Musings on Life and Living

After four weeks, February is over! I'm not sure why I am so excited about this. Normally, I enjoy winter, although my favourite season is autumn. And it isn't as if February doesn't have its highlights. Amanda's birthday, Groundhog Day, Lupercalia, St. Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day (or however you choose to punctuate it), Fluorescent Yellow Food Day... all are in this month. Heck, February is also the anniversary of my travels to Australia. But for some reason, this year has been a rather unpleasant February, even with the fun holidays. Maybe it is because we've had personnel issues at work, which have caused me to work more late nights than I should. Maybe it is because of the problems with the neighbours (which, thankfully, have been resolved). Maybe it is just that I am ready for it to be cloudy and warm instead of cloudy and cold. Either way, February is over, and I am excited for March. I don't even know why I am. I just hope that March is bette...

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Way back in 1998, a couple of single girls were lonely in the month of February, and were enjoying an evening meal. During the meal, they noticed that the dinner consisted of macaroni & cheese, corn, and Crystal Light lemonade. In short, their meal was fluorescent yellow. And thus a holiday tradition began. Fast forward to February 20, 2006. A sister of at least one of these girls (the details are a bit fuzzy) was attending the University of Illinois and, as a Mormon, was also attending the congregation for single college-age kids in the area. Andrea was given the power of coming up with activities for the ward, and brought the first Fluorescent Yellow Food Day to Illinois. In 2007, I was studying abroad in Australia, and I brought the celebration to a new continent. I have no idea if it is still be observed there, but I hope that it is, if not in fact, then at least in spirit. And on February 20, 2010, Gretch and I hosted our second FYFD potluck and party in our home at Tuscany R...

I decided to make bread from scratch for the first time ever on Wednesday evening. This was inspired by two events that were completely unrelated, yet coincided well. The first was that Noah and Cherry had invited us over for dinner one Sunday, and we made pizzas. They told us about their adventures in home making (which is more than just baking), and we though it was pretty cool. The second was that my mum had called shortly after our birthdays and told me she had a gift for us that was a gift "because she loves us, not a birthday gift, because she doesn't get birthday gifts for her adult children". It was a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. The mixer is a 4 1/2 quart capacity mixer with a lift-stand, rather than a tilting head. So, armed with inspiration from our best friends and a new mixer than needed to do some mixing, we went out and bought some yeast, and then stole a recipe from our friend Nancy . We have a bunch of wheat flour, thanks to my brother Adam and his wife, Mer...

Our lease is up at the end of April. Although we have had a great experience living in our current home for nearly two years, rent is going to be going up, and we are growing annoyed with some of our less-than-desirable neighbours who use our parking spaces (or let their friends use them), leave cigarette butts on our sidewalk, and drop beer cans under our cars. I should point out that some of our neighbours are really awesome, though! But the less-than-desirables seem to outnumber the awesomes. So Gretch and I have begun the new home search. We looked at several places today, and found a few that we really liked. At least one was beyond our price range, but we found one that we liked more than the others. (Oddly enough, it wasn't actually on our list, but the realtor misunderstood the address we gave, and we are rather glad she did!) The catch to all this is that we won't be able to move in until August, which leaves us with a four-month gap between our current lease ending an...

Don't look so surprised that I am actually blogging, because I'm really not. I only find it necessary to type long multiple paragraphs of words when my life is on the line (or when it seems my life is on the line). I figured that since I never contribute to the writing I can at least contribute to the art. Some of you may know (unless your my father then it's still a surprise) that I write and illustrate a comic, and those of you who have broken out of your Facebookphobia have actually read it. But for those of you who have not I am now giving you the opportunity every week to read it. Please feel free to laugh, cry, yell, comment or just give suggestions. Eventually I will have a website up so it will be easier to share these with everyone.

Today is the first Tuesday in February in Illinois, which makes it Primary Election Day. Our state has thus started the round of Primary Elections in 2010. Woo Illinois! Gretch and I both voted today. It is always amusing to talk to someone after you have voted. Some of the candidates we both voted for (mostly because I have been telling everyone to vote for Bill Brady for the Republican Governor nomination). Some of them we did not. There are times when that happens that I wonder if voting is an exercise in futility, after all. Because, when you think about it, if I vote for Candidate A and my wife votes for Candidate B, and her dad votes for Candidate C, while her mom votes for Candidate D, then, really, what's the point? The point is that, in our small ways, we are making our voices heard. We are saying that not one candidate truly stood out as the one we all agreed upon. This further indicates that each candidate had something to offer that piqued our interests enough to vote f...