Really Bad Signs

I pass this sign all the time when I am going to go hiking or things like that. We passed it on the way to Nelsonville, where we got the Hocking Valley Rail. The first time I saw it (years ago), I was super confused. What was your first impression? My eyes definitely did not see the heart. I am going to have to say hands down this is the worst anti-abortion sign I have ever seen...it is almost pro-abortion if you read it the wrong way...something I'm assuming was not the intent of the person who put this sign up! Lesson learned! Always get someone else to look at your sign before you post it!

Hocking Valley Scenic Railway

First of all, let me say, that I have been sick all week. I have hardly eaten anything accept cereal, toast on occasion and ginger ale or other fizzy beverages. Everything, including the thought of eating something has made me feel nauseas. Saturday was no exception, but I was tired of not doing things and I decided to go with the singles ward to the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway. When I say it was just okay, this could be due to the fact that I was sitting in an enclosed car for most of the time, with no airflow. Lets just say, it wasn't what I expected. I think I had it in my mind it would be like going to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts express and we would see majestic views. Why I thought there would be majestic views somewhere in Ohio is beyond me. Ohio is beautiful in its own way, but I don't believe I've ever looked at something here and thought to myself, "that's majestic!" For the last 20 minutes we did go to an open car and that was way better. Mainly for the air flow. I guess its kind of like going on a ferry, really boring on the inside and really fun (as long as its not freezing) from the outside. I bet this would be amazing to go on once all the leaves started to change color though..and there were a million boyscouts and kids , so I would definitely recommend it for kids. It was fun to be with friends though, so not a waste of a day by any means....I was just hoping for Hogwarts I guess!

My friends Carly and Allison

My room mate Katrina and our friend Justin

My room mate to be, Briar and Katrina

A Haircut for Hans

Aren't they cute?

Copying the Real Thing because the Real Thing is too expensive.

About a month ago I went with my friend Carly to Illinois. While we were there we went shopping with her grandmother and wondered into Ann Taylor Loft. We saw this dress, and Carly really liked it, except at the time it was about $90. I looked at it and I looked at her, and I said, "I bet I could make that". So, the challenge was on. I have made tons of other stuff with no pattern before, but I have never attempted to do an entire dress. Wednesday we went to Jo-Ann's to see if there were any patterns that I could use to put them together. Nothing was really sticking out to me as something that would actually work. The next day in the lab, I was waiting for some incubations, and I started thinking, "maybe I should just try and make up my own pattern." So I started drawing it out in my lab notebook (not my good one, the one I use for calculations and stuff) and then I went home and cut the pattern out of tissue paper. I met Carly back to Jo-Ann's to buy some fabric (sadly, I'm often disappointed by fabric choices there), and then yesterday I got to work. I haven't been feeling well the past few days so I spent all day inside yesterday (mostly). I think we ended up with a pretty similar dress. I rather enjoyed making up my own dress pattern! Plus, this dress only cost us $26 so Carly saved 75%. The Ann Taylor Model

My friend Carly (in case you were confused!)

Don't Growl at Mr. Darcy

Hans has a problem with men. All men. At least at first anyway. When any man (short or tall) comes into the house, he starts barking at them. (This strikes me as hilarious as I type this because it suggests I have a lot of men visitors, which isn't really true and really depends on how you would number the amount in "a lot"). Once they've acknowledged him, of-course, he stops barking/growling. Even when my dad was here, every time he came in the room he got barked at. It is really a bad habit I'm trying to break, but not quite sure how (so I am open to suggestions). However, today the problem worsened. I was watching Pride and Prejudice (undoubtably the greatest love story of all time...I will not be argued with), this is the latest version (the one with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen) and although I will say that the Colin Firth version will forever be the best version, I enjoy this one as well. Enter the scene where Mr. Bingley comes back to Netherfield in order to propose to Jane and they come to the Bennet house. As soon as we see a solo shot of Mr. Darcy Hans starts to growl under his breath (and as they pan on him even more, the growl gets deeper and louder). Then at the climactic scene where Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth come together in the field at dawn, the growl begins again. As if Hans is trying to stay "Stay away Mr. Darcy, no room for you here". I think this is a really bad sign. My dog growls at Mr. Darcy. How is Mr. Darcy ever going to come sweep me off my feet in utter adoration now?

Updates

Yep...its been awhile. Here are some fun pictures of the last few months...

In June, on our drives home, my dad made a stop in Columbus for the first time. Unfortunately he could only stay for one night so we did the whirlwind tour. I took him to one of my favorite pizza places for dinner.





At the beginning of July the singles wards took a trip to Palmyra, NY for the Cumorah Pageant. The hill Cumorah is where Joseph Smith was show the gold plates which he later translated into the Book of Mormon. Every year there is a pageant which basically goes through multiple stories found in the Book of Mormon. We lucked out because it was the perfect weather and so it was nice to be outside.






Good bye Alissa (well almost). My roomie is moving to Reno to start teaching music, which is only reasonable since that's what she went to college and got her masters for. The dogs will miss her too!





