Helpfulness and Cuteness

     Two quick links to things that I found useful and/or pretty. You'll probably be able to sort which falls under which category quite easily. The first is a link that I saw on Facebook, posted by the Organic Authority, and it is in regards to caring for and cleaning one's cast iron skillets. I have a collection of three skillets and one cast iron griddle, and I always blank on a few things, like soap or no soap, and exactly how to reseason it. so, I'm posting this link for both posterity and a PSA for you readers.


How to Clean a Crusty, Rusty Cast Iron Skillet | Sanctuary
     Second, a quick link to something I saw and really loved:


Rustic Stripe Tablecloth
At the intersection of classy with an autumn color scheme, Williams-Sonoma offers the Rustic Stripe Tablecloth. In the same color scheme, you can also find napkins, a table runner, and placemats, if one of those other table-dressing mediums would suit you better. This looks really cute, light, and casual, but able to be dressed up at the same time.

Halloween Candles already...oops.

     I just so happened to be by a Yankee Candle today, and they just so happened to be debuting their Halloween Boney Bunch 2012 collection in store. Again, August 4th--way too early, right? But I also just so happened to have a $10 coupon on my phone using the Key Ring application. This is the perfect storm of new candles.



     That would be two large jar candles, one in Pumpkin Buttercream and the other in Spiced Cocoa, a Black Cat Illuma-Lid, a Black Cat Jar Clinger and a set of Dreadful Drip taper candles.


     I think it's the jar clinger that got us the most. My dear husband, who is not a good influence on me, picked this one up. This little guy is sold out online, so if you want to find him, I suggest trying in-store.

Always getting a jump on things.

     August 1st was two days ago! Has summer been progressing slowly for me? Not exactly. It never does, since I mucky prefer the cooler weather. However, summer is pretty much what stands between me and the birth of my baby, so there's been quite a mix of eagerness, apprehension, impatience, and sluggishness. Summer is passing one day at a time for me, and that feels like just the right speed.
     But! As the advertisements for school supplies start to fill my Sunday paper, it's hard to believe that it's almost time for going back to school. I feel like I say this every year, but it is true--I long to buy glue sticks and crayons. I have no use for them for the next, say, five years, but I can't wait to buy them, just the same.
     A friend of mine just invited me to a Party-Lite party, and although I will not be able to attend (it's really close to my due date), I just can't help being excited over the really fun things that they are introducing for upcoming seasonal decor. Here are a few of my favorites.


Change-o-Luminary, $28

     This piece can literally be used from September until February--half of the year! I really like all of the seasonal shadows that can be cast. I think the spider and snowflakes are my favorites.
     Here are more simply autumn-themed items (as in, you can use them September through November if you'd like) that I thought were worth mentioning.


Autumn Glow, $15
     Really cute. I bet this one casts pretty shadows.


Falling Leaves Centerpiece, $30
     There are a lot of pieces in the Falling Leaves collection, so be sure to browse around. Note that the picture above is two of the Falling Leaves Centerpiece, so if that's the effect you want, you'll have to buy two of them. It would be really nice to have two, though--I do think it is quite charming.
     There are quite a few very cute pieces for Halloween at Party-Lite right now, but my tastes run toward the spooky/classy types Halloween decor. I guess only one piece from Party-Lite really fit my tastes.

Halloween Night™ 3" x 5" Grooved Pillar, $15
     I just really like this candle. If you're trying to create a Halloween look with candles alone, this is your go-to candle.
     Unlike other sites that offer holiday decor (Yankee Candle, Williams-Sonoma, and so on), Party-Lite already has their Christmas offerings available. I think they have both some classy and cute things that you won't find anywhere else.


Enchanted Woodland Votive Hurricane, $45
     This one goes under "classy." I suppose it's more of a winter-themed decor piece than specifically Christmas, and that makes me like it even more. My dining room is decorated in grey-blue tones with black furniture, and my formal living room is soon to be painted a silvery-lavender color. I think this piece would look lovely in either of those rooms...but I'm leaning toward my dining room. Black and silver and winter nights just seem so cozy and elegant.


Village Square Tealight Trio, $30 for the set of three
     Is this piece pictured on a mantle? If not, it should be, especially for a home that doesn't have room or money for a holiday train setup. They're tiny and adorable. They also belong on my family room mantle. Tongue-in-cheek, whether they make it there remains to be seen.


