Random picture post...

Or, "what Lisa posts when she has nothing to say..."

And finally, proof that I'm not only a naturally talented baseball player, but I am entirely capable of getting a tan:

And that is some awesome pitching form right there... I'm pretty sure I'm about to throw my world-famous slider. (I believe that's my cousin Steve serving as catcher... interesting that we don't actually have a batter... Ha! Batters cower in fear at my pitching prowess. Although it's probably good that we don't have a batter, seeing as we're indoors and that's a TV behind me. At least I THINK it's a TV... it's some kind of circa-1970s box-shaped device. "TV" seems like a good guess... And who doesn't love rust-colored carpet, orange drapes and dark wood paneling? I can't believe homes aren't STILL decorated like this... Color coordination in the 70s was impeccable... :))

As good as it gets...

Yep, I think this is about as good as I'm going to get this condo looking, so here's a (slightly) more extensive tour (I've left out the bedroom, as it's been low on my priority list and is still occupied by several boxes and random piles of clothing/towels/shoes.):

The dining room (well, dining "area"). I was having an issue with finding space for the coffeemaker and bean grinder (which we kind of wanted to unpack and not put in storage) in the low-on-counter-space kitchen, so I solved that problem by moving the little black hutch from the entryway to the dining area. I think it actually works pretty well...

Looking into the kitchen... yes, I have magnetic poetry all over my fridge. That's how I roll.

Here's pretty much the entire condo. Except for the bedroom and the study. Living room, kitchen, dining room/area...

This is the entry hallway, where I hung our world travels map -- but I have, so far, been unable to find all the map pins that mark visited locations. So now it's just a world map... (I may have to go out and buy some pins...)

Standing in the entryway looking into the rest of the condo... Piva says hi!

And again, this is as much of the study as I am willing to show... (pay no attention to the boxes stacked over by the couch... like I said, we still have things that need to go down to our storage unit...)

By the way, there are tons of mirrors in this place, presumably to provide an illusion of more space... But I don't know... I still think it's kinda small...

And, in other news -- I think all of my myriad readers (three? four?) already know this, but just in case you haven't heard: We got an offer on our house in Austin!! Which means, of course, that we can start looking for a place that will be more permanent than the Condo of Mirrors. Although I'm not sure I want to give up my view, so we may not be searching too far away. We'll see...

Monday random boring stuff...

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was pretty quiet and uneventful... we did some grocery shopping, but otherwise didn't venture out much because the temperatures were bitterly cold. I seem to be able to withstand the cold as long as the thermometer remains above the teen range... 20 degrees is okay (not great, just okay...), but 19 degrees results in shivering and numb extremities within minutes.

Last night, however, was a nice, balmy 24 -- so we walked down the block to this place, which has quickly become my favorite restaurant in our neighborhood. I had their special of the evening, which was chicken fricassee -- sooooo good. The chicken was so tender it was just falling apart -- I wish I could figure out how to cook chicken like that...

Rick left for Las Vegas this morning, to gamble away our savings, visit with Wayne Newton, and do things that will "stay in Vegas." Okay, maybe not... maybe he's actually there for a big Dell conference thing. (Yes, it's a "conference thing." I really can't be more specific, since I don't keep up with all the terminology... I'm not tech-y enough... :)) So my goals for this week are to finish up the organization of the condo, so it'll look as good as it's going to get by the time mom and dad come for a visit in a couple days. It actually doesn't look so bad now, but there are a few random things that need to be cleaned/organized/put away/thrown away/etc.

I can't believe New York and New Jersey have been getting so much snow this year, while Chicago has had nothing but sporadic flurries. I was told there would be snow. Lots and lots of snow. But apparently Chicago is on the wrong side of the lake to get "lake effect" snow -- most of that goes to Michigan. When I was a kid in Buffalo, we were well-acquainted with lake effect snow -- and when you're a kid, that much snow is ALL kinds of fun. I told Rick yesterday that I want enough snow that I can dig a big hole in a snowbank and make a snow fort... he thinks I'm weird...

I've noticed that when Rick is gone, I tend to forget to eat now and then. But at the moment, I'm actually feeling pretty hungry -- so I should probably use this opportunity to go get some lunch, before the feeling passes and I suddenly realize I've eaten nothing all day... :)

Oh, Samantha Brown...

