To Keep Our Blog from Being Entirely About the Bachelor

I've come to the conclusion that weekends shorter than three days are hardly worth having.

Zack was in Vegas all of last week so I was living up the single lyfe! It was a little lonely, but it also felt good to be an independent woman for the first time in a while.

Friday I went out to this bar called The Mad Hatter with my coworkers. We don't go out super often, so that was nice! Also, rail drinks were only $3, which is super cheap for DC.  I was supposed to meet up with A-A-ron but he didn't have his plans together early enough so I went home, ate Chipotle, drank wine and watched 30 Rock. So that's pretty much straight spinster life right there.

Saturday Morning Brie and I went to the Newseum. It's one of DC's not-free museums, but, unlike the Spy Museum, I definitely thought it was worth it! Also, if you get ticket it's good for two days. So if we ever decide to go, we can do shifts and pay half as much!

They had an interesting/sad 9/11 exhibit. It's the antenna from the top of one of the towers and headlines from around the world on September 12th.  There's one that just reads "BASTARDS" as the headline. I don't know where that one was from, but that definitely doesn't seem like the best headline, you know? Also, some woman thought it was really interesting that none of our teachers told us what was going on while we were in class that day. And that even though my friend told me "Two planes ran into a building," I didn't get what was going on until way later that night.

They also had a lot of JFK stuff, which makes sense.  They have a 90 foot screen that shows scenes from his life. It was pretty interesting, but I think it's temporary.

Also that feeds directly into something pretty much tailor-made for Teeners. It's called "Make Some Noise" and is all about the student movements during the 1960s. They have the actual table from one of the first sit ins in Greensboro, NC. They've got a ton of pictures, and a lot of descriptions. I'm sure it's all much to elementary for you, Teener--after all, she is published on the matter.

My favorite, though, was the Pulitzer Prize Photographs. It was a lot more like a history lesson that just the news. A lot about the Vietnam War, though, which is always sad, and very frustrating. But I think they did a good job sprinkling in happy/unbelievable photos too so you didn't get too down.

But, the most surprising thing at the Newseum, to me, was that freaking LL Cool J explains your first amendment rights to you?  I can't say I'm familiar with the entirety of his work, but I definitely didn't think ANY of it touched on first amendment rights. But... I guess it's to make constitutional rights "cool" and "hip."

After that we got Chinese food and met up with Mattan, who had decided to shave his head bald. Turns out I'm really freaked out by bald heads. They just look so...vulnerable. So, if any of you are considering going completely bald, don't be surprised if I ask you to cover up.

Then we met up with Aaron and a bunch of his friends and went to the Pistons game! I got to see my favorite person in the world: Greg Monroe. The Pistons beat the Wizards, but missed two free throws in the fourth quarter so everyone in the stadium got free Chik-fil-a! It was really the best combination of things from my perspective.

Sunday I made orgasm brownies:

They were less fudgy than I wanted, but still tasted good.

I was a little bit rushed because I had to go all the way out to Silver Spring for a painting thing with Brie. (It was kind of like I dated Brie this weekend instead of Zack--we did a lot of stuff together)

When we got there the lady said that she didn't have our reservation, but she'd squeeze us in anyway.  It was in a restaurant/bar so there were people like actually eating and trying to just be normal, so that was a little weird. Also, there was way less instruction than what you get at Painting with a Twist, which made the experience feel more stressful, I feel. This is what I ended up with:

I guess it looks nice. You know how when you've looked at something too long, all you see is the mistakes? That's where I'm at right now.  The colors are nice though.

Then I had to rush home because Zack was finally back! We had like an hour before we went to Elizabeth's house to watch the premier of Sherlock.  I like Sherlock, but the problem is that every episode is 90 minutes long, so it's like a REALLY big commitment to watch one episode.  Elizabeth really went all out and had "fish and chips" (chips with goldfish), shepherd's pie, scones, tea, cider, and beer. She's always good for things like that.

People think he's cute. I don't see it. Like, at all.

After we got home Zack was crazy tired. So we went to bed. We also had to go bed early to be in top shape for babbbiiessssssss. We finally got to see our baby friends!

Zack traditionally takes care of Ben and I cuddle with Eli. So that's what we did. Though I did make friends with Ben too. Also Max, the old boy, thinks Zack is really cool so they play together. BUT this time I was the cool one because I brought Max a space book! Both of his parents were like "Oh wow, we've never seen this one before. Good find!" I hadn't even considered that he might already the book I had bought, but luckily he didn't have the one I got! We had to read it three times before we left and he was super into it each time.

Space book, best book.

