Busy!

Work has been crazy lately. The biggest event of the year in our industry is a major trade show that takes place in Chicago at the end of November, so from October on, we're busy signing up for on-site exhibit services, creating press releases, packing and shipping a bunch of equipment, and lots of other fun stuff. It always gets especially hectic this week leading up to Thanksgiving. I stayed late tonight editing and printing some marketing materials, and when I went out to my car, thought to myself, "Well, at least the traffic will be light." And then I got to the highway, which was completely stopped...and if that wasn't enough, my fuel light went on, so I had to go get gas and get back on...not one of my best commutes in recent memory. But enough traffic griping for now.

Anyway, I get to go to the trade show this year, for the first time since I started this job. I do think it'll be interesting, but I might be looking forward to it more if I didn't have to leave the morning after Thanksgiving. No sleeping in, watching football with friends, leisurely decorating for Christmas...I'm not too thrilled about missing out on that all weekend. Combine that with some other work issues I've been dealing with (which I may or may not talk about another time...I just try to be careful with what I say in a "public" place), and it's made me a little bummed out.

But, in the spirit of the week, I'm trying to look at the good things. Shaun and I will hopefully see some friends tomorrow or Thursday night before I leave - and squeeze some decorating in there too, so he can enjoy the tree while I'm gone. I have some friends in Chicago and am going to try to meet up with them in the evenings. And my parents and sister are spending Thanksgiving in Iowa, so last week they bought train tickets for the quick trip into Chicago and we'll get to spend some time together Friday and Saturday night. I'll see them at Christmas too, but this will be a much appreciated bonus visit and I'm looking forward to it.

And that paragraph pretty much sums up what I am especially thankful for this year - my husband, my family, and my friends. They're always there to listen to me vent (and I'm sure it's seemed like a lot lately) or make me smile, and that makes me happy*. Enjoy the holiday.

*On a slightly less serious note, pie also makes me happy. So if I'm feeling ambitious on Thanksgiving, I will try to take a picture and post the recipe for the quick and easy pie I'm making. Either way, I'll be back on December 3!

Quad Cities - The Fun Part

During the weekend between my consultation and surgery, I had a nice couple of days to spend with my mom and dad. My mom is currently working in Iowa, so I stayed at her condo there. My dad came down from Minnesota to meet up with us on Saturday and brought little Ruby.



She likes the fuzzy chair in the guest room.



Aww, look at that face! She was really sweet, sleeping in my bed most nights I was there and resting with me (and not bugging me) when I was sleeping after my surgery. I missed her after I left...if the condo complex Shaun and I lived in allowed dogs, I might be bugging him for one now instead of waiting until we get a house.



I did something on my trip that I hadn't done in a few years - carved a pumpkin! Here it is out on the deck on Halloween. I was a little rusty, and one of the teeth fell out when I cut too far in, but I think it still turned out kinda cute.



On Sunday morning we drove out to Le Claire and walked around the little downtown area. We stopped at some cute shops, including My Sister's Coffeehouse. The shop itself was fun, but I was intrigued by the rabbit outside. It was just hopping around loose in the yard, so it seemed like it could be wild - but it was so tame it hopped right up to us and let me pet it.



The rabbit's cute little living quarters.



We ventured back to Bettendorf to walk Ruby along the river. This is "Skipper", a statue who looks like he's skipping stones across the Mississippi. Ruby apparently barks at him every time she walks by (and didn't fail to do so this time either).



Our animal encounters continued... We saw this groundhog as we made our way down the path, and we expected it to run away as we got closer...but it didn't. In fact, it didn't move at all. It was pretty weird, and we didn't want to take the slim chance of being attacked by a rabid groundhog, so we turned around.



Ducks or geese? I wasn't sure. Either way, it was fun and nostalgic to see them. My grandparents lived in Bettendorf for many years, and lots of times when we visited, we would come down to the river with some remnants of bread loaves and feed the flocks.



Ruby plots her attack. (Not really...she was actually surprisingly calm, considering how much energy she has.)



The I-74 bridge over the mighty Mississippi. It was nice to be back in the Quad Cities. In addition to tons of visits there when I was a kid, I lived and worked there for two years just after graduating. So while I consider Minnesota my true home, Iowa isn't too far behind.