Why must you torment me with visions of constant travel? I am sure you have an actual HOME somewhere, yet I continue to imagine that your entire life is spent in exiting, exotic locales. I find it hard to believe that you ever pop into a Target for light bulbs and toilet paper. No, no -- you're too occupied with browsing selections of French perfume and Belgian chocolates to concentrate on such trivialities...

Your latest recap of your Greek island exploration made me quite jealous... And then I remembered that I, too, have been to several Greek islands. And, in fact, I've been to a few places that haven't even been mentioned in any of your travel shows. I mean, hey, I haven't done so bad for myself:

I have pondered the cobblestoned streets of Mykonos as Nick pondered the photographer...

I have clambered over Greek ruins, and walked on slippery marble streets...

I have been berated by a taxi driver in Athens for exposing my white, white skin to the harsh Athenian sun... ("I hope you have strong SPF," he said in his thick Greek accent, to no one but me...)

I've (very briefly) hung out in Asia along the Bosporus Strait...

As someone took clandestine pictures of me when I wasn't looking...

I have considered passing out in the warm, stifling Blue Mosque from lack of food and water...

And then thought better of it, and stayed conscious so I could observe its beauty...

I've peeked into the Library at Ephesus (they were all out of books)...

And watched Professor Dumbledore cast a spell in Croatia...

I even got my hair to do some cool, model-y windblown thing in Venice...

And, of course, I've had coffee:

And more coffee:

And really weird, dorky coffee:

So it's not like I haven't been anywhere or done anything.

But just once, Samantha, could you do a show about shopping for light bulbs and toilet paper?? It would just make me feel better about my mostly mundane life. Thanks. :)

Random advice...

Yes, in addition to random thoughts, I am now passing along random advice: Do not allow a plastic spoon, bowl, cup, etc. to fall onto the heating element of your dishwasher when it's running. You're welcome.

And yep, you guessed it, this happened last night... there were a few panicky moments when I was trying to uncover the source of the strange smell I was noticing (Is there something wrong with my heater? Is this condo building on fire???), but I eventually realized it was coming from the dishwasher. And once I realized where the smell was originating, it was a small leap of logic to figure out what was going on. (DARN IT! What did I put in there that was made of plastic and is now melting at the bottom of the dishwasher?) Once I canceled the drying cycle and allowed the half steam/half smoke mixture to escape the confines of the washer, I carefully pulled out the bottom tray and saw the culprit -- a plastic slotted spoon, now melted completely in half. I re-ran the washer this morning, because all the dishes (though clean) smelled like burned plastic... but apparently there are STILL bits of melted plastic on the heating element, because the drying cycle STILL introduced an acrid, unpleasant scent into the air. Looks like I'll have to try to scrape off more plastic from the bottom of the washer and run it AGAIN... eventually it'll have to smell like clean dishes... right??

Or I could just go old school and wash everything by hand...

I COULD. But I probably won't. :)

 Do not let this happen to you...

I'm sorry, I'm a little distracted by those arms...

We had a great time last night hanging out with our friends Doug and Julie at "Le Bar" at the Sofitel hotel. (They make it sound all fancy and French, but it's actually really quiet and casual and relaxed... I'm really not a "bar" person, but the Sofitel bar is quite nice...) Doug and Julie had tickets to the Bulls game, but we ended up getting dinner and talking for so long that by the time they got to the game, there were only two minutes left for them to watch. But hey, I always say that the last two minutes of a basketball game are the most exciting anyway -- I mean, the score of a basketball game goes back and forth so much that it doesn't get REALLY interesting until it's almost over... :)

Our dinner conversation ran the gamut from politics to Ryan Reynolds. Specifically, Julie and I were in agreement that Ryan Reynolds has awesome arms... and a great chest... and nice abs... and... okay, I'll stop now. But seriously, c'mon: 

He's in the new Green Lantern movie that's coming out this summer... I'm not sure he quite matches up with the cartoon, but in this case, that's a GOOD thing...

And he was in that X-Men movie last year, which, Rick will tell you, I only saw because I knew Ryan Reynolds would be swinging swords around with those arms... 

I don't even KNOW what's going on here, but if Ryan Reynolds is chained to your floor, you don't ask questions... you just go with it...

