2.28.2011

Healthy Learning

Tim and I have been very bad at eating well in the past. I will admit to more than a few "frozen food buffets." (But I won't apologize for them, because...well, they're delicious. Even if it means an upset stomach the next day.)

Slowly, but surely, we've been changing our habits. Japan was a blessing and a curse. What's familiar in such a foreign place? Fruits and veggies...and American junk food.

To get to the point of this entry, I signed us up for a produce box! So far, we've gotten three boxes. They're delivered every other week, and it's been a huge learning experience.

They come looking like this...


And then you start to peel away the greenery and you get to more of the goodies...
I'm a big fan of the kiwis, tangelos, fresh garlic, and red potatoes.  Tim loves the pears, celery, carrots (straight from the ground) and the greens. Of course, there's different produce in each box, but we do have veto power.  We realized we weren't really using the cremini mushrooms, so I switched them out for celery in our latest box.

In our first box, we got this red chard.
 But this time we were able to order a salad mix. It saves space in the fridge!

To be perfectly honest, there were some things that we had no idea how to store, so I whipped out our big Good Housekeeping cook book and found an entire section devoted to the identification, storage and preparation of produce.
It has been a life-saver!

Tim is already being adventurous. He managed to cook a spinach quiche for the first time and he said that it turned out really well. (And before you jump to any conclusions, it wasn't the spinach that kept me away, it was the eggs. I'm just not a fan of eggs.)

I've also rejoined the Y and I have tried to make it a point to go regularly. It helps that I have overcome my fear of classes and now I'm going to kickboxing class 1-2x a week.  Even though I really want to sit down 90% of the time I'm in the class, I feel a lot better at the end. I guess the phrase "no pain, no gain" really is true.  :-)
 
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2.23.2011

I think we're cursed...

Today I had the lovely pleasure of towing my car for the first time.

Not. Cool.



Thankfully, the tow guy was super nice and since the car is still under warranty we don't have to pay for anything! I gotta find the silver lining somewhere...

2.11.2011

Yeah...

So it's been about 3 weeks of radio silence on this blog. Sorry 'bout that! The Wandering Wells went into hibernation mode.

What's been going on in the last few weeks?

Tim continues to play basketball with a new team in the City League.  It has been an uphill battle for the guys, but they've gotten exponentially better! Tim is almost never allowed to sit out, so he's been getting some really good cardio exercise! They're currently 1-3, but I think they're going to get much better before the season is over.

I have been working like crazy getting things together at work. This has been a welcome challenge and I am enjoying this working life very much. I was having a hard time concentrating with a "living room office" and so Tim and I did the one thing we've been avoiding and dreading for the last 2 years.

We cleaned the office.

It literally took 3 full days to complete. We ended up recycling more than 6 boxes of papers (thanks Mom for saving EVERY SINGLE assignment I EVER did from kindergarten through college) and gave away a variety of knick-knacks, bookshelves, and plastic bins.  We were exhausted by the end of the third day, but it was SO worth it.  Now I can work from home, in an actual office!

Tim built this storage system for the closet. 
We removed the closet doors and it has opened up the room a ton!

At the end of the last day of cleaning!  We moved the piano to the other side of the room and put the desk on the opposite wall.  This also made a huge difference in terms of space. Who knew?!

There's still some things we need to put away in front of the closet, but this is the new system in action.  It's so much more organized and I love how accessible our things are now.  Since this photo was taken, it looks even better! 

Our next goal is to actually decorate the office.  It's amazing how bare the walls look when the floor isn't covered in boxes and other junk. The first thing we're going to get: new lamps! The ones in the office now are so ugly, but when you don't actually use a room, the source of light doesn't matter so much. This room may actually turn into our never-ending project, but Tim is just so thrilled that my work stuff isn't taking up any more space in the living room, that I don't think he minds how much time and energy it has taken.  

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1.20.2011

365.19

A new basketball season has started in our household. Tim had a great game, but his team is new and still have some kinks to work out. I'm hopeful that they can pull it together next week!



1.19.2011

365.18

I got this in my business mail box today and I had to share. I love when I get a surprise laugh out of such a mundane task!



1.18.2011

A Day at Sea and Jungle Island

I figure it's time for me to finish up the posts about our New Year's trip to the Caribbean.  I apologize in advance about the length.  But, if you make it to the end, you'll find two great videos from our trip!

Our last day of the cruise was spent at sea, as we sailed back to Miami from Grand Turks.  The cruise provided a ton of entertainment throughout the day and Tim and I wanted to take full advantage of that!  Of course we forgot our camera for some of the most entertaining parts, which included an ice carving demonstration (the carver created a two doves and a heart in a huge block in less than 30 minutes and it was AMAZING!) and we had the "pleasure" of witnessing the Hairy Chest contest.  I'm sure you're all really disappointed you don't get to see those pictures.  :-)

 When we got back to the cabin, Tim decided we needed some pictures of our surroundings.  This included the hallway outside our room:
Our balcony, as viewed from our room:
 The lobby of the ship, as viewed from the glass elevators:
 This was on our way to a Towel Folding class!  While we waited for the class to start, I made an artistic representation of Mt. St. Helens:
This is what the class looked like, and while it does look like it was mostly children, we were not the only adults there...not by a long-shot!
 Here I am putting the final touches on my Elephant:
 Aren't they cute!?
 What could this possibly turn in to?
 Bulldogs!
 Of course that night was also the big New Year's celebration!  We went to dinner in the formal dining room and then caught the last big Vegas-style show in the Palladium theater:
Then we went back to our rooms, where our awesome steward surprised us with New Year's hats and noise-makers! Laurie and I went a little crazy with our noise makers!
We headed to the big party on the Lido deck with the rest of the boat, where they were streaming the live-feed from NYC.  It was the first time we had been in the same time zone as the "actual" ball drop!

 I don't know if you can tell from this picture, it's pretty dark, but the deck was completely full.  It was insane!
Laurie and I celebrated with more noise making...
Fun was had by all and we ended the night with a midnight buffet and then headed straight to bed for our early departure from the boat.

The next morning we were supposed to disembark with the other excursion groups, Patti had booked us a morning at Jungle Island to occupy our time between disembarkation and our flight later that afternoon.  Unfortunately for us, the boat docked an hour ahead of schedule and everything got bumped up earlier.  Without warning.  We got a call telling us we had 8 minutes to get down to our meeting point.

8. Minutes.
We're smiling in this picture, but we were all a little p.o.'d...
 We did make it to Jungle Island and we had a great time!  Unfortunately I don't have any of the "official photos" from the day, we didn't buy any, but imagine us holding parrots, an alligator, and a skunk.
 They have a lot of flamingos and the feeding time is definitely a frenzy and activity!
 These white birds kept landing and sitting on the flamingos like they didn't want to get wet.  It was highly amusing!
 Tim with a statue of a snapping turtle:
 Now for two videos:
Yes.  We did do that.  No. We won't do that again.

Are we the only ones that think this is hilarious?!?

We got a little animalistic towards the end...
But not nearly as much as this girl!
After our tour was done, we headed back to our bus and went straight to the airport!  Unfortunately our flight from Miami to Houston was delayed, but not enough to interrupt our flight from Houston to Seattle.  We were very thankful for that cushion time in Houston!

And now you're completely caught up on our trip to the Caribbean!  We had a fantastic time and it only took a few days to get rid of the rolling feeling from being on the ship.  Bonus!

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365.17

He made this from scratch (minus the bread and mallows)...



It was interesting. He loves cinnamon much more than I do.