Cleaning (Not Quite Spring?)

Posted on by Jordan

Heather and I had planned to head over to Blair for a Gutschow pre-Christmas event. However our nephew picked up something novel at daycare and decided to share it with the family as a sort of holiday treat. Heather and I were sad to learn that the event was canceled. Then again, given the “up all night puking” stories we were hearing, we thought that a phone call was probably as close as we wanted to be associated with the majority of that group for a while.

We did manage a few Christmas themed events over the course of the weekend, despite the abrupt change in plans. First off we attended a performance of “A Christmas Carol” Friday night. The venue was probably the smallest possible for a semi-pro group to use, but it was a fun event to be at. The audience was seated on three sides of the “stage”.   The stage consisted of the open floor between the chars, and some backdrops on the fourth and final wall. I will say again that it was a really enjoyable show, although the venue probably should have a large sign reading “HIPSTERS WELCOME.” I didn’t quite feel cool enough to be there… but I guess it was fine.

So that was Friday night, Saturday started kind of early as we had planned to help clean the church before heading to Blair. We found out Saturday morning that Blair was off, but still had to meet our cleaning crew bright and early so we headed over. All that cleaning was just a warm-up though as it turned out. When we got home Heather was feeling inspired to really attack the apartment.

She also claims my (purely innocent) pointing out that the show “Horders” was on Netlflix streaming guilt-tripped her into the cleaning spirit. I suppose that may have a little validity, as I may have started an episode playing for her at one point a few weeks back. Whatever the reason, after some generic cleaning Heather dove into sorting through her clothes.

As anyone who was gracious enough to help us move (in ether of the two moves) may remember, there were a lot of boxes marked “Heather’s clothes”. The allocation of closet space here in Des Moines has, at times, been a point of contention as I suppose would be expected.

The process took quite a few hours, and I often heard things like “I didn’t even know I had this!” or (while holding up something I could charitably describe as scanty) “Could you ever imagine me wearing this?” In the end, I have to say, Heather was willing to hold a hard line and parted with quite a few things:

Yes, you are seeing that correctly… FIVE bags of clothes waiting to head out the door. To be fair, my clothes make up some of that total. All the same, there was a lot more there than I ever expected to see go out the door! Strangely enough, our closets in no way seem empty at this point… I guess everything just has room to breathe now. 🙂

-Jordan

A Wedding, Fireworks, And Demolition

Posted on by Jordan

It has been a while hasn’t it?

What have Heather and I been up to?

Well, we went to her cousin Kiley’s wedding. Perhaps most notable in the fact that it will probably be the last wedding ever to hold it’s reception at Dana College. The news of the college going into bankruptcy came out a few day before the wedding, but somehow arrangements were made to allow the reception to proceed as planned.

Outside of that excitement, it was really nice wedding… I just don’t feel like I know what to say about it. Heather has a big family, and the majority of them came for the wedding. I got to meet a few family members for the first time while I was there! I am beginning to realize that easily my favorite aspect of weddings is the opportunity to interact with the other guests. Everyone has such tight schedules that chances to see some friends or family may only come up at major events like weddings. Not to discount seeing the bride and groom, but if my wedding is anything to go by, so much gets packed into those few hours, it’s all a blur. A warm fuzzy blur, but still a blur.

After the wedding, and after staying up far too late talking to family at the farm in Blair, Heather and I drove to Kearney to see my side of the family. Quite a few of my cousins were there, and they all brought fireworks! To be honest I was a little disappointed that things worked out this year such that Heather and I were unable to attend a professional fireworks show. I am not sure getting to supervise a handful of my younger cousins as they set off an arsenal of patriotic spirit is a full consolation, but it’s something. We have managed a perfect safety record so far, although towards the end of the “show” a lot of effort was put into trying to simultaneously launch two and three things at once. I was sure  that would eventually lead to problems, but we ran out of fireworks before we ran out of luck I guess. 🙂

Moving on to this weekend (still in progress) Heather and I finished work Friday without any special plans for the evening. We had attempted to set something up with a few couples from church, but no concrete plans ever finalized. When we got home, Heather had an e-mail from another couple we know through church, inviting us to come help them demo the house they just bought. Maybe your thinking, “hey, that doesn’t sound like a great way to spend a Friday night” well, maybe you don’t live in an apartment and type on a computer for a living? I am not sure I would want to do that every night, but I truly enjoyed getting to swing a hammer for a few hours! Beyond that factor, it is just nice to feel like we have some friends we can hang out with here in town.

Looking to the future, Heather and I plan to ride our bikes all the way down town this morning to visit the farmers market. It will easily be our longest ride this summer, although not long by most bike enthusiasts standards I suppose. We have discovered that Des Moines seems to have spent a significant amount developing an impressive trail network throughout the metro area, but they have not spent much putting together an online map for said trails. A few low-res .gif files are they best they have to offer, and what they have are years out of date. The adventure may end up being if we can find the trail everyone tells us we should have seen on our last ride.

-Jordan

Catching Up!

Posted on by Jordan

Hi there, it still seems to be summer and I just don’t know where my time is going!

I have been meaning to post a quick summary of what Heather and I have been up to, and the longer I put it off the larger the summary needs to be.

First off, Heather and I volunteered to help with an MS support bike-ride. We thought it was going to involved more interaction with people actually riding bikes, but somehow we wound up wrangling chairs and counting votes for “best water stop.” It was a fun way to spend a few hours!

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I don’t have a picture for it, sadly, but Heather and I ran / walked in the Blair 5k run / walk. It was an interesting experience, as Heather and I do not actually run or walk at the same speed. I promised to stay with Heather the entire time, and to maintain a good attitude about the whole thing. I had a little trouble at the start when people were racing away, and I felt like if I *could* keep up with them then I should be, but in the end I am glad we kept the pace the way it was. We had a nice morning, and did something new!

Most recently, we went to a College World Series game. Heather’s vacation allotment has finally rolled over to a new year, so we have some time to work with again! We both took a Monday afternoon off, met for lunch then headed to the botanical gardens for a few hours. The weather was perfect, we dodged the hot humid conditions that have landed in Omaha by just a few days! After spending a really relaxing time wandering the mostly empty gardens we drove a few blocks, found a place to park and walked over to Rosenblatt Stadium. The turnout for the game was overwhelming. We felt a little silly, because we really didn’t even know who was playing, or for that matter care too much. Once we finally got inside, we found that they let in a lot more people than they have general admission seats for popular games. Lucky for us we found a place to sit before seats ran out.

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Somewhere in the middle of all that, we found time to head to Kansas City for part of a weekend,  crash a graduation party, and keep our apartment somewhat clean! 🙂

-Jordan

Lasagna Update

Posted on by Jordan

I mentioned a day or so back making lasagna, only I ran out of time to actually bake it. Wednesday night, I went to Blair to visit Heather and her Grandmother. Heather had taken the uncooked pan out to Blair the night before, so they baked it for that night.

the recipe is called: “World’s Best Lasagna.” I don’t know if it lived up to that claim, but it was very good. I have also had it twice as re-heated leftovers now, and its still very good. It takes way to long to make, and I don’t know what changes like using a canned sauce would do to the quality of the dish…. It was a  fun thing to try, but the prep time is a little over the top.

Just thought I should follow up on that 🙂

-Jordan