Blogging Facelift

I have begun using Wordpress for my blog, and it has moved: to the.olfelts.com

This is mostly because I kept forcing my web developing husband to create new templates for this blog and he convinced me that the changes would take place faster if I switched to the more flexible Wordpress blog hosting. And here we are. I hope you will follow me.

the.olfelts.com

A Month in Pictures

"Last post: September 18th"
Whoops. When did September get away from me? It has been a fabulous month around here with fun date activities, friends coming to visit, and recipes being baked. Here is our month (and then some) in review:

State Fair:
I meant to make a whole entry about our time at the state fair - so many Minnesotan stereo-types to analyze - but that was right about when life picked up for us and the day after the fair I started my full time job. Did we have loads of fun at the so-called "Great Minnesota Get Together" ? You becha we did. We saw log rollers and tractors and live music, doncha know. It was quite the hoot. :) Walker Art Park Date:
In our desperate attempt to be a hip young Twin Cities couple, Dan and I have been perusing the local artsy-fartsy places. One such place is the modern art/sculpture park near the art museum downtown. On a Friday evening after work, Dan and I swung by KFC for some to-go meals - the epitome of classy - and brought them to the park for a picnic. As we strutted our "watch-out Minneapolis elite, here we come" stuff... we posed for a few pics, model style.
This picture is not supposed to be rotated, but I kid you not, Blogger won't let me post it normal. Let's call it modern art, shall we?
Pearl Loves the New Digs:
Enough said.
DIY Sushi:
I. love. sushi. However, sushi doesn't like my budget, so in true Olfelt fashion we decided to make our own for cheaper. Enter 45 minutes at the local Asian grocery store (United Noodle Co.) trying to read characters foreign to us, and $40 later we had enough food to make sushi for a large army (thanks to a little hands on help from our friends the Germanns). We learned a lot and there are many changes we decided we will make next time, and there will be a next time seeing as how we still have nori, wasabe, and masago coming out our ears.My First Pumpkin Pie:
I used the Betty Crocker cookbook recipe for Pumpkin Pie - well, sort of. I put in the wrong size can of evaporated milk (called for 5oz, put in 12oz... that's a boo boo) and after realizing this, I was sure what would come out of the oven would be more pudding in a crust than pie. In fact, the pie looked and tasted (mostly) right! Who knew!? I'm not recommending it per se, but if you're fast to cook and slow to check directions as I am, things can still work out in your favor from time to time.To top it all off, I was a Costco a week later and had a sample of their in store bakery's pumpkin pie. Suffice it to say that I'm never trying my hand at pumpkin pie again. Why re-invent the wheel when your version of the wheel turns out soupy and there's a Pirelli* vendor just up the street?

I feel like I've left a lot of updates out... for example the entire genre of house projects. I have some more pictures to take around here and I'll get those up soon! Furnaces and frame collages and vanities, oh my!

*Pirelli: the type of car tire my dad used to make me put on my BMW

Falling in Love

Lately I've been thinking a lot about:

apple picking, the smell of fall, cool and crisp days, pumpkin carving, hot apple cider, scarves but no gloves, Yankee candle's "Autumn Wreath", making apple pies, corn mazes, pumpkin spice lattes, crunchy leaves, apple cider donuts, bright red trees, crisp evening walks, candy corn, and clementine oranges, just to name a few.

This is the view from our living room.

I am very, very excited for autumn.

Living the Life

My dad and Step-mom came to visit us in Minnesota last weekend. Felt kind of weird that I was hosting them. For the first 18 years of my life that was the other way around.

For about a week before they arrived, (when I wasn't dodging Republican National Convention traffic and road closures) I started to think about what we might want to do with them in the twin cities - what cool touristy things we could bring them to to show off our new digs. I really couldn't come up with much, so I asked my parents to do the research for me, "Let me know if there are any sites around here you'd want to see!". My dad responded that they just want to see me and see our life out here.

That was all the invitation I needed.

