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Random Kitty Video by Amanda 07/27/2010 02:51 AM
Since I have happy video editing software again, I'm editing videos. This one is absurdly old but I'm sharing it anyway because it makes me laugh.
News! by Amanda 07/23/2010 05:51 PM
As promised, there's big news today. Dan and I stopped by the bank this morning to wire some money and...

Wait, what does that little green box say? "Your mortgage has been paid in full"? Why yes! That is what it says!

Whee!
Because Untimeliness Never Stopped Me by Amanda 07/22/2010 05:06 AM
Way back in April, I blogged about the joy that was Baby Sheep Day in Graham and I mentioned that I had video but my video editing software hated me and kept crashing so I couldn't share the baby lamb cuteness.

Well, I finally got that video done. Or almost done. It's close enough. So I thought I'd share it with you (even though I'm sure these lambs qualify as sheep now). It's not timely but it's cute so you should watch it anyway.
Apology via Singing Appliances? by Amanda 07/20/2010 02:57 PM
It has been a metric ton of forever since I last updated. Oops. It's because nothing has been happening. Seriously. Dan and I are in hibernation mode until... well, Friday. But on Friday there should be some really good news. So yeah, that's exciting. Well, to me. Because I know what it is. And you don't.

Okay, okay. You probably do know what it is because, chances are, if you are reading this you actually know me and what have I been talking about since forever? But on the off chance that this is entertaining (or at least occupying) someone that doesn't actually know me... News. Friday.

Well, let's say Saturday because seriously, I'm not so hot at the speedy updating (something I will prove in an upcoming post - like you need more evidence).

Anyway, the point of this post: This weekend I broke my Zojirushi. Which is horrible because I simply don't know how to operate properly without it. Or at least make tea without it. The hour after I broke it was so dreadful that I had to immediately run to Amazon and buy another one, budgetary hibernation mode or not. This one. Which came in today.

Happy day!

To make it even happier, my lovely electric water heater? It sings. Yes, sings.

I love the Japanese.
Eep! by Amanda 06/26/2010 07:10 AM
It's been two weeks since I posted. Yikes! It's a running theme apparently though. I just don't have enough going on or enough motivation to frequently update my blog. But I thought it was about time to do a little update, so here we go.

The weather has been sunny and hot lately, which means mentally I'm doing pretty good. It also means that a lot of my time is being spent outside by the pool. See my fancy pool?

Aren't you jealous? That's pretty much my after work and weekend pool set up. My chair, my towel, my eReader and my pool. It's simultaneously wonderful and sad because it makes me crave a real pool.

Other things going on in life: I've been (im)patiently waiting for my last day at work.

It's getting closer and closer!

Even closer though, is the Big Day. Dan and I are planning to pay off the house for my birthday next month so that's less than a month away. OMG. It's so close and quite a big deal. That's pretty much meant that our budgetary belts have been really tightened which is one reason that I've had nothing to blog about. Dan and I joke about sitting around in the dark for the next month to save money. While we haven't gone that far, we aren't doing anything extra this month. So yeah, we're boring. And so is my blog.

I have managed to do one thing that's fairly exciting though, well at least to me. I made gumbo.

Seriously, it's so awesome. I really hope I can repeat it. It's a variation of the recipe in The Joy of Cooking. There are some changes because I am apparently genetically predisposed to being unable to exactly follow a recipe. But yeah, so tasty.

Not quite as tasty but just as wonderful: the Bitty. She's apparently decided to be the official nap kitty of the Zimmmermann household.

Speaking of kitties, I just have to share a picture of my nephew-kitty, Tom.

This is Miho and Kei's kitty and isn't he just a doll? He's totally perfected that, "Who? Me? I didn't do anything" look of innocence. So cute!

Speaking of cute kitties, check out this news article my dad sent me: Bionic Kitty. The kitty involved looks lots like Happy-cat. I think that's the reason Dan and I had the same response to the article, saying "She doesn't need it but I'd be totally willing to get Happy-Doodle a prosthetic tail."

And that's about it. I managed to make a fairly long post about the boring-ness of life, huh? The only thing I have left to share is a little something that made me giggle on my way to work.


U IRK ME

Hehe!

