Takin’ on the Queen City

Happy July! The fiscal year has ended, and although the calm is not quite as serene as I hoped, new adventures abound.

Both Dan and I are transitioning into new roles at work, which is keeping us on our toes — once we started feeling comfortable, it was time to shake things up. But that’s the way things are where we work — always learning, always changing. Keeps things interesting.

My parents were in town over the last two weeks, and we had a WONDERFUL visit. We even met the Vice President, Joe Biden, and got our picture taken with him!

Every time they come, I learn so much more about who they were in younger years, and what formed them into the people they are today. It’s so neat seeing Cincinnati through their eyes, seeing their old stomping grounds, and meeting their old friends.

We spent many mornings during their visit stalking the “wildlife preserve” (i.e. our backyard) with our cameras through the sliding glass window.  I don’t know how or why we get so many birds, squirrels, chipmunks (and the occasional rabbit and deer) in our backyard, but it’s pretty nifty. It could have to do with our crabapple tree, and I’m sure the bird feeder helps… but at times there were at least 6 or 7 birds on the feeder at once, with a squirrel (or two) laying in wait to get his full. Then, the squirrel would scare off the birds and do wild stretching maneuvers to eat from the feeder, and the birds would go bathe in the fountain. We finally bought a corn & nut squirrel feeder, which resulted with increased squirrel acrobatics - it was awesome - but they ate through it in 2 days! Crazy squirrels. They’re nutty.

Last Sunday we had my Cincinnati extended family over for dinner, and luckily we had a fabulous, sunny (but not super hot) day. We ended up sitting outside to visit and eat dinner, and it made me realize that we need to spend more time out there. My cousins even taught me about some of the trees/plants we have, which, unfortunately, are currently terribly overgrown. Alas, there is only so much time in the day, and the yard maintenance suffers. It was wonderful reconnecting with all of them.

I swear, the big guy upstairs must have had a hand in our move to Cincinnati, because there’s an “as it should be” feeling about living here. And rather than feeling disconnected from family (which I worried about when we moved many states away), at times I feel even more connected.

The weather lately has been crazy. It was so cold on Saturday (got down into the 50s), that a few leaves on our hedge turned pink. Pink! And then the first half of the week was the same - gray, dreary and cold - in the 60s and 70s… which seems pretty odd in July. We finally got some sun today, and I looked up at the sky and smiled.

Next week I go to Alabama to my friend’s ranch. This weekend we’re relaxing. And maybe seeing the Harry Potter movie.

P.S. My tomatoes are doing AWESOME. I think my thumb may be a wee bit green!

Hello, it’s been a while.

It’s been a crazy few months at work. Fiscal year end (July1) is, as I’ve come to learn, a very busy and difficult time. And I, being the crazy overcommitter who always says, ‘oh yeah, I can do that’ before thinking it all the way through, am learning a very valuable lesson. There are limits to what can feasibly be accomplished. And I’m way past those limits right now… and it’s eeking time away from my personal life and my sleep, not to mention chipping away at my sanity. 

Lesson 1: When your manager says “that’s pretty aggressive,” take a step back and reevaluate what you commit to.

Lesson 2: Sometimes 80% of the way there is good enough. (I have serious trouble with this one)

So, how are you? If you’re reading this, you’re probably someone I miss very much… so I’m sending a (((hug))) your way.

We did make it down to Florida in May for my nephew’s first communion. It was, in a word, awesome. I saw my family, hung out at my sister’s house, went to the beach. I didn’t realize how much I missed the beach until we spent the afternoon there. One day I want to live near the water again. While the Ohio River is technically water, and it’s cool to watch the bardges float by, it’s not *really* water in the beachy sense.

I planted tomatoes again this year, and Dan and I have been very busy trying to keep up with our lawn. Wow does grass grow fast here! And I mean crazy fast. For a while there mowing once a week just wasn’t cutting it. Hehe… cutting it.

A deer took a few big bites out of my tomato plants which just about killed me… but they’re coming back and looking good now, and we sprinkled “keep away deer” stuff around the yard to help protect them. They’re heirloom tomatoes my cousin John gave me… so I really want them to thrive.

It also looks like some animal ate my raspberry sticks. They’re supposed to be raspberry plants, but so far there’s no green an no sprouts of any kind… so I’m not conviced they’ll actually turn into anything.  And now they’re shorter sticks.

Watching our yard develop has been fun because we moved in during the winter and had no idea what would sprout up. Turns out we have a beautiful magnolia tree in the front yard, and a crab apple tree in the back. And today we noticed hydrangia bushes!

Dan has also found his nemesis. Thistles.

They invaded our yard with a vengence. At first we didn’t know what they were and although Dan thought they were weeds, I thought they were something meant to be there. Dan was right, and my hesitation to kill them immediately made them powerful and strong. Joy! Then we pulled them, only to find out that pulling them leaves roots and helps them spread… double joy! We’re slowly taking control of our lawn back from them. But they’re evil.