I told my dad that "seeing our life" meant house projects. So my father installed another branch of the forced air system (with Dan's help). My step mom and I went to Menard's and bought a fire and water-proof safe, for all those important papers that it would suck to lose. Later that afternoon we cut down some branches of the apple tree in our backyard that were interfering with the power chords, then promptly made a ton of apple sauce out of the apples. No, seriously, at least a gallon of apple sauce. Then in the evening we went to a Color Me Mine pottery glazing studio and "painted" a large popcorn bowl - a house warming gift from my Dad and Debby (that's an "O" for Olfelt in the middle there).


The other part of seeing our life out East (in the Midwest. It's East of the West. But it's not the East) is seeing Dan's family - a major part of why we live here. So, on Sunday the whole family (with the exception of the 9 who live in the East, not the midwest) came over to our house for a pot-luck. There were 18 of us cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. The younger cousins played on our garage sale foosball table while the adults got tours of the house and talked about our renovation projects and plans. It was so much fun and I feel like it was such a good reflection of how warm and loving the Olfelt family is.

It wasn't anything glamorous, but it was wonderful to have my dad and Debby literally experiece our life out here. I think it was a much better way to spend the weekend than traipsing around the largest mall in America or taking a tour of Target's global headquarters.

Accessorized Confidence

I have a vivid memory of being in a grocery store as a 4th grader and seeing a girl slightly older than me with a purse hanging from her shoulder. It was love at first sight - with the purse that is. "Someone near my age is old enough to have a purse?" I thought, and the campaign was on. It took me approximately 3 months until I had convinced my mom that it was time for her little girl to go through the right of passage and get herself a big girl purse. I saved the subsequent weeks' allowances, and invested it all straight into that glorious symbol of maturity. I can picture it now in all it's light blue, plastic, Caboodles-branded, long-strapped splendor. I have no idea what I put in it (my best guesses are: Lipsmackers lip glosses in flavors like Dr. Pepper and Vanilla Icing, a Hello Kitty pen, a half-finished friendship bracelet, and pogs) but there's been one on my shoulder ever since.

Nowadays the staples of my purse are wallet, keys, sunglasses, phone, checkbook, lip gloss (Burt's Bees is more my style now), and a pen. In reality that's all that will fit, and even then I have a hard time zipping it unless those items are all in the appropriate places. This means that anything else I need to tote with me has to find other means by which to be carried - typically my hands. For example, I have been putting my makeup on in the car on the way to work (I should state here that DAN DRIVES. We now carpool everyday which has been awesome) . When I get to work, I sling my purse on my shoulder, grab my lunch bag with one hand and that makeup bag with the other, then finagle a finger out so that I can press '9' on the elevator. At the end of the day yesterday, I grabbed my beloved-ly small purse and left the office, only to realize that I forgot my life line... *ahem*... makeup bag in my desk drawer (ladies, ever had to go out in the morning in business casual completely sans makeup? 'Naked' is the only feeling I can liken it to). It was this oversight due to maximum purse capacity that made me realize: it's time to move up another step on the purse totem pole.

Don't worry, I didn't shell out the cash for a designer bag (although, if there's anyone in NY or LA reading this and knows a good street vendor... I'm in the market), but I did buy a new one that is more than double the volume of any purse I've previously owned. It's fantastically roomy and will fit my usuals, AND my makeup bag, AND my planner - all with room to spare, although I've yet to figure out how to pull out a floor lamp, Mary Poppins style, I do believe it is possible with this sucker.

In complete contrast with the feeling I had of going to work naked-faced, having this "I am woman, hear me roar" bag on my shoulder gives me a phony yet enjoyable woosh of empowerment. When I was 9, a transparent blue purse meant I was growing up. Now, it's as though I'm making the statement 'I am important enough to have enough crap to fill this purse' (arbitrary elitism, it's a little game I play). What does that mean really? Absolutely nothing. But it feels like I'm announcing my grown-up-dom all over again (14 years later), and it is wonderful.