Also we ate sushi. And the babies were naked for a little while, which is always cute. Then we went home, thinking we would have to go to work in the morning. BUT THEN WE DIDN'T WOOOOOOO

I happened to wake up at 4:30, checked the website that says whether or not the federal government is open (it wasn't) and then went back to sleep. At 6:30 my boss texted me telling me not to come in. At 7:30 a bunch of my coworkers texted me asking if we had work. So really, my sleeping was all messed up. So I got up and made hash browns and pancakes. Then we ate and went back to sleep til noon. You know, adult life. By the way, this is what it looked like outside until about 10:00am:

Then we went to Chik-fil-a to cash in on my free sandwich! I made a small snowman outside. Then I bought floss-y-thingies and we went back home. It was actually starting to snow a little. But you know, not like a ton. In all I think we got about two and a half inches. I guess they had four in Maryland. So, big whoop. It eventually looked like this:

There was a little more later. But I didn't take a picture.

I got bored, so I busted out my sewing machine and completed a project I'd put off for one and a half years:

Senegal pilloowsssss. Pretty easy to make! And now our couch is a little classier, but a little less school spirited.

Then Zack made us a nice dinner:

Chicken, rice, wine. Yum.

Then I had to go into work and answer my kajillion emails. That was less good. But you know, you don't look gift snow days in the mouth.

Fun Things! (Part 1--La maison blanche)

Since TCAB left DC we've been doing pretty fun things. We were also doing fun things while they were here too. So really, we've been doing fun things for the last month.

This past Saturday we went to the White House for a tour! We might have mentioned it, but the tour we were supposed to take got canceled because of a snow day. Let me remind what a snow day looks like here:

You'll notice, there's not actually any snow. And while I was happy to have an unexpected (paid) day off from work, it was a little disappointing because if we had gone then, we would have seen all the Christmas decorations AND we could've taken pictures. But whatever. Over it.

The tour was really cool! We only went in the East Wing. So it wasn't really like we were on Teenie's favorite show--you have to know someone legit at the White House to go to there. The building itself was actually way smaller that I thought. It's really not that big of a place, but they really do like to cram in artwork. 

Highlights include:

Obama's Muslim Prayer Curtain. Or you know, maybe that's just the decor of the biggest room in the White House. Believe what you want, libtards--it's def covered in Arab symbols.

The China Room. Each president has the option to pick their own china pattern and have it made. Who knew Rutherford Hayes had such weird taste in China--or I mean I guess it was his wife that was the weirdo.

The Blue Room. It's big. Looks a little like Michigan. It's fancy.  There was a secret service guy in there who was telling us a lot of cool facts (none of which I remember).  Since it's a self-guided tour you have to rely on the secret service to answer your questions. I thought they were only gonna talk to us if we initiated the conversation but they were like real tour guides and were super friendly!

You can only take pictures outside so we did that. But, it was raining really hard so we didn't take too many. You gotta take what you can get, I guess.

With my Kruppcake, the guy who got us in!

I was pretty content with just going to the East Wing BUT on Monday, one of my coworkers asked me if I wanted to go bowling at the White House and a like team bonding thing! Uh, duh I want to go bowling at the White House! Also, I got to gloat because not everyone in the office got to go! So, suck it everyone who didn't get to go! (Jokes, they're all nice people.)

So after work we went to a bar to kill some time, picked up our pizza, and picked up beer and wine. It's funny, for the East Wing tour you couldn't bring your purse, you couldn't have your phone out, and you had to be sniffed by a dog.  For this, you could bring whatever food and drink you wanted and security was way more lax.

The bowling alley itself isn't actually that impressive:

It was built in 1947 by Truman and hasn't really been updated, other than to add goofy portraits of the presidents with bowling balls. But you know, you go to say you went, not for the high caliber of bowling. 

We split in to teams, and unfortunately my team lost. It wasn't one of my better bowling performances, if I'm honest. But you know, whatever. I went to the White House twice in a week. I'll probably be living there soon--nbd.

Here's some misc pics:

Samantha who you may (or may not) remember from New Years. Also Barack.

Look at that stance! Also, presidents don't have to wear bowling shoes?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It snowed almost non-stop in Detroit this weekend, and since I didn't have to drive anywhere, I loved it! This morning I had to LITERALLY shovel snow off my car, but roads were decent and I made it to work alive so all is good.

I only have 5 (well, 4 and a half really) more days of work before going home for Christmas and then to DC for New Years! I have a countdown on my cubicle wall. Can't wait. Work is zero percent stressful, because I do what I want and am not ever busy, so I'm not really looking forward to this as a break like I usually did during college. Still, I want to see my family and celebrate with them for Christmas. And I want to see all of CARTRZ for the after Christmas fun!!

Here is my countdown! I just took this on my webcam. Don't worry I'm on lunch break.

This week for Catholics is all about joy, because we light the pink candle on our advent wreaths (the rest are purple) and call it Guadete Sunday/week! Guadete means rejoice. We like Latin. We also like joy. Really, who doesn't? And even though I'm not crazy about the color pink and think yellow would have been a much happier choice, I still love this week and how close we are getting to Christmas, another time that I love!
Oh, also I got in to grad school last week! So that is a great reason to be joyful! I still have to figure out money to pay for grad school, but I will worry about that when it is "Worry about money week".