Mr. Snow Tealight Holder, $30
     And finally, this is the one piece I actually already purchased...for my mom. I doubt she reads my blog, so we should be okay there. My mom has a penchant for snowmen, so although she is unable to burn Party-Lite candles (they make her ill), she can still enjoy the cuteness of this little guy.
     All of this cold-weather stuff is already available, and we're only in the first half of August! I hope that more lovely things appear as time progresses.

Frivolity: My First Mani-Pedi

     Dupont Circle is nicely decorated for Pride Week, and I had the pleasure of taking a late lunch hour to redeem a Groupon certificate for a mani-pedi at Spalon at the corner of 17th and Q, NW. I am pretty sure that I bought it for $25 back in November. I just know it was a while ago, and way before I became pregnant. I'd never had a pedicure before, and I'd only had a manicure insofar as applying artificial nails, and that's still not the same as a real manicure with one's natural nails. While cost is often a reason for skipping such services, my real reason is that, up until about two weeks ago, I was a nail-biter. Nail length could not survive more than a day, and it would have been laughable to have my stubby, rough nails l looked at by a professional. In fact, general embarrassment and booking this Groupon were my biggest inspirations for quitting. So I did, and almost cold turkey. (I did slip once and bite my right thumb nail a day into the commitment, but I stopped right after that.) My nails had never been longer than they were pre-manicure, and that still wasn't very long, but oh well--I'm two weeks in to quitting a nasty habit, and that's good enough for me.


     I had a very nice time at Spalon. Miss Diane was my nail specialist, I was happy with her work, and she was very polite to contend with my inexperience. I was intimidated to climb into the pedicure chair (being short and preggers), I didn't think to wear sandals, and I generally had to wait for instruction. The other customer next to me didn't really talk to or even look at her specialist, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I soon found a friendly conversational tone with Miss Diane, and that felt much better. I picked a dark color of polish, but I liked it, and it turned out nicely. I think if I try again this summer, I'll pick something lighter. Overall, though, it was a success.

Back with a mobile post...

     I'm having a baby in September 2012! Surprise!
     I know, I know. I am terrible for updating consistently. Last I posted, readers were still wondering if I were going to get that house. I can answer that easily enough. Yes, we bought the house in November, but we did not move in until January. The holidays kept us the normal amount of busy that holidays cause, and on top of that, my dear husband had to have surgery (routine for only him) the days leading up to Christmas. A lovely holiday with family afterwards, and lo and behold in January, I discover that I am pregnant!
     Fast forward through my first trimester--it was unpleasant. My train commute made me ill daily, but I got through it, and now I'm on the first day of my twenty-third week! I'm currently enjoying myself, all things considered. I love maternity clothes. Last weekend, with a trip to the Motherhood Maternity outlet store at our closest outlet mall, I picked up enough clothes to last me the summer (I hope). Everything there fit great, which is why I ended up taking home so much. Today, I discovered that I've finally picked up a little weight, which is also good. I lost close to fifteen pounds in my first trimester, and as of my twenty-week sonogram, I still was eight pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. The doctors say add long as I'm eating, the number on the scale isn't so important. The sonogram confirmed that my baby is perfectly healthy and growing well, and I am also healthy, do there's no reason to worry.
     I kind of feel like my body was made for pregnancy. I get the biological joke here--aren't all female bodies technically and biologically made for pregnancy? That's not what I mean. I'm feeling better and happier than really ever before. I am often prone to occasional depression, but aside from a few mood fluctuations here and there, I am steadily happy, which I really haven't experienced much in my adult years. The weight loss was beneficial for both me and Baby, and my body is generally taking to all of these changes well. These improvements just make me feel better overall, and the bonus? I'm making a person, someone I can already feel kicking around and being active. While it's very soon going to be a whole new world for me and my family, I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy it.

Tyler cats

     December 3rd, 2011, marked the passing of one of our special kitties, Tyler.

     He was a good kitty, an excellent cuddle-buddy, and a special friend. For the last year, Tyler cats had been fighting feline diabetes, and although it appeared that we had it under control, he was still taken from us at the age of eleven. Our trusted veterinarian, Dr. Becky Bolch at Friendship Hospital for Animals, believes that he may have had some type of lymphoma that attacked his kidneys, and that would explain how we lost him so quickly.



    Friday night, December 2nd, 2011, Tyler simply stopped eating and had no interest in his food. As this is quite unusual for our big, diabetic kitty, we called the veterinarian hospital, and as recommended, we rushed him there that night. We learned the next morning that Tyler had gone into renal failure. In a matter of 12 hours, he had passed away.

