Don't mess with me... I have ninja skills.

This is what Dan told me tonight.

I am totally sick. Sore throat, stuffy nose, fatigue, more sore throat... So we went to Blockbuster to rent a video game for the Wii, but when we got there, I realized that I didn't want to get a game that I would have to actually use any energy on. So we rented a couple videos instead (Season 1 of Weeds- 2 disks).

Anway, there is a karate scene in which the kid is wearing a yellow belt. Dan said, "I only got to a yellow belt."

This from my husband. I didn't know he was a trained assassin! I didn't even know he took karate. He claims he took it for a couple of months when he was 10. I had flashbacks of Brandon's karate and of Ross on the TV show Friends.

He ended the karate conversation by saying to me, "Don't mess with me... I have ninja skills."

My husband everyone- the Ninja.

Vote!

Vote.

Carving pumpkins

Dan and I had date night last night. We turned on a scary movie (which was more weird then scary, but it was free "on demand" so we can't really complain), and carved up a couple of pumpkins. We purchased ghost pumpkins this year, which are white with an orange flesh. They look wonderful when lit up. As you can tell by the pictures, we used carving kits. It was Dan's first time using one. I swear by them ever since someone introduced me to them about 14 years ago.

Here is Dan's pumpkin:

From Halloween2008

He was going to do a spider, but it was too hard to trace on his pumpkin.

Here is my pumpkin:

From Halloween2008

Two creepy dolls holding hands.

And here they are together:

From Halloween2008

Oh yes... we also toasted up the seeds with butter and worcestershire sauce (plus some garlic salt). YUM!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Fall in New Hampshire

We are home from our trip to New Hampshire (and Massachusetts, and Rhode Island...). We have a lot of stories to tell everyone, but I'll keep things brief on this blog.

We arrived in Boston on Tuesday and drove straight up to Manchester, New Hampshire. We had the pleasure of meeting up with Dan's father, Gary, and his partner/friend, Linda, at Billy's Sports bar. We had a great time catching up and decided to meet again later that week.

That night we got to Karen's house late, but she was just happy to see us. We woke up the next morning and Karen had gotten up early to get Dunkin' Donuts for us for breakfast. Dan was pretty excited about the food. I was happy with the gesture.

From New Hampshire Trip

We had a great lunch at a local spot with both Karen and Gram. We went to visit Aunt Heather, who volunteers at the hospital on Wednesdays (Macaroni day). After that we had ice cream before heading up to Concord.

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

Gram, Karen, Dan and I all drove up to Concord and the leaves up there were amazing. We went to see Dan's Uncle Don, and his cousins (though we think of them more as nephews), Nate and Matt. They live up near a golf course, off of a driving range (hence the golfers in the photo). We wanted to go out to dinner in a pseudo-celebration of Don's birthday, and after much debate, we decided on Common Man. It was decorated in New England fashion, and was the perfect choice. Unfortunately, Jan (Don's wife, Dan's Aunt) was on the west coast, so she was not able to attend.

The next morning, Dan and Karen went out to a special breakfast all by themselves. They came to pick me up afterwards and we went to go apple picking. We noticed a lot of police in the area, and a lot of vehicles. It turns out that Barack Obama was speaking at the apple orchard!

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

Very inspirational! At one point he mentioned John McCain and people started to "boo." He said, "Don't boo, just vote." It was raining on us, but I felt lucky anyway. The Portland, Oregon rally drew around 75,000. The Londonderry crowd was only a couple thousand, so it felt very cozy!

Afterwards, we still went to pick apples. I have to say, one that I had at the orchard was the best apple I've ever ate (sorry Washingtonians).

From New Hampshire Trip

From New Hampshire Trip

We spent that night at the hospital. Gram fainted and took a little bit of a spill. She fractured 3 ribs, but she faired much better than the grandfather clock she took down on the way. We also had another chance to see Gary and Linda. We are thinking of planning a trip to Vega$ together next year.

