General

Weekend Catch-up
I meant to blog this weekend, but my computer was in limbo. Honest! Actually, Denis went and totally cleaned up my hard drive and re-installed everything for me. Of course, this is a rare thing to have to do to a mac, but I had about 4 different installations of different versions of the operating system lurking around my hard drive – now I just have Mac OS X. (Well, and 9.1 for “classic” apps.) So the only time I spent on the computer this weekend was to work on my master’s project. Which I have made huge progress on! I’m actually starting to get excited about it again – I was starting to feel like I’d never get it done, but I’ve finally connected all the pieces, and from here on in it’s only a matter of spending every night and weekend coding and documenting between now and the end of fall quarter. :P

I also did some work on those christening gowns. Yikes! This might take a while. But they’re really cute so far. Maybe when they’re a little more substantial I’ll figure out how to post pictures of them.

And when I wasn’t busy writing code or working with ivory fabric, I made several dozen chocolate mint cookies. I wanted to make something for the new neighbors, and I’d forgotten how many cookies the recipe made…so I doubled it. When all was said and done, I ended up making 16 dozen cookies. That’s a lot of cookies. Especially when only 15 go into the oven at a time, for 12 minutes a tray. Two-and-a-half hours later, with cookies cooling on every flat surface in my kitchen and dining room, I never wanted to see another chocolate mint cookie ever again!

Mmmmm….
I’ve just been introduced to the best bagels ever to be had on this planet. I mean, I’ve had NYC bagels. They’re good. Rochester bagels, well, they’re better than no bagels. But Brownstein’s bagels are the best. It’s a really good thing they’re nowhere near on my way to work, or I’d be shaped like a bagel by Christmas time!

Yippee!
It’s that time of year again…football season! There is nothing I like better than coming home from Wegman’s on Sunday morning, putting on a pot of chili, and sitting down just in time for the kickoff… Of course, it’s really only pre-season, and a little too warm yet for chili, but just watching football is cool. Now if only I recognized any of the Bills this year…

Oh, and Denis reminded me that I am also genetically predisposed to worrying. About anything, everything and nothing. In fact, I’m worried right now about waking up for work tomorrow. Guess I’d better go to bed!

New Neighbors
I have new neighbors. The funny thing is, I didn’t know my old ones were moving out until the moving truck showed up in their driveway today. No “For Sale” sign or anything! One of my new neighbors is apparently a sheriff…at least, there’s a sheriff’s car in the driveway. I’m never quite sure of the new-neighbor ettiquite. Do I walk over while they’re in the midst of moving in? Do I wait until it’s not so hectic? Do I have to bring something now, or can it wait until the weekend? It’s so complicated. Oh, well. I guess I’ll just go say “hi” and bring them brownies later when they have a kitchen table to sit at…

Sunday
I meant to do a lot of stuff today – re-wallpaper my family room, work on my master’s project, etc. – that just didn’t get done. Instead I spent the day helping my parents haul out 27 years worth of junk from their basement. You know, all the stuff that gets accumulated through several moves, three kids, and a menagerie of dogs, cats, birds, bunnies, fish, rats, guinea pigs… But the coolest find (besides 3 dozen rolls of exposed but undeveloped black-and-white film) was a box of 8mm movies – and a working projector to show them on! That pretty much ended the day of cleaning as we watched movies (mostly of me – the curse of being the oldest child) from the late 70s. It was really nice.

Saturday
I had a bunch of my cousins over to go swimming. I don’t think I could have arranged for better weather for a pool party – it was 78 degrees and sunny, and the water was 88 degrees. Sigh. We got my cousin’s dog Casper to almost like the pool. Molly, of course, was swimming around like the loch ness monster. She’s also started lifeguarding – if someone goes under the water, she swims over to rescue them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know she can swim underwater, so she just circles around until the person surfaces. This makes diving a little more difficult. My little cousins Aaron and Emily loved the water – Emily spent about 2 hours retrieving diving rings from the bottom of the shallow end.