Where I've been...

I've been busy lately...last Monday, November 2nd, I got LASIK! I didn't broadcast it too much beforehand, because when I went to go ask for the time off, my boss gave me a hard time and told me I shouldn't do it, so I thought other people might say the same. I know that's incredibly silly, especially when most people I talked to had only had good things to say, whether they or someone they knew had the surgery. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Regardless of my brief hesitation, I decided that after 18 years of wearing either glasses or contacts, it was time to make a change. The ophthalmology practice I used to go to when I lived in the Quad Cities was offering special pricing and financing this fall, and the doctor that performs the surgery there was recently ranked one of the top five in the country. Even with the airfare to get there, it was a better deal than my current practice here, and they also offer a more advanced technology - blade-free LASIK. Everything just seemed to line up and I decided to go for it. I had to wear only my glasses for two weeks prior, as even soft contacts can change the shape of the cornea. I used to only wear glasses before bed so I hadn't bothered to get them updated in years...so that was a little rough. I did plenty of squinting in that time. Me in my lovely glasses:



I flew in Thursday night and had a consultation the Friday before I was scheduled for surgery - the technicians put in several sets of drops and ran a bunch of tests involving staring into various machines and not blinking. I also did more sets of, "Which is better, one or two?" than I've ever done before. The dilating drops they used were very strong, so there had to be at least 48 hours between the appointment and the surgery. It was a nice look for Halloween:



I slept well all weekend and really didn't start to get nervous until a few hours before the surgery. Fortunately, they prescribed a Xanax for me to bring with me and take shortly before the procedure. When I got there, I again received many eye drops, including numbing drops, and I took the Xanax. Just a few minutes later they said I could go into the operating room, so I leave it up to you whether the pill had already kicked in or it was just my own bravery that got me through the surgery...ha. I did have a tiny moment of, "what am I doing?!" as I climbed onto the chair and looked at the machine, but the assistants in the OR struck up a conversation to relax me, and a technician gave me a little foam football to squeeze if I needed to. My parents were behind a window and they were also able to watch the surgery on closed-circuit TV - they probably had a tougher job than I did!

Heather provided a detailed account of her LASIK a couple years ago and her description helped me know what to expect from a patient's point of view. The flap creation was definitely the most painful part because they use suction to keep the eye in place, and even with the numbing drops it was strong enough to make me feel pain below the surface - not to mention I briefly lost vision. I was definitely squeezing the football at that point.

After that, one eye at a time, they taped my eyelashes back on the top and bottom, put in another device to keep me from blinking, folded the flap back, and used the laser to reshape the cornea. It was very weird being able to tell all that was happening yet not feel it. All I had to do was focus on one red light as the blue lights of the lasers flashed for around 40 seconds per eye. They smoothed out each flap when it was done, putting plenty of drops in my eye, and like that it was over.

Immediately after the surgery, I could see, but it was very cloudy and hard to tell how much improvement there was. My doctor briefly examined my eyes in another room and said everything looked good. He put goggles on me (sorry, didn't get a goggle picture!) and then put some sunglasses over those (another lovely missed photo opportunity) since it was a bright day. We were in and out in 35 minutes...it was kind of unbelievable.

I went back with my parents and slept for a couple hours, as recommended. The drops wore off during that time, so anytime I woke up briefly, my eyes stung. When I got up to have dinner though, I felt pretty good - still cloudy, but no light sensitivity and no more pain. I started my regimen of antibiotic drops, anti-inflammatory drops, and artificial tears - the first two so strong they left an icky metallic taste in the back of my throat.

The next morning, before flying home, I had a follow-up appointment. I had worn the goggles through the night, which was a little difficult, but the doctor told me I didn't have to wear them every night for a week (as my instruction sheet said), because the chance of "flap dislodgement" is much lower after 24 hours - lovely, eh? I had a quick vision test and I was already somewhere between 20/25 and 20/20, and they said it would only get better.