Hans is no longer a boy, but not quite a man (and never will be either). In July he paid a visit to the puppy fairy and will never know what quite hit him. Because he wasn't messing around with where the incision was, the vet said I could just get him in some onsies and cut a hole out for the tail. He wasn't allowed to jump or play or run for a week, so we put him under crate arrest for the week. It didn't bother him too much, once his pain meds wore off he was actually in some pain and not feeling well. Oddly, the little weirdo seemed to actually like wearing these things. I guess I will have to make him a Halloween costume. I was thinking a french painter (look at his mustache!)



One evening I found him passed out on my bed


Close up


Goodbye Todd! For the last three summers, I've gotten to work with Todd, who is a local junior high science teacher. Basically, he comes to the lab every day and I tell him what to do, which, coincidentally, happens to be stuff I don't want to do (just kidding...sort of). He's always in awe of my vast skills and huge knowledge base and I make sure he is always kept at a level of understanding where he never questions my genius. Coming from a lab of all foreigners, I feel like I have an American ally in Todd, which is in fact not true, since he's really Canadian (I'll never win!). This is a picture of our last day with my dear summer slave. He's the big guy in the back on the left. He's also really useful for getting stuff I can't reach and opening bottles and jars among other things. The rest of the people in the picture is everyone I've worked with for the last four years, including my advisor (the distinguished English man in the back :) ), and I've really enjoyed working with everyone. They all know so much.



Yesterday, I found Hans passed out on his stuffed animal. I guess he tired himself out at the dog park.



If any morsel of food is left out on the counter, Sadie will find it. Since Alissa is moving in the next few days we made dinner and then I made cupcakes and a cake (with the left over batter). Knowing Sadie's tendencies, I moved everything to the laundry room. However, someone accidentally left the laundry room open and when I went down to make the frosting, I found the cake, with the entire top eaten off of it and only 7 cupcakes (out of 12) remaining. There were also two sticks of butter out on the counter softening and those were also gone. The funny thing is is that she wasn't looking well (see picture below) earlier (this was before we knew what she had eaten) and we were feeling sorry for her. I don't feel sorry for her now. Her total food thieveries for the week include, 1/2 of cake, 5 cupcakes, 2 sticks of butter (1 lb), half of a raw cheese pizza, 33 out of 36 no bake cookies. Poor thing!

I apologize

I apologize for always putting up pictures of Hans, but seriously, I don't have kids..the dog is the only interesting thing going on right now, plus Saturday was a big day for him. He finished up all his puppy shots, including Rabies and went to the puppy parlor for his first haircut, which was really a bath, nails clipped and some trimming around the face and other parts...it was only $15 so not so bad anyway, plus they said he was good for his bath! and I was like "Oh really? because he acts like I'm trying to drown him when I give him a bath at home!" So I'm putting up a picture of him right after the cut and also a video of him under the bed (his favorite place to be in my room). Basically the moment we come up stairs he goes right under the bed (that is until exactly 6:24 am--when you hear him crawl out from underneath because he's awake for the day!)

Han Solo is growing up...

The neighbor girls love our dogs, so today after church they came over to play with their dad and baby brother (super cute don't you think?)
Hans loves the kids so that's really good. He always gives them a few barks at first but then immediately goes up and wants them to pet him and give him treats. The girls are funny because they assume since Sadie is so much bigger that she is Hans's mom. We explained to them that they are more like brother and sister than mommy and son. So now they refer to Sadie as the sister-dog and Hans as the brother-dog. They were super concerned when we told them we didn't know where their mommies were anymore, but were put at ease when we said that we were now like their mommies. Kale is the baby and he just laughed and giggled and let both dogs come up to him and breath in his face and everything. Too bad these guys are moving in a week since their dad is graduating from medical school...they are sooooo cute!

Later in the evening Katrina, Alissa and I took Sadie and Hans to the dog park so they could run around with the other dogs. They both LOVE riding in the car and so does Alissa as you can tell :). Sadie is the queen of the dog park, she's runs around like a crazy and has to "meet" every single dog there. Hans is getting less timid about leaving me. He isn't afraid of any of the dogs, he'll go up right away and say "hi" if I'm nearby. He's just not ready to run with the big dogs quite yet. The last picture is my favorite, mainly because that's what Hans will do when he is "done"...he basically dive bombs in the grass with his arms next to his body and his feet stretched out behind him. As if to say "I'm dead now, lets go home".

Hans's First Ride with the Window Down

...and he LOVED it. I spent most of the time trying to keep him from leaping out of the car, but I got some good pictures. However, the only way for me to capture them was to take a picture through the side-view mirrors...

TOSRV 2011

TOSRV= Tour of the Scioto (sounds like sigh-oh-ta) River Valley.

