forward this onto his boss…

1. Cooking for one. My meals typically consist of crackers.
2. Taking out the garbage.
3. Being warmed by the heater, not a hug.
4. No one to laugh at my jokes…but myself.

One upside is that my parents had me over for dinner the past two nights. Although, my mom said that they’ll have to invite Matt over without me to keep things fair. Somehow I think they would let me in, too.

What are the blue paint possibilities like? Big and blue. Yes, siree, I was put up to the challenge to find the perfect blue to paint our living room the weekend before last. I was keen on a blue-gray mix, but Matt wasn’t so sure and thought a light teal could be nice. Because we all know paint samples lie, I got four quarts:

Yes, I have the blues. After slathering up my four choices, I quickly knew the two on the right weren’t what we were wanting. Going on a hope and a prayer, I chose the leftmost color: overcast. I was just praying it wasn’t going to be so gloomy.

“Dad? Hey, we’re thinking about painting…”

Dads of the handy sort know how that phone conversation ends, luckily he was more than eager to help. It brought me back to the time when we painted three shades of blue to create waves on my room’s walls when I was in high school. My poor brother painted the ceiling while I watched TV. Thanks, Mike!

I was so glad the more we painted, the more I loved the color. Matt came in with one wall painted and thank goodness he liked it, and helped! Here’s some pictures from my phone. They were actually being sent to my mom who was recovering from surgery that kept her from talking for a whole week! Praise God she’s recovering very well!

Our living room is coming together now! This week we hope to add our couch and rug. And just when I thought the painting was over, it had only just begun… more next time!

Over the weekend, we celebrated my birthday. Which was actually in August. With all the activity we had this summer, it’s okay that we put off going out to dinner. It was well worth the wait as we trekked out to Walnut Creek to eat at Bing Crosby’s. I was in absolute heaven: I wore a new dress; was greeted by a piano, bass, vocal trio; and was surrounded in celadon colors and pictures from Bing Crosby musicals. For those of you who may not know, I grew up watching musicals and have ever since been enamored by all they encompass. Only one other time had I felt truly enchanted in a restaurant, and that was when Matt took me to a restaurant I would love on his birthday–what a guy!–and you may sense a theme here, but it was called Celadon in Napa.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, although I know I would feel really awkward using a flash to savor the memories that seemed pretty standard to the rest of the diners.

This was my awesome martini, the June in January. You can hardly tell in the picture, but it has dry ice in it, so it smokes and bubbles!

I ordered the Signature Filet:

While Matt had the Surf ‘N Turf

Happy Birthday girl:

Matt also surprised me to see “Bolt” in 3D. I love me a cute Disney movie, especially with cute dogs! Here, we model our rockin’ 3D glasses:

It was a sweet way to start a laborious weekend. But more on that later!

Tomorrow is Election Day, so for all you non-absentee voters: GO TO THE POLLS! This election season has definitely been more exciting than others, if you haven’t noticed. It is so monumental that I have been listening to talk radio. Shocking, I know. Yet I think it’s more fun when content from both FM and AM worlds combine:

(Thanks to Jess/Venus for the link!)

Let these cute kiddos serve as a friendly reminder to make an educated vote.

I love to bake. Well, the act of baking isn’t nearly as fun as devouring the sugary goodness that comes as a result. Bridesmaid Christine also likes to bake, so we decided to make pumpkin bread to celebrate the coming of fall–which weather wise is about to come any day now here in the Bay Area.

Matt took the camera that day, so unfortunately we have no fun photos to share. So, to keep things interesting, I’ll post a fun picture of us:

Now do you recognize her, wedding readers? Good! It’s so funny, people always think we’re sisters. We are also birthday buddies, so the first part of August is always a blast. Anyhoo, back to baking…

We doubled the recipe and had so much batter that we had two attempts to mix the dry and wet ingredients. We filled a bundt cake pan, two mini loaves and a star pan. Turns out, a star pan is really hard to cook evenly, in case you wanted to know.

Here’s the recipe, which we followed to a T, except that we added chocolate chips and had a little less pumpkin to work with:

Pumpkin Spice Bread

Cook Time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 can (16 ounces) pumpkin purée
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
Preparation:
Grease and flour two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, stir together the pumpkin and oil.
Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture; add pumpkin mixture. Stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake at 350° for 1 hour, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

Makes 2 loaves of pumpkin bread.
(Source)

We also made whipped cream, which Christine’s baker friend, Maxine, told us was actually sweet butter because we blended it too long. Whatever it was, it was absolutely delicious complemented the bread well!

This baker friend also had informed Christine of a time-saving, “green” tip: preheating the oven isn’t necessary for modern ovens. I tested this out last night with pizza and it came out just fine without preheating. This was great news for me, since I am an impatient cook who likes to save money and energy when possible!