     Tyler is survived by me and my husband, his litter-mate and brother, Tommy (also 11), and his later-adopted sister, Pooh Bear (13). We mourn for our loss and the Tyler-shaped hole in our lives. My husband adopted Tommy and Tyler when they were just kittens, and he has been their faithful and loving owner ever since. My husband telecommutes full-time, and as such, much of his daily routines were dictated by Tyler's needs. Our family tries everyday to learn to go on without our sweet boy. We are comforted knowing that Tyler was well cared for and loved in every way. We provided only the best kitty supplies for him, and he never wanted for affection, toys, or playtime. Tyler will never make it to our new home, which pains us deeply, but we strove every day, year after year, to make sure that we were always improving things for Tyler and all of our kitties--bigger apartments, better exercise, more windows--as much as we could afford.

     Tyler cats, we miss you and love you so much. We hope that on December 3rd, 2011, somewhere in the world, an orange newborn kitten with a white face, belly, and boots opened his yellow eyes to a new, happy life.

Buying a House

     It's finally Friday, and goodness, this has felt like a long week. Maybe that's because I've been eager for Saturday to arrive--the day of our new home inspection. It is at one PM, and while it's possibly one of the more boring and time-consuming steps to purchasing one's first home, I am still excited about it. One more thing to check off the needs-to-be-done list, and one step closer to the home legally being mine.

     Yes, I'm buying a house, and right now, it is currently my top-most concern. My husband and I made an offer on a house, and it was accepted. Now comes the waiting game. We've opted for a sixty-day close, because we are in a lease until the middle of March. Waiting is logical and really good for our purposes, but honestly? I want my house. Now. I read an article on the Washington Post website about garlic and now being the proper time to plant it, and I am longing to stick cloves in the back yard of our pending home. That is the issue here--pending. There isn't anything in place to assure me that this house will eventually be mine. We are only having the inspection done this Saturday, and I'm not entirely sure that we've totally secured our mortgage interest rate yet. I know I signed a lot of paperwork, but I am uncertain of the result of said paperwork. We're at an interesting time. I've decided that I'm going to think of the house as "mine," and not prepare for the crushing disappointment if everything falls through. I'm preparing for only good.

     To show you why I'm so excited, though--this will be my new kitchen. I can't wait!

Fall-ified!

     We are two days into September, and my blog has been fall-ified. My desk has been mostly fall-ified, my candles at home are switched to the autumn scents, and my hand soaps at my sinks are of the new Bath and Body Works Autumn variety. I've made sure that my bathrooms are stocked with the limited edition fall-scented Febreze sprays. I've switched the scent theme of my hand sanitizers at work from beachy to Halloween-y (because those are the ones I have right now). My desk also holds a Renuzit Aroma cone in Apple & Cinnamon. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ready for fall.


Pretty soaps, all in a row.
     We have finally reached Labor Day weekend, and for this, I am glad. (1) Yay for the three day weekend! As my husband pointed out yesterday, summer, for some reason, is filled with straight working days and few holidays. So when you most want a holiday, there are none to be found. Autumn, however, is loaded with holidays. There are months of three- or even four-day weekends ahead of us. My husband works for the government, so he will eventually hit a point where he won't have to work a full pay period (two weeks) without a day off for the rest of the year. Holidays are so lovely. (2) Good riddance, summer! Cooler weather is bound to be around soon! I know, I know, the DC area is still predicted to hit 89 degrees this weekend, but so what! We will eventually cool off, and I have hoodies and sweaters in the eaves, just waiting for some action.

     So what are your plans for the holiday weekend? If I know my husband, we are going to bake. Remember the mixer I plugged a few scant entries ago? If you don't remember, don't worry--I'll plug it here:

LOOK AT THAT PRICE. In case it doesn't stay that way, please note that today, the price on this item, new, reads $225.99. You can see why we bought it--you can't beat that price! Especially when my husband and I pay for Amazon Prime. The price hit that low on Monday, and by Wednesday, we had a mixer. It's given my husband good reason to crack open the book my mom got him last Christmas:

All day today, he's been asking me all sorts of possibly yummy questions. For example, "Do we have cooling racks?", "Do we have Crisco?", and "Do we have heavy cream?" My husband learned the art of pie crusts from his mother, much to my mother's delight. How can you dislike a son-in-law that makes you apple pie? You really can't, especially when he's my husband.