Okay, okay, I'll move on to something else now... :)

In other news: I am really excited by the fact that I've finally gone through the last giant box of kitchen stuff, and I've unpacked what I need and re-packed what I DON'T need (so we can take the whole box down to storage). Yesterday I managed to clean up all the packing paper that has been strewn all over the floor for a week (Riff was loving that -- he would jump into the paper and rip it to shreds, which, of course, resulted in a million tiny little pieces of paper on the floor...). I've also tossed away all the glasses/cups we never use (which were piled all over the table) and I Swiffered the hardwood floor (to get rid of all those millions of tiny pieces of paper). So I now have a real, honest-to-goodness dining room. Or, well, at least a dining AREA:

Check out the floor! (This is much less impressive if you didn't see it before, when it was covered with packing paper and random boxes... but trust me -- this is impressive. :))

Mom and dad are heading up next week, so I'm saving some boxes for them to drag down to the recycling area and to cart over to our storage unit. Because they LOVE doing stuff like that. (Okay, maybe not... but if they help us, I MIGHT just make a key lime pie as a thank you... :)) 

For now, I think I should go work on the kitchen, because it's SO close to being blog-ready... just need to find space for a few more random items...

Got the place to myself...

I'm one of those strange people who actually LIKES to be alone once in a while. I see it as an opportunity to be reflective, and to be productive, and occasionally to bake cookies (occasionally... just occasionally). So when Rick announced that he was taking an impromptu trip to Minneapolis today, I mentally ran through my stock of baking ingredients and planned out my evening of solitude. (I'm not REALLY baking anything... if Rick reads this and then gets home to find zero baked goods, he'll assume I made five dozen cookies and scarfed them down in one evening... which I would never do... three dozen, MAYBE...)

Actually, I'll probably just cook myself some pasta with veggies (and hot sauce... gotta add hot sauce), and then hang out in my Pajama Jeans. That's a joke, by the way. I don't understand Pajama Jeans. Are they pajamas? Are they jeans?? Are you supposed to wear them out in public??? Because I don't think you should ever wear anything that can be described as "pajamas" in public...

Of course, Pajama Jeans aren't quite as bad as this thing, which I just saw an ad for a couple days ago. Really? "Forever Lazy"?? That's just what we need in a country with ridiculously high rates of obesity... an encouragement to be lazy... forever... And talk about super sexy... I mean, these things are going to be selling like hotcakes around Valentine's Day: 

I am SO buying one of these and heading out for a night on the town... I'll wear my Pajama Jeans underneath in case things get really crazy...

But for now, I'm off to scrounge up something to eat and bake three dozen cookies... (kidding, Rick -- just kidding! :))

Saturday random thoughts...

I have finally managed to unpack all of my kitchen stuff (and finally found my sugar/flour canisters which I've been looking for since we moved in -- I could've used those back when I was making all those Christmas cookies...). I consolidated everything I DON'T need right now into one big box, which will hopefully soon make the journey down to storage...

It seems like everyone I know has been talking about World Market lately. Everyone is going to World Market, and buying stuff at World Market, and they all love World Market. I love World Market, too, but I usually get hung up on the World CHOCOLATE area, and want to buy all of it... at which point, Rick steers me away and drags me to some boring section like World Napkins, or World Tables, or World Glassware... and not that I have anything against napkins or tables or glassware -- in fact, I think a few of our glasses did come from World Market -- but c'mon... chocolate! WORLD chocolate!!

Rick set up our new "home theater" last night. (I have to put that in quotes, since our last place had an actual room that was used as the home theater... now we'll just be using the living room... oh, woe is us... :)) We chose "Despicable Me" for our first movie in the new place... it was a really cute movie. Rick decided that the littlest girl, Agnes, who made up songs about fluffy unicorns and found Santa "nice but scary," was some sort of representation of me. (Sigh... he's right... that kid was totally me... hey, she was precocious and ADORABLE, okay??)

Eric actually succeeded in what I once thought was impossible -- he found a barbecue place in Chicago (with the simple moniker "Q") that Rick likes as much (almost as much??) as barbecue places in Texas. We tried it a couple weeks ago, and I fully expected Rick to hate it... but to my amazement, he loved that place... so much so that we're going back with some friends tomorrow night. I had their chicken last time, and it was great -- especially once it was covered with their "extra-spicy" barbecue sauce. I can say one thing for certain -- Q is about a thousand times better than the place I wrote about in THIS post. (Sorry Mr. Authentic Barbecue... but sometimes modern conveniences, comfort, and real silverware add a little something better to the dining experience...) 

