Leap Year Day

Happy extra day! If you're on the edge of your seat with curiosity about this little bonus day that we get every four years, here's a little info for you.

And for your Friday I'm going to leave you with the most random video ever. I was absolutely hysterical while watching it, but I'm pretty sure the only other person who would find the humor in it is Feather Nester. When we were camp counselors we would put faces on our chins and then hang upside down and talk to the campers, much like the video. But the video has the added bonus of the chins singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which also happens to be a song we were obsessed with in high school. Anyway, it's very strange, but it just cracks me right up. My cheeks hurt when I was watching it!




Also be on the lookout for a documentary this Sunday night at 8pm on the History Channel about this guy who thinks he found the Ark of the Covenant. I saw a preview on the Today Show this morning and the whole thing is more legit that you would think. Have a good weekend!

I heart Barack

Just a quickie tonight. B is out of town with his computer (so I'm writing from work) and after getting my 2 cavities filled today, I'm not feeling up to posting. But I will direct you to a great op-ed piece in the New York Times today on Hillary and Barack. Great article! Did you watch the debate?? We sat glued to the TV for 90 minutes and then watched the commentary afterwards. It's just all so exciting!!

A Little Perspective

I need to apologize in advance for writing this post. Blogs are kind of the nicer side of life. No one writes about their financial problems or theirs fights with their husband, or how sometimes they just want to smack their friends. And I've been holding off on this for three days now, but I can't stop crying and I just have to put it out there.

The 20 year old brother of my brother's best friend Adam is dying of cancer. He only has a few days to live. Adam and my brother grew up together and I love him like my own brother. His younger brother contracted testicular cancer a year ago and became one of those rare, horrible cases where he's not going to survive. My family (mom, cousins, aunts) have been at the hospital everyday and my brother is flying home soon for the funeral. It's only a matter of days now.

I was telling my dad yesterday that I can't chalk this up to yet another rare tragedy because I just feel like I know SO many young people who have died tragically before their time. This is the second friend of my brothers to lose a sibling and the third young person's funeral he'll attend in a year. It's starting to feel like a mass exodus.

So anyway.... there's nothing that can really be done. No one can prevent young people from dying too early and nothing has been able to stop me from bursting into tears every hour. But I thought it could be yet another reminder of all those cliches that we forget so easily. Love your family, don't be afraid, make bold moves, and forget about all of the little bullshit things that we worry about far too much.

Adam is on the far right, my brother is right next to him.

My cousin Lanai (on the left), dancing with Adam's brother Brian.

Preview

Here's a little rough centerpiece preview for you. I decided a while ago that having flowers as a centerpiece was a waste of money, especially for a destination wedding when no one can take them home anyway, so we're doing photos. We have some fun photos and we've been some fun places, so it seemed like a good idea.

We went to Lowes yesterday to buy some supplies for a mock-up - wood, stain, cut glass, etc. - and this is what we came up with. My cousin will be making the real ones, but we wanted to see what it would look like. The only difference is that this photo doesn't have a label inside the glass, under the photo. For example: "Jamaica Table". Although, ironically, the only photos we have from Jamaica involve me in a bikini and that seems a little wedding inappropriate, so I don't think there will be an actual Jamaica table!

On a separate note, I'm trying to break Miles of a great new habit he's developed and as a result I got zero sleep last night. The vet told us that since Dizzy needs to lose weight but since Miles wants more food we can't leave food out, but what I can do is to keep a little food in my nightstand and slip some to Miles in the morning or late at night when he's hungry. Well, he's working the system! He's been waking me up every few hours to eat for about a week now and clearly that has to stop.

But he is stubborn. Locking him out of the room just leads to 2 hours of crying and scratching, etc. - thus the sleep deprivation. But there's no other way to break the habit other than to stay strong, so I'm hoping that after a few nights he'll learn what begging can and can't get him. Wish us luck!

Relaxing weekend

Another cold, lovely weekend around here. Yesterday my mom and cousin came up so we could put together 100 out of town bags for the wedding. They're sooo pretty, I love them!!! And you'll love them too, once you get one in June.