     If we don't jump straight into baking tomorrow, I imagine we'll visit Williams-Sonoma or Sur la Table, just to stock up on the last few hardware supplies we don't have, and possibly a trip to everyone's favorite grocery store, Wegmans, to get the best quality ingredients.

     In all honesty, I just can't wait to get home--it's going to be a delicious weekend!

     Please note that this post contains product links using Amazon Associates. Should enough people click the links and make purchases, I would get paid. Amazon Associates pays once your clicks equal $10; in my entire history with the program, I currently have about $3, so I have never been paid yet, lol. The biggest reason I use Amazon Associates is so that I don't have to use my own personal server space for image hosting when I refer to products, and to ensure proper and unbroken links for archiving purposes.

A whole lotta shakin' goin' on!

     How many earthquake puns are you going to hear today? A lot. I'm going to blog my experience--the earthquake will be blogged. Also, disclaimer, this image is an extreme exaggeration.

     I'd like to post some of the news sources that were either sent to me or that I found. My personal story of the quake can be found below the links.

MSNBC's Coverage of the Quake

Virginia Earthquake: Washington National Cathedral Damaged, to speak as to the scope of damaage. This link is the worst I've heard so far.

[Edit at 5:13pm] WMATA's Post-Earthquake Service Updates. WMATA is still operating at 15mph system-wide while all of the tracks are checked.

[Edit at 4:57pm] Did you feel it? Tell the U.S. Geological Survey your story.

[Edit at 5:09pm] FEMA: What to do after an earthquake, in case we're not yet out of the woods.

    A little before 2pm, OSA Headquarters. I'm at my desk, publishing today's Optics Express papers, when suddenly, I'm moving, and my very large and easy to see computer monitor appears like I'm looking through water at it. The whole thing lasted under 10 seconds, I'm sure. I went to the entrance of my cube and see the head of my department running down the hall and saying, "Get out of here now!" Thanks to her immediate leadership, I grab my purse and phone and leave. To note, this was right in front of my face, and it didn't waste any time at all. I work on the third floor of our six-floored building, so we are hastily making our way to the basement exit, as our emergency plan instructs. I think our general evacuation went off without a hitch. Out of the building and on the sidewalk, I can see that other buildings are doing the same--evacuating. I grab my phone and call my husband once. Twice. Thrice. No service. I think I said to no one in particular, "This is big."

     While my phone calling and texting abilities were limited, I still had 3G coverage (which, to date, is the best excuse for a smart phone I can come up with). I sign on to Google Chat and am able to stay in contact with my husband. He was telecommuting in Fairfax, VA. At 1:57pm, he said, "We just had an earthquake." Although the word was in my mind, I had not officially labeled this incident an earthquake yet. My husband was the first to confirm it. At 1:59pm, he sent that there was a system wide alert that he area was hit with an earthquake. I'm not sure if this alert came from the television or the emergency weather radio that we have. He also told me that his parents felt something too--up in State College, Pa, over 200 miles away. With a computer at his fingertips, he sent me updates as he could find them. I got the first number from him--5.8. Later, he sent me the epicenter, which is currently believed to be in southern VA. As he sent these things to me, I updated my surrounding coworkers. We were gathered in the green space beside PNC Bank in Dupont Circle. We had to wait for the Fire Department to inspect and ensure the security and stability of our building, post-quake. By my emailing history, I can see that we did not return to the building for roughly 37 minutes.

As of 4:24pm, my place of work, OSA, is officially closed. I received an email at 4:07pm from OPM that an early dismissal is in place. It remains to be seen what the operating status will be tomorrow.

     Back in the building, I checked the usual social media suspects--Facebook, Twitter. Both were abuzz.

     At my work, we had a practice evacuation planned for Thursday, August 25th. Post-quake and once we were all back in the building, our building manager sent around an email that began, "Can I plan an evacuation drill, or what?"

Random stuffs

     Posting a few random things while working through the day. Like this: Beavis and Butthead is returning to MTV this fall. Now my husband's spot-on impressions can be relevant again.

     Also, a public service announcement: Williams-Sonoma is offering 25% off of their Kitchen-Aid mixer. That means that this lovely beauty:



KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer
which is usually priced at $299.95, is currently priced at $224.96. The sale ends on Saturday, I think? So If you want it, grab it up!

     So apparently I'm a fan of the show The Big Bang Theory enough to want to read along with the live tweeting of the cast interview at ComicCon today. I do sincerely love the show, and unlike many, I adore Amy Farrah Fowler.

Looks like that's all for today.