a minor cat-astrophe

Excuse the silly pun, I just couldn't help it. ;)

Yesterday was a big day for my kitty, Chester. He went to the vet to get "tutored", in the words of Gary Larson. After the initial exam, the vet emerged from the back room with perplexing news: Chester couldn't be neutered. SHE had to be spayed.

Huh? What?

All this time, Chester is a GIRL!!

Rob tells the story much better on his blog. It's hilarious, really. Now just to mentally adjust...

kitschy 80's movies that surprise

Saturday night Rob introduced me to Condorman, a cheesy Disney movie that I had seen previews for when I was little, but never actually watched. Generally, I think that it's best to watch a nostalgic kid's movie only if you've seen it when you actually were a kid, otherwise you miss the nostalgia and "greatness" of the cheese factor and it's just a stupid movie with a weak plot and outdated special effects. (can you tell I've experienced this? haha) But I have to say, although Condorman was indeed cheesy, I was caught off guard by how much I actually enjoyed it. For sure, there were outdated special effects and the plot was predictable at times, but there were plenty of things that caught and held my attention. Mainly, the cool cars that the "bad guys" used to chase down Condorman and his lovely lady. Observe:







I mean seriously, what gets more cool than 5 black Porsche Carreras with drivers wearing all black leather and black helmets? And the action in the chase scenes is actually pretty cool and mostly believable (a rarity in current movies).

So the cars were cool. Admittedly, that's not what caught my attention in the first place, nor what held it throughout the movie. :) It was Barbara Carrera in the leading lady role as "Natalia". Well to be more accurate, it was her clothes. Heh heh heh. She wore so many great outfits that I wanted to pause the movie on each one to take a screenshot so I could copy her look. She was seriously cool, even as a gypsy. ;)

The first outfit that caught my eye was this one:

Fabulous long purple poncho/cape thing, slim dark jeans, and a pair of tall leather riding boots that exactly matched the color of her hair. It's a shame you can't see the pants and boots in this picture. They really were smashing.

There's a scene where they ride a ski lift to make their escape, and while the men looked laughable in their silly one-piece snowsuits (tight red shiny overalls, anyone?)Natalia looked like this:
The perfect little snowbunny. :)

Later we see her at the house of Condorman's evil nemesis wearing this getup for a party:
This picture is the only one I could find of this outfit, which was MUCH more amazing as you saw it full-length and from all different angles. I couldn't tell if it was a dress or floaty pants (I think pants, actually) but the overall effect was cool, breezy, Mediterranean, and highly fashionable with the cape and the daring, sassy wrap on her head. I would totally wear this. Maybe. :)

Of course, since this *is* a spy movie, Natalia's first scene has her looking the part of the 1950 undercover agent:
Gotta love the hat and Veronica Lake curls!

So I guess you could say that I enjoyed the movie... how did it end again? ;)

(just kidding, I remember!)

Love is...

So many people have asked the question, "what is love?" and some people even ask what love has to do with anything. There are surely as many answers for as many times this timeless question has been asked. And love is definitely a multi-faceted concept, revealing new dynamics of itself as it grows and deepens. But for Rob and I, right now this is our answer:

where there's smoke...

Yesterday morning we had a little problem... I hopped out of the shower to the scent of burning plastic and the haze of smoke, which is never a good sign. We spent the better part of the morning trying to rid our little not-so-well-ventilated apartment of both of these unsavory pneumatic essences.

But let me back up.

The night before I had made a yummy dinner of Thai noodles with tofu and sugar snap peas (go me! That's the first meal I've made in over a week). After the water for the noodles boiled I took the lid off the pan and set in on the stove, and that was the last I thought of it. Next morning, Rob in his husbandly kindness started to make my morning tea by turning on an [electric] burner to heat it up before putting the kettle on it. Of course he happened to turn on the one burner that I had left the pan lid on. Uh huh.

Next thing we know, we're being choked by the stinging smell of burning plastic and there are flames shooting out of the top of the pan lid, and the handle was in an unrecognizable pool of black goop all over the stove top. Not good. Rob put the fire out pretty easily (whew!), but the smell and the smoke... they're still hanging around today. Even after leaving all our windows and sliding door open all day in the freezing temps yesterday. It smells so bad that it still stings our eyes this morning. And poor Chester, he had to stay home in the awful smell all day.

Currently, we're experimenting with various "home remedies" to rid our apartment of the noxious fumes. First up: cut up lemons. They're supposed to "absorb" the smell. We'll see. If not, we'll move on to simmering a pan of various citrus fruits and spices like cinnamon, cloves and the like. We both agreed to avoid the advice to leave cut-up onions all around the house. Heh heh. Hopefully the lemons work!

Now to replace my pan lid...

hello, land of the living

So blogging hasn't really happened in the last few weeks, that's for sure. It just sinks low on the priority list; under such things as sleep, forcing myself to eat, trying to stay awake during my work day, managing not to throw up, and sleep. Oh, did I already say sleep? I can't believe how tired I've been! It's all I can do to get up (at 5:30!) and make it through my work day, and drive home. Forget grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. I'll do those later. Maybe. ;)

Fortunately I have an incredible husband who has been picking up all my slack around the house and not complaining about it one bit. He's been amazing, really... making breakfast and packing our lunches every morning, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom as needed, and he even did the grocery shopping last week. Of course all this is on top of his normal responsibilities of studies (he's taking 6 grad-school courses this semester) and work. He's a real trooper, and a handsome one at that!