Chez Nous

Alright folks, here they are - pictures of the rooms I'm willing to show you of our house. For the less glamorous photos, see the rest of the blog.

Our bedroom. Missing:Bed skirt, headboard, curtains.

My desk, also in our bedroom. I bought the desk at a garage sale for - no joke - $10. After paint to re-cover it, new drawer pulls, and a lot of time spent sanding, the total cost was less than $50.

Two views of our kitchen. I'll leave it up to your imagination to figure out how they fit together. (Hint: stove).

The dining room (hmmm, those chairs look familiar).

Two views of the living room. Somehow this album didn't seem complete without a picture containing Pearl wrestling with an over-sized stuffed animal (bottom).

And there you have it! Happy three-day weekend!

Under Construction

The Olympics are coming to an end, and Dan and I have been trying to find something new to occupy our evenings and weekends. So we decided to install a brand new HVAC system, you know, as one does. Call it green (save 20%+ energy), call it space saving, call it upgrading... I call it Dan flexing his man muscle. Ever since he was a toddler and his dad bought him his first tool belt, Dan has been itching to work on his own big, impressive projects. Well, this project is certainly big.

This is our present source of heat that we are getting rid of, a radiator under almost every window in the house (this is our bedroom):


You know those air registers in the floors of every house built in the last 50 years? That is what we're installing - a forced air heating/AC system. It consists of running air ducts throughout the ceiling of the basement and up into every room in the house, then installing a furnace. No big deal, really.

So, Dan started going full steam ahead this weekend, getting to the store when they opened Saturday morning and working ever since in our creepy, dusty basement. Old Man Germann (since, we decided, 25 is old) came over Saturday and the two of them installed the main air duct:


They even got as far as installing the first complete register in our bedroom. This notably involved taking a jigsaw (Dan's birthday present) to my oak wood floors. I had to avert my eyes and swallow the tears - rightfully so, because this was the beautiful result!


It may seem like we're well on our way, but there is still a LOT of man muscle flexing to be done. This is just half of the duct yet to install (we didn't even buy the other half yet):

Also to be noted in this picture - the awesome basement floor tile. I'm looking forward to starting that project. But, one thing at a time!

My name's Allison, and I'm an Olympiholic

There's a disease taking the country by storm, and I have fallen prey. The symptoms range from enthusiasm to exhaustion and it is often characterized by one or more of the following: staying up until midnight to watch Nastia and Shawn nail their floor routines (disregarding the fact that your alarm will sound in 6.25 hours), bookmarking NBCOlympics.com so you can check the medal count 15x a day, watching Michael Phelps every single time he gets in the pool, and getting very emotionally involved in all this tiebreaker/age/judging gymnastics controversy. I know I'm not alone in my suffering. On that note, I figured that many of you would enjoy this as much as I did when I found it:

Go USA!

3 Weeks Later

Yup, we've been a little busy. Not so busy that it's actually a viable excuse for me not to update in over 3 weeks, but busy none the less. What we've been doing:

Growing my hair out - see: previous post and the Olfelt's August budget

Moving for the second time in 2 months - Less than a handful of boxes left to unpack, if you don't count those 8 in the corner.

Celebrating - Dan turned 22 last week and it was a multi-stage party involving friends, family, and jetskiing.

Making furniture - the Ikea way, that is. We got a china hutch from the "as-is" section of Ikea. It was the floor model and the doors didn't open very well, so it was 50% off. After disassembling it to fit it in our pint-sized SUV, we realized that the door hardware was just installed backwards, and now it works perfectly.

Watching the Olympics - Addicted. That's all there is to it.

Having company - Yay for friends who visit! Trips to the Mall of America, the Science Museum, and other assorted tourist-y places.

Projects Projects Projects - Pull the vine off the back of the house, empty the dis-GUS-ting pond in the backyard, water and fertilize the lawn, re-wire the 70 year old electrical sockets, replace the vast array of colored switches and face plates, new door handles, new light fixture, getting the TV to work, the list goes on, really.

