Planet Z

Washington DC Trip Blog!

2011-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

We're have a new travel blog for our latest trip! Check it out by clicking here! :)

In which we actually do have rockstar lives!

2010-08-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, he did!

In Which We Spend All Our Money...plus a bonus house tour!

2010-04-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

We've had an expensive (but exciting!) week at our Rock Star castle...

After our last yard sale lawnmover burst into flames (really), Kirk decided to get an electric mower. I think it looks like a Little Tykes toddler car, but it's SO quiet and nice!

A major appliance purchace- our new washer and dryer! I LOVE them- they're also very quiet. I've never had a front loader before and I'm eager to see if they are really as awesome as I've heard.

Plus: A tour of Jeremy's new house! I recorded it THREE times- this one finally took after the first two were mysteriously deleted. Check it:

Happy Birthday Dad

2010-03-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Sarah says Happy Birthday too!

Snow Day!

2010-01-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

It's snowing pretty much non-stop today. My cell rang at 5 AM this morning to tell me that Butler is closed today. Luckily, I teach online, so the weather is never a problem for me! Both Kirk and Jeremy had to go to work, and they both called to say that the roads were not too horrible once you get to the main road. However, it is SLOW going!

Sarah has not shown much interest in going out in the snow. I think I'll be staying at home today! Errands can wait.

Another Day, Another Dollar

2010-01-15T05:41:00.000-08:00

I'm (Cathy) am working a temp job at Wichita State as a bookstore cashier. The job will last anywhere from 2-4 weeks for the student rush. So far it is not that bad.

My very first job was as a grocery store cashier at Cub Foods. I am amazed at how different the cash registers are now. At Cub, I had to remember a lot more and DO a lot more. Now the computer does nearly everything for me! It's nice.

I had forgotten how hard it was to be on my feet all day. Years of cushy office type jobs has spoiled me.

It's not a bad gig, but I know I'll be ready to leave when the temp job is over. They use the same temps over and over, so it's possible that I will be asked to work the Fall rush as well. If I have time, I'll do it! It's not a bad way to earn some extra money.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T09:09:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

We started things early this year. We opened our stockings last night, then did the traditional reading of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

We also played with the watercolors Cathy got at the dollar store.

This morning was filled with the gifts from under the tree. Santa heard that Jeremy likes The
Simpsons.

Kirk liked both the shirts he got this year!

Also: Salmon. Yum Yum!

Cathy will no longer get lost every time she walks out of the house. (Hopefully.)

Sarah enjoyed opening her present from Vanessa...

...and was even more thrilled when she saw what was inside!

She also liked opening her present from Grandma and Grandpa!

We imagine that she will squeak this until the squeeker breaks.

We had egg dish for breakfast, and will be having ham for Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas everyone!

It's Christmas Time!

2009-12-16T18:49:00.000-08:00

Sarah loves Christmas time! :)

It means Cathy tries to decorate with whatever happens to be laying around.

Sarah really likes the tree. She sniffs the presents every single day. We've given up trying to keep the bags upright.

There's also a lot of treats being made. She can't have these chocolate peanut butter balls that Kirk made for work, but it did not stop her from laying at his feet while he made them!

Out With the Old

2009-12-13T09:26:00.001-08:00

We finally decided that it was time for Kirk's 1989 Honda to go. This car has served us very well.

Kirk decided awhile ago that he wanted to replace it with a Honda Fit. We finally got the price we were willing to pay, and the rest is history.

It's a nice little car. We named it "Go Time" because, according to the ads, "The Fit is Go."

For such a tiny car, it's pretty roomy. This is the back seat.

They fold down, so you can slide things in. (The passenger side folds all the way down too- you can fit a surfboard in! Clearly, this is an important feature in landlocked Kansas.)

This is Cathy's favorite part...the seats fold UP too! :)

Sarah's Halloween Costume

2009-10-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

She thought the hot dog was a giant toy strapped to her back and wanted to play with it.

Sarah's New Pajamas!

2009-10-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Cathy saw these at Target for under 10 bucks, and she just *had* to get them for Sarah. Sarah LOVES them and does not want us to take them off. It must be keeping her toasty! Bonus: The white part glows in the dark, which has kept us from tripping on her in the middle of the night.

Guinea Pig Update

2009-10-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

The pigs seem to be doing fine, despite the bag incident. We just watched them carefully for several days, and nothing seems to be wrong. The vet is as surprised as we are. He asked if we were absolutely sure that they ate the bag.

Unless the Boogieman or a Gremlin came in, ate it, and framed the pigs, the PIGS ATE THE BAG.

I'm just relieved that we did not have to get the fancy vet treatment. I hope the pigs learned their lesson! (But I somehow doubt it...:)

Guinea Crisis 2009: Bag Edition

2009-09-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

So the guinea pigs ate aproxomity half a Dillon's plastic bag sometime between 10 PM and 6 AM this morning...awesome. We'd put the bag by the door, filled with things that Kirk needed for work today.

A panicked call to the vet revealed that we could get a guinea pig's stomach pumped for *insert obscenely high figure here*, so we're doing the "watch and wait" method. The vet said that it's entirely possible they'll pass it on their own, as guinea pigs chew things down pretty small. They're in separate cages- we'll be watching for signs of distress over the next few days.

Sometimes I wish that our employers had a direct deposit to the vet option- it'd be very convenient for us! :)

Cross your fingers that everything goes well and does not involve costly vet intervention.

Boston Flee Party is GO!

2009-09-11T07:13:00.001-07:00

We've started our Boston Blog. Check it out!

RIP Zippy (2004-2009)

2009-09-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

We had to put down Zippy this afternoon.

She had another stone in her urethra, and the doctor said that when they come back that quickly, it will likely be an ongoing issue. She was in a lot of pain, so we decided to let her go.

They gave her an anesthetic so she would go to sleep, and let me pet her until she fell asleep. Then they took her in the back for the final part, where she would actually die.

Zippy was one of our "surprise" pigs from Pitter Pat, who we had not realized was pregnant when we brought her home. She's also one of the first pigs we were able to name. She zoomed around the cage so much that we just had to name her "Zippy!" She zipped.

We are glad that we were with her the day she was born, and we were sad to let her go on today. She was a good pig.

Boston Flee Party

2009-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

We're heading to Boston this Friday, and we'll be blogging about our adventure here. We hope to see you there! :)

The Great Siding Project: Phase One

2009-07-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

We started our siding project on Saturday. We got pretty far into it, but we're not done yet. Here's Scott (Kirk's coworker who is helping/teaching us) taking off the first board.

Scott was impressed with the stuff underneath our boards. He said it was high quality and whoever had put up our original stuff did it right. We did not have to replace the stuff underneath, which was a relief.

Kirk and Jeremy have the whole bottom off. Scott is watching from the background.

Kirk and Scott pulled off almost all of the top themselves! (We only had two ladders.)

Go Kirk Go!

Everything's off!

Scott helps Kirk saw the new boards.

Kirk and Scott putting on the new boards. (Jeremy and I were pulling off the stuff from the other side, with breaks for Cathy to run take pictures!)

Lunchtime! Papa John's was having a $5 pizza day. Score!

Side One Done! We still need to paint, of course, but the boards are up! Even unpainted it looks a million times better.

Sarah insisted on supervising.

The old siding.

A view of the unpainted but fabulous anyway siding.

Jeremy and Cathy had been pulling off siding over here, but it was slow going due to all the plants (including a rosebush) and...

The gas leak! Our meter smelled STRONGLY of gas, so Cathy called the gas people to have a look. They told us to stop working in that area until they could check it out. Good thing...