This last weekend we went to Iowa to see our brand-new little niece, Emily Katherine Schmidt. She was born on Friday afternoon, and we got to see her on Saturday morning... so less than 24 hours old! It was fun to be around a new baby now that we're expecting one of our own, I think it helped put it in perspective for me. Although I will say it was rather disconcerting that the only time she screamed inconsolably was when *I* was holding her. Hrm. I tried everything that the others' were doing, but she was not to be comforted... until I gave her to Rob. THEN she shushed right up. I can see this coming in *quite* handy! Not to mention, it was sweet to see him with a baby... yes it really was.


We had a really nice time seeing Jen & Tim- Rob's sis and bro-in-law- and his parents too. We had a great time chatting with the parents on the way back from the hospital on Friday night... so great that we decided to postpone our departure until the next morning, extending our two-on-two time with them, which is a rare thing indeed. It's a good thing we decided to stay Friday night, because when we were driving back Saturday morning we saw no less than TWENTY-SEVEN crashed cars on the side of the highway. It had been very windy and stormy that night and man am I glad we spent it all cozy in bed rather than out in the blowing snow. Eesh.

Anyway, now I'm back at work! Whoo hoo! (I'm psyching myself up, here) I'm hoping that as I settle into the predictable rhythm of the work-weeks the days will start to roll by. I have my first prenatal appointment next Wednesday, at which point I will be 10 weeks pg, so we'll get to see if all this baby stuff is really REAL and not just in my head. :) Oh and by the way, Chester also has an important appointment that same day, though it has more to do with *not* pro-creating. Heh heh.

Happy Monday!

I'm a defective typewriter

I do know that I have been neglecting this bloggie for the last... oh three weeks? Yeah, three and a half weeks, actually. It's memorable because the day after my last post I randomly took an HPT "for fun" and it looked like this:



Holymoly.

I'm pretty sure that means I'll be adding a job description and title come August/September. :)

It was quite a surprise, actually. I was packing to go to Nevada for Christmas and ran across an old box of home pregnancy tests that I'd had forever... I figured it would be fun to use it instead of throw it away (I'd never taken one before) and I was expecting my period that day anyway. So I took it. You know, for fun.

It was positive. POSITIVE??!!

Rob and I just looked at each other blankly for a second and then came to the same conclusion; it was an old test, so it was faulty, right? That had to be it! We threw on our jackets and ran to the store to get a new one, to be sure. Actually we got about 3 different brands just in case. They all gave the same result as the old one. That can only mean one thing... if all goes well we're gonna have a kid! I'm still adjusting to the whole idea, it was such a shock! We were planning on waiting until Rob was done with TBI, but I guess the Lord had other plans for us.

All I have to say is that 2009 is going to be a whole new kind of adventure!

(ten points to anyone who knows what movie the title of this post is from)

Edited to add: according to my calculations, I'm about 6 and a half weeks into it so far. And I feel fine. :)

black and white and red all over

Remember the silly jokes you (or your annoying little sib) used to tell as a kid? Well, black, white and red just so happens to be my favorite color combination, both to wear on my person and to decorate my living space with. It's just so crisp and classic, never goes out of style, and always makes me look good, even on a bad hair/clothes/body/makeup day. And Lord knows I have plenty of those!

So today, even though I am indeed having a bad hair day (calling for both a hat and a ponytail!), I feel pretty darn cute because I'm in my favorite color combo. Black just makes everything better. Even blurry pictures with stupid poses. Maybe?


current favorite jeans- Gap
black cowl-neck sweater with button detail- tagless
white scarf- wal-mart (!!)
hat- also wally world (I so rarely shop at the Blue Giant, that I was surprised to see these cute accessories when I dashed in for cat food- and for super cheap! The hat is even wool.)


I'm particularly fond of these shoes. They're just the right height to give enough of a lift without being uncomfortable for the shopping I'm going to be doing with Rob after work.


Check out the super-cute holiday earrings I got for my birthday from my Mom via my friend Johanna's Silpada jewelry collection. Could they BE any more festive?? (also... do you all think I can pull off the dark eye/nude lip combo? I feel funny with such pale lips)


All wrapped up in my favorite jacket. It's winter white wool- with ruffles!- from Urban Outfitter last year. I smile whenever I put it on.

Now that I've posted my outfit of the day, let's move on to the outfit I'm currently lusting over.



I'd love to try this year's obsession with plaid, but I'm not much for looking schoolgirlish or Scottish. Buffalo plaid juxtaposed with a feminine cut sounds like fun though! And I'm horrified to admit that I only own one crisp white shirt, which I don't even wear all that often. I think I may attempt to mimic this outfit with any Christmas money I [hopefully] receive. I'm loving the little patent leather booties, too!

Speaking of Christmas, Rob and I still have to get prezzies for our little nieces, Amanda and Ella, and for the gift swap that my family is doing. I have no idea what we're going to get. That means shopping tonight! I don't know why I'm so excited to be out in the Christmas crowd (especially on the beginning of the last weekend before the big day) maybe I'm crazy, but I really am looking forward to it. We have to make the trek to the Mall of America (oh so far at 45 minutes away) because that's the only Urban Outfitter around, and I need to exchange some gloves that are tearing in the thumb. So we will definitely be fighting crowds, but I'm jazzed about it. I love going places with my Babes, and, honestly, I do love being in a crowd. There's some kind of energy in a large group of people that I really like. After our shopping expedition, we're thinking of hitting up Acadia Cafe for this show. Any Minneapolis readers want to meet up? Let me know! Good times, folks!