Oh! And one final note: I still love my dishwasher. I never thought I'd love an appliance but there you go. It's seriously awesome. So if you need a new dishwasher, go get a Bosch. Awe. Some.
Grrr by Amanda 06/12/2010 08:57 AM
Our across-the-street neighbors are absurdly loud. Not only do they own (and attempt to street park) roughly 4.7 million different trucks and SUVs, but apparently on weekends they decide to weld them all together and then use a sander to take them apart again.
Small Dash of Kittiness by Amanda 06/11/2010 01:22 PM
It's a fact of life that Kitties + Boxes = Overwhelming Cuteness.

See?

And it's not the best picture, but it demonstrates the above equation so well, I had to share.

Of course, a box is not required for cuteness. Sometimes it comes naturally. Like during naptime.

Awwww.
More Crawfish by Amanda 06/09/2010 03:22 PM
It's that time of year again - or at least it was two weeks ago. Mudbug Madness!

Yes, food and music and heat and humidity. Shreveport isn't the most exotic locale, but it's always nice to get away, even if it is only four hours away.

Most years, there's a fair number of people in our group, but this year's group was a bit thin.

Still fun, though. And the lack of socializing (or limited socializing) made it more vacation like so it was pretty nice.

Traditionally we've stayed at the Holiday Inn in Shreveport, but this year we decided not to. Mostly because that hotel? Kind of old with horrid service and a pretty expensive rate. So this year we went across the street to the Best Western.

Great service (seriously, I never knew people in Shreveport were that friendly!), nice hotel, big pool, great view...

Okay, so maybe the view wasn't that great. But the rest of the hotel (and the service) was good... and as quirky as the view. The water in the shower hung out at luke warm, the rooms were different sizes, the microwave had a turn dial, the maid had to give us her key so we could unlock the refrigerator... Quirky is a good word for it. But the cheerfulness of the people and the really awesome pool made it a lovely place.

Really wish I could have brought the pool home with me. Instead I'm gonna have to blow mine up this weekend. Hopefully there won't be too many holes to patch...

Oh, and yeah. There was crawfish. And cayenne. And more crawfish.

And a pool.
The Yard... It Keeps Growing! by Amanda 06/08/2010 04:22 PM
First off, our apple tree produced an apple!

Of course, it wasn't actually an edible apple, but it's the effort, you know? So good job, apple tree!

Speaking of putting in a good effort, my lilies have bloomed!

These are, of course, not the ones I just planted last month but rather the ones that were already there. I'm not entirely sure that this is the first time they've bloomed (I think they did last year) but it's the first time I've managed to photograph the blooms. So I'm pretty pleased!

And in proof that summer is actually here, the oleander is going nuts, too.

I've really got to trim this puppy back once the blooms fall off or else it's going to take over the yard. It's seriously huge. But it's certainly bringing lots of ugly butterflies to the yard.

Anybody know what exactly this little buggy is? Because I thought butterflies are supposed to be colorful and it isn't. But I thought moths were supposed to only be out at night (and be much uglier) and this is (obviously) out and about in the day.

I will say that these not-moths are fairly unintelligent. Several times when I've been outside laying in the sun, one of them has landed on me and tried to get nectar out of my hand, my book, my leg... But, dumb or not, I'm becoming fairly attached to them. Ugly + friendly apparently = something I become attached to.
The Memory of a Goldfish by Amanda 06/08/2010 02:58 AM
Yeah, I haven't blogged in almost three weeks. What's up with that? Mostly, it is because I apparently have some short-term memory problems. I've been thinking that nothing has happened that is blog-worthy (even with my fairly lax standards). But no! Stuff has happened! It's just that I haven't been putting the pictures on to my computer, so I forget blog-worthy things have happened!

I might need to work on that.

Of course, I still haven't put my pictures on my laptop yet, so for the moment I will simply tease you (all two of you reading this) with mentions of things that I will be posting about... later tonight? Tomorrow? Sometime this week!

Things That Have Happened

  • Mudbug Madness - Yes, crawfish and Cajun music and a pool!

  • More Blooming Things - My Easter lilies bloomed! This might actually be the first year that's happened...

  • Kitty Cuteness - Okay, no surprise here but I will say there was a nap involved with this cuteness.
And there are no guarantees that that's all that I'll share!

It really just depends on what delights my camera memory card holds.