Say My Name

Well, I survived my family's christmas celebration. Barely. I've pretty much spent the day recovering, although I had nothing to drink but grape juice. Do you ever have moments where you really want to cry, but you start laughing instead? That's what being with my family is like. The dogs had a similarly bad time.

In the collage above, you can see me, Jeremy, my parents, brother, and niece Brianna. Brianna just turned four and knows a lot more stuff since the last time I've seen her, including her full name. She has my middle name, and her last name is my maiden name. It is so bizarre to hear her say "my name is Brianna OurMiddle MyMaiden." It sounds familiar, but slightly off, you know? Just like when I got married and started pairing my first and middle with my *new* last name. Bizarre.

Here is me kicking butt at Catan the Card Game. Notice the dog(s) huddled on my lap.

Perfect

Do you see this? I was wrapping Kate's birthday present along with all my holiday gifts last week, and I managed to (accidentally) cut and wrap this paper in such a way that the design matched up perfectly at the seam. It was so, so satisfying. Yep, I'm a dork. I was so taken with this event that I knew I needed to document it. So, here you go.

I have the entire week from 12/21-1/02 off from work. I'm even getting paid for it this year! We will see if I get any crafting done. My biggest goal is to clean all the crap out of the spare room so we can have some space to get creative.


And this? The only photo that turned out from the Frank 'n' Rita photo shoot. We will be trying again.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Latkes

Also last night, I made latkes for the first time ever. I asked Jeremy's grandmother for her recipe, and she happily obliged. "All Jewish women know how to make them, except newlyweds," she wrote me, "it's like breathing."

Without further ado...

6 medium potatoes
1 onion
1/2 c flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper


Grate the potato and onion into a bowl. Use your hands to squeeze as much moisture out of the vegetables as you can. The potatoes will turn brown, but that's ok. Add flour, egg, salt and pepper.
Mix everything together. Heat olive oil on medium high. It's not necessary to deep fry the latkes; you can always add more oil if needed.

Drop potato mixture by the spoonful into oil. Flatten with a spatula.
Let your husband take a zillion unflattering pictures of you:

When latkes are golden brown on both sides, remove to a plate covered with paper towels to absorb excess oil. Serve with sour cream and applesauce.
Enjoy!

Hanukkah Wieners

We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah last night, and both dogs got special magen David cookies for the occasion.


Even though Rita Bean is Christian, she seemed to enjoy last night's festivities. More presents to come!

Ikea'd

This past weekend k8 and I headed off to Chicago. We spent Friday night watching Julius Caesar at the Lyric Opera. It was long but very, very good. Saturday was spent in downtown Chicago: riding buses, getting on and off trains, shopping, eating the f*cking awesomest sandwich ever, and peeing at Starbucks. I bought a great pair of shoes at John Fluevog.


For our wedding anniversary back in September, Jeremy gave me some money to spend at Ikea, getting inexpensive Scandinavian furnishings for our home. He custom-designed the envelope, even. In case you can't see it, here is a picture of the stick-figure detail:

Sunday morning, k8 and I checked out of our hotel and headed to Schaumburg. We stopped for coffee on the way and got sugared up. The plan was to go to Ikea, shop, and get out of town at a decent hour to start the 6 hour drive home. Um, it was dark by the time we got all loaded up and ready to go. We filled k8's Honda Element to the brim; had we bought any more, I would have been riding home on the roof.


Now the apartment is filled with potential furniture. Boxes of Snille, Helmer, Mikael, and Antonius await assembly all over the place.



So, what better time to start painting the living room, right? I don't really have anything else to do...oh, except work, Franklin Photography, laundry, homework, dogs and the Steve project...

Hallowiener

Franklin and Rita had a great time at the Howl-o-Ween meetup last weekend. This is sort of a drive-by post, but here are some pictures:





Jeremy keeps calling these their "Barbaloot Suits." They glow in the dark, too!

Dyllan, pissed, again

I seem to have a jillion pictures of Dyllan, dressed up in some sort of crazy costume, looking pissed. Last weekend's Gateway Lo-Downs Meetup was no exception, to be sure...


Also, Boomer managed to accomplish this amazing feat with only a few treats:

Big News in LauraLand

No, I'm not pregnant. Gah.

I have a job! A real, honest-to-goodness, career-starting job. I've been working as a contractor for my company since December 2006, and my permanent offer finally happened on Friday. It is, of course, contingent on my background check and drug test coming back ok. I've never been arrested, have good credit, and passed up the opportunity to um, eat some poppy seed muffins last weekend, so I should be good ;)
I probably won't post any details about my company or my job on this blog, but feel free to email me if you'd like details.

To celebrate, I went to Target and bought the wieners their Halloween outfits. They both got the same thing, because none of the costumes really matched very well. I tried them on when I got home, and they are freaking cute. I will try to take some pictures while we are at the Hallowiener Meetup on Sunday.


Franklin and Rita are currently warring over the one Nylabone we have in the house. Frank's idea of fun is to grab it, wave it in Rita's face, then run as fast as he can in the other direction. She's taken to chasing him through the house, and barking at nothing to distract him. When he abandons the bone to see what's going on, she grabs it and starts gnawing.

Oh! Also, I went to Florida to see my BFF, Bobbi. You can see my entire collection of photos if you're my friend on Flickr, but here are some highlights:

Outside of the Dali Museum in downtown St. Petersburg with Tessie and Amanda. I'm not really sure what is going on in this picture, but that bench was definitely designed for laying on.


Bobbi and I acting like art students in front of the Dali Museum. There was a guided tour going on right behind us while we were inside the museum. Being the asshole that I am, I couldn't stand it. Luckily, I had my iPod with me. I popped in my earbuds, cranked The Magnetic Fields, and saw some Dali.

Ok, I have three loads of laundry waiting to be folded around the apartment. To work!

Wed!

Last Friday, two of my favorite people were married in Wentzville, MO. I had the honor of photographing Boomer and Brett on their special day. There are many, many more photos to come, but I'm busy photoshopping the bruise off of Boomer's arm in *every single* photograph...

Something tells me we should've taken the time to cover it with makeup!
















Also, k8 and Dyllan win the prize for most photogenic members of the wedding party...