He Was Born in a Polar Vortex

We thought it would be fun to bundle Sam up, take him out in the snow, and pull him around on the sled.

At first, it looked like he was going to love it.

But once we got moving, it looked something like this.

Wonderland

We had a fabulous Saturday over here. It started with brunch at the Egg and I with my college pals and their kiddos. Then we lazed away the afternoon with books and soup and views of the falling snow. In the late afternoon, we trekked out to the Midwest Home Show where Dave refused to talk to anyone who might try to sell him something. I figured that was the whole point, so I gave my email freely and signed up for lots of drawings. Sam met a puppy at one booth and said "Dog!" quite clearly as we walked away. Back home, we threw together a dinner of brats and fancy mac n' cheese, which, I fear, is all Sam will ever want to eat again. Once he was down for the night, Dave and I watched an episode of The Wire and I managed to stay calm about the corruption and devastation by drinking two glasses of wine.

All in all, a perfect day.

Blogging Challenge

I have exciting news. A new blogging challenge begins this Saturday and ends sometime near the start of 2012. The challenge is to write about something that happens each day, good or bad, but mostly good, and comment on the blogs of others. That last part wasn't stated in the challenge post, but I think it's implied that you should comment too. That's just good blogging. Right, Pronto?

So, here goes. 

Today I removed a live mouse from a glue trap under our stove. I really can't say more than that because I'm pretty shaken up. Tomorrow I'll be ridding our house of glue traps because I never want to go through that again. And neither does the mouse. 

Okay. That was a good warm up. Look for more exciting (or mundane) posts starting Saturday!

Priority

I had to admit to a writing group yesterday that the dissertation has taken a backseat to other things in my life. The house, the living with in-laws, the other short-term writing project deadlines, and the job applications have occupied my mind of late. I'm not happy about this. But I do think things will be looking up after this week. And I'm already half way through Monday.

DIY

The new house has come with a few fix-up projects, most of which Dave has handled because, well, he's handy. I offered to tackle the purchase and install of a new dishwasher, though, because it required only a visit to Sears and being around for the install. No problem.

Last week the new dishwasher gave us this message (on the display screen?!): NOT ENOUGH WATER TO FINISH THE CYCLE. SEE USER GUIDE.

Being in charge of the dishwasher and all, I saw that user guide. And found nothing related to this message. Hmm. Being in charge of the dishwasher and all (still!), I called Sears, described our problem (twice, actually, because I got disconnected), and scheduled service for the next day. No problem.

Keith, our friendly service man (who wasn't the artsy-type we wanted to befriend), stared at that dishwasher for 30 minutes waiting for it to display the same error message. Then he looked through the user guide for five minutes trying to find something (anything!) about this message. Needless to say, Keith left without finding a problem or making a friend.

Last night, when the dishwasher stopped mid-cycle and the display screen gave us the NOT ENOUGH WATER message, I told Dave I would handle it. I jumped online, searched for "Bosch dishwasher not enough water" and found that several other people had had the same problem. After reading about the problem and its possible solutions for twenty minutes, I shared my fine detective work.

"Dave," I said,"I think we may have purchased the wrong dishwasher. I've been doing some research and I found this." I showed him the screen.

"Nice work," he replied. "But why don't you just call and set up service?"

"Because I'm going to be informed when I call this time," I told him.

"Then you should look up Kenmore dishwashers because that's what we have," he offered.

How dare he commandeer MY house project like that? The NERVE.

So. We have a serviceperson coming Tuesday. You know. FOUR days from now. And in the meantime, for that little bit of attitude, Dave will be handling the dishes.

Tuck Point Blank

We had this guy, Micah, do some tuckpointing on our front steps yesterday. He was really cool in an artsy way and said "thank you" in a genuine way when I complimented his work. Taking pride. I like that.

Later, I decided that Dave and I should be friends with Micah, his wife, and their three kids. Dave laughed at this, but I think he secretly liked Micah too because he emailed him to say that the steps looked great and to thank him again. This was code, I think, for "please be our friend."

This morning, while he checked his email, Dave said, "Hey, Micah wants to have us over for dinner."

"Really? Awesome!" I replied. "When?"

Dave laughed again. Micah didn't invite us to dinner. I guess he was just in it for the money.

Write On

There is some excellent blogging going on here and here. And we're not even in the middle of a blogging challenge! I'm going to prove to myself that I can keep up with a blog and maintain some level of quality as well. I'm also going to prove to myself that I can write this dissertation. It's going slowly so far, but IT IS GOING. Let's be clear on that.

Hello and Goodbye

This is Marie Martell. She was born January 18, 1919 and died September 8, 2011. She lived most of her life in Wishek, ND where she raised five children. She gave birth to one of those children, Idella, in a boxcar. Marie's mom, Katharina, a midwife, delivered Idella. Idella is my mom.

This weekend we all gathered to celebrate the life of Marie Martell. She was a feisty lady with a great sense of humor. She loved her five children, her twelve grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren. And they loved her.

Rest in peace, Grandma. I will miss you.