It is my solemn vow to have pictures up of the house sometime this week (seeing as how I'm not presently employed, this shouldn't be a problem). I just have to clean first.

Homeownership Statistics

We closed on the house Wednesday afternoon and have been working on it ever since! If anyone is keeping track, here's the present count:

Trips to Menards (local hardware/everything store): 5
Trips to Walmart: 3
Neighbors Met: 4
Fast Food Meals Eaten: 3
Paint Gallons Emptied: 7
Boxes Left to Unpack: 8.5 bajillion

I promise promise I will post pictures soon!

Girlfriends and Haircuts

A good girlfriend is invaluable. They'll go to Starbucks with you every Wednesday at 2:30, they'll sincerely confront you when something needs to be righted, and they'll listen to and giggle about every juicy detail of your romantic pursuits. This week I've discovered another priceless benefit of a true girlfriend: she'll agree with you when you hate your haircut.

Living in a new place, I am short on a few things - one of them being girlfriends. In light of that, I've been thinking. I know that people read this (I've had many an over-the-phone confession ;) and I was hoping, in lieu of having friends here to talk to, that you could help a girl out. Namely, what the heck do I do with my hair!? Huge life changing conundrum, I know, so please don't make me go it alone (or with a husband who doesn't know better/ is blinded by love).

So, from now on pretend we're chatting over caramel coolers at Caribou Coffee (that's right, I'm a Minnesota convert) and I'm telling you all about this chic-bob-turned-disaster.

Exhibit A - the picture of the celebrity (mistake numero uno) I brought into great clips (grande mistake numero dos) to show the stylist what cut I wanted:Cute, flirty, and summerish, huh? Oh, just wait.


Exhibit B - the actual haircut I received, after going back to have them re-shape it once*:
*Don't be fooled by my obligatory smile in the picture... I am not a happy camper.

There are so many reasons that this is not the cut I wanted (specifically, it looks nothing like it), and it has turned out to be such a pain to style it in a way I'm ok with. 45 minutes on my hair in the morning is 35 too many. Back to the conundrum though; where to go from here?

Your (as my chatting-over-coffee girlfriend from whom I'm seeking advice) options:
A) Just leave it and grit your teeth for a month until it's near your shoulders. It's ok, bad hair cuts happen to all of us *pat on the knee*.
B) Go into a hair salon (a real one where shampooing isn't an extra cost) and have them show you how to style it in a way that you're happy with.
C) Fork it over (it's worth it) and go somewhere to get the actual cut you were looking for; you've still got some length to lose.
D) - another option, for those with better problem solving skills than I have.

Please, as a true friend and/or blog reader, let me know what I should do. Meanwhile, I continue to see this when I look in the mirror:

help. please.

Mezuzah

No, I didn't make that word up.

As we prepare to get the keys to the house in a little over two weeks (oh, did I mention we moved the closing date up a week?), I find myself thinking about how crazy and amazing this all is. I know it's just a house, and a small one at that, but we do feel like the whole situation - the fact that we have somewhere we know we want to be for 5+ years, our ability to make a down payment having worked all of 4 weeks with post-college salaries, the potential this investment has to alleviate college loan burdens - is entirely a blessing from God.

I met a very wonderful woman for about 2 hours of my life - she is a dear friend's aunt - and during that meeting she told me about the Jewish mitzvah (commandment/tradition) of the Mezuzah and I think that it is just beautiful. A mezuzah is a parchment scroll on which passages from Deuteronomy are written in Hebrew. The scroll is then rolled up and put into a case - usually somewhat decorative - and that case is nailed to the doorframes of houses. Traditionally it is affixed immediately upon moving into a new home. The passage starts like this:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deut. 6:4-9)

For all my bible college friends, here's the Hebrew:
As a family is nailing on their mezuzah, they say a blessing acknowledging God as sovereign over the house and it's occupants. The case is nailed at an angle pointing into the door, signifying that God and His Word dwell there as well.