It cooled off a bit too, but it still hasn’t rained. Which means everything is dead and brown – except for the weeds, of course. And the lawns of the people in my neighborhood who are ignoring the water usage advisory and still using their sprinklers. I mean, it’s not like it isn’t obvious who they are… Hmmm. Those people must have planted a remarkably drought-resistant strain of grass. Or Astroturf. Give me a break! :)

Uh-oh! Jenny’s blog is being held hostage! Note to self: never let Denis post in any future absence – who knows what he’d demand (a new titanium powerbook?) for my blog’s return… :)

Heat Wave
I live in Rochester for a reason – I don’t like hot days. Not one little bit. The only reason I can stand them is that we have central air, air conditioning in our Jetta, and an inground pool. We’re going to hit 90+ for the umpteenth day in a row here, and I just don’t like it anymore! Of course, I’ll have to come back and read this in January, when we’ve been below freezing with sleet-like snow for three months and no end in sight. :) I think I’d be happiest if the temperature was between 55 and 70 year-round, with a couple warmer weeks in the summer to swim, and a couple cooler weeks in the winter (with snow) around my birthday and Christmas. I’m not sure such a place exists. Oh, well – guess I’ll have to stick around here.

I’m doing a puzzle. I have a million other things I should / have to / ought to / need to do, but I’m doing a 1000 piece puzzle on my dining room table. What a relaxing way to spend an evening. Even if my master’s project is falling a little behind… Besides, it’s inside, in the air conditioning. Heavenly.

I almost forgot! We also went to Krispy Kreme with Denis’ parents and aunts – they had never experienced the warm gooey goodness that is a fresh, hot Krispy Kreme donut. Mmmm. And, of course, we had to go to mega-Wegmans, because that is a tour stop for all out-of-town guests. For some reason, the mountains of fresh produce and refrigerators of meat and fish astound and amaze everyone who is not familiar with Wegmans. I just take it for granted that I can get blueberries in January, in August and cookie sprinkles at 1:00 Christmas Eve morning. If Wegmans ever went away…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I’ve figured it out – just like some people have a biological urge to have children, some people also have a biological urge to encourage other people to have children. It doesn’t matter what family event we go to – now that we’ve been married for just over two years, the first words out of people’s mouths tend to be “Hi. Why don’t you have kids yet?” Especially if we go near anyone else’s kids… To me, this seems like a rather rude question to ask someone. I mean, it’s not that I don’t like children. I love them. I want them. Eventually. But that’s not a good enough answer to that question. I just need to find a polite way to say “butt out”! I hope I never become that nosy when I’m older. But, if it’s a genetic thing, both Denis and I are doomed. :P

Anyway, it was a good weekend. Denis’ family came to visit, and I think all we did was eat and play dominoes for 24 hours – oh, and we wandered around Shoen place by the canal. I did my first solo stint in church – without a sound system, because they moved mass into the parish center. We had a family reunion. Molly spent about three hours in the pool over two days. And we introduced my cousin’s dog, Casper, to the pool too. My house is (relatively) clean, because I had to clean it for our visitors. And I got nothing at all done on my master’s project. Oh, well. But I did get a little too much sun, and I think I’m going to go to bed now and hope I don’t look like a lobster in the morning.

Technology Addicts Anonymous
Ok, I admit it – I am a technology addict. I was in Kmart last night and while I was standing in line, I noticed the line next to me was beeping and booping and awful lot. I looked over and they had…self-checkout registers! Being the addict that I am, I immediately left the line I was in (even though I was next) to go over and try out the self-checkout. Pretty cool. Until I realized that they are in fact just making me do the work that the cashier usually does, while the cashier was standing behind me and explaining the thing to me like I was a total idiot. The interface was actually pretty self-explanatory, if a little talkative – it tells you the price of everything you’ve scanned. At least it doesn’t announce the name of it – that could be embarassing…for other people, not me. I never buy anything I’d not want my grandmother to see me with, since she only lives 5 minutes away! ;)