Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Crazy Things We Did To Songs!

Ok, feel free to add stories, all my siblings.

Tchaikovsky's Russian Dance from Nutcracker Suite: Dance around in circles until we were so dizzy, but don't stop til the song ended!

Oh Happy Day (When Jesus Washed My Sins Away): Change lyrics to "washed my brains away..." and do little Earnet Goes to Africa hand/dance moves. :) (Yeah, crazy! Mary started it, I think!!!)

Marching to Zion: (start out really high, capitalization/bold means really HIGH) Come we that love the Lord, and LET our JOYS be KNOWN...... We're marching to Zion, Beautiful, Beautiful Zion, We're marching upward to ZIOOOON the beautiful city of God!

Count Your Blessings: (Has to be from HymnMakers): Play Tambourine crazily w/music!

Obrigado Brazil's Brasileirinho - I don't know, it's just an awesome tune to get nuts to!

Wieniawski's Polonaise Brilliant, Op 21 - AH!!!! How can you NOT get high on this piece? Karen and I could hardly stand how HAPPY it makes you!!!!!!!!!!! *shrieks as she listens to music* Ahem....

There's tons more, but my brain is alluding me currently. Mary, you must know?

Thursday, June 23, 2005

"How Committed am I?"

That's a quote from Bill Phillips, when he was talking about pushing past your mental limit, and diligently workong out. :) Stuart loved that quote. I don't remember the rest of it, but there was more.

What an appropriate quote. For over a week and a half, Jonathan and I have been seriously working out together. It is fun and rewarding to feel so great. I am using videos and supplementing with Body for Life exercises on target areas. Body for Life was one system I don't see how people could get tired of. The videos... yeah, it could get that way! I haven't been dibilitatiingly sore, probably from low-weights (not killing myself) and lots of stretching afterward!

I have also started buying more organic groceries. It's a bit of a price increase, but I'm still in the budget. Jonathan said we can keep wine purchases (my favorite!) off the grocery budget and just something special. Not that it was a huge deal anyway, but whenever I had leftover budgeted money I liked to use it on something special, like wine or a gourmet cheese. Our garden will help once it starts producing more vegetables.

Today I've worked a lot with Mary on a project for a client. She's done a really good job and it looks like we're almost ready to deliver. Thank goodness!

No big plans this weekend. Maybe we'll try to get together w/some friends. But next week we're having a family of 5 over to dinner, celebrating Lyric's 1st birthday, and I'm meeting Aunt Diane for breakfast!

Now, I have to workout and make dinner later! Tootles!

Monday, June 20, 2005


Whole family for Eleanor's graduation from Nursing School!!!

After One Year of Marriage!!!!! How Excellent & Wonderful It Is!!!!!!!!! -Jonathan & Denise-

Melissa,me,Jennifer right before leaving from our great weekend!

This is what Jonathan & his Air Force friends did to Adam the day he got married: molasses & t.p. on the side of a highway w/the sign!

The whole family in Vermont at The Tavern!

Katrina playing with her birthday presents!

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Susi's Wedding, Life, etc!

Hello All,
So, it's been a while, eh? Yep, life has just flown.... Since my last entry I've been to Vermont, Boston, Susi's Wedding, and done lots of work, too.... I can't possibly catch up on everything, so I'll just hit highlights...

June 1st was Index Day. First month to post all index holdings using Windows. Hehe, only Mary will understand that. But considering I started about 7 and finished about 10:45... Yikes! Jonathan & I were to get up at 4:40 & leave by 5 the next morning, so that made it tough. I thought I was all finished at like 9, but lo and behold at 10, JoelB links me with what looked to be a huge problem. It wasn't, but it took me 45 minutes to figure that out! I think we finally fell asleep at 12! 4:40 came bright and early, but we actually had left the driveway by 5:18. We headed straight to Starbucks for some Grande Mocha Valencias (I was the only one there!) and headed out. We drive to PA 1st for Jonathans 308 and arrived there at our exact planned time - 1:15. The countryside was beautiful, many barns and rolling hills, although there was rain sporatically all day. We arrived in Ludlow, VT at 11ish, due to a navigating problem of mine - which my husband took very patiently!

Vermont was so enjoyable. I worked some, but mostly we rested, played badminton, fished, swam, paddle-boated, hung out, and visited quaint little Vermont-y stores. :) I took Suzanne to Dunkin Donuts for coffee twice (she loves those caramel lattes!) and Mary and Karen to Java Babba's (icky name, good coffee). Karen, Mary and I went shopping for Katrina's 1st birthday party!!!! It was so fun - Karen wasnted to buy EVERYTHING, but did a good job stopping herself. We had an awesome party for her. She's such a joy!!

We visited some really cool restaurants in Vermont, especially one called The Tavern. It had huge ceilings, dark wood, and we had a room all to ourselves! Seth gave a toast to Karen for being such a sacrificing and loving wife, it was so sweet.

