Project 365 Day 243: They Say It's Your Birthday

Today is my dad's birthday, but his age will remain undisclosed on this blog. (You're welcome, Dad.) I talked to him this evening and it sounds like he had a good day, complete with a delicious meal of walleye at a local restaurant with some good friends. I have some birthday gifts for him, which he will get when he and my mom visit Ames in September. I appreciate his willingness to wait a couple weeks so I don't have to deal with the post office!

My poor mom gets the short end of the birthday blog stick since she shares a birthday with Adam (February 8). Adam says he doubts she feels too bad about that because it is such an honor for her to share a birthday with him. What a guy!

Project 365 Day 242: My Mug

During a grocery trip this evening to Fareway, I was almost ensnared by the alluring siren song of a package of corn dogs in the end-cap freezer of the last aisle before checkout. As we walked by I couldn't help but say the words aloud.

"Corrrrrrrrrrn doggggggggggs. Mmmm."

My shopping cart momentum was carrying me forward, however, and I fought off the impulse buy.

Our second stop was a gas station to get a fountain soda, and my subconscious mind was already at work, directing me to choose the gas station known for keeping corn dogs on it's dog-roller-cooker-device (those devices are quite ingenious by the way, perfectly cooking hot dogs, taquitos, or any other cylindrical foods, from every possible rotation). Unfortunately, I was ultimately defeated in my subconcious quest for a corn dog, as the roller tray was empty!

Upon returning home, I went with the next logical craving, and made myself some cappuccino, using our Mocha Master mixer/warmer/frother for the first time (another great device). In this picture you see my tasty drink, enhanced by its presentation in my most prized office possession from our time in DC, the FBI mug. Behold.

Project 365 Day 241: Field Trip

We took a trip to Reiman Gardens today, so we have lots of pictures to share.

I absolutely love these fairy houses!

This is the world's largest concrete gnome. Doesn't he look jolly?

One of my favorite things about Reiman is the lily pads! We think this is a frog's version of a McMansion (you've got your parlor lilypad, your giftwrapping lilypad, and of course your supersized designer kitchen lilypad with hardwood floors and granite countertops). I sure hope that frog is not upside down in his mortgage!

This little guy is having a lunch that is both delicious and nutritious.

I don't remember what these are, but we both really liked them. In the background is a campanile with an electronic carillon that chimes on the hour and plays music.

Adam has been messing around with the settings on his camera. This is one of my favorite pictures resulting from his experimentation.

This whale looked hungry so we didn't get too close.

Another of my favorite gnomes, which was in the tropical plants area.

After touring the gardens, we went to the Reiman plant sale. They were winding down when we got there so their selection was limited, but they were more than ready to see some of the plants that were left go to good homes, so they gave us an excellent deal on these guys. We brought home some daylilies and a few varieties of sedum. Adam wasn't too thrilled that I wanted to get these in the ground when we got home, but he was a good sport and is glad now that it's already done. (Right honey?)

Project 365 Day 240: Landscapeapalooza 2: Electric Boogaloo

Motivation is a great thing. Sometimes you can conjure it up on your own, and sometimes it helps to have an external force. Today our external force was cousin Deb. She made the trip over from Marshalltown this morning and we spent the day using her tools, expertise, and labor to help get the sod up in the backyard for our plant bed.

We were all surprised when we wrapped up around 7pm and had gotten all the sod removed! We got an energy boost at lunch thanks to Hickory Park take out, and I threw in a nap for good measure during the afternoon--hey, I played a 3 set tennis match at 9am, ok? I was also quite tired out from being on wasp-spraying-and-smashing duty for much of the morning...

So a big thanks to Deb for her help and motivational influence!

As a side note, adding "2: Electric Boogaloo" to anything (like a previous blog post title) is a good way to reuse it in a new and interesting way.

Project 365 Day 239: Hitching Post

This past winter we were excited about seeing Brandi Carlile at the Hoyt Sherman in Des Moines. We first saw her open for the band Train in DC a few years ago, and she's one of the few opening acts I've seen that I ended up more interested in than the headliner. We bought our tickets well ahead of time and were set to go, when a big ol' Iowa freezing rainstorm hit, and we decided it was probably in our best interest to not jump on the interstate that night. I had hoped she would come through central Iowa sometime in the future when we could try to go again.