We did have a leak. Here's our old IRON meter. They replaced it with a much lighter and less leak prone one. (no picture, sorry!) Our old one looked pretty cruddy, so it's nice to have a new shiny meter to go with our new siding!

We only went partway up- we'll go back and do the rest next weekend. Everything is covered up, so it should be fine.

Sarah got tuckered out from all the supervising.

We're thinking this will be a Three Phase operation. Hopefully everything will be done next weekend so we can start painting!

The Siding Project

2009-07-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

Our $900 pile of boards

For those of you who don't know, we're residing our house. After getting some quotes ranging from $16,000 to $31,000, we decided to do it ourselves. We estimate that we'll be saving $13,500-$29,500, One of Kirk's coworkers used to do siding as a side job, and he's coming over to help us get started.

We start tomorrow at the crack 'o dawn, and hope to be done with the hanging the siding part of our project by the end of the weekend. We lucked out- it's only going to be in the '80's this weekend! Yay!

Happy 29th Birthday to Cathy!

2009-07-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

We started the day by getting Sarah groomed for her second (and last) haircut of the season. She got such rave reviews by her groomers that I used my $4 PetSmart Birthday Club card on a little treat for her.

It's an eco-friendly toy made of hemp- supposedly super strong. Since Sarah usually destroys her soft toys in a day or so, I'm eager to see if this toy lives up to its claims.

We'd already celebrated with my parents this past weekend, but still had a birthday dinner today. The steaks, sweet corn, fruit salad, and zucchini were delicious- followed by "dirt cups" for dessert. Yum!

Garden 2009

2009-06-17T15:50:00.001-07:00

I know, I know, it's been awhile. I'll make up for it with some garden pictures! We're growing lettuce, zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon, tomatoes, Tabasco peppers, jalapenos, basil, mint, and onions this year. We'll see how it turns out. The Tabasco peppers and the watermelon are my "experimental" crops this year.

The whole garden. The hose/sprinkler is set up with our automatic sprinkler system. There's a dedicated water line in the garden- whoever set this up did us a major favor.
I was unsure of the watermelon. It cost $1.50 and consisted of two tiny leaves. It's doing fine now!
Our lettuce finally looks like lettuce.
We've planted a ton of tomatoes, but I'm really excited about our upside down tomatoes. Thanks for the planter, Uncle Don!
Mint. It's coming back just fine from last year. We mostly put it in our tea, but I'm looking for other uses this year.
The basil has been very successful as well. So far I've just added it to tomato sauce, and plan to have a lot of tomato basil salads when the tomatoes come in. Any other ideas would be appreciated!
Our front- I just planted the flowers in the boxes today.
A close up of the pretty flower thing I picked up at yard sale two years ago.
My newest yard sale find- the birdhouse was on the pole, but Kirk took it off so it will be easier for me to paint. I was going to paint it today, but it was WAY too hot. Tomorrow it will be painted, and this weekend I will fill it with geraniums.

This is not the garden, but it's still pretty neat. That's Kirk holding Charlotte. Her mother Amber is by him, and she's petting Snapple, her new mini-horse. He's pretty funny and likes to be brushed.

Book Club List

2009-05-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World by Mary Pipher: Excellent book! It's a memoir of the author's experience of becoming famous and having a nervous breakdown. I could not put it down!

If I Am Missing Or Dead by Janine Latus Another memoir- excellent book! It's about a woman and her sister who were both in abusive relationships. Her sister is murdered by her partner, which helps give the author realize that her relationship is not exactly healthy.

Drinking the Rain by Alix Kates Shulman : Another memoir. The author goes to live in a tiny cabin in Maine each summer. It's really interesting to read the changes that she observes in the beach and the weather over the years.

Sarah: Before and After

2009-04-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Sarah got her first summer haircut yesterday. Here's a before shot:

Here's an after shot- she looks almost bald!

She was given an A+ on her Petsmart report card, so she got a treat when get got home. She's currently napping- getting your hair cut is hard work!

Easter Trip to Stillwater

2009-04-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

One of the many things we miss about Fort Collins is Qdoba! For Easter, we decided to head out to the nearest Qdoba for dinner. The nearest Qdoba is about two hours away, in Stillwater, OK.

We noticed that Qdoba happened to be right by the Oklahoma State University campus, so we took a quick tour before we headed home.

The geese, shortly before we were attacked.

Here's the engineering school. Both Kirk and Jeremy work with a lot of people who went here.

Cathy and Jeremy in front of the ROTC plane.

This is the student union AND a hotel! Too bad the flowers were not blooming- I bet it's really pretty then!

The library, which makes UNC's look even uglier in comparison. I did not even know that was possible.

The stadium, which was walled off. They're doing construction.

Caiden Gets Collosal

2009-04-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

...A guest post by Kirk

Kirk's mom, sister, and nephew came to Wichita so they could hang out with Ava, Kevin and Sylvia's new addition. So Cathy and I had the opportunity to see our Colorado Springs Zoerb Clan. Here are some pictures:

The Mater...or Grandma Cubed...depending on who you ask.

Mom is proud of Mr. C

Caiden is destroying something or other...

...the destruction continues.

"I turn the big O-N-E on Tuesday"...4/14

It's probably best to ignore the sound

Happy Birthday Ava Joselyn

2009-03-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

Ava weighed 8 pounds 1 oz, and was 19 inches long!

Kirk and Ava.

This Morning

2009-03-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

We had ice rain all night and snow all morning...looks like we'll be staying home today!

Book Club List

2009-03-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

Here's another great book that I'm recommending for Linda's book club-

Lying Awake by Mark Salzman.

It's about a cloistered nun who has been doubting her faith. Then she starts having visions, accompanied by headaches. It's a short read, but very fascinating!

In Short, I'm Pretty Sure My Class Would've Died

2009-03-07T05:23:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I was asked if my class would be willing to participate in an "active shooter on campus" drill for the local police. Basically we'd have class like always, and sometime during that class time several "shooters" would come on campus and shoot up the place. It was mostly a test to see how well the emergency response teams responded to the situation.

My first thought was that we really do live in a messed up world, where such a drill is considered common. Apparently the college I work at does this drill at one of their campuses once a year, and have since Columbine happened. I know that danger lurks everywhere, but part of the reason I did not become a soldier or police officer was because I did not want a job where somebody shooting at me could be part of my day. I know the likelihood of crazed students taking a shot at me or my class is pretty low, but it happens enough that drills are being conduced at a lot of schools.

Today was the day at my school.

Most of my class was gung-ho on the idea, and the few who were not willing to do it opted out. It was pretty intense- there were three shooters and one of them ended up taking my class hostage. Sadly, the thought that stayed with me most was how everybody in my classroom would likely have been dead had this been real.

In the weeks before, we were given tips on what to do if it should happen for real. For the purpose of the exercise, we were not allowed to actually try and take down the shooter, but we could try to help ourselves in other ways. The first tip given was to lock the doors as soon as the lock down started and/or when we heard shots.

My door does not lock from the inside, and nobody but the janitor and the administrators have keys. If my door is locked when I get to it, I have to go to the office to request that somebody unlock it. Great tip, guys. The next tip was to barricade the door and then stand along the wall that the door was on and turn off the lights. That way we could not be seen through the door's window.

We did not have much time- we moved the second we heard shots, but had I not known this was going to happen, I doubt I would have thought the distant pops we heard were shots. Every now and then there are loud sounds around us, and I don't pay them much mind.

This is bad because only about two minutes passed between the time we heard them and the time one of the shooters tried to get in our room. We had barricaded the doors with chairs and tables, and a few people stood by so they could try to hold the door shut. He could only open the door a crack at first, and he shot into the crack- right at us, since we were standing along that wall! We had been told to turn off the light and move to the wall that had the door so we would not been seen from the door's window, but when he stuck his gun in, that's where the bullets went.

