Japanese Tree

The original and my vector art attempt via Adobe Illustrator. I've been playing around with Illustrator a lot lately. This is my first attempt to render something into Illustrator.

One-Room-at-a-Time, part 2

OK, see, my house must not be that bad that #2 is already up here, right?? Really, the problem isn't that is too messy, it's that I keep thinking, "I'll wait until we get it all fixed up- hang all the pictures, get the curtains up, etc." But, you'd be waiting forever, so here goes...Enjoy, looky-loos! (Insider tip: click on the photos to see them in GIANT SIZE!!!)

This is our bedroom, which has a nice little balcony off the side that is basically a blinding white spot in this photo. We have some more pictures to hang in here that still need to be framed, and I am going to eventually try to hem these curtains, but otherwise, we're done in here.

Joel had a funny joke about the little "displays" on the bedside tables and on the dresser: He calls them "The five treasures of Asia," because we have stuff from five countires in there. I guess it might be a little much; maybe when we have a bigger house I'll have more room to spread out my stuff. Anyway, hope these help satisfy your curiosity!

G.I. Milk

Just a quick post about our milk. For some reason, Joel took a picture of the "US Forces Europe" dairy products that we buy at the commissary here, and I guess it is pretty silly. I don't think IBM employees buy their own branded milk, nor do any other groups/organizations. Joel likes to buy the local milk, but it costs about 3 times as much as this milk, which goes for the low, low price of $1.77 for a half gallon.
Also, it sort of brings up the mythology of government cheese, which I have never really understood. I mean, free cheese, who's complaining??

The One-Room-at-a-Time Project

Since we moved here in December, people have been asking for pictures of our house. First, this was impossible because we had no Internet connection, and then because the house was full of moving boxes. At this point, I am running out of excuses to cover up my real reason, which is that my house is never really clean enough for pictures. So, I've decided to launch the one-room-at-a-time project, in which I clean up one room, at the expense of all others, and take a picture. For the first installment, I present the kitchen: Tah dah!!

When Joel first looked at this house, there was only one cabinet with a sink. Through an arrangement with the Army and the landlady, Joel was able to pick out all of our cabinets/etc from IKEA, and he installed them all himself, with only minor help from me and his parents. Amazing, huh?? Smart AND handy!

I was going with "colorful/ethnic" as my decorating inspiration; we had such a plethora of Asian tchotchkies that they really spilled into every room. Over the sink is my teapot collection- from Japan, Cambodia, China, China, and Japan, from the let to the right. Hopefully Euros drink a lot of tea, too, so we can add to it as we travel over here. The kitchen table is against the island, but you can't really see it in the pictures.

Anyway, look for more exciting rooms to follow...at some point...

Paging Dr. Aidan

Aidan has to wear a smock to his Italian school- it is so cute! Joel says he looks like a little doctor, and I say a little scientist. He says "I'm not a scientist!" and looks at us like we are crazy. I guess he also has a bit of an alter-boy look, but I'll stay away from those connotations. Here he is trying on his new "school shirt" after dinner (try to ignore the spaghetti sauce on his face and hands). Awww!

He has started saying "I'm handsome!" when he gets ready in the morning- it's so funny. He also uses cute and beautiful in the wrong situations- Joel put a desk together and when Aidan saw it, he said "That's cute!" Maybe that would be appropraite if we had gotten that pink Hello Kitty desk with the furry boa seat, but, alas, we got the "Jerker" from Ikea. We're still trying to teach him to say "That has a nice, minimalism appeal."