To my surprise, we didn't have to wait a year or two, but only about 6 months, and this time she came to us. She and her band stopped in town tonight to play at the Ames Auditorium of all places, a smallish theater in a municipal building downtown. It was a great show, the audience was really into it, and Brandi and the band seemed to feed off the energy. She comes across as a very genuine person and performer while on stage, which has to be challenging as a touring artist. She said they changed the setlist from the Des Moines show to add a little variety, and she also checked a YouTube video of the Des Moines performance to make sure she wore different clothes tonight.

The encore was a treat, and started off with an awesome solo performance by the band's cello player, in which he used a looping pedal to build layers of his playing, until it sounded like a cello quintet was playing together. Throw in some covers of Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Cash, and Tammy Wynette, and we had ourselves a good night. She said she'd definitely be back to Ames again, and we hope she follows through on that promise.

So what's this picture go to do with anything? I have no idea. We were walking around downtown before the concert and came across this hitching post in someone's front yard. Looks kind of historical. Brandi Carlile's music has a little bit of an old school country twang to it, and horses are often featured in country music and western movies, so I think that is a good enough tie in.

Project 365 Day 238: Proof

While I was wrapping up my homework at Cafe Diem tonight, Adam noted that I had not yet publicly declared my love for him on the cover of my notebook. I agreed that this was completely unacceptable and immediately complied with his request that I inscribe "I (heart) Adam" for all the world, or at least the kid who sits next to me in class, to see. Adam insisted that I actually draw a heart. The exclamation marks, however, are all mine.

Project 365 Day 237: Landscapeapalooza

Cousin Deb visited us after work today, "loaded for bear", which in her case means "with landscaping tools in the trunk!" She checked our soil out in the backyard where we're planning to do some more landscaping with plants and mulch, and both she and we were pleasantly surprised to find that there's a decent layer of decent soil out there.

We laid out a garden hose to map out the edge where we plan to start digging up the sod, and then used her tools to cut an outline in the grass, as shown in this picture. For a moment I thought about cutting some other really interesting patterns in the backyard, then filing an iReport with CNN to break the news about the new alien crop circles taking over the backyards of unsuspecting Iowans, but I decided that would be too much work and just stuck with our original plan.

I think our original plan will be work enough. Thanks to Deb for her tools and motivation!

Project 365 Day 236: Back to School

I've missed school since finishing my master's degree, and since I'm on campus all day anyway, I thought I might as well enroll in something. I decided to take a class that I wanted to take as an undergrad but could never fit into my schedule: Intro to Ethics and Politics (and no, the professor did not turn us away on the first day because that's an oxymoron). It's a 200-level class so I thought it would be easy peasy, but much to my surprise, the syllabus contains some of my old pals from grad school, including Aristotle, Plato, and Thomas Aquinas.

I have to say, it does feel odd being the old lady in a class of teenagers and 20-somethings, but I'm looking forward to flexing my academic writing muscles again.

Project 365 Day 235: Back on Bikes

This evening we reached another recreational milestone: first time back on bikes after RAGBRAI!

Amy's wrists have recovered enough that not only can she cross her fingers at least once a day, and use chopsticks with the precision of an Iowa State Fair goer trying to dunk Bobo the Clown, but she can also handle the handlebars again. We made it out for a 9.5 mile ride around town without stopping, and we were both surprised at how easy the pedaling felt. Perhaps we haven't lost all of our RAGBRAI muscles just yet.

We have decided that if we attempt the ride across Iowa again in the future, we're probably going to stick with our hybrid bikes, but do a few things that should make the riding easier. One is something we could have done on this summer's ride if we had thought of it: turning off the front suspension on our bikes. Apparently when the suspension is on it has a way of sapping some of the energy you're putting into pedaling. Another thing we'll try is using shoes that clip onto the pedals. If we do that, we'll heed the advice one of the RAGBRAI charter participants gave us; find an empty parking lot and practice unclipping from the pedals without falling over.

Maybe we need to invest in some training wheels again...

Project 365 Day 234: Plant Promotion

After banishing them to our basement last winter to make room for a Christmas tree, I finally took time this weekend to move our shamrock and lavender plants back up to the living room. I think we'll enjoy hanging out with them more often, as it was more of a long-distance relationship thing when they were in the far corner downstairs.

Hopefully the spider plant (out of picture to the left) doesn't get too jealous...

Project 365 Day 233: Beet, It's What's For Dinner

We have been enjoying our bounty of beets this past week, thanks to the generosity of Amy's parents' neighbors. I put in one last beet boiling session in the kitchen today to get them all cooked, in preparation for freezing, and took this picture of a funny phenomenon. When the beet root is sticking up out of the boiling water, a little bundle of purple beet juice foam starts to appear at the end.