He left after that, but another guy came about thirty seconds later and managed to get in. He shot some rounds in the room (smoke and grit and shells everywhere!) and then demanded to know who the teacher was. It was very real- screaming and aiming his gun and shooting every now and then. Some of my students were crying- but not one of them told the shooter that I was their teacher. Nobody said a word to him. I am in awe that they all protected me like that. I decided that I was not going to tell him, but if he grabbed one of my students, I would "give myself up" as it were.

The fire alarm started blaring about this point from the gun smoke. (Which really smelled terrible!) and our shooter told us that we were doing to call him Mr. Smith, that we were in math class, and that he was the teacher. He then gave a gun to one of my students and said that we were going to tell the police that the student was the shooter, not him. He would kill all of us (here he paused to shoot into the air) if we told the truth.

The next hour was waiting for the police to rescue us. We were given cards before the exercise started, stating our injuries (if any.) According to my card, I had been shot in the chest and the arm. I imagine I would have bled to death in that hour, waiting for the police. I don't really know how to explain how tense that hour was. We could hear the police evacuating other classes, and several times they passed by our dark door without even looking in. The "gunman" kept tapping his gun on the table and reminding us that he would kill us all if anybody made a peep. Everybody stayed on the ground. I was holding one of my student's hands because she was panicking so much. I was glad that I could whisper that this was not real to her to help calm her down. What would I say if it was real?

When the police came to get us, they has us move out with our hands over our heads. I (and three of my students) did not move, since we were "injured." My male "fake shooter" student did not come out either, because he was not really sure what to do. They finally called him out by name (Not until they evacuated my class and the gunman, I might add) and arrested him. It was another five minutes before the police came into the room to see to the injured, and thus five minutes until we could tell them that the gunman had gotten away. I found out later that my evacuated students told the police as well, but not until they had gotten outside and he had left the area, as they were afraid. If this had been real, he may have gotten quite a head start!

The injured were put into an ambulance and triaged, and taken to the schools "safe area" across the street. At this point, it was pretty much over for us, and soon we were all told that we could go back and get our things. The room was a wreck! Our stuff, gun powder on everything, chairs and tables overturned...totally freaky.

I'm okay and feel okay now, but it was an eye opener. I know there were a few things we would have likely done differently had it been "real," but with a gun in your face, who knows what you'll do? It sucks to realize how small things, like the lack of doors that lock from the inside, make us so vulnerable. It was amazing how responsible I felt for the people in my room. I'm glad I did it, but once was enough.

New Feature of Planet Z: Book Club Selections

2009-02-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

Linda asks me each December for ideas for her book club. I read a lot, but my mind always goes blank when she asks for good books, so I'm keeping track on the blog. This year when she asks me, I'll be able to provide a list!

Today's recommendation:

The Condition by Jennifer Haigh. The book is about a family who falls apart right after a medical diagnosis of their daughter. I could not put this book down!

Work Work Work

2009-01-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

We're 21 days into 2009, and not much had really gone on! Kirk went back to work after a two week vacation (nice!) and I started work again this week. Or last week, if you count the meetings and orientations and last minute stuff.

My five week Friends class (returning adult students) started last night and they were a great group! It makes all the difference in this class, since so much of it is student directed. I'm excited to have them!

Here's my sort of crazy schedule for the upcoming semester:

Tuesday (until Feb)- one night class at Friends
Monday (starting in March) one night class at Friends

Thursday mornings- Composition at the community college
Friday mornings- Comp at the community college

and my current favorite- my online composition class. I already love teaching online and hope that I can eventually teach only online for the community college and teach face to face at Friends. We'll see!

Sarah's Happy Christmas

2008-12-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

Sarah thinks that any type of party is party for her.

She was really happy to have her own present to open, and even more thrilled with the gift.

Sarah carried her new rawhide bone around for at least 45 minutes. When we refused to let her bury it outside, she decided that stuffing it between the cushions of Jeremy's couch was an acceptable substitute.

Christmas Letter 2008

2008-12-23T14:20:00.001-08:00

Our Christmas letter is available here for anybody who is interested! Merry Christmas!

Kevin's Graduation

2008-12-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

On Friday, December 12, Keven graduated from the Wichita Police Academy. The ceremony was held at the Friends University chapel. The surroundings were very pretty and the ceremony was lovely. The graduation was also mentioned in the newspaper!

Kevin marches in with the other Police Academy graduates.

Caiden, Kelly, Kevin, Vanessa, Sylvia, Kirk, and Linda after the ceremony.

Thanksgiving Trip to Colorado: A Mini Photo Montage

2008-12-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

We made it back to Colorado for Thanksgiving for the first time in a few years, thanks to Kirk's forced time off due to the backup caused by the Boeing strike and Cathy's super fabulous school schedule. It was extremely busy and lots of fun! We got to see several friends who we had not seen in ages as well, which is always a treat.

Dinner at Old C's with the Denver crew. Cathy, Kendra, Tom, Kendra's sister, baby Ethan, Leslie, and Jason.

Kirk and our nephew Caiden take a nap.

Cathy helps Sarah the Wonder Dog say hi to Caiden.

For some reason, we took a picture of the coffee that Dustin, Kirk and I drank...but no picture of Dustin. Huh.

The Breadbox's First Mishap

2008-11-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

The Resident Mr. Fix-Its

2008-10-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

I somehow managed to blow up the wiring in our kitchen with our vacuum cleaner. I also was not able to switch the circuit breaker back to on, which concerned the engineers of the house. Of course, they like nothing more than trouble shooting a problem, so they spent last evening hanging out with this:

Kirk especially loves playing with the multimeter. Sometimes he'll go around and test things with it for fun.

Look at those big smiles! I bet they wish something would break every day, just so they could fix it!

I don't remember what ended up being wrong, but they were able to fix it. It took several hours and a trip to Lowes, but we have power in the kitchen again.

Kirk's next project is to replace the plug on my vacuum. The dramatic explosion (there was a loud pop AND smoke! ) melted something in the plug. He does not think that there will be any problem with the vacuum. I'm kind of hoping that there will be, so I can get a Dyson.

Rain!

2008-09-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

We're getting a lot of rain in Wichita! We have not flooded at our house, but the areas around us have. Our cul-de-sac was really full at one point, but it calmed down so I went to get a few things, not realizing how bad it was beyond our house.
My first stop was Target. I snapped this picture just before I backed out to turn around. (I could not see how bad the road was until I turned to get in, or else I would not have tried it.)
Another picture of Target using my close up feature. Looks like Target is now on lakefront property.
Wal-Mart's roads were not flooded, so I made the rare decision to buy the stuff I needed there. The roads were fine, but parts of the parking lot were flooded, as you can see.

We're expecting more rain today and tomorrow. We have not flooded in the house, and we're crossing our fingers that we stay that way!

2008-09-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

.

Scene: Cathy sits in the kitchen, eating breakfast in her nightgown. Everyone else has left for work.

*Commotion from bedroom*
*more commotion*
*Listening to dog walking down the hall...but it sounds...off...somehow...*

...because Sarah had somehow managed to put on one of Kirk's shirts. Not only was she wearing his shirt, she was stuck in it! She had somehow managed to wiggle into one of the sleeves. I ended up having to tear it a bit to get her out of it! Silly dog.

