Big Sigh

I feel a little blah just now. James is in Des Moines. He is supposed to be back Wednesday, but he may come home tomorrow instead. I always feel a little lost when he is gone. Like I should take advantage of the alone time and get a ton of things done. But I never get half of my list accomplished. I do feel good that I got the laundry done, blocked 4 more squares for my afghan and walked for an episode of Angel on the treadmill. I should be going to bed, but even though I am sleepy, I just don't really want to crawl in just yet.
I was reading Liz's blog tonight about her wonderful sounding trip to Maine with Scott's family. They sound great, and like a wonderful fit for Liz. The differences between us struck me as much as the similarities. A four mile run is probably not something I could even realistically contemplate at this point, but on the other hand, reading to unwind may be the most common thread in our family. I never realized how large a family Brenda is a part of. I can't even imagine having that many cousins.
Anyway, a melancholy mood does not an interesting blog make.
The gala for lifetouch was alright. The food was good. When it was announced after dinner that the entertainment for the evening was Lionel Ritchie we left. Along with about half of the people there. He doesn't seem to have been a popular choice. Oh well.

My hair, the bane of my existence

So we are going to this gala for Lifetouch's 70th anniversary next Saturday, and I cannot figure out what to do with my hair. I have a great evening gown, shoes (though if I can find better ones in the next week I will return them) and my accessories are all picked out. I just can't seem to do anything with my hair. I found a great style on the web, but when I went to try it, there was no way it was going to work. My hair is just to thick. Bobby pins bend out of shape at the mere sight of my hair. I want to do a nice, elegant up style. I wear buns and braids to work a lot, so I want something different. I have never successfully put it into a french twist, it is always too long (like it is now) or too short or maybe just to thick, I don't know. Even when I flat iron it I can't really do anything. I may have to go with a low bun. Poo. I wanted something new and exciting. Any suggestions are welcome. Going to a hairdresser is not an option, they cost too much, so I need to be able to at least theoretically do it myself. I think I will go and try a french twist variation one more time, who knows, maybe I'll luck out. My frizzy wavy thick-but-kinda-fine hair really is the bane of my trying to avoid looking to frumpy existence.

New stove excitement!

So we got our new stove on Saturday and I Love IT! It has a built in timer, and the flat top is much easier to clean. It seems like it takes longer to heat up a pan, but that is probably a good thing. We haven't tried the convection feature on the oven yet, but probably will soon. It has a warm feature, which is great when I don't plan well and things are done too early. It also has a nice big window and a light so there isn't so much opening of the door. It also features a clock and two dual size burners. It is nice to be able to tell it to make a burner larger or smaller depending on what pan I am using. I think that I will try out my griddle on it this weekend and see how that goes. Yeah! I really like our new stove.

This Saturday I am going fancy dress shopping with Heidi. It should be fun. Why fancy dress shopping you wonder, well, James' company (Lifetouch) is celebrating their 70th anniversary this year and the are having a gala to celebrate. However, I do not have a gala worthy dress, thus the fancy dress shopping. I am looking forward to the shopping, oddly. Usually shopping is frustrating because I am made up of about 4 different sizes, and am just on the edge between regular sizes and women's sizes. But dresses usually go pretty well, especially with and a-line or full skirt so that the top fits well, and the fuller skirt covers my fuller hips without straining. Anyway, it should be fun even if I don't find anything. Heidi always cracks me up.

Funny Stuff

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is one of the funniest shows on NPR. And I actually learn from it! It is a news quiz that has funny people on a panel answering questions, as well as listeners playing quiz games to win Karl Casell's voice on their home answering machine. I myself played and won the listener limerick challenge about a year and a half ago. However, by the time I got the tape, I no longer had a home answering machine.

In other news, I had a great time at Deb's 50th. They had a band called the Crawlers that was made up of doctors from St Cloud State. They were pretty good. Deb was all excited because she had sky-dived the day before with her kids. We got to see the video, which was fun. She looked all excited until the second before she jumped, when she looked a little spooked. I'm glad she had a good time.

The Guthrie experience on the other hand was awful. The new theater is ok, I still have mixed feelings about the architecture. The seats are better though. The thing that made the event suck was that they wouldn't let anyone into the auditoriums until after Joe Dowling had made his address at 1. So even though Dad and I got there at noon to beat the crowds, we couldn't see what we came for until 1:30 (the time at which I had hoped to be heading out). So we went to the Mill City Museum and learned about Minneapolis' flour milling history to kill some time. It really doesn't take real long to see the lobby areas, so we needed something to do for a while. When we got back, we had some lunch and then stood in line for half and hour so that we could go and see what we had arrived 2 hours or so earlier to see.

And in even further news (I really need to write a little more often I think) we bought a new stove yesterday! Yeah! No more crappy bad thermostat stove! It will be delivered next Saturday, at which point I will talk about it's nifty features after I get to try some of them out.