Well, Rick and I are about to go off on one of our freezing cold weekend walks around the city (it's not so bad once you get going... :)), so that's it for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Silly stuff...

It's been a long time since I found one of these silly little blog survey thingies, but they're great for filling in space when I have nothing else to say. (Or when my condo is still much too disorganized to take better pictures...) So here ya go:

Four TV shows I watch:

1. 30 Rock
2. Tosh.0
3. Chuck
4. Anything with Samantha Brown (because I'm planning to take over her job one day...)
(Bonus: I've been addicted to a show on the History channel lately called Brad Meltzer's Decoded -- it's like Dan-Brown-conspiracy-theories-meet-science-and-logic... if you're interested in that kinda thing, I highly recommend it...)

Four things I'm passionate about:

1. Travel/other countries/other languages/other cultures/etc.
2. Writing
3. Chocolate (also, chocolate from other countries, which nicely ties back into number 1)
4. Attempting to eat well/stay active (Yes, I am passionate about the ATTEMPT...)

Four phrases/words I use a lot:

1. Uh...
2. I don't know
3. I have no idea

4. What am I doing?? (I generally spend most of my time in a state of constant confusion...)

Four things I've learned in the past:

1. Life is confusing (hence the constant confusion).
2. Life also has never been, and never will be, fair... so get over it, you whiny little loser. (I'm just talking to myself here... :))
3. Those crazy people were right -- money really DOESN'T buy happiness...
4. Italians know how to make some seriously good coffee.

Four places I'd like to go:

1. Everywhere
2. Everywhere
3. Everywhere
4. Maybe everywhere, if I still have time...

Four things I did yesterday:

1. Drank a cappuccino.
2. Ventured out in the cold to pick up Rick's electronic doohicky thingie that was at the repair shop.
3. Washed the bedsheets and then made the bed.
4. Made a (very small) batch of chocolate chip cookies (I had a craving... don't judge me).

Four things I love about winter:

1. The entire Christmas season.
2. Watching snow fall.
3. Hot chocolate (especially that awesome stuff from Caribou).
4. And this year, I love that I actually GET a winter to love!

And that concludes this totally useless blog post... :)

A fragmentary tour...

I've been working hard (okay that's probably an overstatement... I COULD be working harder on this, but random things have been distracting me lately) to get this condo in some kind of order so I feel like I'm living in a home instead of a flea market. And slowly, things are coming together... but at the moment, I only have a few choice areas I can reveal to the blog world:

The living room -- the great view is over to the left... we set the TV up so it faces the alleyway between this building and the one next door, because in addition to the great view, those windows on the left side of the room let in tons of sunlight. It would be hard to watch TV if you were being blinded by the sun...

Here's a tiny little piece of the kitchen (along with a bit of the dining room table, which is still covered with mugs, glasses and paper that all needs to be thrown away and/or recycled...).

This is about all I can show of the bedroom -- we still have an entire corner filled with boxes (and a wardrobe box sitting next to the bathroom that needs to go to our storage unit), so it's not exactly photogenic right now...

But even LESS photogenic is Rick's study -- I'll just show you the French doors... :)

Our view isn't so great today, but at least there's a good excuse -- it's snowing!!

And by the way, for those who are afraid of heights -- here's the view out the windows behind the TV of the fire escapes next door... interestingly, I've never been afraid of heights, myself... rather strange for someone who is afraid of such innocuous things as clowns and pool drains... :)

One of these roads is not like the other...

I'm watching Aladdin on the ABC Family channel -- I haven't seen this movie in a gazillion years. Probably since the year it came out, which, as a quick perusal of the movie info tells me, was 1992. (Wow... animated movies have come a looooong way since then...) Does anyone know, where, exactly, this movie is supposed to take place? Morocco? Tunisia? Somebody just said something about a sultan... where do they have sultans? Turkey?? Brunei?? (Isn't the Sultan of Brunei some kind of crazy, insanely rich guy with about five million sports cars?) Is it just a random North-African-possibly-South-Asian-y place??? Because I don't think they ever really make that clear... it's just a lot of Arabian stereotypes like magic flying carpets and genies in lamps... (And why does Aladdin sound like he's a college kid from Toledo???)

Aladdin is quite lucky, though... I wouldn't mind three wishes right about now... where are those stereotypical genie lamps when you really need them???