We drove down to Cape Cod (Falmouth) the next day (Saturday) for Tim and Amy's wedding. They had GORGEOUS weather and wonderful ceremony on the Atlantic Shore. We had a great time seeing all of our New England friends and enjoyed spending some extra time with them the next day.

Our last night was spent in Rhode Island. Trevor gave up his bed for us (THANKS WINNIE!) even though we hardly had any energy left for him. Part of the problem was the fact that we had to get up at at 3:45 AM to get to the airport (which is 12:45 our time).

Overall, it was a whirlwind trip!

I Toe-tally had an accident today :0(

Well, today didn't quite turn out as planned. The weather was gorgeous. Dan and I went grocery shopping together in the morning and planned on having a great day together at home. I planned to make him meatball subs so he could enjoy the wonders of Sunday football, as it was one of the few Sundays he has off. I planned on getting some stuff done around the house, making cookies, and some planning for my classroom.

As we got home with the groceries, I began to open all the windows and doors. It was so gorgeous here and I wanted to get some nice clean air in. As I opened the door to the balcony, I decided to go check on my herbs to see if they needed any watering. That is when the door attacked me. Here is a picture of the bottom of the door. Note the large, metal weather stripping.

Apparantly my pinky decided to go to war with it, and my toe lost. Big time. It slice my toenail in half, and took off a good section of the toe as well. It hurt as bad as stubbing a toe, not any more, but that's because I kind of went into shock. As most of you know, I don't blood, cuts, etc... I called the nurseline for my insurance and they told me to go to a doctor to avoid infection.

I went to the urgent care, which surprisingly, only took about an hour and a half to get in to see the doctor. He took a look at it and said it was all toenail. I said it was skin/toe too. We serisouly had a back and forth, "No it isn't, yes it is" for about 2 minutes. Finally I just gave up arguing with him. He numbed it up with a series of 3 shots (was only supposed to be two). MAN. THEY HURT. One was right by the webbing of the toes. Ouch. Then he cut off my toenail. I couldn't feel it, but I could actually here the scissors cutting through my skin. YARF. At that point he admitted that I was right about skin. I told him I'm going to charge him for the visit.

I am supposed to keep my foot up for a day or two, with the bandage on. No pain medicine because we are trying to conceive. Apparantly the stuff they used to numb it is ok, as is the tetanus shot that I got. That's what they said at least, but if he doesn't know the difference between toenail and skin, I was going to trust him. Everything I've read online seems to say it's perfectly safe to keep trying. Here is a picture of my shoulder with the cool Daffy Duck bandaid on it.

Don't I look tough? Surprisingly, the shoulder (thanks to the shot) hurts worse then the toe. I have a feeling that's going to change in a few hours. Overall I got four shots and I only cried once. Not too bad!

Still feeling crafty!

Here is my current creation. It combines two of my favorite things (snowmen and Halloween).

I stole the idea from another blog I read about scrapbooking and card making. It had the idea of making tealight candle covers out of paper. I went right upstairs and made this in about 5 minutes with my Cricut (die cutting machine). It's a simple black snowman/pumpkin guy glued onto orange colored, autumn themed paper I had. I inked the top and bottom with both orange and black ink.

It looks very cute!

Cards, cards, cards

I have to agree with my sister. It's fall. Dan and I spent a weekend in. He watched football and the Ryder Cup (golf), while I made cards. It was raining off and on. I made navy bean and ham soup for my lunch this week, as well as cornbread. We made brownies. After slicing them into weight watchers servings, we realized they are hardly worth it.

Here are just a few of the cards I made:

This card for someone on a paper crafting board. She has a co-worker that has uterine cancer and needs some support. I'm sending her this card, along with another one I've made.

This card is for our friends that had us over for poker night.

A halloween card. It's my favorite holiday. I love the way the spider is ripping down the corner of the paper. Dan said I should put a skeleton or something behind the corner, and I think he was right!

This is my first time stapling ribbon to a card. It looks very spoooooooooky!