I could not think of a better way to start off with a new house. Today we ordered our very own kosher mezuzah (www.alljudaica.com) to remind ourselves who this house came from and for what purpose we are working on it. In a very literal way we are writing His commandments upon the doorframe of our house - His house - as a symbol of our desire to use this house the way God would have us use it as we seek to love Him with all our hearts, souls, and strength.

There's Got to Be More to Life

Besides a cheesy overplayed song by a Christian artist that made it (temporarily) mainstream - that phrase is also how I feel now-a-days. Yes I'm thrilled about the house and having our own (massive) project to take on, but I also find myself struck dumb by the apparent reality that: work sucks. No, seriously. Is this all there is?

When I had jobs before, even if they were less than ideal, I always had my "it's just temporary while I'm in college" security statement to fall back on. Now I just feel like... this is it. This is my job. I don't go to classes in the evenings and this isn't just my student teaching. And although I know that my identity is in the God who loves and formed me, I still just have this overwhelming feeling that my job is what defines me. Does it have to be this way?

It's hard to think of it being any other way when this is what I do for 40 hours a week. Plus when I get home I usually don't feel like doing anything else, I just want to sit and not think, move, or talk. So then work really does become all I do in the sense that - weekends aside - I am a vegetable when not at work. Is that normal?

I'm not saying all that to be Debby Downer. Those questions aren't rhetorical. I know that a lot of people reading this are going through or have recently gone through the 'full-time student to full-time worker' transition. Is this what yours was like? Will it last? (it has only been 3 weeks... but they've been 3 very hard weeks.) Did you find anything that helped?

I promise I'll post more wonderful toddler tales when I get viable feedback as to how to survive the 9-5 (in my case it's 8-5:30). ;)

Drum Roll Please...

We got the house!!^10 (yea, raise those exclamation marks to the 10th power to get a better idea of how I feel).

The house was foreclosed and owned by a bank, so we pretty much signed our lives away this evening on contracts the bank made us sign (see: David v. Goliath (1045BC) ) to save their own butts in case anything goes wrong. We set the closing date for July 17th so that we have enough time to save for a) a car and b) house project money.

Meanwhile I may or may not be going crazy in our current living situation. Thus, I have turned to planning, lists, and dreaming about updates we want to make to the house. Like I said, it's a fixer upper, so I've got my daydreaming work cut out for me. Here are a few of my *ahem* 'plans':

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

Bathroom Before:

Bathroom After:
Backyard Before:

Backyard After:

Yup. That's exactly what our home is going to look like, in case anyone was wondering.

Toddler Tales Part 2

Because there's just so much material, here are more true life stories from my toddlers:

Lunch was served a half an hour late on Friday because the cafeteria was running behind. Please note that 30 minutes is an eternity when you are 3 years old. Also, immediately after lunch is nap time, so as they waited for their food, my kids were both hungry and exhausted. Finally, the meal came: mashed potatoes and gravy (with vegetables, fruit and bread of course - to make it balanced). You would think that this story would involve throwing or projectile food of some sort, but stay tuned. One sweet girl, Alisha, who had been particularly crabby and inconsolable while we waited for the food, finally began to suck her thumb at the table and quited down once the food came. I gave each student a plate of food and began pouring the sippy cups of milk (and soy for all the crazy food allergies that kids have now-a-days. Don't even get me started). When I returned to the table with the first two sippy-cups, Alisha had gone cheek first into her potatoes, thumb still in her mouth. I picked her up quickly, carried her to the diaper table, wiped off her face, and laid her on her cot all without her waking up.

I was playing catch with Brad with one of those ball pit plastic balls. To be funny one time, I caught the ball and hid it behind my back. Brad looked around, confused and said "ball?", so I made a silly excited/I don't know! face. He pointed in one direction and again asked "ball?". I shook my head. He walked toward me and pointed under the chair I was sitting on (he knew I had it somewhere) - "ball?" he asked. I shook my head. He reached toward me, and pointed at my *ahem* chest with one final plea "ball?". 'No that's not the ball Brad' I thought, good logic though, I'll give him that. I couldn't stop laughing.