So I have ridden with the TOSRV two other times but never as an official registered rider. And only for 50 miles, after that we would turn around in Chillicothe and ride back (100 total)

. This year I had stars in my eyes and decided I wanted to ride the entire thing (two days...210 miles), but unfortunately the weather was not on my side and without a trainer, I was unable to ride very many days outside. So yesterday I packed my bags and met Dean and Drake at the start, near the capitol building in Columbus at 7 am (Thanks to my roomate Alissa who dropped me off). The weather was the best its been the entire month of April, not too hot, not too cold and not too much wind. Anyway, I rode the 105 miles down to Portsmouth and it really wasn't too bad. However, at mile 95, I hit my wall and I knew I would never make it back the start the next day. So I did what any respectable biker did, I bailed in Portsmouth. Alissa and Katrina kindly drove my car the 100 miles and piled themselves and all the dogs inside and came and picked me, my bike and my luggage up. Last night, instead of sleeping on a gym floor, I cozied up in my nice, comfortable bed with my puppy at my side and slept like a baby.

Hans....(yes more pictures)

So I guess when you have kids you like to post pictures of all your kids up on the internet for everyone to see...I don't have kids, just a puppy (not the same thing admittedly but I don't have any kids, so instead I am putting up pictures of Hans). Saturday I rode 50 miles with Dean and Drake in really windy weather while Sally Ann (Dean's wife) babysat Hans. Dean snapped a few pictures on his "real" camera (real to me is anything I don't use to take pictures, you know a camera with settings and nobs etc...generally an SLR or something like unto it. As you can tell (sniff) he is already getting bigger, something my roomate Alissa mentioned to me the day before...and then he got a vaccination at the vet and he already had gained a pound. Now to most of us a pound does not seem like much but to a puppy who only weighed 5.1 lbs before a pound is 20% increase in body
size.

Look at those sad eyes! This is his general look, like he's really suffering or something.

I like this picture because of the green grass. Everyone in Columbus always asks me "You're from Seattle?! Doesn't it rain a ton there? And everytime I think..."Yeah, I moved away from a rainy place to a rainy place where the only difference is is that its superwindy and cold in the winter and super hot and humid in the summer plus rain". The point being is that the grass is so green in this picture because it has rained a total of 17/25 days in April so far. And when I say rain, I'm talking the all day torential downpour variety...

Gray Hair

I am 31 and have so far evaded gray hair. I often check my head for one (mainly for fun because a
lot of my friends already have grays). I even went for over a year without using hair color of any kind because I figured that I should enjoy the color God gave me before I started going gray (this was recently) and then about two months ago I broke down and got my hair colored out of hair boredom, something I'm sure all you females are familiar with. Ironically, I was blow drying my hair on Saturday and what did I find! A rogue gray hair about two inches long (so one that had obviously been growing for at least two months! Its like my head knew I decided to color and so decided it could start pumping out the grays...(an obvious overstatement because all I was able to find was one...)

Sewing stuff

Every first Saturday night of the month in the Short North (near where I used to live and the Institute building) is the gallery hop. This is where we can walk around all the shops and galleries etc because they stay open extra late and look at all the stuff that I never buy because 1. Its way overpriced or 2. Its made from really nice stuff and I can't afford it. As we went into one of the stores I saw this cute little handmade messenger style purse bag (whatever you want to call it). I took a look at the price and was shocked (It was $50) and I thought to myself..."I could make that and even if I sold it for $25 I would still make a profit"...

So last week at church we had a service auction to benefit the Tsunami victims in Japan and the Ronald McDonald House here in Columbus and so I decided to make these little bags to auction off at the silent auction...I think they turned out pretty cute. They didn't go for $50, but afterwards one of the girls who lost the bid asked if she could pay me to make her one...How much would you be willing to pay for something like this? and what would you call this style of bag?

With that said, my friend Sarah and I are tossing around the idea of opening our own little ETSY shop...except I think we both realize, the hardest part for the two of us will be coming up with a name that is not cheesy, lame or dumb. So I will make one of these bags for whomever comes up with the name we agree to use. Post your ideas in the comment section and we will choose a winner (if we like one on of the names) on May 1st.

New Puppy!

Monday I went to the pet store to look at kittens and came home with this little guy. Han Solo is his name, mostly for his reckless abandon! It kind of reminds me of the time my dad just went to "look" at Porsches and drove one home (albeit not as expensive) or the time my mom, my sister and I stopped in at the pet store at the mall and came home with Candy (our cockerspaniel). If you can't tell, he is a miniature schnauzer...and looks a whole lot like Spaetzle our trusty old girl who died last year. He's pretty spunky, but he knows who's boss and that bed time is 10 o'clock sharp. He now scratches on my bed at the time so I will put him in his spot. He also knows how to "come" and "sit" and is learning that only his toys are for chewing (although not very easily).





By Saturday he was getting pretty stinky because it had been raining all week so I gave him a bath...here it looks extra fluffy and cute.




Last but not least, here is a video (if you haven't had enough yet) of Hans playing with his favorite toy that he drags all around the house. Last week I caught him in his crate with his teeth clenched tightly around it growling fiercely. I guess everyone needs to be the boss somewhere.