If only there were a market for purple beet juice foam... eBay, here I come!

Project 365 Day 232: Re-enactment

I received a very exciting chat message from Amy earlier today. It went something like this:

"I was just able to cross my fingers!"

As you may recall, since our RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa adventure, Amy's hands having been experiencing various symptoms of numbness and tinglingness. Fortunately, they have not been suffering from sparklingness, or else I might be worried that she is a vampire.

In any case, she has not been able to fully cross the fingers of her right hand. Until today! But, once she got home and we went out for dinner, she found that she could once again not cross her fingers. So the photo you see above is actually a re-enactment, in which she used her left hand to recreate the crossed-finger state in her right hand.

We now look forward to the day when Amy can cross her fingers twice in the same day...

Project 365 Day 231: Truth in Advertising

TacoTime may be a chain restaurant, but we'll always associate it with Ames since this was the first city we ever saw one in. And their slogan is as truthful as any out there: Anytime is TacoTime!

We decided to support their claim by making a taco run at roughly 8:45pm tonight as a reward for getting a jog in. You know, no pain, no gain. Or something along those lines...

Star Boars Sand Scuplture

This sand sculpture of Star Wars combined with pigs is a classic meeting of State Fair and Nerd, and I would be remiss if I did not share the work in progress. Very impressive detail, and the artists were still working on finishing touches today when we visited. Jabba the Hut (or is it Jabba the Hog) makes an appearance on the opposite side of the sculpture, but you'll have to visit the fair to see him.

Project 365 Day 230: The Only Fun of its Kind

I have many memories (mostly dusty ones, but I can retrieve some of them from time to time) of the Iowa State Fair, thanks to the family trips we would take in my youth, and more recently the visits Amy and I made while at ISU and last summer after returning to Ames. Today we visited with Amy's parents, who had never been before--I know, can you believe it!? We saw many things, including:

• The Big Boar (~1000 lbs)
  
• The Super Bull (~3000 lbs)
• A giant turkey drumstick (~4000 lbs; we had to share it four ways)
• Tiramisu-on-a-stick
• Peanut butter ice cream sandwich-on-a-stick
• New York Cheesecake-on-a-stick
• Star Boars sand sculpture, a take off on Star Wars with the main characters as pigs
• Lot's of tractors, such as those pictured; I did not know that John Deere tractors came in so many non-green colors!

It was a fun day with nice weather and good food. And I will never ever be surprised by any kind of "on-a-stick" food. I'm quite certain that any food can be turned into the "on-a-stick" variety. And it will always happen first at the Iowa State Fair.

Project 365 Day 229: New Bloom

Our plant in the basement, which I can never remember the name of, and which we received from Amy's brother and sister-in-law (my brother-in-law and sister-in-law-in-law?), has decided to bloom again. You can see the original post about the original blooming from back in February here. I guess this just shows how warm and inviting my basement home office is!

Project 365 Day 228: Potable, Not Potent

As we mentioned yesterday, the Ames water supply is once again safe to drink, and we completed the last few water flushing activities in our house today. We had to run the dishwasher once without any dishes in it, and we had to let the ice maker get a few batches of ice out of its system which were then tossed down the sink. Now we should be back in our regular routines, and no longer have to struggle to remember to not flush the toilet every time or to use the bottled water instead of tap water for teeth brushing.

Project 365 Day 227: Food from Family and Friends

Our trip to visit family and friends in Eastern Iowa today resulted in the nice side effect of getting some homegrown vegetables to bring back with us. We first stopped through Anamosa to visit Amy's parents, where we got some frozen sweet corn, along with freshly-picked cucumbers and beets from the neighbor's garden. We left there for Lisbon to visit friends Fritz & Charlene where we got even more bounty in the form of squash and hot peppers. Thanks to our family and friends for all the fresh food! And thanks to the awesome Ames municipal water system workers for getting the water safe to drink ahead of schedule! We have flushed our home's water system according to the city's instructions, and starting tomorrow we can resume our version of normal life and figure what to make for dinner this week to use up ingredients.

RAGBRAI: Photo Album and Another Video

I have uploaded all the photos we had (with locations for many of them) to new photo album on Google's Picasa Web. You can view it here:

2010-07-30 RAGBRAI XXXVIII

Additionally, I had been meaning to get this video off my camera. It shows a couple in Hudson, IA dancing to some latin music, and doing a very impressive job of it! Wish I had captured a little more, but you get the idea. RAGBRAI truly brings a little bit of everywhere to Iowa!