Last night I had the pleasure of hanging out with my family. I often joke about how I would gladly quit my job to hang out with my family, but Matt apparently doesn’t think the joke is so funny.

My mom, dad, Mama and I headed to a fairly new little Italian restaurant near my old digs. We all enjoyed the nice, quiet dinner and conversation and couldn’t pass up the dessert menu. None of us could remember what panna cotta was, so I pulled out the trusty iPhone and looked it up.

Mama, sitting next to me, remarked about the world today and the technology we literally have at our fingertips.

While I consider myself as up-to-date on technology as the typical person on the street, I am reminded that I fall very short when discussing the coolest websites with my 14-year-old (going on 20-year-old) cousin. This all leads me to wondering what I’ll be like in my older years when I’m trying to connect my iPhone 20G to my Back to the Future 2 microwave thing to cook dinner.

Maybe it would go something like this:

Today I did one of my favorite parts of my job: talking to students about what I do. In the past, I usually talk to college students, but this time it was kids of the elementary variety.

Everything went fine and dandy. They laughed when I said “awesome,” because apparently teachers and adults in general don’t say that. But right before I was about to start, they introduced me and the class started giggling. Apparently there was a girl there with my new name. She looked uncomfortable and to be honest, I was a little bummed.

I have never met anyone (in person that is) with my same “old name.” But now there’s a country music singer, interesting children’s clothes designer and a local elementary kid who all share my name. And, as Matt is learning and everyone close to me knows by now, I’m not good at sharing.

I think I have a clue as to why you may have foreclosed on your home. The answer just came to me as I must now remove our address from seven more catalogs. The total cancelled catalogs must be somewhere in the realm of 20. Scratch that, I am unsubscribing from eight of them currently. I unearthed another one.

Seriously though, what is so awesome about Duluth Trading Co.? Their tagline is “seriously usable stuff for women.” Totally usable stuff includes a genuine shearling hat that goes perfectly with … Swedish FireSteel fire igniters? More usable stuff to me would be along the lines of hand soap or even toilet paper. I definitely use that stuff way more than flint. Then there is another publication with 84 pages of cat accessories. I won’t even get started on that one.

I’m sorry that you lost your home, well only partly since it’s ours now and we love it. Maybe lay off the retail therapy temptation by not ordering a bazillion catalogs.

Thanks,

Emily

Right now we–or just Matt as evidenced by the blogging–are conquering one of the many projects needed in our new place. That’s right–a townhouse that is officially ours according to us and the county. After a shopping trip to fill up Matt’s toolbox, the following, inevitable situation occurred:

Matt just scanned the stud detector across me and it started beeping.

“I guess it works!”

Anywho, a few weeks ago it was the rod for the living room draperies. Now it is a towel rack for the downstairs bathroom. We also added a shower curtain rod in the second bathroom, but that wasn’t as exciting as it didn’t require power tools. GrrrRohRohRoh. (Attempted Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor grunt.)

So here we are with our towel rack installation:

 

I did use the screwgun, but it sadly went undocumented.

As everyone’s favorite Pixar robot would say: ta da!

I’m so glad we have blogging, to document the important things…

When I say, “I’m so old!” it’s really meant as a joke. For example: “Emily, I can’t believe you’re married!” I then reply, “yes, I know. I’m so old!”

Last night, and this morning, I have confirmed the fact that I’m entering into old age. We gathered up a few friends, Sara and Greg and some others, to go to an amusement park that was decked out for Halloween. Having not been there in years, the scary mazes, “haunted” rides and some of the more popular, regular rides drew us in. Plus, Matt is helping our friend and Ultimate coach put up the annual haunted house at his place, so he was looking for ideas.

Everything was all well and fun as I watched Sara get scared. (She literally pointed to a corner saying “someone’s going to jump out from there!” As if on cue, the zombie appeared and she freaked out. Good times.) Since none of that stuff scares me, watching other people scream is my entertainment.

So where did the old age kick in? I would say on our fourth ride. It was fast with lots of loops and I really had no idea what was going on until we got off. Then I started to get woozy. Naturally, I tried to hide it and keep up with everyone on the rides. After all, I LOVE ROLLERCOASTERS. We ended up breaking up the pack to meet up near the front of the park at closing time. Matt and I got in one more ride, my favorite in the entire park. It was a lot of fun, until we got off. Then it really hit me: I’m going to be sick.

We met up with Sara and Greg, who were visibly tired and ready to leave. They had apparently gone on my favorite ride twice in a row because there were no lines. I was about to commend them, when they said, “the second time was when it hit us.” They too, felt woozy.

On the way back to the car, we talked about how we used to make fun of our parents for not wanting to go on all the fun rides. Now, sadly, we were starting to understand. And I understand more as I type this, because my neck, shoulders and back are sore from roller coaster brutality we endured under the guise of “fun.”