In the spring having a big picture window looking out at our backyard was awesome. So many birds and bunnies and squirrels were hopping around, it made things seem so lively and fun. I love that we have critters around our property… I just wish they were a little less hungry for my garden.

Other than work and yard work, we’ve also been excercising quite a bit, following a new diet (pretty simple - counting calories and eating a ton of vegetables, fruit, lean protein, etc.), and seeing a movie here and there. I can attest to the fact that Star Trek, Angels & Demons and UP are a great use of your money and time. We went to “Taste of Cincinnati” a few weekends ago where we got to visit with my cousin Crissi and hang out with some friends (and managed to stay on the diet I might add ), went to the Cincinnati Flower show, and we joined the zoo so we can now go there as often as we like. I think it’s funny that the Cincinnati Zoo has a Florida exhbit. There are manatees!! Two of them. And alligators.

Oh, and Glen & Annalisa came to visit and we took them to King’s Island where we got our fill of roller coasters. Dan also got our hot tub ready in time for their visit, and they decided to try it out one day while I was at work. To make a long story, Dan got out, passed out, got a concussion, and we continued the adventure in the emergency room. He’s in top notch shape now… but we haven’t used the hot tub since.  

A normal, relaxing, day. Ahhh…

Today I plan to get my hair cut and highlighted, go shopping for a friend’s baby shower, clean up the remainder of the holiday decorations, and get in a workout on the Wii. Woo! I need to get some financial/retirement things in order as well, but keep putting it off.  Maybe I’ll try to squeeze that in as well.

Oooh, and the weather is back up into the double digits… amost above freezing! There’s even a wee bit of blue in the sky today.

Happy weekend!

Dan’s in the kitchen making chicken & shrimp tortilla soup. It smells amazing, and is perfect for a frigid night like this.

I’m in my comfy yellow chair with my feet up, letting the fire make my toes toasty. I adore our fireplace. It makes the house feel cozy and warm.

Have I told you of Dan’s love of gadgets? We have them all. A Roomba named Sheldon, a Tassimo coffee maker which reads the bar codes on T-discs in order to know how to make our drink of choice, all kinds of stuff. Tonight Dan came home with a new one to solve our “avacados turn brown after they’re cut” problem. We are proud owners of the Reynolds Handi-vac! A little hand held machine sucks the air out of the plastic bag, and the1/2 avacado now looks professionally shrink wrapped. Woohoo!

I do secretly love all his gadgets. They are nifty, and in our house we have the space to store them… just not in the kitchen. Kitchen tools are my own weakness. I guess we all have our quirks.

By the way, the soup was yummy.  

Becky, remember our quest to find the Wii Fit? I found one!! Ordered it online on Monday, and it was at the door when I got home today. Woohoo!

To put things simply… Wii Fit rocks.

Love. It.

Tonight I learned two yoga poses, tried (and performed rather weakly) at strength training, rocked the aerobics, and found out my balance has quite a way to go. I also played a good number of rounds of Wii Tennis.

In a city where the wind chill is currently -16 (yes, negative… with an actual temperature of 1…yes, one degree), outside just isn’t an option for exercise in the winter. And some days (like today), I can’t make it to Urban Active or the work gym. Wii Fit is the perfect (and fun) supplement.

Ooh, and to add to my exercise news, I bought an armband for my iPod today. Now I don’t have to balance this fabulous technological creation precariously on the ledge of the elliptical trainer!  And I no longer have to hold it in my hand while balancing on a big round ball doing crunches!

It’s these small joys that make life so great.

To catch you up on other news:

In November we bought a house and moved in. LOVE the house. LOVE the fireplace. LOVE the space. LOVE the location. There have been a few glitches (i.e. the TV left in the basement was supposed to work but didn’t, the fridge leaks like a sieve, etc.), but nothing so terrible it overshadows the love. It’s strange, but the house makes me feel calm and at peace. Like it was made for us.

In December we had a holiday housewarming party and then spent two fabulous weeks in Florida for the holidays. It was a bit of a whirlwind month, but left me with a smile on my face and warmth in my heart.

So far in January we celebrated my birthday while watching the Gators win the national championship, spent this past weekend relaxing and rebalancing after going going going for three weeks, and are now back into the swing of life. I have finally learned the art of layering to stay warm! And, I finally own a warm jacket - that’s relatively new news as well.

My big birthday present was a sewing machine, which I’m super excited about. My first project is to finish a stocking for my goddaughter, which I started by hand and was unable to complete in time for this year. After that, the world is my oyster. But I’ll probably keep the next project to something simple, like curtains.

It’s super late, so I must sign off. Hope all is well with you. If you see the sun, say hello for me, and ask it to please come visit me soon.

