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The Guilt, The Angst....... The Omnivores Dilemma.

Earlier this year I read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” which I thoroughly enjoyed and finished feeling inspired to eat more sustainably and locally.
For Christmas I requested “The Omnivores Dilemma.” This is not a warm, fuzzy book. This is a depressing book. I don’t want to be a “Corn Person.” I don’t even ever want to eat fast food again. I feel sick just thinking about burgers and chicken from places like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and even gasp Culvers. I loves the Lemon Ice, but I’m sure it must be loaded with HFCS.

Bourbon Balls with a Bite

During our cookie baking extravaganza on Saturday we made bourbon balls.

I am a 70's music Wonder Woman, R U?

I scored a Far Out
95% on the
SheGoddess – for Quiz Takers

We're Geeks -- Are you one, too?

	I received 85 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds hereCanon powershot

Stuff and Junk

We got the dam removed and the adjuster came out to assess our damage.
I don’t know what his assessment in $ will be, either it will be worth the insurance claim, or it won’t. sigh

I realized today at work that suddenly, without warning it was Thursday. Christmas is in 4 days. I haven’t baked a single cookie, wrapped a single present, or even finished my Christmas shopping. Stupid Amazon.com said it shipped my packages via USPS and helpfully provided tracking numbers that the USPS never updates. For all I know, my packages could be in New Jersey and my gift recipients will received a wrapped envelope with the name/description of their gift.

Damned Dam, Damn!

Saturday night I came in from shoveling snow and was standing at the kitchen sink looking when I noticed water, water, everywhere.

My first thought was that Adam had used the sprayer and had soaked the ledge. I wiped up a lot of water from the window sill and felt a drip. I noticed that there was also water on the middle ledge on the window. There was a lot of water there too. I wiped that up and felt another drip. I looked up and didn’t see a wet spot or hole in the ceiling. Finally I saw the source of the water — the molding above the window was leaking water like a sieve. I touched it, the wood was still solid, but the plaster behind it was squishy.

Busy Weekend - Saturday

Saturday was an incredibly busy and fun day.

We saw the trains at Olbrich Gardens, the giant festive pine tree in the Capitol building. and we bought a Christmas tree. Yes, we’re tree killers. We know. I can’t quite bring myself to buy a fake tree yet, though.

After our full day out, we came home and had the Rupperts over for a delicious dinner of Picasso’s pizza. Then Erin showed me how to knit. I was doing OK for a beginner until Sunday morning when I completely forgot how to do half of what she taught me. Fortunately, she was able to point me to a great link and talk me through some of the bits I’d forgotten. Yay!

Busy Weekend - Friday Night

Friday night we went down to the Essen Haus to meet up with some of Mike’s co-workers for dinner and drinks. Bringing Adam to a restaurant/bar with a live Polka Band and adults drinking large quantities of beer from glass boots or steins that look like Thor (God of Thunder, not Derek’s cat) should be drinking from it, not mere mortals with puny, human-sized livers would not have been in my top 5 list of places to take a 4 year old. But there we were…
So at the Essen Haus, Adam had his first indoctrination into Wisconsin culture.
Polka band? Check!
E-I-E-I-E-I-O? Check! (I had totally forgotten about that right up until the band sang it at us, and like some sort of pre-programmed freak, I knew how to respond)
Massive loads of beer? Check!

Grades are In

Despite an incredibly dismal performance on my last exam, I still managed to squeak by with an A in the course. So my first semester back a 4.0.
Yay me!

My Semester is Over - break out the champagne!

A little over 12 weeks ago I made a snap decision to re-enroll in school. I hadn’t taken a course since winter 2002 and was feeling a little rusty but motivated to finally put this whole lack of a bachelors degree behind me.
Since I have to do an individualized major that is comprised of 3 academic areas that I have to magically link together, I decided to go with Geography to complement my existing sociology and political science backgrounds. For me Geography is one of those subjects where learning isn’t really like work at all —its just kinda fun and interesting. So as soon as my grades clear I will have successfully completed 7 credits in 12 short weeks. Next semester I’ll have 4 more credits and then if all goes well, I’ll be done. WOO!