Friends

2008-08-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

Busy Busy Week

2008-08-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

I think I've been busier since I was laid off than I was at my job! The past week I've been planning my Fundamentals of English classes for one school, writing the syllabus, running over to the college to attend meetings, get an ID made, get parking passes, pick up books...it's been crazy. I've also been working hard on my other class- The Search for Meaning in a Changing World. They provided everything for that, but I still had to do all the assignments to make sure I understood them, etc.

We also had a visitor, briefly. Or rather I did. Matthew was in town for a conference and neither of us had a lot of free time, so lunch it was. I swear that we've had more visitors since we moved to Wichita than we ever did when we lived in Fort Collins. :) It was nice to catch up.

A blast from my UNC past. I think this picture turned out rather well.

Today I start teaching my Friends class, and tomorrow I'll be teaching my Butler classes. It seems like everything happened so fast!

Misc Pictures

2008-08-13T14:06:00.001-07:00

Here's some pictures I've been meaning to share but just now got around to!

Zucchini. We've been eating a lot of it lately.

Last year we nearly pulled this thinking it was a weed, but then it bloomed. This year we got a lot more flowers on it. Very pretty, but it only lasted a few days.

I made a cheesecake in my crockpot! It turned out great!

This is my friend Amber. She's Sylvia's brother's wife, and under that blanket is their new baby girl. Her name is Charlotte. Sarah really, really liked Charlotte and wanted to cuddle with her. (That is, when she was not sniffing her diaper with interest.)

Quick Catch Up

2008-08-12T05:57:00.000-07:00

It has been an extremely busy couple of weeks. For those of my readers who don't know, I was laid off from my position at Case New Holland. Friday, August 8th was my last day. The higher HIGHER ups made some radical decisions, and one of those was to let all contract employees go, so I was not the only one who ended up leaving. I enjoyed my time there and will miss most of the people I worked with, but I am excited to move in a new direction.

For my next step, I'll be stepping back into teaching. I've gotten positions at two schools as an English and Humanities adjunct instructor. I'll be teaching The Search For Meaning in a Changing World at Friends University, and two sections of Fundamentals of English at Butler Community College. Classes start next week. After I finish this brief update, I will continue working on figuring out what exactly I'm going to do in those Fundamentals of English classes! They provide us a book and a general idea of what the students must be able to achieve by the end of the semester, but that's all!

The Search for Meaning class is a little different than the classes I've taught in the past. It is in a five week format, and it is continuing adult students. It is also a four hour long class. FOUR HOURS. Luckily, Friends has already provided the entire course to me so I just have to teach it. (Of course, "just having to teach it" is not as carefree as it sounds!)

All of my classes are night classes. It will be nice to have my days free again and to do a large portion of my work at home. One of the things I liked best about teaching was the fact that I only had to be someplace a few hours a week. Everything else could be done anywhere. I'm hoping that it will be less overwhelming this time, but I'm thinking it should be. The last time I taught I was taking a full load of graduate level classes. Nothing is more horrible than grading 60 essays while you're trying to finish a couple of 20 page papers.

I'll get some pictures up of the garden soon. Our tomatoes are doing great, the zucchini is slowing down, and we were disappointed by our cucumbers this year. Kirk's dream of having rhubarb is dead- the plant died for the second year in a row. Our eggplant has flowers on it, but I'm not sure if we're going to get any eggplants yet. I'm already thinking about what we may try next year.

RIP Annie (2002-2008)

2008-07-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

We're sad to announce the passing of Annie. She's been slowing down the past couple of months, and we came home tonight to find her gone.

Happy Birthday Linda!

2008-07-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

We hope you have a great day!

Garden Pictures

2008-06-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

Our garden has exploded over the past few weeks. We've started getting zucchini and yellow squash, and the tomatoes are starting to think about getting red. We're excited!

Here's a general picture.

The zucchini is HUGE. I have never seen such huge leaves. This picture was taken last week- it is even bigger now.

Here's Kirk's hand so you can get an idea of how big a single leaf is.

The tomatoes are doing well. Here's our patio tomatoes- we're going to get a lot out of this one little bush.

We're going to have to figure out lots of creative ways to use zucchini. We tried this soup last night and it was really good.

Our first really big one- we decided not to pick it and then left town for two days. It got big, but it was delicious in the soup we used it in.

Suspicious Eyes

2008-06-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sarah the Wonder Dog gets very suspicious when the suitcases are brought upstairs. She did not believe me when I told her that only Kirk was going to Boston.

Tornado Party!

2008-06-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

The rumors are true- we had our first tornado close call! Nothing actually touched down, but the weather was horrible enough that the tornado sirens went off and the local weatherman told us to get into our shelters now!

Our emergency shelter- the downstairs walk in closet.

We moved the rabbit and guinea pigs downstairs, grabbed our dinner (which we were eating at the time) and headed to the basement, where we kept an eye on the weather station on Jeremy's TV.

Sarah was not happy at all about the storm.

It looked pretty bad out. The weatherman even sent his staff to the station basement and said he'd stay on the air as long as was possible-very dramatic!

Our little portable wind up lamp came in handy when the power went out briefly.

Luckily, nothing ever touched down and the storm moved on. But it was a very tense 15 minutes. We thought that we might actually have to camp out in our emergency shelter for part of it, but it never turned quite that bad.

The worst of it is past, but we're expecting thunderstorms all night long.

Our New Tenants

2008-06-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

We have a bird nest in our potted fern plant. Yesterday I watered it and a bird flew at me. Today I saw the bird fly out again, so I took a peek. Here's what I saw:

See the eggs? They're in the left centerish part of the picture.
Here's a blurry picture, but you can see the eggs a bit better.

Wichita Weekend

2008-06-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty productive weekend this week.

Cathy planted some jalapeños at Kirk's request. His coworker has an awesome recipe that features cream cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped jalapeños cooked on the grill. We'll let you know how that works out!

Our dishwasher is making a funny noise. Kirk, using tools from his favorite brother in law and the wonders of the internet, is trying to figure it out and fix it.

Meanwhile, in the garden, Cathy spots some green tomatoes.

Sarah sits wherever she wants. Nappers beware!

Cathy and Kirk had time to hit up a yard sale, where they got this adorable bunny picture for ten cents.

Sarah The Wonder Dog (Body Piercing Edition)

2008-05-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Sarah managed to get her upper canine tooth through her upper lip. We're not really sure how this is even possible, but she did it.

We were on a walk with her and another dog started barking at her from the other side of a fence. She usually does not care much when things like this happen, but this time she got really agitated and took off towards the fence, barking up a storm. She was on a leash, so she did not get very far, but she was really pulling at it. It took about thirty seconds to pull her away from the fence and get her to stop barking madly.

As we continued walking, we noticed that she kept bending her head down and pawing at it. Then we noticed that she was bleeding! We stopped to take a good look and noticed her top tooth poking through her top lip. It looked really creepy and painful! Jeremy and Kirk held her down and got the tooth out of the lip. Once we got home Kirk shaved the area as best he could and cleaned it out. She was pretty good through both these procedures and did not try to bite or struggle away.

On Monday Cathy made a vet appointment for her, just in case. The vet said that it was a pretty nice puncture wound and that it was good we brought her in- mouth infections are not a good thing, and puncture wounds in that area can get infected very quickly. She's now on doggie antibiotics, and very pleased with herself, because doggie pills=peanut butter.

We're still unsure how she managed to do this by barking. Even the vet was impressed.

The Rose Bush is Blooming

2008-05-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

I like to pick them to bring inside. They are very fragrent and the bushes produce a ton! Unfortunately, they do not last more than a day or two once I pick them, but the bush produces for quite awhile.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day! Here's the garden pictures I've been promising!