The state of the economy is terrifying. And with my iPhone I have all the information reminding me of that fact at my fingertips. I can check the DOW with one click … only to see it free-falling. CNN is a second away. I had hope today for a few hours. Only to find out the gain was lost and the decline continued.

Did you know that Iceland is going bankrupt? Their economy is overly reliant on banks and it’s hitting them hard.  Markets around the world are tanking. The global nature of this is what scares me the most. I’m not typically one to lose hope… but I can truthfully say that I don’t know what the world will look like this time next year.

I feel like the fed is grasping at old tricks. Yes… cutting interest rates has boosted lending & spending in the past. It has helped the economy. BUT THERE WAS MONEY TO LEND! In some ways, the low interest rates of the early to mid 2000s helped us get into this mess by encouraging too many people to borrow more money that they can actually pay back… and by encouraging financial institutions to come up with new risky ”products” for this tidal wave of borrowers by loosening regulations. I agree that lending and spending is necessary to keep businesses open and jobs available. But come on. There has to be some other tactic we can come up with all those big brains in Washington. The problem isn’t that people/companies don’t want to borrow. The problem is the money isn’t there to lend because people have borrowed too much.

I do hope the tactics they’re using help…  and I’m NOT encouraging big interest rate spikes … I just have trouble with the concept of lowering rates when they’re already pretty darn low. Another point and a half and we’re at zero! This solution is short term at best.

Then we have the “bailout” package. As a concept, it’s actually pretty interesting. And it could end up making money for the government in the end if the economy actually recovers. My worry is two-fold.

(1) Where are the hundreds of billions of dollars coming from? Are we borrowing it from another country? And if so, what country has that kind of a surplus when this problem is global? Are we simply going to print more money and make the dollar worth less by flooding the market with more cash? And if the latter is the plan, won’t that spike inflation?

(2) The fact that our congress could not come up with a plan without fattening it up with all the “sweeteners” outright angers me. Our leaders couldn’t get past their own agendas to help the country. That fact makes me incredibly sad. I know it’s a difficult problem. I know people have different ideas about how to solve it. But wouldn’t it make more sense to take the time to come up with a real solution that doesn’t cost the government $150 Billion above and beyond the cost of the package?

McCain talked big about how earmarks would be a disturbing and disgusting thing to tack onto this rescue plan… and then voted for it without a peep. Not a single statement against this horrible practice… which is his #1 issue. What kind of leadership is that?  

People are scrambling for the duct tape. But the problem is akin to a leak in Hoover Dam. Eventually the duct tape will get soggy and fall off… and the leak will still exist.

Step back. Be thoughtful. What’s the cause? Address that. And then come up with some short term solutions that will bridge the gap between now and the time when the real plan can be executed to fix the root of the issue.

Dan and I were lucky. We happened upon good jobs at a not so good time. But I see people who are suffering. People in my own family. Close friends of mine who did everything right. They saved. Got their credit score up. Bought a house at a reasonable price they could afford. And their home value has dropped by almost half.

Think about that. Half.

And layoffs… it amazes me how many layoff stories I’ve already heard.

I want to have confidence because I know lack of confidence is a big part of the market mess… but it’s hard when the ground we stand on is crumbling.

The whole thing’s not purple, but it’s bruised pretty bad.  

I hit the corner of our laundry hamper with my foot this morning and my pinky toe went one way, and the rest of my toes the other. It hurt more and more throughout the day… even warranting a trip to the office nurse. She gauzed and taped it and I hobbled around for the rest of the day.

To make things even more interesting, I was SUPER late to the airport for my flight to New Jersey. I thought the plane left at 4:05, and realized at 1:35 that it left at 3:05… and, of course, I was 45 minutes from the airport.

So… imagine this. Me and my purple toe hobble-running through the maze of office hallways, out the door, and across the parking lot to my car… then speeding like a bat out of hell to the airport before deparately searching for a spot in an overfilled garage… followed more hobble-running up and down escalators and through the airport. To add to my luck, I even had a bag searched at airport security because they thought my belt (which I’d taken off so as not to set off the alarms) was a weapon. Oiy!

But, I made it. Barely. And I’m here. Woohoo!

And now that I’ve been off the toe for a bit it’s feeling better. Cross your fingers that it’s not broken. We’re going to ride roller coasters this weekend  at Kings Island and I want to be in top form!

We got the house. Within our price range. Woohoo!

 So excited!!!!!

And the negotiation has begun. We took some video as we saw the house again today.

The main living area:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bath

From dining room to hallway with 2 bedrooms/baths

Backyard

Here is the house we’re most interested in right now!!!

http://www.sibcycline.com/viewlisting.asp?mls=1139715&b=CIN&p=RESI&s=SFRD&m=1&sender=SearchResults&a=6281-Coachlite-Wy-Madeira-OH-45243