We spent a day in Boston together, but Stuart, Jonathan, Noah and I (those who wanted to rise & leave early) drove in to a train station, took it in, and then walked to Bunker Hill. It was really hot outside. When we were still 10 minutes from BH, Mary called to say they were parking! That meant we had about 30 minutes to see BH and walk to Quincy Market... looked like we'd have to be reallllly quick! As it turned out, there were TONS of 4th grade school children at the monument, but we 4 decided to climb the 297 stairs to the top. It was quite a hike and real muggy at the top! But the view was spectacular. We looked thru the small museum and then headed back to QM. We made great time, although Jonathan and Stuart differed in how to get there... :) We walked to Paul Revere's House & then Old North Church which was a blast listening to the info on - great pics, too. Then Jonathan and I had to head to Sudbury for dinner/sleep at his Aunt Tammy's place. The traffic was MADDENING!!! We had a cookout & his cousins were really nice. Then walked to an old inn where there was a 15 person fife and drum band playing - right there in twilight framed by that old inn, I felt transported to another time. The uncut fields sent my allergies afoot, and halfway home we got caught in a downpour! But then the bed was ever so inviting.

We picked up Crystal & drove home. Jonathan decided to take his chances on 95... AGH! We have experienced it now and say NEVER AGAIN. It was awful, the traffic outside Providence, New York, DC, Baltimore, etc... We arrived home at 1:15, but we did watch A Man for All Seasons and SpiderMan 2 in the car, thanks to Jonathan's wonderful birthday present to me!!! :)

The next day, we were to start Susi's cake! Crystal and I left our house at 2 and it took until 7:15 to get to Milton! Admittedly, we had to stop for groceries at Sam's and Bloom (do you believe Sam's doesn't sell cocoa, baking chocolate, or margarine???!!!), the mall quick to look for a dress for Crystal, and for gas. I let the car get to 0 miles to empty, it was hilarious seeing how nervous Crystal was!!! (Sorry, it was!) We had fun together (Snickers and Ritz Bitz), but were glad to be out of the car. Ok, she still had to drive to the Freeman's to get the cake pans. Jennifer headed over and we started making the HUGE cake. We originally planned to 15x the recipe, but really only had to 10x it. But we could only make 5x at a time. It took hours to bake, and we always had something to do: clean, make icing, get some nourishment ourselves, clean silver, etc! We stopped at like 11:30 and were all so tired!

The next morning Jennifer surprised us with utterly delicious Pumpkin Pancakes w/ Hot Cider Syrup. I'm craving more right now! It gave me the energy to go on! We musta started back on the cake like 9ish and planned to be done at 1. Well, we couldn't get the a/c working so the house was about 87 degrees. The icing kept melting... or getting real soft. I didn't think to get it fixed... So, I also did not have cardboard separating the tiers. One the whole thing was together, the jam in the bottom layer kept kind-of oozing out little by little. I didn't think WHY. So finally it was almost done and I stuck the whole think in the freezer so I could shower. 15 minutes later I went to get it and... THE WHOLE CAKE IS SLIDDEN OVER TO THE SIDE!!!! I felt like fainting or screaming or waking up (but it wasn't a dream!)... I knew I needed help so I cried out, "Help! Help! Somebody help! The cake's all slid over!" It's funny to remember my voice now. Seth & Jennifer immediately came to the rescue. The top 2 tiers were perfectly intact, the bottom 2 needed surgery. So I told Crystal, Seth, Karen & Nancy to please head on, I'd just have to finish this & possibly miss the wedding. Jennifer took off every piece of chocolate shard and cleaned them off for re-application. I iced the tiers up again. The chocolate had lost it's shine, but it looked pretty salvaged. Jen went to get dressed and I finished the scroll-work. It make the cake look much better, though it was still the oddest looking cake I think I've ever seen. :)

Then came the fun part. Jen was to drive and me hold this 25 lb cake.... steady... for 40 miles. She drove amazingly! I was never worried! As I suspected, my wonderful brother-in-law Seth called to give better directions! I don't know when we arrived (4:30?), but the wedding had just ended. Oh well, so sad for me, but business to do! We actually put some purple flowers on the cake & it made it look much better w/ color! They served it up and everyone said it was delicious! I think all but the bottom layer was (it had all the jam/icing squeezed out of it!) We talked and walked around, Katrina loved playing in the water. :) And then at 6 Jen & I headed back to Milton. I cleaned the rest of the kitchen mess, not much b/c Jen had already done most of it, grabbed some things and headed back to Charlotte. I was bone-weary. Jonathan and I both finally saw one another at 12 after over a day and a night apart!!! What a sweet reunion that was!!! I hate spending nights apart from him, so it was so joyous to once again be with my wonderful husband!

And that's my story... I'll have to upload pics soon.
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