I found a 'Kidz Dance" CD in a cupboard in my room so the other toddler classroom teacher and I taught our kids the first few moves of the macarena (to the extent that toddlers actually do motions - a few beats too late and in no particular order). First of all, yes, we are in fact the coolest teachers to grace the toddler educational world, and yes, it is adorable to see their little chubby arms extended one after the other.

Moving On Up

I have been accused of bloggatory neglect, and to this charge I plead not guilty on account of temporary insanity. You see, this is what my living situation looked like:
Notably, this also holds a striking resemblance to how my brain felt. Honestly, what category DO you pack umbrellas under?! Now however, we have safely arrived in the land 'o lakes and are quickly making progress on our check list:

- Get Allison a teaching job at an elementary school for the fall
- Buy a house
- Buy a (cheap) second car

So far, I interviewed at a private school in the area with both kindergarten and first grade openings, and I'm waiting to hear if I get a second interview. The only problem is that I only bought one interview suit. Suits, by the way, are expensive.

The biggest most important-est news so far:
Dan and I made an offer on a house last night! If you want more details, go a head and ask - I won't bore people with talk of foundation size and roof age - but I will say that it's in St. Paul and it's adorable. We hope to close in early July. For good measure, here's a picture of it:

Isn't it the cutest darn little house that you ever did see?

No progress on another car yet; thankfully the daycare where I work is on the 3M campus where Dan's dad works, so we've been able to carpool every day.

Speaking of my job, I think I'm going to begin daily installments of "toddler tales" - you know, now that I'm blogging again - from my classroom. Here are a couple of fantastic examples of what I do from 8-5 every day. The following are all true stories of the words and deeds of 2 and 3 year olds. However, the names have been changed.

Toddler Tales, Part I

About a week ago, the mother of one of our toddlers came in and asked that we not change his diaper right away when he soiled it because she was trying to motivate him to start potty training, and she thought that the increased discomfort of dirty diapers might do the trick. The teachers said sure, they'd give it a shot, and the next day they noticed that he was "poopy" (that's preschool teacher for "has poop in his diaper") so they waited a few minutes before they did anything about it. Well, little Connor had enough of this discomfort, so he reached right in his diaper and took 'the thing that was making him uncomfortable' out, put it on the floor and went back to the ball pit. We told Mom that she needed to find a new means of motivation.

Today while I was changing Jacob's diaper, he began singing Queen's "We will rock you".

Yesterday, while I was looking right at him, Derek the classroom bully yanked off sweet little Adam's shoe and began smacking him over the head with it. After I removed Derek and calmed Adam down, I asked Derek to "go make it right". He then proceeded to waddle over to Adam, pat his head where he had clubbed him with the shoe and kiss him on the cheek (no joke, it was the cutest thing). As I stood there watching this seemingly new person Derek was becoming, I thought 'wow, as a teacher I may have just made a difference in the life of a child right there'. Before my moment of significance had time to pass on it's own, Derek was pulling with all his might on Kayla's braided hair.

'Tis the season

To graduate. We can't wait to make it official, and to have our families here to witness it! Here's our whirlwind weekend schedule:

Friday, May 9th:
morning:
-pick up fruit arrangement for Saturday's party
afternoon:
-my parents arrive from Portland
-commencement rehearsal
-go pick up cake for Saturday's party
night:
-dinner with my parents

Saturday, May 10th:
morning:
-get ready to have 20ish people over
afternoon:
-Dan's family arrives from MN
-grad party with great friends and their families
-education department reception
-all school social
night:
-Dan's brother gets here from college on the East coast
-dinner with Dan's family

Sunday, May 11th:
morning:
-baccalaureate service bright and early
afternoon:
-graduate.
-take a lot of pictures with fellow graduates
-cry and say goodbyes
night:
-sit around and note the fact that we are college graduates

This should be fun!