We put down this stuff over our garden that we're calling a weed tarp. Over it, we put mulch, but here's a before picture. It looks like garbage bags, but is tougher than that. We hope it works- fighting the weeds last was the opposite of fun. This year we've planted tons of tomatoes, broccoli, eggplant, zucchini, rhubarb, and yellow squash. We also have several herbs in pots around the yard, including basil, thyme, mint, parsley, and chives.

We spent a good part of today putting down mulch. We were happy to have the Scion- with the seats folded down we were able to get all 18 bags of mulch in with no problem.

We repainted the bird houses that the previous owner left awhile ago, with leftover paint we had hanging around. A family of sparrows has already moved in. Revitalize the neighborhood, and they will come.

Our two big pots by the shed. One has cherry tomatoes in it, the other has my mint plant.

Flowers under our bedroom window. We put new mulch in this bed as well.

Our irises are doing well.

In our spare time, we finished repainting the office. The color on the left is the new color, "Seaside Blue" and the right side is the pinkish brown color we painted over. It looks really good.

Welcome to the World, Caiden Noah Zoerb

2008-04-16T08:03:00.001-07:00

Here's an itty bitty picture of him!

What Cathy's Reading

2008-04-06T12:13:00.001-07:00

If anybody needs some book club ideas, here's some things that we've (well, actually Cathy) enjoyed lately:

We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.) This was a novel about a school shooter, written as a series of letters by the mother of the kid to her husband. Very interesting take! I liked this so much I picked up The Post-Birthday World: A Novel (P.S.) by the same author. It was about once decision about the main character made- to cheat on her husband and kiss his friend, or not. Each chapter outlines what happens for each choice- if she did or didn't. I loved how it was written!

RIP Pinky Pig

2008-04-03T06:11:00.001-07:00

The Hawaii Blog

2008-03-03T09:18:00.001-08:00

As you know, we're leaving for Hawaii on Wednesday! We'll be keeping a travel blog about our trip. Click here to see it! We hope you enjoy our Notes fromWaikiki!

Birthday Day Trip: Lawrence, KS

2008-02-25T18:36:00.001-08:00

Sunday was Jeremy's birthday, and we celebrated with an impromptu trip to Lawrence, KS. We had been told that Lawrence was very similar to Fort Collins, so we took the 3 hour drive to find out. It was the first long trip in Cathy's new car, so we were excited about that as well.

Kirk and Jeremy, just before we backed out of the garage. WOO!

It was supposed to be sunny and nice. Instead we had wind and fog. Go figure.

The drive went pretty fast. We took the toll road, and there was not much traffic. We passed through Emporia, Topeka, and a whole lot of nothing. It was kind of like driving through Wyoming, except with more wind.

By the time we made it to Lawrence, we were *starving,* so we stopped at the first restaurant that looked good- The Longhorn Steakhouse.

Life totally called for steak at that moment.

Everything looked so good, it took awhile to decide. We were forced to order a delicious appetizer so we did not starve to death before we ordered our real meals.

The decor was...interesting...but we liked that the heads of all the animals had hats!
When you're that hungry, everything seems to take forever. To kill time, we took pictures.
Even one of Cathy. Notice the classy antler motif of the restaurant.
But the food was really, really good. Really good. We'll have to go back!

After lunch we headed downtown, which really did remind us of Fort Collin's old town. Lawrence is also a smoke free town, which is something we all miss about Fort Collins. There were lots of neat little shops to explore. We did not even hit up half of them and we were there for a couple of hours. Cathy even bought something at a cute European food shop: this little bag that rolls up!

It is tiny.
But it unfolds into a good sized tote bag!

It starts out really small, and fits into Cathy's purse with no problems. It will be really nice for sporadic library trips and for the weekly Aldi's shopping trip. Aldi's is a ultra low budget grocery store that is very low frills- so low frills that they don't even provide bags. Of course, Cathy always forgets to take a bag, so it will be nice to always have a reusable on hand.

The European food store also had the neatest chocolates. Each piece was like a little work of art. It was so neat that we took pictures! Observe:

We did not buy anything, but we looked at them for quite awhile. Maybe next time.

We also stopped by the local university to have a look.

It was a neat looking campus.
And bigger than we expected.

We drove the three hours back to enjoy Jeremy's birthday cookie.

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

Guess What Annie Likes?

2008-02-10T14:45:00.001-08:00

Crazy Bathroom Lady

2008-02-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

The bathroom at my workplace is very small. The women's room only has two stalls. If anybody is washing her hands and you open the door, you'll take out her butt if you're not careful. I nearly did that today. The woman moved to allow me admittance, and proceeded to put on her very complicated coat.

There are like, four women at my workplace, and I had never seen this one before. We chatted about the weather for a bit, and then she said the strangest thing:

Crazy Bathroom Lady: "I like to put my coat on and get ready to leave in the other bathroom, but men keep coming in, so I'm using this one instead."

Me: "Men keep coming in? To which bathroom?"

Crazy Bathroom Lady: "To the one right beside this one."

Me: "You mean the Men's room?"

Crazy Bathroom Lady: *crazy stare*

The Pimp of Relativistic Cosmology and Statistical Mechanics. (No, it's not Kirk. Yet.)

2008-01-26T09:10:00.000-08:00

To further contribute to our rock star life reputation, Kirk spent the past few nights playing with five sets of double nine dominoes.
Behold the result: Einstein, our friendly father of relativity and

E=mc 2

- immortalized in dominoes, as every scientist dreams.

Want to make your our own? Okay!

We also recommend the following documentaries:

And book:

E=

mc 2

: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation By David Bodanis

The Royal Puppy At Play

2008-01-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day Part I

2007-12-25T12:22:00.000-08:00

This is the teapot that Cathy got at the White Elephant Exchange at the Morh's. Actually, techincally it's Kirk's teapot, as Cathy made him "win" it for her after she was out of turns. She loves it.

Another shot of the teapot. The thing to the left fits in and you can put loose tea leaves in for brewing. We've already tried it with the English Breakfast tea that Dustin sent to Cathy for Christmas- yum!

Vanessa wanted to meet Annie, who actually obliged without being *too* grumpy about it.
Vanessa in her Christmas dress, before we opened the presents.
Our tree, with most the presents under it. We can't put the gifts under it until just before we open it, because of curious animals.

Sarah likes her gift. She carried it around all morning. She really wanted to take it outside so she could bury it, and was kind of cranky that she was not allowed to do it.
Despite the unimpressed face, Vanessa really seemed to like the Phonics bus.
It took *forever* to get out of the package.

Linda and her favorite gift this year- the Elephant lamp.

We're off to the Mohr's for Christmas dinner- more to come later!

Snow!

2007-12-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

It's a good thing Linda and Kelly made it in last night. This morning, we woke up to this:

So much for the ice storm

2007-12-11T05:44:00.000-08:00

We were promised a very dramatic ice storm yesterday. It was going to be bad- power may be out, trees and power lines down, people stranded due to horrible roads. Kirk and I were all set to stay home from work today. On the radio this morning, schools were cancelled. Universities were cancelled-and it's finals week! Even non-essential personnel on the military base had a delayed start! The roads must be horrible, right?

Then we looked outside and saw...lots of rain. No ice, no downed trees, no reason to stay home from work. They must have cancelled those other things last night, when they were expecting the mini-apocalypse.

While I'm glad that we're not getting it as bad as Oklahoma, I was all set for a day off! Now I'm worried that the freezing rain will come while I'm at work, leaving me stranded and forced to subsist on questionable cafeteria food.

The Cutest Ugly Car In the World

2007-12-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

Meet Cathy's 2006 "new" Scion XB, The Breadbox!

In case you were wondering...