These two are pretty joyful

Yesterday, my housemates and I got super crafty. We've been pretty crafty all month, because we are poor and need to make a lot of our Christmas gifts. Probably if people were to watch us on Sundays this month, they would think we were Martha Stewart clones. I am bad at some crafts that involve drawing or coloring, because I am impatient, but I have my sewing machine in Detroit so I can do fabric related crafts and show off my really limited sewing skillz. I helped Laura make mittens and an earband out of old sweaters while Rachel knit and Denise watched. It was adorable. I am also learning to knit, with Rachel's help, and I really like it. It's a thing I can do while I watch TV so I feel productive. And we all know I love to watch TV.

I can't show you the after picture of this craft because it is a gift

We also had our community outing this weekend on Saturday. We do this once a month and it's usually going out to dinner and/or doing some activity with our board of directors from the parish. We were going to go to a German restaurant but the snow was so crazy we decided to keep it local and just go to our director's house for pizza and games. Also I got to drink wine out of a mug. I might have drank too much, gotta keep warm somehow! It was a lovely weekend all around, and if I was a better photographer I would have taken pictures of how beautiful the snow was.

This is a picture Ashley took of Laura sledding. SNOW.

At work lately I have just been going to doctor's offices to tell the office managers and nurses about NSO (this is the organization I work for). We have mental health services, but not everyone who needs them knows about them, so I am supposed to be responsible for marketing and outreach. I'm not so sure I'm doing it right, but I try. Anyway, I feel like mostly what I do at my job is learn about all of the difficulties that people face in getting all their basic needs met. Families need to call around to so many places and even with a case manager helping them it's hard to find work, housing, food, and to deal with teachers and administrators at schools. It gets me pretty sad sometimes, but other times I feel really helpful because I can help by looking up resources or helping with phone calls because I am less busy than the social workers in my office. Anyway, this is a job for Zacky and Rachael: fix America so life isn't so hard for poor people. Maybe just make it so poor people aren't poor anymore. That sounds easy enough.

Well I really didn't have a theme for this post, I just wanted to say things to you. I have a really cute picture of my niece in the snow but I can't post it here, so maybe I'll text it to y'all later.

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS.

Scottish Walking, Best Walking

So our friend Ray has mentioned that he's super into bagpiping. And we've heard that come Saint Patrick's Day there will be a big parade. But we didn't have to wait until March to see the bagpiping and got to see the Scottish walk in Alexandria!!

The morning started out with brunch in Old Town Alexandria at a friend of a friend's house. The house and brunch were both SUPER CUTE. I was feeling really sad about how not cute our apartment was while eating the extravagant and delicious Brunch Kate had prepared. Then she mentioned she's 28. So now instead of feeling sad, I feel inspired and will hope to have an apartment that nice in 6 years.

It looked like this, but this isn't a real picture because I didn't want to be that weirdo photographing the food.

After filling up on chorizo quiche (!!) and strawberries and cream and bread pudding and Baileys and hot chocolate, we walked out the parade. I got a balloon! (This will factor in later.) Elizabeth had staked out a prime spot so we were real close to all the things! There were a ton of dogs. Like really, it was like half dogs. But they were cute dogs, so it was okay that there were so many of them. Also, a lot of people in kilts which is to be expected.

Also there was a little girl who asked my friend for her balloon. Like straight up "can I have you balloon?" So she gave it to her because the little girl was four and what do we need with balloons anyway? But then, the little girl started just spiking the balloon into another girl's head repeatedly. Did her mom do anything? Nope. Then, as children are wont to do, she let it float into the air. And instead of learning from her from her mistake, she came after my balloon! BUT mine was tied to my purse so I told her that. Then she demanded that I try to untie it! Absolutely not! So I just gave her candy and she went away. But really though. Keep track of your kids. It's obnoxious.

Picture this, but a girl and more menacing.

Finally at the end of the parade, we saw Ray's group! I think he was at the end of the parade because he's good, but I don't really have any reason to believe that, but it's probably true.  And then there was a bagpipe-off between three bagpipe groups. (Really it was just like a combination band, but a bagpipe off is more dramatic.)  I know everyone gives bagpipes a lot of crap, but when you listen to people that actually know what they're doing, it's pretty cool! I mean, I'm not about to buy a "Best of the Bagpipes CD" but it was a lot of fun and different from the usual bar/football things we normally do on Saturdays!

Not a good Christmas present idea.

Then we went back to Kate's house, ate more food and waited for Ray to make his way back. There were a lot of fun people there--even a few from Michigan! I had more bread pudding, learned that at the end of the Georgia Tech fight song they say "fight, win, drink, get naked!" but don't actually get naked, and I told a rude joke about tampons (don't worry though, people liked it).

After a while, Ray came back!! We got him to play for us and it was delightful:

So, Go Blue. Go Ray. 

See you guys soon! I'm making orgasm brownies today. And it's the first snow in DC...is it sticking? No. Lame.