Then last night B and I did something we never, ever do... we went to a movie. We saw Juno and it was awesome! We were at points howling with laughter and at points tearing up. It was truly great - I highly recommend seeing it. It's probably the only movie out of all the Oscar nominees tonight that I've actually seen.

In other big news, we bought plane tickets to Nashville yesterday!!! At the end of March, we'll finally be able to meet those big cheeks known as baby L! This is the latest cell phone picture I received of her :)

Mid-Week Reading Material

Well we're all warmed back up here, I'm happy to tell you. The boiler did continue to heat up throughout the day yesterday and we came home to a functioning house. B met with the repair man who said that in addition to a new boiler the house will have to be changed over from the original 1950s radiant heating it has now to a baseboard heat. A very big process, but I'm not sure if it'll happen now or in the future. Either way, I hope to not have to talk about it again!

I have some great videos I'll share with you later in the week, but for now I'll leave you with some reading material.

FAQs on the Election System - This is an excellent link my dad sent me that will answer any question you could have about the election system. And because it's organized by question, it's very easy to navigate and only read about the parts you'd like more information on. The only downfall is that it doesn't explain the super delegates. B and I have been passionately committed to learning about the nuances of super delegates this election cycle because they're going to be more important than ever. I'll do an entire post on it later.

2 Cats and a Paper Bag - On a much lighter note, this is a really funny article on 2 cats fighting over a paper bag from the famous satirical website The Onion. If you've ever wondered what goes on at our house having two hyper kitties, this pretty much sums it up.

P.S - Right now we're watching a documentary on TLC called "The Man Whose Arms Exploded" about steroid use. Holy crap I'm disturbed!!! If you're bored tomorrow, go look it up!

Still Cold

Came home from work yesterday - still no heat. We reset the heater again, but couldn't get ahold of the heating guy or our landlord. This morning it's gone from 57 degrees to 61 degrees, so that's been a pleasant change. Last night we sat in scarves and hats under several layers of blankets. And let me remind you that it's still in the single digits with vicious wind here. B did some investigating last night and thinks the pump in broken. Too bad B's dad doesn't live closer - he could tell us exactly what's wrong.

In other news, I tried Tae Bo on Sunday. Thanks to Feather Nester's brilliant suggestion, I utilized Exercise TV on Demand (free) in order to add some cardio workouts to my pilates schedule. First of all, those people seriously must be on crack or at least ephedrine. Holy Crap!! What is wrong with them!?? Overlooking the cracked-up instruction, Tae Bo is not for me. Or more specifically, not for my back. It's just too fast with too much twisting and fast turning for my spine to be able to handle it. So it's back to Cardio Dance for me. I'll try some other programs on the channel and see how it goes.

This has been an interesting process though, it's really the first time in my life I've ever worked out. I grew up as a gymnast and then did dance after college, but that was working out by accident. I'm happy to report that for the first time I have actual muscles!! Arms and stomach. Right now you still have to be in dim lighting to see them, but they're there!

Taking a Break

B and I had such a lovely and relaxing weekend. I had plans to continue on wedding projects, since that's what I do every weekend, but I needed a break. I didn't even know I needed one but it was so nice. I sit with my face in a computer all day and then I end up doing the same thing all weekend, so to just sit in the house with B and watch movies and play with the kitties was so genuinely relaxing. The coming months will be such a whirlwind, that I'm enjoying every calm moment I can.

Some very bitter weather hit central New York this weekend, so with the exception of a quick bubble tea adventure, we didn't go outside at all. Sunday had full white-out conditions with wind chill around -15 and winds at 30 mph! Luckily for us, we got to take a break from our heat as well. What's that, you say? Yes, our heat. Our heater failed last night and we awoke at 4am freezing and with both cats curled up next to us. Our furnace sometimes stops working for no apparent reason and we have to hit the reset button in order to get it going again, but no one was about to do that at 4am. So we added another blanket and dealt with it this morning.