Project 365 Day 226: Gratitude

A couple things happened today that renewed my love for my fellow central Iowans as well as my gratitude that we were able to move back home last summer.

On Tuesday night, in the midst of the storm that caused the Great Central Iowa Floodpocalypse of 2010, we may or may not have driven through a few areas of standing water in spite of the repeated Emergency Alert exhortations to "Turn around, don't drown!" In our defense, it was dark, stormy, and really hard to see giant puddles of water until you were in the middle of them. We did make it home safely, but when we got in the car the next day, we noticed a funny sound and realized that something had come loose on the bottom of the car.

Adam was able to use man's best friend (duct tape) to rig up a temporary fix, and this afternoon we drove the car to the Ford dealership in Ankeny, where we take it for oil changes. We drove right up to the service department, handed over the keys, and went to the waiting area. Less than ten minutes later the head mechanic came to tell us that it was a simple fix and that they weren't going to charge us for it. Although we did buy the car at that dealership, and we have our regular maintenance done there as well, we were still really pleased and definitely couldn't see that happening in the DC area.

After a lunch at Chili's, we drove back home. I checked the Ames Tribune site for the status of the water use restriction (I needed to do laundry and our tomatoes were REALLY thirsty!) and found this article, which stated that the restriction had been lifted but the boil order was still in effect.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the comments section below the article: criticisms of the city because the water use restriction had lasted so long? Complaints that there was no projected end to the boil order? Instead, there were several posts praising and thanking city workers and volunteers for their hard work and dedication during the last few days, and not one single complaint.

This week has certainly had its share of inconvenience and frustration, but living among the people of Ames with their great attitudes and community spirit has helped us realize how fortunate we are. I hope at some point we'll get a break from our Year of Disastrous Weather (TM), but it's much easier to deal with when we live in such a great place.

P.S. See, Adam? I can be not-cynical. :)

Project 365 Day 225: We Need More Power, Scotty!

In human years, my desktop is getting on enough that I should be looking for a nice retirement home to put it in where they'll blow the dust out of the drive bays once a week, help get it into sleep mode each night, and scan it for viruses hourly. It should come as no surprise that a few days ago the power supply (pictured here) just gave up and conked out.

It may have had something to do with the memory upgrade I was attempting to install (for a total of 2GB baby! XP's gonna scream) which I apparently only got partially seated before turning the power back on. While I didn't notice any Magic Smoke leaving the motherboard, the scent of something burning coming from the power supply led to my hunch that turning it off was probably the appropriate course of action. Subsequent efforts to revive the system failed, and tonight I took advantage of our trip to Ankeny for dinner (where the restaurants are not closed due to flood-related water shortages) to pick up a reputable brand of replacement power supply from Best Buy.

As you can see from the mysterious blue lights in the background of the picture, my desktop is back up and running. Who knows, maybe I'll get another seven years out of it!

Project 365 Day 224: Closed for Conservation

The aftermath of the flood continues. The city is working on efforts to restore water to the water towers that totally or partially drained yesterday, and as part of that effort the city asked restaurants to voluntarily close today. We made it to El Azteca for lunch today with 40 minutes to spare before they closed early, and had taco/enchilada/flauta combinations (Amy had "pollo" and I had "cow meat", as our waiter put it). Then we walked over to The Cafe out of curiosity to see if they were still open. As you can see from the sign, they were not.

We took a quick drive around town this evening and were happy to see that Hickory Park seemed to be unaffected and open for business. Even WalMart on South Duff was open, just a day after 30 employees had to be rescued from the flooding via city dump truck!

Project 365 Day 223: Next Vehicle: Boat

If you don't know about the flooding in Ames and other central parts of the state by now, then you probably don't live in Iowa or know anyone in Iowa. Take this photo as an sample of what things have been like the past day. This is Veenker Golf Course's driving range, and normally one does not try to hit balls as far as possible into the large lake in the foreground, because that lake did not exist before today. It is in fact the Squaw Creek well past flood stage, and the most of the front nine was also under water.

For more breathtaking images, see the Des Moines Register's aerial photos taken earlier today. One of their many news reports is available here.

Fortunately we are high and dry in the northwest part of town and are close to restaurants and groceries. In fact, we waited out the rush on bottled water at Fareway today (Ames has shutdown the city water supply due to contamination), and made it there after 6pm, when they had a half-full parking lot and plenty of water still in stock. Apparently earlier in the afternoon they sold out a semi-truck's worth of water in 40 minutes while shoppers were lined up out the door.