For about five days, I felt like I had a permanent eyelash in my right eye, but fortunately that's gone away. I also came away with some "eye hickeys" from the suction:



But those are continuing to fade, just like a bruise. My only remaining side effect is seeing halos around lights, especially at night, but that is normal for awhile, and can likely be corrected if for some reason it doesn't go away. I'm going to swing through both the Quad Cities and Twin Cities over Christmas, so I'll be able to have another follow-up then and make sure I'm on track.

For now, as I keep telling people, I'm just training myself not to automatically squint when I roll over in the morning and look at my alarm clock! It's just unbelievable - I don't think I can comprehend yet that I'll never again wake up not being able to see, and never again have to mess with contacts when I'm traveling. It's pretty awesome. If you have questions or want any more details, let me know!

Pumpkin Bread

One of the snacks I made for our trip to Penn State was this pumpkin bread. It's definitely not fall unless I've made some pumpkin goodies! This is yet another recipe that my parents typed up and put in a book for me when I first moved out on my own, so I'm not sure of the original source (I need to just look at my mom's collection the next time I'm there and see if I can figure all these out!).

Anyway, this is good stuff. Though chocolate will always be my favorite, I must say that the scent of pumpkin-flavored treats baking is one of the best ever. (Apologies for the less-than-stellar picture...I'm losing daylight both before and after work!)



Pumpkin Bread

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 16 oz can pure pumpkin
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 9 x 5 or 3 loaf pans, 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches. (You can use mini loaf pans too.) Mix sugar, oil, pumpkin, water, eggs and vanilla. Stir together flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, baking powder and nutmeg. Mix into pumpkin mixture. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 60 to 70 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean; cool 5 minutes. (Maybe it's just my oven, but mine were done at around 55 minutes.) Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans. Cool before slicing. (If you use mini pans, bake for approximately 30 to 40 minutes.)

Penn State Weekend

Hey, at least I'm getting around to posting about last weekend before another one has passed. On Friday afternoon (10/9), Rich and Shaun once again picked me up from work and we headed to PA. It was a long drive, thanks to the 5 miles of construction traffic near Wilkes-Barre that took over an hour to get through, and then metro Harrisburg traffic. We traveled that direction to stay with one of Rich's PSU friends in York, as we weren't able to get the camper for the weekend and stay on campus like we did last year. It's fun either way though - I mean, it's college football! (And it was Notre Dame's bye weekend so we didn't miss a game!) We had the same crowd as our Philly trip in March, minus John and Sarah, because they unfortunately had to stay in DC for the weekend to be on call for work.

Friday night we chilled at Ben's house, ordered pizza, and played games. Then on Saturday we got up pretty early (silly Big 10 and their noon games) and made the should-have-been-2-hour-but-was-actually-3-with-game-day-traffic drive to State College. In the parking lot, Ben whipped out his awesome griddle and we quickly cooked up some pancakes and bacon before heading over to the stadium.



We had a pretty cool perspective from the front of the end zone. In this picture the Penn State Blue Band is on the field - Jess is a proud former member so we had some fun band nerd moments watching and listening to them.



Touchdown Nittany Lions! It wasn't the most exciting of games, however - Penn State beat up on Eastern Illinois 52-3.



After the game, we came back and cooked some burgers and hot dogs. Here was the view from our tailgating spot...not too shabby.



Another angle...the hills of the Northeast can make for treacherous driving sometimes, but they're so gorgeous in the fall.





Beautiful sunset shots from Shaun (actually, I think he took all of these but the first one). It was a chilly, windy day, but nice to be outside to see this sky.

After we were done eating, and sufficiently frozen, we headed back to Ben's place. Even a few hours after the game ended, we ran into traffic from a truck that broke down, closing the road. Frustrating! But once we got back to the house we were able to relax, and pretty much spent the rest of the weekend playing games. We played Apples to Apples, Ticket to Ride, and lots of The Game of Things. Possibly my favorite "Things" answer of the weekend was to the prompt, "Things that take courage". There were the typical answers - "public speaking" and "blind dates"...and then there was Shaun's answer: "A vending machine in a world where the currency is courage". A lot of times we can guess Shaun's answers right away, but he continues to show his creativity to make us laugh - and we appreciate it!

Anyway...now it's back to focusing on Notre Dame football. Will tomorrow be the first time we've beaten USC since 2001? I sure hope so! Go Irish!

