the little things in life

i need to paint this sign for our house

today has been a busy day -- all about little things. wondering why on earth the post office has SUCH a hard time getting our mail right. trying to figure it out over the phone with scott while he's working. doing massive amounts of laundry. honestly, we are two people! i know i like things clean but really now.

i spent a large chunk of the morning in my pj's after sending scott off to work (bag lunch today, we're trying to be uber healthy now. more on that in a minute) filling out an application for a preschool. also emailing old coworkers and some friends to vouch for my moral character and great dislike for eating small children. please note how i did not ask robin. heh heh.

i am also going to spend a good portion of this week painting our living room area. the green makes me irritable, quite honestly, so my mother and i decided it's time to Go! it's shiny and your living room should not be shiny.

back to our health nutiness. scott and i became suddenly inspired by heidi and robin and their great talents for eating green things in truck loads. but more importantly, their dedication to the Eat To Live program. If you have not heard of it, it's worth googling/reading his book. of course, i have not yet read the book myself...i am too cheap. my mother ordered it and scott and i are going to read it once she is done.

our version for now is trying to stay away from processed foods, dairy (we have a little - no one should be asked to live without Feta), and make veggies the main part of our meals instead of meats. i think scott feels better already, and personally, i quite enjoy all the fruits and vegetables. we are having whole wheat organic toast in the morning with some fruit and tea, and hummus with wheat pitas and more vegetables for lunch.

it shall be an interesting experiment.

other things that i am doing with my time: horrible chores like Cleaning the Tub. i tell you, that tub has it in for me. we wrestled for a long time before i finally gave him a good one-two-upper cut to the faucet that sent him reeling. i walked out of that bathroom sweaty, bruised, and proud.

i have, however, made a great discovery in my time here alone. by myself. without another soul.

i am not cut out to be a housewife. not at least, until i have a child or two i suppose. it gets a little too lonely here for me. i need things to do, places to go, people to talk to other than mr. dishwasher and ms. hoity toity bathroom sink. two more weeks with only grocery shopping and the mail box to get me out of here and i'd lose it. and scott wonders how i could have possibly watched all of season 1 better off ted in one day. ha.

well, laundry and season 2 are calling so it's time to sign off here. but first, check out these cute characters that have moved in

Beauregard

Chester

that is the more enjoyable part of my days...getting to create little guys like these.

hope you all are having a good monday!

pumpkin patch and other fun

you all have to watch this video. an old friend of mine is an amazing photographer/artist extraordinaire and he recently put up this video collage of his son and wife in a pumpkin patch. watch and be amazed at his mad skillz.

http://vimeo.com/7223853

here are a few pictures i shamelessly plucked off his site that i loved:

rainy days

today i have had a very relaxing day at home. the rain is swirling about and i jumped outside for a minute to grab the mail but was happy to have my cozy little place to take shelter in.

unfortunately, as i wrote to my grandmother, we have a bit of rainy day bad news:

...On the rain topic however, I do believe that our little apartment heard your dishwasher having so much fun pouring water wherever it very well pleased and decided to let the whipping rain come right in and make itself quite warm and cozy in our bedroom carpet. We have suspicions that it is in fact our sliding glass door in the bedroom that has decided to be so benevolent on our behalf so Mr Landlord is stopping by this evening to hear our woes and view my fantastic Towels On Carpet masterpiece. Hopefully a solution can be found sooner than later...

the largest tragedy of the marsh-like carpet situation being that the husband's collectors edition of the dearly loved Calvin and Hobbes, in a valiant effort to help the carpet, absorbed a good deal of water themselves. the thick cardboard case has now taken on the "pear" shaped body type and the pages of the books are a bit in the wavy attitude. very very sad. the set had been a birthday gift from me a few years ago, but hopefully all will turn out well once everything has dried.

i myself have opted out of going out much today and instead have busied myself with projects and Sitting By the Fire. i had decided yesterday to make a nice lap blanket for our couch, so most of the day (after the general showering, making of the bed, and tidying of the apartment was done) was spent watching Last Samurai and listening to music while working on that new project. great fun...

lunch at my work spot

i think i may leave the tackling of the bathroom cleaning for tomorrow. i told scotto that i would hate to run out of things to do so maybe it's best if i don't pull the sponge out for now :]

time to change the towels on the carpet!

tschüss!