Anyway... speaking of wishes... since I have no other topic to expound upon at the moment, I might as well run with this one. It's funny how wishes change as we get older. When I was seven, I probably wished for a pony and a bucket of Legos. Gosh, I loved Legos... Eric and I used to make Lego cities in our basement, and they were HUGE. Actually, they probably consisted of three little square Lego houses and a ten-inch-high Lego "skyscraper," where all our little Lego people commuted to go to work...

When I was twelve, I wished I could be an ice skater or a ballet dancer, and I wished for no homework on weekends. And if I HAD homework on a Friday, I made sure to finish it as soon as I got home, so it would be out of the way. Just so I could climb into bed that night, and think of the freedom of the next two days, and fall asleep thinking, "I have nothing to worry about right now..." When you're twelve, homework is high on your list of worries...

When I was sixteen, I wished that Ed, the boy with the black hair and the dark green eyes, would talk to me in our computer math class. When he asked me one spring day if I was going to the prom, my heart skipped a beat and I managed to squeak out, "no." To which he replied, "good, neither am I." I spent the next week analyzing that comment and attempting to decipher its meaning -- did he mean "good" as in "that's good, because if you went with anyone else I'd be jealous"? Did he mean "good" as in "good, don't succumb to the social whims of the mindless masses"?? Did he mean absolutely nothing in particular (the most probable meaning of the three)? It's actually a good thing he didn't ask me to that prom, because no doubt I would've lost my voice, run out of the room, and hid in the bathroom until the bell rang...

But as I've gotten older, my wishes have tended to turn more toward the intangibles -- I wish for contentment, and I wish for happiness for my family, and I wish for the knowledge that I'm on the right path for my life. Just the other night, Rick was asking if he thought we'd done the right thing by moving to Chicago. After all, Austin was "safe," and many of our family members are there, and I had a good job, and we had a great house with an awesome master bathroom, and Sharon at Starbucks made perfect cappuccinos... but when Rick asked that question, I gazed out the window at the falling snow, and thought of our new "city" lifestyle, and thought about how we hadn't even needed our car in five days, and realized that we may have lost Sharon at Starbucks, but that blond-haired guy at the Caribou coffee shop is really starting to get to know us now... and I could honestly say that yes, at this moment, I'm sure we made the right decision...

This seems like a good point to throw in a Robert Frost poem:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

You know, I've always found it interesting that Frost doesn't actually say that taking "the one less traveled by" was a GOOD thing... just that it "has made all the difference." Maybe that road led to something horrible... just sayin'...

I will admit, though, that in addition to all those intangibles, I still selfishly wish my jeans fit better. And I also wish I knew where this movie was supposed to take place...

Weekend randomness...

So last night we experienced one of the downsides of condo-living: one of our neighbors was apparently having some sort of party, and we could still hear music and loud voices through our bedroom wall at 1 in the morning. It was one of those obviously drunk get-togethers, where the guests don't realize that they don't have to shout to be heard by people in the same room. There was also an abnormal amount of "woooooing" going on (not to be confused with "wooing," which is an entirely different thing), which leads me to believe that they were playing a game of some sort and felt the need to exclaim every time someone won/lost/answered a question correctly/killed the zombie/guessed what the drawing meant/drove the virtual car fastest/had the highest hand/whatever... We debated whether to be the uncool neighbors and complain, but we decided against it. This morning, however, we found the binder we were given when we moved in with all the "rules and regulations" of condo living, and found the page which clearly spells out that the hours between 11 pm and 8 am are considered "quiet hours." If crazy party-goers show up again, I may highlight those hours and stick the page on my neighbor's door...

Before the disappointing end to the day, we actually had a very nice dinner -- we walked around the block (in the falling snow! I love walking through freshly fallen snow... :)) to a place called Mon Ami Gabi, which is like a French bistro-type restaurant. They serve everything with "frites," which is just the French word for French fries. Which makes me wonder -- why do we call them FRENCH fries if FRENCH people call them frites??? We then walked home by way of the grocery store, so we could pick up a few staples. The girl who checked us out was randomly babbling about how she was craving cheese, which made her feel rat-like... um... ok... please give me my groceries, Rat Girl...

Despite our brief snow shower last night, and a few slightly snowy days in December, we really haven't had much snow here yet. People back in Austin keep asking me how much snow we have, and I'm like, "uh, not much..." I'm not sure they believe me... Apparently there is a belief that Chicago = snow. No, but Chicago DOES = cold... 

