Part of me really does enjoy being domestic. I don't really mind making J's lunch in the morning--if nothing else, it ensures that I get up in time to have a few moments to myself after he leaves and before I start work.

But sometimes you just have to make sure he really appreciates that sandwich you got up early to make...and that everyone at his office knows what's up too.

time for a photo update!

[Click on any photo to see a larger version]

With so many trees outside our windows, you might guess that we get lots of birds around here. We get bluejays, woodpeckers, tufted titmice, and chickadees. But so far, I'm most excited about our resident pair of cardinals. I see at least the male pretty much every day, and I'm convinced that they're nesting beneath my forsythia bush. Here's a shot of the male. Isn't he handsome?? (His lady friend is pretty cute too!)

Speaking of birds, when I first saw these tracks, I thought we had landed in Jurassic park (the round ones are dog prints):

But, it was only a rafter (yes, that's the actual term!) of wild turkeys:

Betcha didn't know that turkeys can fly, did ya? Here they are, up in the trees at dusk (that's about all the flying they do, as far as I know...getting up into their roosts for the night). They seem to like the tall trees just behind the house. See that one in the middle near the bottom? That one's on his way up.


Of course, there are the deer:

We finally had some warm weather yesterday, so I took a walk down to the stream:

One of my favorite things about the property is that there's MOSS EVERYWHERE. Moss is one of my favorite things in the world.

Anybody know much about plants? I found a few of these popping up near the stream, and am very excited to find out what they are:

Finally, here's a birthday shout-out to Miss Loki, who turned 12 this week. Here she is in our den/kitchen (see our new kitchen table in the back? notice the lack of cat hair on the sofa? I am compelled to take pictures whenever I clean now, because things never stay that way for long).

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I spent all of last week out of town on business. A few notes from the road:

-I have become WAY too accustomed to my telecommuter habit of wearing sweats and slippers to work. One full day in a suit and heels and I was literally hobbling back to my room at the end of the night.

-I love that almost all public restrooms now have those paper toilet covers. Nothing worse than sitting in someone else's splatter (of course it's always the squatters who are too afraid to let their ass cheeks touch a potentially dirty toilet seat that end up leaving the seats covered in piss drops).

-At one hotel, every time I called room service or the front desk or whatever from my room, they addressed me by name. I thought this was a really nice touch, until I let my alcoholic friend crash in the room with me after a night out and she puked in the bed. At that point I was really longing for anonymity.

-On a related note, flying with a hangover sucks.

upon returning from another business trip

he: "I'm sad when you're gone."

she: "You're probably just sad because I'm not there to make your lunch and your coffee and wash out your thermos for you in the morning and so you have to rush around like crazy before work and it throws off your whole day."

he: "Well, no, when you're not here I do all that before I go to bed."

change of address

For the last 2 years, I have been updating our collective address book by scratching out old addresses and adding new ones to our original wedding guest list, fully intending all along to get them all uploaded into one computer...because I have 3 different computers with different address books, and the only place all of those addresses ever resided together was on theknot.com. I have downloaded our invite list from theknot.com at least 3 different times since the wedding.

This past holiday season, we sent out an insane amount of cards...working of course off of one of my ridiculous crossed-out-scrawled-on address list printouts. After the holidays were said and done, I updated the list with new addresses received on cards, and made a note of who sent cards to us. Since I did all the cards myself, I resolved squarely to do far less next year. I only got about halfway through entering my mess of a list into my laptop when it was time to pack up the house for the move...

So you can see where this is going, right? I finally got around to designing some lovely change of address postcards...they're nice and glossy and have a picture of the house, and they came in the mail a few days ago. So last night I fought my way through the usual straightjacket of procrastination and went to start addressing the cards.

Only...I can't find my hideous scrawled-upon-beat-up address list! I remember purposely putting it someplace where I knew it would be easy to find after the move. Apparently that's a sure-fire way to lose things, because for the life of me I have no idea where this thing is. It's even in a bright red folder, this much I know.

I can find the centerpiece from our wedding head table (the one that almost burned the reception hall down). I know exactly where I've stored the collection of Cabbage Patch Dolls I had as a kid, and if you asked me to show you the bag full of baby things that J's aunt has already bought for us (even though we have no kids and I'm not pregnant)? Right this way.

I know that list will turn up eventually. It's probably right next to something else really important, like J's autographed poster of Ronnie James Dio. Or his baggie of wisdom teeth.

the things you learn...

Today I had occasion to speak with our insurance agent about our homeowner's policy. While I had him on the phone, I thought it'd be a good time to ask about coverage for some of our more valuable possessions--namely, the computers and cameras. Here's what I learned:

We could get comprehensive coverage for the cameras that would cover loss or damage, except that caused by:

1) Nuclear holocaust (his exact words)
2) Chewing or gnawing by vermin

Damn, there goes my plan to capture a mushroom cloud on film while a rat dangles from my zoom lens.