extreme fun

the husband and i decided to end our fun day of inside-ness with a good outside walk by the water. nice to have that so close. we bundled up to the nine's (a little of the ten's and eleven's too to be honest) expecting the foretold rain to begin. we walked around, sat and looked at the water and city lights, and then decided to visit the swings we had seen from the road.



it was great fun and i highly recommend doing the same whenever you can. friends and i in high school (and maybe farther into college years than we'd like to admit) used to go 'extreme swinging' at parks and elementary schools. i can't quite remember why it was so extreme, i think there were a few bruising incidents though...most of the time you just tried to swing out-of-control or knock the other person off their swing. fond memories.

it was fun to goof off though, just the two of us together, and although we were completely overdressed for the minor drizzle that caught us in the end, it was awesome to see us decked out in my polka dot galoshes, and scott in his huge snowboarding jacket. i'm sure.

one more thing before i join said husband for some mango-mimosas (mango juice + wedding champagne = mangmosas) and movies, here are some pictures that Diane was kind enough to send to me from the wedding. soooo fun :]

the reception

one of the scarf tables. i loved how they all looked ready and waiting to be claimed.

alright - on to the joys of being married! wish you all a happy holiday rainy day!

new found time

well hello all -- it has been a busy two weeks or so indeed.
a quick note to clear the air: i quit my job on thursday and am now beginning the wonderful Search For Something New. i do not mind, it was time, and i am very excited to find something brand new and exciting that i will love.

now i must find Things to do with my time. i have discovered something- it is one matter to have Time and Moneys. another entirely to have Time and Limited Moneys or Money You Are Careful With. yes yes. my first thought with my free time was, Ooo, now i can start the nesting process and make our place just just so. then i discovered the above mentioned revelation of truth.

therefore i believe i need to have an extra ounce of creativity in which to solve this puzzle. economically do everything i want to to our cute little place to make it just just so.

another past time i have found (alright alright...it's been one day, i know) is spending some time in our kitchen with all our lovely wedding gifts.

i made Martha's butternut squash soup the other evening. super duper fun to make, but not entirely thrilled with the outcome. perhaps just not to our taste. don't worry Martha, i like many of your other recipes, i won't stop here.

look at the fun though :]

prepping

looks so good

i cooked it with the onions, ginger, and garlic, then pureed the soup and cooked it for a twinge longer

scotto stole the camera

finished with some sour cream on top.

looks so good and was great fun to make, but not our favorite soup. butternut squash is so sweet, it just was not our taste. fun nonetheless.

but as nanny would say, We Carry On!

new life

well. it has been So Long, officially, that i can't even talk about how long it has been. i think once you reach a certain point of slacking off, it is only right that you be responsible, and don't mention it.

so i'm going to pretend that i've just been blogging this whole time and not even try to catch us all up on life. let's just start here.

ah....hi.

now that we are more-or-less settled into our cute tiny place, i have time to pick up some of my creativity again. which means that some days, after work, i find a project, sit on the couch, make a great wall of china of scraps and art mess all around me, and then get lost goofing around. then, scotto sends me a text, or gives me a call telling me he's finally on his way home and i spring into action! quick! make the bed! run the dishwasher! throw my scraps away! make it look like i haven't been sitting in the same place for the last couple of hours!

he's never cared whether or not the bed is made...but it's kind of fun going into whirlwind mode.

let me show you what i made yesterday :]

this is Cynthia

and this is Jorge

and they are both so excited to greet kirstie!

my sister in law (Kirstie) just moved down to san diego and is bunking at my parent's house for a while, so i wanted to give her something that would make her feel a little more at home/loved. hopefully cynthia and jorge can help.

it was so much fun creating them, i couldn't help it but i started to make one for our house as well. he's pretty cute so far.

it's been fun setting up our place, but there is still loads to do. some days though, you just have to chose your priorities. scott and i love to cook together, but we're still picking up some of the tricks of the trade. we plan on some day becoming fine chefs - running our own cooking show, "Germans cook with Chopsticks" ... but for now it's fun just to think something up, see if we have the fixins, and then go for the gold. and sometimes eating our hard earned meal, watching some season 1 ER, and trying out our Harry Potter moves to try to get the kitchen to clean itself, takes priority over Organizing the Hall Closet. that's just life.

for now though, i'm leaving my sandwich plate here, crumbs and all, and climbing into bed for a nice afternoon nap.

more on Diehlio life later.