Plus-size modeling

The last time I was pregnant, Joel was deployed to Iraq and so no one was really around to take any pictures of me pregnant. There was actually only one picture- my friend's mom and sister were in town, and asked me to meet them at IHOP early in the morning before they left town. I woke up late and ran over there looking an absolute mess. One of them took my picture and emailed it to Joel in Iraq. If I can find it, I'll post it here, but just take my word for it that I'm sure it was not what Joel was hoping to see after not seeing me for months.
So, after seeing my friends' artsy pre-baby pictures, I asked Joel to take a nice picture of me. I figured that we'd better do it now, since I only have 9 weeks to go! We went out to the backyard on a sunny day and took 150 pictures... and about 15 are good ones. Have I mentioned how un-photogenic I am??
I know that Joel really enjoys me posting goofy pictures of myself, so here I am checking myself out between pictures:

And here is one of the nice pictures. When you picture me in your head, try to remember this picture and not what I looked like after that sweaty hike, or when I had too much to drink at your Christmas party, or any other less attractive moment:

happy valentine's day, kids!

Aidan has been talking a LOT lately about parties... when we are at the store, he holds up cake mix, plastic plates, balloons, etc and says, "For my party?" Sure, sure, for your party, sweetheart.
But, since his birthday is not until late fall, we thought it would be nice to have a little Valentine's party and have some kids over. I met some other moms on post, and invited three kids over on the 10th to make cookies. We bought balloons, which Aidan was totally excited about, and all of the prerequisite heart-emblazoned cups, napkins, plates, and table cloths. It was a little crazy, and I made some mental notes about what would help for the next time, but here is a picture to show it was an overall success:

I tried to have the kids make heart-shaped cookies with the cookie cutters, but I made chocolate chip cookie dough, not sugar cookie dough, which apparently is an issue. They ended up just making balls with spoons, and dousing them in sprinkles.
If the true mark of a successful children's party is how much the kids cry when it's over, well, this was the best party ever. It took us about an hour and a pizza dinner to cheer Aidan up after the kids left- a small price to pay to make him happy.

God Bless America

When I saw the explosion of news this morning on Anna Nicole, my first reaction was, "What has this nutjob done now?" One of my co-workers informed me that she was found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room, Elvis-style.

Hmph... I thought. Who would have thought. I assumed it would be a short piece on CNN before they'd go back to covering the war or possible presidential candidates. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Throughout the day, everytime I take a peek at CNN in my office, they are "continuing to cover" the Anna Nicole story. There's been Anna Nicole experts, Anna Nicole montages, and a seemingly endless stream of Anna Nicole video clips. At the time that I published this entry, she was still on the CNN front page. Here's the screen from today:

Why exactly is this woman famous again? Wasn't her only accomplishment being a Playboy/plus-size model? She wasn't really an actor. She wasn't known for her philanthropy. Why is this news?

Remember that other high profile death that happened about a month ago? You know, former President Gerald Ford?



Is it just me, or is Anna Nicole getting more coverage than Ford? I don't remember nearly as much coverage on that. Maybe a couple of hours in between other stories, but Smith has shut down the channel. They've got multiple live feeds running from the coroners office, courts, Hard Rock Hotel. Live feeds! There was a reporter on scene informing us that "the autopsy on Anna Nicole Smith has just been initiated." What is that supposed to mean?!? They're slicing into her at this moment? Do I need to know this? What kind of a country do we live in where a Playmate generates more coverage than the former leader of the free world?

Just to illustrate my point, I took the liberty of googling Anna Nicole and Ford as a measure of their relative importance. The results may surprise you.





So... Anna Nicole squeaks it out by about 57,000 results. Ugh. I feel like I need a shower.

No excuses

Sorry to leave everyone hanging for so long without a post. There's no excuse for it really. I came back from my "business trip" on the 31st and just haven't sat down in front of my computer to do anything productive yet.

I updated my processor, motherboard, drives, and upgraded to Windows Vista. So there's been a lot of swearing and gnashing of teeth as I've been fighting through all that. No major problems just yet, except that my DVD burner has stopped working. Not sure why that occurred, or what I can do to get it to start working, but rest assured we're exploring all options.

Hope to have some actual content for you soon, but right now I'm just trying to keep everyone from thinking that this page has been abandoned.