Apparently, I Like to Make Stuff

In my mind, this semester ended a couple of weeks ago. I really haven't had much of anything to do that was school related for about 18 days. So, I've been trying to find things to do. I've written thank you cards to a couple of professors who played significant roles in my experience at Wheaton. I started a list of things to do before we move from here. I even copied down my recipes from their scraps of paper into my official recipe book (thanks Janell!).

One stroke of genius came to me in me in a session of my English Lit. class. The final for that class consists of several "reflections" on various readings from throughout the semester, in the form of journals, paintings, poems etc. I decided to make a quilt. You heard me, a quilt. No, I've never made one before, but I've always wanted to, so when the opportunity presented itself, I was all over it. Each quilt square some how represented a piece we've read. The finished product... ta da!

But I finished that quilt like 3 days after I started it - like I said, nothing else to do - so, on Saturday, my good friend Meg and I spent 13 straight hours scrapbooking.

You can spend 13 hours straight doing that, you say? Why, yes, you can. Scapbooking stores have these work rooms, usually toward the back of the store, where all sorts of folks spend time "cropping" as it's affectionately titled. This particular store stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays for crazy scrapbookers like Meg and myself. You heard it here first: I am nothing if not a scrapbooking addict, and I was determined to finish our honeymoon album before our first anniversary. Here's a sample of the fruits of our scraping marathon.


Having finished my quilt and accomplished this scrapbooking feat, it seemed that desperate times were calling for proverbial desperate measures: gardening.

Seeing as how we live in a rented space - for only 3 more weeks, planting flowers (which cost money) into the ground would be awfully silly. So, we got a hanging planter and filled it with all sorts of beautiful spring flowers. The original idea was that Dan was going to get me a bouquet of flowers for our anniversary, but while at the flower shop he saw some potted flowers that he thought I might like, which quickly snowballed into an evening of horticulture. It was awesome, but I also felt a little young to be in the yard with dirty hands, a bag of potting soil, and a trowel.

I have absolutely reveled in the free time I've had to explore my crafty side; even more than that, I've enjoyed the crafting itself. However, part of me is starting to getting concerned. Am I turning into one of those nerdy craft women that stencils green ivy above the doorways in her house and sponge paints her furniture? Am I destined to decoupage side tables and cross-stitch Christmas stockings? That seems to be the road I am headed down. I guess, so long as I stop short of faux-finishing the walls in my bathroom, I'm ok with all this new-found craftyness.

Tulips and Tanks

366 days ago (thanks, leap year) Daniel Hoyt Olfelt and I officially started our new life together. Since that day we have been working to find things we both equally enjoy: movies, meals, TV shows, activities, dates, restaurants...

Yesterday, as we were celebrating our first anniversary, I think we finally found that illusive equally enjoyable date activity. Enter: Cantigny Park. It is the estate of the former Col. Robert R. McCormick, a very rich man who was once the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. This is what it looks like walking onto the property on a beautiful spring day:


From the parking lot you see blooming trees, ponds, fountains, bridges and garden areas to tour. I was ecstatic to spend a day exploring the sprawling gardens of colorful flowers with my husband. Then we turned the corner, and took in this sight:


That's right, hidden among the formal and rose gardens is the "tank park" full of at least a dozen assorted artillery tanks, complete with plaques describing the types of war-fare they were used for. Those two relate, right? Army vehicles and well manicured gardens? The real question is, would Dan be able to resist climbing these once-used army tanks, even in his church clothes?


Of course not. What you can't see in this picture is that he wasn't the only little boy climbing this tank.

Somehow, I too got sucked into the action, also mindless of my church apparel. Check out the shadow; my feet are so way off the ground :).


After making our very acrobatic way through the Col.'s tank park, we found ourselves in the incredibly beautiful tulip garden, probably my favorite part.


And let's not forget the quintessential Dan-extends-his-arm-and-takes-a-picture-of-the-two-of-us picture.