Apple Picking

I'm so slow! Here is yet another week-late post. Shaun and I went apple picking with his mom on Saturday the 26th. It's been a tradition for him to go apple picking every year, pretty much since he's been born. My family also used to pick apples often when I lived in Minnesota - I hope to get back there during apple season, since usually we're there in the summer and over the winter holidays.


It was a gorgeous fall day...perfect weather at Averill Farm.


This and all following pictures are courtesy of Shaun!


Unfortunately, due to a hail storm over the summer, the apple selection wasn't the greatest - but they were at least offering a discount. We got some Honeygold, Spartan, Rhode Island Greening, and a couple McIntosh. (Alas, none of my Minnesota Harvest favorites, Honeycrisp and Chestnut Crab.)




A tiny Spartan! (On a completely unrelated note, that's my new favorite shirt - I got it at the ND bookstore during our recent trip)


Cool clouds and a nice view of the northwest hills

Not much else has been happening - just trying not to have nervous breakdowns watching Notre Dame football. The exciting sports weekend is continuing tonight with the Vikings/Packers game now (I know Brett Favre has been kind of annoying the past few years, but I'm just happy to have the Vikes doing well for once!)...and the Twins/Tigers playoff for the AL Central tomorrow. It'd be a fitting end for the Metrodome to host one more World Series before the Twins move to Target Field next season...we shall see.

Weekend in DC, 2009 edition

Took me long enough! We've been back from DC for a week now, but with the start of fall TV and various other things going on, I haven't had much time to blog. I still wanted to do a quick recap of the trip, because it was so much fun and we got some nice pictures!

Rich, Shaun and I got in on Friday night, had pizza and played games with John and Sarah. The three of us travelers got to stay in Sarah's apartment for the weekend - it was the first time we'd seen her place, and the first time we were able to enjoy her amazing view!


The Washington Monument is on the left; the Capitol on the right.


It's hard to see other landmarks in the picture, but there were plenty. And we apparently didn't zoom out enough, but the Pentagon is just to the left of the frame. It was pretty cool to be able to wake up and look out over our nation's capital.


On Saturday morning, we got up and hit the Library of Congress. As you can see, the inside is gorgeous, and there are a lot of cool artifacts and documents, including a large book collection that used to be Thomas Jefferson's.


After that we walked across the street to the Capitol building and explored the new visitor center for awhile. As you can see it was a gorgeous late summer day - about 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

From there we walked to the Good Stuff Eatery for lunch. I've never watched much of Top Chef, but I'd heard that Good Stuff was owned by Chef Spike from season 4. Anyway, it was pretty tasty - burgers were good, fries were great - but the chocolate shake was my favorite...yum. I'd definitely recommend it for a quick meal in the city.

We then changed pace and headed out toward Dulles Airport in Virginia to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center, the annex to the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum (we'd visited the main museum downtown last year). Shaun was like a kid in a candy store being around all the planes! Just a couple of highlights...


This is the restored Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb.


Space Shuttle Enterprise, used by NASA for test flights


We also went up in the tower that provides a view of the Dulles runways and the surrounding area, as well as a small air traffic control exhibit.

The group then made our way back to Sarah's apartment to watch the Notre Dame-Michigan State game. (Much like last night's win over Purdue, the game was way too close for comfort...but at least it turned out better than the Michigan game.)


We had another low-key night, then got up on Sunday and went to the FDR Memorial. It's a little bit out of the way and I'd never known where it was, but I'm really glad we visited. Some of the quotes on the walls are especially poignant considering the state of our economy today.


We walked back to the car while taking in some more lovely views of nearby monuments. Sarah suggested we come back sometime when the cherry trees are in bloom...I wouldn't complain!

Apparently we didn't take pictures at the Natural History Museum or American History Museum, our last stops before heading out of town. We barely scratched the surface at the American History Museum, however - we'll definitely have to go back. One of the coolest things there is the actual flag that inspired our national anthem.

Each time we go to Washington, I discover more things I want to do and I just want to keep coming back. It's quickly become one of my favorite cities - and it doesn't hurt that some of our favorite friends live there!