Hey, am I the only one who's weirdly attracted to the Allstate mayhem guy? I just get all giggly when he winks at me... (he IS winking at ME, right??)

Okay, off to find lunch somewhere, which means a walk through the 20-degree weather. I can do it... I'm strong... I can withstand anything... maybe...

A tale of two lamps...

Check out my nifty new table lamps. I saw them on Amazon.com, and I thought the modern design would work well for a city condo. What I didn't realize, however, was that these lamps would arrive unassembled -- which is not usually a big deal. I've assembled my share of Ikea-type furniture throughout the years... desks, bookshelves, file cabinets, some kind of CD-holder at my parents' house, etc. And those are all big and unwieldy... lamps are small... you can pick them up... they don't come with those little wooden dowels and Elmer's glue... how hard could assembling a lamp be?? (And why must I always ask questions like that? Everyone knows not to ask the "how hard could it be" question...)

The lamp came with a base, and three silver cylinders of varying lengths which had to be screwed into the base. The instructions (which included no words, rather only drawings and arrows), seemed to be suggesting that the longest cylinder should be placed closest to the power cord, then the second longest below it, and then the shortest next to that. So I called upon my genetic engineering talents and began assembling the lamp. First plug in little blue thingies so each light will have power (yeah, that's right, my dad is an electrical engineer! I've got this!), then simply screw the cylinders into the base. No problemo.

Okay. Problemo. No matter HOW I arranged the cylinders, it would always end up being impossible to maneuver the last one so it was at the correct angle to thread into the base. After following the oh-so-helpful visual aids provided in the box, I went online to Amazon's website to read some of the reviews for this particular product. Apparently this inability to assemble the lamp is quite a common problem. One guy suggested a differently situated cylinder set-up, but I had already tried that, along with every other possible combination. Finally, I became so frustrated that I gave up and turned the project over to Rick, which is something I rarely do (mainly because I'M usually the patient one). After about five minutes, Rick figured out that each cylinder could be screwed into the base by only PARTIALLY installing each one, giving the cylinders enough give and movement that they could be manhandled into place. And voila -- a lovely little table lamp that only took an hour longer to assemble than the gigantic table our TV is sitting on...

Fortunately, with the second lamp, I was aware of the trick necessary to make the process go more smoothly -- I was able to assemble that one in about ten minutes. I then triumphantly carried it into Rick's study to show off my handiwork.

Yeah, it's the little things that bring the most joy...   

Yay! It's the first post of 2011!

How was everyone's Sunday? I had a decent day -- actually managed to accomplish a few things, so that's good. :) I rearranged the extremely cluttered closet so it is slightly less cluttered, and I unpacked a couple more boxes (unpacking somehow seemed to cease the week between Christmas and New Year's... I guess I considered that "vacation time"??). I am determined to get this place looking like a "real" apartment this week... as opposed to some sort of pawn shop filled with random items...

Rick and I also walked about three miles around Lincoln Park this afternoon, doing a bit of exploring and stopping for lunch and (naturally) coffee. It was about 22 degrees outside... not ideal walking temperature... but I think the key to walking a few miles in sub-freezing temperatures is to be certain there is a Starbucks somewhere on the route. That provides you with extra caffeinated energy to keep going, plus you have a nifty cup-shaped hand warmer for the rest of the walk (or at least for the next five or ten minutes of the walk... coffee cools down pretty quickly in 22-degree weather...).

We also accomplished something yesterday, by way of conquering the laundry room. Okay, "conquering" is probably unnecessarily dramatic. But honestly, I haven't needed to leave my residence to do laundry since... uh... 1994?? Gosh, that makes me feel old... (shut up, Faisal... :)) The last time I had to leave my home and walk to a communal laundry room was when Rick and I were first married and living in our first apartment... Our second apartment had a washer/dryer, and since then we've been in houses. So this "carry all my laundry down to the laundry room and pay to use a machine" thing is a new experience... I mean, really, 1994 was so long ago I've forgotten what it was like...

Since I'm still working on getting everything in order and ready for a blog picture tour, I'll leave you with some pictures of the view (it's really the best part of this place... which is why I've been continually taking pictures... :)):

Here's my proximity to people I know:

 

Here's me in the kitchen with the view behind me:

 

 

And me in the living room with the view behind me:

(The sun was setting and it was getting dark... :))

Off to make dinner... Hope everyone had a good weekend!