2007-12-01T10:03:00.001-08:00

I got the job!  I now work at Case New Holland as the
Engineering Coordinator.  I've been there a little
over a week and I think I'll like it much more than my
previous job. 

My job is to process Engineering packages to make sure
that everything has been done that needs to be done. I
make sure that everything on the drawings is also on
the bill of materials so they have everything to build
the equipment.  It is not a difficult job, but it is
very detail oriented and there are billions of small
details to remember.  I think I'm doing well so far.
My trainer says I've already done more on my own in
the week I've been here than the guy who last had my
position did in the month he was here.  There is
PLENTY to do! I don't see how the person who is
training me managed to do this on her own for over a
year without help.

It will be a very busy job, and I will likely have to
do overtime.  I don't mind so much though.  Since it
is hourly, I'll get paid time and a half for any
overtime.  It is contract, so it will not be forever,
but it will give me some time to figure out what I
want to be when I grow up. As a bonus, it is much
closer to home than my last job, pays more, and the
contract is much longer. Once I am trained, they will
allow me to work from home a day or two a week, which
will be awesome as well.

Thanksgiving Dinner Shapshot

2007-11-27T18:56:00.000-08:00

Not shown: Strawberry Pie

Wanted: Shiny New Job

2007-11-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have not heard, I have quit my temp job. (Sort of. I agreed to work Saturdays for the next 6 or so weeks, but hey, extra money.) I left for many reasons, the biggest being that the amount of money I was earning did not even come close to compensating for the insanity I had to deal with, plus the commute across town.

Luckily, I have another job interview today at a company way closer to home. If this does not work out, then I will go back to subbing. I'll let everyone know how it turns out!

Just in Case You Were Wondering

2007-10-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

Kirk did pass his thesis defense! He'll have his Master's in December! It seems like we started grad school just yesterday, and now we're both done.

Sarah's a Bus!

2007-10-30T19:04:00.001-07:00

I made Sarah a costume for Halloween! She's taking it better than I thought she would, but I won't say she's happy about it...

Jeremy's Gig

2007-10-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Jeremy's band had their first gig ever last night. Yay! Since Kirk is in Colorado, Cathy went to see him. It was supposed to be a costume party as well. Jeremy went as Matthew Lesko, that "Buy my book and get government money!" informerical guy. I thought that the costume was pretty good. He got the pants and the jacket at Goodwill. The question marks are made of felt and glued on with a hot glue gun.

I wore my Amish outfit. I got it off E-bay a few years ago. Every single Halloween I've worn this, somebody has asked me if it is a costume, or if I was really Amish. Each time I've been asked this, I've been at a bar. I never knew the Amish frequented bars so often! Yesterday took the cake though. Even though it was supposed to be a costume party- nobody but Jeremy and I had on a costume. A woman came up to me to see if I was really Amish or not. When I said it was a costume, she gave me a weird look and asked if I was from America or not- as she could not tell from my accent. Okay. This morning Jeremy told me the same woman came up to him and asked what was up with his clothes. I guess no one else got the "this is a costume party" memo.

Wish Kirk Luck!

2007-10-27T11:05:00.001-07:00

Kirk left this morning for Colorado. He'll be defending his Master's thesis in Fort Collins on Tuesday- wish him luck! The title of his thesis is *drumroll*

Differential Sputtering Yields Of Refractory Metals By Ion Bombardment At Normal And Oblique Incidences.

You'll have to ask him what that means. :-)

Creepy

2007-09-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

This spider has made his home over our compost heap. The web is really neat, but the spider is kind of...creepy.

We stained the deck!

2007-09-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

It was a good day to do it, nice and cool in the morning and not so bad in the afternoon. Jeremy helped us as well, which made it go much faster. We miscalculated how much stain we needed and had to run to Lowe's for another gallon.

Before:

That's Kirk's air compresser in the middle of the deck. He cleaned out the cracks with it.

Kirk says hello!

Side view

After:
It really needed to be stained.

Another After Shot
I can't belive how much better it looks!

Fruit Salad on a Stick

2007-09-06T19:30:00.001-07:00

We had a BBQ for Labor Day weekend. One of the most popular dishes we served was this fruit salad on a stick thing I made. I hollowed out a cantaloupe, and put the cantaloupe pieces with some other fruit on those cheap-o wooden skewers, then stuck the skewers into the empty cantaloupe shell. It drew oohhhh and ahhhhs like crazy, and it could not have been easier to make! But if anybody asks, it took hours.

Weekends in Kansas

2007-08-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Brad (Jeremy's coworker) took us to his parent's compound to to shoot clay pigeons. Kansas folk are huge fans of their guns, and the guys were universally appalled that we did not

1. Have our own guns

and

2. That Cathy had never shot a gun.

We did bring our own bullets, which Cathy and Jeremy went to buy at Wal-Mart. It was pretty funny! Apparently, there are different types of bullets, and anybody who does not know all the types is either a woman or has The Gay. I get a pass because they did not want me to hurt my pretty little head, but I'm sure they were waiting for Jeremy to head off to the accessories department to buy himself a new pink feathered purse to go with his boa and heels.

Here Kirk and Jeremy are in action:

Kirk with one of the smaller guns. He shot a rifle as well, but the picture did not come out well.

Jeremy and Eddie, shooting Clay Pigeons.

Cathy did shoot both the small gun and the rifle, but there are no pictures of it. Jeremy was holding a loaded gun at the time she shot, and Kirk was in charge of one of the younger children wandering around the compound, so nobody had a free hand to take a picture. Cathy did hit a clay pigeon! Since she was not aiming at anything in particular besides "over the cornfield" she was as surprised as everybody else!

They also had goats. This was a particularly friendly one!

It was fun, but we're glad to cross it off the been there, done that list.

It's finally happened...

2007-08-13T03:55:00.000-07:00

Kirk finished his thesis! He does have to add some appendixes, but that is a copy and paste job. The copy will be sent to Dr. Williams this week!

It is HOT!

2007-08-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

I don't know about Colorado, but Wichita has been beyond hot the past few days. It reached 105 (with the heat index) on Tuesday and they're expecting it to go that high again today. It makes me glad I work in an overly air conditioned office now!

New Kitchen Color

2007-07-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

I found some yellow paint in the basement that the last owner must have left, and thought it would look nice on one wall in the kitchen. I think it does!

Photographic Evidence

Bathroom Remodel

2007-07-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

Cathy spent the past month remodeling the bathroom. All it took was some paint, new towel racks, and a lot of time gritting her teeth and scraping off the frog wall paper.

Here's some before shots:

Note the frog themed wall paper. There are even fake frogs glued to the faceplate of the light switch!

You can see the bottom of the cabinet I painted right above the toilet. There is also a wooden toilet seat. And more frogs. They sure loved their frogs.

Here's the after:
Notice how frog free it is! Scraping down that wallpaper took FOREVER. You can also see our new towel rack on the right. We painted the walls a purple color.
Here's our other new towel rack. We also replaced the faceplate of the light switches. We were not able to scrape off the wooden frogs.
We replaced the wooden toilet seat with a white one. You can sort of see our new toilet paper holder here.

This picture had been in our bedroom, but we thought it looked just right in the bathroom.
Here's the sink area. Not much going on here.
A better shot of the paint and picture.
I painted the wooden cabinet they left a pale yellow. The drawers underneath are something I picked up at a thrift store when we lived in Fort Collins. I painted those too, and they're very handy.

Melanie and Ben's Wedding

2007-07-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Finally, the pictures you have all been waiting for!

Here's the empty chapel, shot from the balcony. Very pretty!
Mom, Melanie, Cathy, before the wedding in the bride's room.