In political news - big happy cheers for an Obama sweep of the four states this weekend! My dad and his wife (who live in Washington State) volunteered to be Obama delegates for their county in April - so cool!

Also big cheers for the end of the writer's strike in LA! Maybe we can have some more episodes of The Office.... I'm in Jim & Pam withdrawal. Although, with all of the exciting primaries, pretty much the only show we watch anymore is Keith Olberman.


P.S. - Big "Happy Birthdays" to two lovely ladies: B's mom (on Saturday) and M from Vermont (today!!)

The celebration continues...

Mr. Ouiser just alerted me to Eli's Disney commercial and I love the song so much that it makes the whole commercial so sweet. Enjoy! Happy Friday!

Afternoon Entertainment

It's approaching 3pm here, which is precisely when cubicle life starts to drag a bit, so let me provide you with a little workplace distraction. Click HERE for an amusing (albeit interesting) NY Times article on why Hillary Clinton is a PC and Barack Obama is a Mac. And speaking of Obama, the county we live in was the only county in New York to go for Obama and not Hillary. I guess that ranking of "most enlightened city" holds somewhat true. Most liberal, for sure.

Additionally, here are some completely random pictures of people who made dresses out of balloons. I have no idea why or how, but here they are just the same:

Underdogs

I'm here! I'm here! I feel like I've been MIA. I still really want to write about the Superbowl and how unbelievable it was, but I just can't find the time. I will tell you that at the same time on Sunday night, I'm pretty sure B, his dad, my brother, and my mom all burst into tears at the exact same time. I didn't cry, but I did jump up higher than I ever have in my life and do a lot of screaming. It's the only time I've ever really lamented not having Tivo because I would do anything to watch those last two minutes again. And even if you don't love NY Giants football the way we do, you could appreciate that every play during that time was just a pure miracle. We had basically resigned ourselves to a loss at that point and then BOOM!!! I'll at least give you "the play" where Eli Manning somehow escaped an entire team trying to tackle him, only to have David Tyree catch the football on his head. Be sure to watch the slow motion. Click Here.

And Super Tuesday! Did you vote?! B and I thought our polling place opened early like in the general election, so we were driving in a very confused fashion around a local church parking lot yesterday morning. Then when we went after work, I almost voted for the wrong person!! It's so exciting and our booths in this county are SO old and antiquated that I just voted for the first democrat I saw until I started reading other things in the booth and went "Oh my god! That's not my candidate!!"

OK, that's the basic catch-up. Need to get ready for work!

Greatest. Superbowl. Ever.

I'm at work, so I can't write much of anything right now, but celebrate the victory by reading this article until I can write more. This is the best Monday I've ever had in my working career!!

Super!

The ice storm entered Central New York this morning around 6am. I had locked Miles out of our room because he was being a huge pest when I awoke to the weirdest noise. It wasn't his usual door scratching, which had already gone on for quite some time, but an odd pinging. Once I woke up I finally realized that it was all the ice hitting the windows. So now we're on the couch, waiting for the roads to be passable before venturing in to work.

The next few days here in New York will be "Super!" "Super" as in Superbowl on Sunday and Super Tuesday on... Tuesday. I was reading the news this morning and found this wonderful article entitled "Giants are Good Enough to Pull off a Huge Upset" Beautiful!! It was nice to read something that even mentions the Giants name or reminds everyone that they gave the Pats a big run for their money when they faced each other just a few short weeks ago. It's annoying to have the whole game be perceived as a forgone conclusion before it even starts.

And Super Tuesday! I can barely sleep! OK, I can sleep fine, but it's still hugely exciting. I have to say that I was extremely shocked at Edwards early departure from the race. It seems a shame to have it only be a 2 person primary this early in the game. Edwards was never going to win, but he had such good ideas that he was really moving the discussion forward. Did you see Barack and Hillary last night? I caught clips of the debate this morning and they were being amusingly over-the-top in their civility towards each other.

Have a good weekend and remember to root for the underdog Giants!