The moral of the story is: whoever came up with the idea of mixing army tanks with tulip gardens is a brilliant, brilliant person. Normally, Dan would have obliged but only been moderately excited about wandering the grounds of a billion dollar estate, but throw in some interactive tanks and he is a happy man. Place me in the middle of an army-themed park and I may play along for a while, but sprinkle it with ranunculus (pretty flowers), water features and walking paths and I'm just giddy. So here's to you, super creative park designer person!

Dan Dan the Professional Man

My laundry doin', furniture makin', computer fixin', sci-fi lovin' husband has a real world post-college job! I couldn't be prouder! The only problem comes when people ask me what his job is. I get that same look on my face that I used to have when people asked me growing up what my dad did... "uh, something with computers I guess." Eventually I got really good at using terms like I knew what that meant, "oh, he's a sql server database architect", but if asked to clarify, I had to disclose my ignorance" I think it's like... computer stuff."

So, here I am at the next stage in life, answering that question with the same level of naiveté. "Dan got a job? That's great! What's he going to be doing?"

Here is what I do know: He will be working for a company called eCreative Works in Plymoth, MN (about 40 minutes from where we hope to live). His job title is Web Developer, and the offer included health and dental (thank GOODNESS!). That's all I got folks.

This lack of understanding of his professional job has not hampered my enthusiasm about getting him a professional wardrobe, however. Last weekend, while out shopping for graduation outfits for us both, I came across a bargain basement "Marshall's" type place that carries only men's dress apparel. You wouldn't think I would be all that excited about this, but oh, I was. I got 4 (good-lookin') shirts and 2 (very stylish) ties for Dan - each item was $10 or LESS! If I'm not careful, I'll spend his whole signing bonus before he gets it...

Just for fun, here are some pictures from the end of the year dinner we went to last night. This was with the Breakaway Ministry cabinet that I was on this year, planning short-term spring break mission trips for >150 Wheaton students.

The ministry cabinet, also known as a few of my favorite Wheaton people.

Dan, the ministry's honorary member/tech support also made an appearance at the dinner. "Wow! What a professional looking shirt!" you might say.

(Apologies for the wacked-out color on these; we just got a new digital SLR, and sometimes we forget to change the shutter speed when we go outside. This equals over-exposure.)

My Hatred of Laundry

I love to cook, sew, mop, dust, bake, organize, and sweep.

I don't mind vacuuming, doing the dishes, scrubbing, sweeping, or taking out the trash.

I hate doing the laundry.

I'm not kidding. You may think I'm kidding, and if so I am honored that you would consider me so domestic as to be incapable of loathing a household chore, but I'm not. Here is proof positive that laundry is nothing if not my arch enemy:

First of all, this is what our dirty clothes hamper looks like.

With no room left, clothes have crept their way through the rest of our house. Like the bathroom.

They've strewn themselves all over the chair in our bedroom.
And some have found a home next to my dresser.

You may think, "Wow, she's being pretty open about the more-than-slightly embarrassing state of her house." And this is true. But the reason I'm sharing so willingly is because I don't care. Well, I didn't care, until last night.

Last night I was commenting to Dan about how low I'm running on clean clothes to wear and how maybe the laundry should "get done" (how's that for passive voice?). The man is a saint, mind you, and he has done much much much more than his share of laundry since the beginning of our marriage*(see note). But apparently even saints have their limits.

Dan: "I was wondering how long it would take you..."
Me: "What do you mean by that?"
Dan: "Well, I haven't done the laundry because I want to see how long until you would break down and do it."
Me: (with a hint of raised voice) "Oh it's really that bad is it?!"

I used to not care, but now the battle lines have be drawn.

My apathy has turned into pride at the growing mountains of clothing collecting around our apartment. I will hold out until my shoulders are swallowed up by a 4 foot tide of dirty linens. I will ignore the extent to which I miss that "spring rain" scent on my clothes. I will bust out those bottom-of-the-drawer clothes and wear them with pride, for I truly, plainly, undeniably hate laundry.

*Note: In an attempt to win Dan's heart sophomore year of college, I actually did his laundry all year. and patched it. and removed stains. and folded it. Greater love has no one than this, I tell you.