Mom and Dad

Susan and Dave
During the wedding, shortly before Cathy's bouquet broke!

The carnage from the broken bouquet.
Cathy and Mike
Melanie and Ben
Cathy, Ali, Melanie, Libby, and Summer, after the wedding.
Ben and his Groomsmen
Melanie and her friend Brandon
Ali, Libby, Summer, and Scott
Melanie and Dad during the Father/Daughter Dance.
First Dance...awwww...

Ben and Melanie dancing again.
Melanie and Ben.
Cathy looking fabulous!
Cathy and Robert
Garter Toss

Melanie and small child.
It was my birthday! And the cake was chocolate!
Kirk stopped taking pictures long enough to have this one taken with Cathy.
Cathy and Linda
More of ME ME MEEEEEEE!
Alice and Cathy
Ali and finance (Melanie- what's his name?)
Arron and Brandon
Melanie, Ben, and the car.

We nearly pulled this plant, thinking it was a weed...

2007-07-01T16:22:00.001-07:00

We're glad we didn't. Pretty!

There's Hope

2007-07-01T16:20:00.001-07:00

Maybe Annie will let Sarah be her friend after all.

First Fruits/Job Hunt Update

2007-06-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

Our garden is really starting to take off! Here's the first of the zucchini and the tomatoes. (They are supposed to be yellow, but they taste the same as regular cherry tomatoes.) We are going to have tomatoes up to the ceiling judging from how many green ones are on the vines. We got a grand total of four strawberries, but I think that the freeze we had the weekend right after we put in the plants did them in pretty well and I'm amazed we got any at all. Our cantaloupe vines look like we're going to get some cantaloupe, but nothing yet! The weeding has been insane; we can't keep up. Next year will be better. I'm going to try a method I read about in Momma's Guide to Growing Your Own Groceries, which involves covering the garden with newspapers and putting a special black tarp for plants over it.

I am still applying for jobs, but have yet to hear from anyone yet. I'm applying for technical writing positions (not many are out there so far), administrative assistant type jobs, and college level teaching jobs. I've also been looking for editing jobs, but the only one I've seen has not called me back yet, and it was so long ago that I applied, I doubt that they will. Oh well.

Pinky Pig Picture

2007-06-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

You lookin' at me?

Libby's Wedding: A Picture Entry

2007-06-24T14:09:00.000-07:00

We just got back from Libby and Chris's wedding in Hereford, TX. It was really fun, and we enjoyed staying at the Bed and Breakfast in Amarillo! I'll be doing B&B pictures in another entry- here's some of the wedding ones!

I thought that this was a good picture of Dad and Melanie!

Some of the decorations
Melanie and her finance, Ben.
The cake was pretty- and yummy too!
Kirk and I

Coming Soon: The Bathroom Makeover!

2007-06-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

We're in the process of taking down the lovely frog wallpaper the previous owners of our home put up. Let me say this: I will never, EVER put up wallpaper of any kind. It's pretty, but it is way to big of a pain in the butt to take down!

Other news: Cathy is looking for jobs again and has a job interview on Tuesday. It's not a job she's terribly excited about (it's at another bank- eh) but it is the first job interview she's gotten since interviewing with Molly Maids, where they balked at the college degrees. If this bank job pays well enough, I may take it just to get out of the house and earn a bit of money while I keep applying for better jobs. It pays a lot more than teaching college classes part time, that's for sure. I've also applied for a few editing and technical writing jobs, but have yet to hear from those people yet.

Lastest Yard Sale Find: Plant Stand

2007-06-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting for a plant stand to dress up the front porch. I also found the wooden plant boxes at a yard sale awhile back, and had been trying to grow some flowers in them from seed. It was not working so well, so when I saw the flat of flowers for ten bucks sale at a local nursery, I bought them and set up the front porch with tons of petunias.

The Long Awaited Wedding Post

2007-06-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

I (Cathy) spent last weekend in Maryland at the wedding of her friends from grad school. James and I shared an office when we taught at the University of Northern Colorado, and Carrie had the office down the hall.

I got there on Thursday, and would have made it to the rehearsal if I had not gotten off on the wrong exit and spent the next hour touring Baltimore. I think I'm meant to be lost in Baltimore, as the last time I was there (July 1999) I got horribly lost with Justin. At least this time I had a car with me, and it was not raining.

Anyway, I finally got to my hotel and made it to the very end of the rehearsal dinner at Carrie's parent's house. (Carrie lives in Alabama now where James is working on his Ph.D at Auburn.) It is one of the most beautiful houses I've seen- right out of Country Living or something. Very pretty!

On Friday we went to Washington, DC. I drove the group to College Park, MD where we hopped on the Metro to DC. I love subways. If I lived in a place with more reliable public transportation, I would take it everywhere. It was nice to not have to deal with parking (they had a park and ride lot at the station in College Park) and it ran every few minutes. It was also very inexpensive! Once in DC, we went to the National Zoo, and we were going to go hang out on the mall, but the zoo took to long. We met Carrie's college roommate at a really yummy pizza restaurant called Matchbox.

Here are some of the zoo pictures:

Carrie petting a statue of some lizard thing.

They had pandas!

This is the tallest escalator in the US. You can't really tell how very, very tall it is.

Everything else after Friday was getting ready for the wedding. On Saturday we all had our nails done, and Carrie did a practice run on her hair. The salon does wedding stuff on Saturdays, and it was fun! It included bagels and champagne. Also, we were forced to wear veils and be photographed.

It was a pretty busy day, and I did not sleep well that night, because my hotel caught on fire. It was about 2 AM, and I was dreaming that my house was on fire and nobody was doing anything about it. In my dream, the fire alarm went off. I woke up, and realized that it was not my dream...it was my alarm clock! After a few moments of batting at my alarm clock and trying to turn it off, I realized that it was the real fire alarm! I got up, put on my PJ pants and the easiest pair of shoes to deal with, which happened to be my wedding shoes. I got my purse and cell phone, and even remembered my key to the room, and left. I was not worried. This hotel had a kitchen and I figured that somebody had burned some microwave popcorn or something. That was often the culprit for fire alarms in college. After a few minutes of hanging around on the lawn and watching the fire trucks screech up, I started to think it might be more than popcorn. First of all, I could smell smoke! Second, there was a bloody guy with his shirt wrapped around his head. He had jumped out his second story window! Later I found out that the fire was on the third floor, so I have no idea why he did that. The EMT's took him off pretty quick.

I realized that I had my purse, keys, cell phone...but I had left my bridesmaid dress upstairs. About this time, the sprinklers went off in the hotel. We could see the windows getting wet on the third floor. My heart just about stopped. I had a vision of telling Carrie I could not be in her wedding because my gown got ruined by water and smoke damage! We stood on the lawn for about an hour and a half, and were finally let back in...except third floor guests. The third floor was wrecked because of the sprinklers. Luckily I was on the second floor, so my dress was saved. I was very tired and had to be up early the next day for my hair appointment, but at least my stuff (and I was) okay.

The wedding was on Sunday at one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Because of my bridesmaid duties, I did not get very many pictures, but here are a few of them:

Carrie's dress from behind. I love the colored sash! If you look to the left, the girl in the yellow dress is one of the other bridesmaids. The dress was really cute.

Carrie and James were really good at dancing!
Carrie and James

A terribly unflattering picture of me, but it's the only one I have. I wish my hair were more in the picture- it was really cute. It only required 32 bobby pins and about a gallon of hairspray!

Beautiful (and YUMMY!) cake.

James and Carrie trying their wedding cake.

It was a lot of fun, but it is good to be home!

Scary Stuff!

2007-05-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

Somebody was murdered last night a few doors down from us. They don't know why or who did it yet. It's been kind of interesting (and scary!) to watch the police and the crime van and the house marked off with police tape. I think we've even met the victim. They have a dog named Buster who ends up in our yard every few days- their fence does not do so well at keeping the Buster in- so we get him and take him back home.

I'm glad we always lock our doors, even when we are home. Things like this remind me of why we do that.

Sarah and Buster. Buster looks big and mean, but he's remarkably mellow.

Sarah the Scardy-Dog

2007-05-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Sarah the Wonder Dog is terrified of thunderstorms, and we've been having a lot of them lately. In Kansas, most thunderstorms seem to happen late at night or in the very early hours of the morning. Sarah freaks out and wants to sleep in the bed with mom and dad. This would not be such a big deal, but she is a bed hog and during thunderstorms she shakes and gets up to pace all over Cathy's back every few minutes. After being woken up by Sarah at 2 and 3 AM a few nights in a row, Cathy finally moved her dog bed to right beside her to see if it would help any. Thankfully, it did. It seems like she is less likely to panic when Cathy is right beside her, and ever since her bed has been moved, she does not even try to climb in bed with us during the storm. She still wakes Cathy up with her whimpering, but a quick pat soothes that, and she's not walking all over her back anymore!

What We're Reading This Week

2007-05-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

Click on the links to read more about the books we're reading this week!

Cathy is reading Forever and Ever, Amen by Sister Karol Jackowski. She can hardly put it down, and thinks Linda should suggest it for book club!

Kirk is reading Robot Building For Beginners by David Cook. Cathy is afraid that soon the dining room table will be filled with robot building supplies, although if he can design one that will clean the house, she won't complain...much.

Jeremy is reading Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.

New Garden Discoveries!

2007-05-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Here's some new stuff we found in our garden over the past few days!

We did not know this was a rose bush until a few days ago. They smell wonderful!

Another clematis vine I did not even know was there until I cut down some of that giant grass (Pampas grass?) that is in the corner of our yard. It looks like it is going to have a lot of flowers!

Tornado Update

2007-05-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

We have had a surprising number of calls checking up on us to make sure that we are okay! Thanks for your concern, everybody! The town that was hit was not near Wichita, and while we've been experiencing thunderstorms the past few days we are not anticipating any tornado weather right now. The story is very sad- the whole entire town that was hit is gone. We are very happy to have a basement now, just in case.

Notes From the Yard

2007-04-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of plants in our backyard that I took today. We spent a lot of time this weekend cleaning up the flower beds and pulling weeds. I really like that the last owners put in things that will come back each year. It's kind of fun watching everything come up. We're still not sure what everything is yet. We have been waiting to pull weeds because we're not sure what things are weeds and what things are flowers! It's becoming more clear as time goes on, and we went and bought some roundup for the weeds.

These are my favorites so far. We had purple ones too, but those froze when it snowed a few weeks back.
These are in a flower bed right underneath our bedroom window.

This is the ground cover growing around our deck. Very pretty! We have some white ones too, but the flowers are not doing as well on that one.

I like this one too. I did not cut it back, but I'm going to later this year and get a bigger thing for it to climb up.

Kirk also had to lay down ant and grub poison this weekend- our yard was a huge ant bed. That was not fun, because we had to keep Sarah out of the yard until the poison was dissolved and the grass was totally dry. We also had to chase off robins to keep them from eating the grub things that would come up to the surface. Ew.

Cheese is MISSING!

2007-04-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Cheese the bird (featured in the picture with Cathy) was stolen from the zoo last night, along with his brother, Mac! Poor birds!

Wichita Welcomes Kelly!

2007-04-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

Kirk's sister Kelly came to visit for the weekend on her way home from Nebraska. We had a good time going to The Alley for bowling and to the Sedgwick County Zoo!

Kelly, Jeremy (our house mate) and Cathy in the Kansas wind at the zoo.

Cathy made a new friend in the rain forest area of the zoo.

Patio Table!

2007-04-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Now that yard sale season has started, Cathy has been looking for assorted house and garden items. Here's her latest yard sale find:

Special thanks to Jeremy, for loaning Cathy twenty dollars (as she had no cash on her at the time she happened to see the table) and bringing it home in his jeep!

Happy Birthday Kirk!

2007-04-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Kirk's 26th birthday- Happy Birthday Kirk! We celebrated by eating at Sumo Japanese Hibachi and Sushi House. It was very good, and this is written by Cathy, who is not a huge fan of Japanese food. Even the fried rice was extra yummy. It was really fun watching the chef do all the tricks with the cooking tools, and cracking the egg by throwing it into the air and chopping it. We would recommend going sometime, although you should make reservations, even though the guy on the phone said that there was no wait and no reservation required.

We came home to have the cherry strudels Kirk had requested, but we were so stuffed full that we could not eat them. :) We will have those today, along with playing the "new" (one of Cathy's amazing thrift store finds) Trivial Pursuit game that Kirk received as a gift.

Cathy's New Hair

2007-04-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Cathy decided to drastically change her look! Drastically for her, anyway. She cut her long hair short and got blonde highlights. After calling around for prices, she decided to get it done at a local beauty college- looking fabulous can be expensive!

Check it:

Planet Z

Washington DC Trip Blog!

In which we actually *do* have rockstar lives!

In Which We Spend All Our Money...plus a bonus house tour!

Happy Birthday Dad

Snow Day!

Another Day, Another Dollar

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Time!

Out With the Old

Sarah's Halloween Costume

Sarah's New Pajamas!

Guinea Pig Update

Guinea Crisis 2009: Bag Edition

Boston Flee Party is GO!

RIP Zippy (2004-2009)

Boston Flee Party

The Great Siding Project: Phase One

The Siding Project

Happy 29th Birthday to Cathy!

Garden 2009

Book Club List

Sarah: Before and After

Easter Trip to Stillwater

Caiden Gets Collosal

Happy Birthday Ava Joselyn

This Morning

Book Club List

In Short, I'm Pretty Sure My Class Would've Died

New Feature of Planet Z: Book Club Selections

Work Work Work

Sarah's Happy Christmas

Christmas Letter 2008

Kevin's Graduation

Thanksgiving Trip to Colorado: A Mini Photo Montage

The Breadbox's First Mishap

The Resident Mr. Fix-Its

Rain!

Friends

Busy Busy Week

Misc Pictures

Quick Catch Up

RIP Annie (2002-2008)

Happy Birthday Linda!

Garden Pictures

Suspicious Eyes

Tornado Party!

Our New Tenants

Wichita Weekend

Sarah The Wonder Dog (Body Piercing Edition)

The Rose Bush is Blooming

Happy Mother's Day

Welcome to the World, Caiden Noah Zoerb

What Cathy's Reading

RIP Pinky Pig

The Hawaii Blog

Birthday Day Trip: Lawrence, KS

Guess What Annie Likes?

Crazy Bathroom Lady

The Pimp of Relativistic Cosmology and Statistical Mechanics. (No, it's not Kirk. Yet.)

The Royal Puppy At Play

Christmas Day Part I

Snow!

So much for the ice storm

The Cutest Ugly Car In the World

In case you were wondering...

Thanksgiving Dinner Shapshot

Wanted: Shiny New Job

Just in Case You Were Wondering

Sarah's a Bus!

Jeremy's Gig

Wish Kirk Luck!

Creepy

We stained the deck!

Fruit Salad on a Stick

Weekends in Kansas

It's finally happened...

It is HOT!

New Kitchen Color

Bathroom Remodel

In which we actually do have rockstar lives!