Update 1: For reference, here's a photo on our blog that Amy took of Squaw Creek well within its banks back in March this year. That picture was also taken near the golf course, showing a location that is roughly 300 yards south of the edge of the floodwater you see in the picture above. Also, if you read that post carefully you'll see we originally thought it was the Skunk River, but we now stand corrected. Funny how hard it is to find a reasonably labeled map of Ames-area waterways.

Update 2 (from Amy): I can take a shower tomorrow morning! And flush the toilet! Oh, the luxury!

Update 3: Here's a photo album of the rest of the pictures from our walk by the golf course, with one bonus photo showing the empty shelves at Fareway where the water normally is. When we walked in, they had special areas setup near the door with the recent shipments of water handy.

Project 365 Day 222: Wall of Sound, Wall of Rain

Tonight we traveled to Des Moines for a concert by rock band Phoenix which was held at People's Court in the Court Ave. district. As we were preparing to leave, I should have known it would be an interesting night based on the dark, ominously-low cloud cover that was moving over Ames. It almost seemed like one of those sci-fi movies where the sky darkens, clouds swirl, and then a huge bolt of bright-blue laser beam touches down from the alien spaceship hovering in the heavens to destroy a major landmark.

So the sci-fi aspect didn't happen, at least, but more on that in a moment.

I enjoyed the concert, though it was a bit short. I got in a little late, and the band ended up playing for only an hour before giving the obligatory "thanks, that's all" fake sign-off, leaving the stage for a few minutes while some looped noise played, followed by their victorious return for a two or three song encore. The songs I recognized sounded quite close to the versions from their great Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix album, though they stretched some out in a few places. Most interesting were some songs that I didn't recognize, including one that had some repetitious and rocking guitar and synth lines building up a wall of sound while the bandleader sang over it using a harmonizer effect (think Imogen Heap's vocal from the track Hide and Seek). I hope to track down a recorded version of the song once I find out what it was. I think it had the word "funky" amongst the lyrics.

After leaving the concert, we jumped on I-35 to head back north around 11pm, only to find huge walls of rain slamming into our car once we got near the outskirts of Des Moines. I was wishing our Ford Fusion had a little quicker windshield wiper action, as some bursts rain nearly blacked out the windshield at moments. Coupled with constant lightning flashes, it was a harrying experience making our way back to Ames. Our speed dropped as low as 25 MPH on the interstate as I struggled to keep an eye on the white lines of the road and/or the blinking caution lights of the car ahead of me.

Many folks had pulled off to the side of the road to wait things out, but I forged ahead, thinking we would eventually drive out of it. In the end, we never got out of the rain, though we seemed to get out of the worst of the storm about 10 miles south of Ames. Once back in town, we found ourselves running into police roadblocks on South Duff and then on Stange Road as we repeatedly tried to find an open route home to the north side of town. Apparently flooding across major roads in Ames had already begun.

Not good!

Luckily we found what may have been the last remaining open route, using Hyland west of campus to get up to 13th Street, where we snuck back on Stange north of the roadblock, and navigated through some major standing water before breathing a sigh of relief as we reached the driveway and garage. Home sweet home! The picture above was my attempt to capture some lightning-brightened sky and rain. I give myself a grade of C+, mostly based on effort... (the sky is a vaguely brighter than normal, if you tilt your screen just so).

As bad as it was tonight, tomorrow will probably be worse (editor's note: yes, I posted this "tomorrow", so I know for a fact it was worse... more to come).

Project 365 Day 221: Sandwich Master

One of my favorite parts of each workday is lunch. I especially take pride in the careful composition of each layer of my daily sandwich, and now that fresh tomatoes from our backyard are plentiful, I've been going the extra mile to add a BLT layer on top of the typical lunch meats.

Mmmm, a tasty work of art!

Project 365 Day 220: See Da Cedar?

We completed the second and final part of our hosta-planting activities today by putting down a layer of cedar mulch. Mind you, this was not just any old cedar mulch. Oh no, this was Lowe's premium cedar mulch. The best kind there is.

I think our plants just look happier, knowing they are surrounded by the best chopped up bits of dead tree possible.

Project 365 Day 219: Plants in the Ground

Remember the craze during the last American Idol season with the "Pants on the Ground" guy? Here's a youtube link if you need a refresher. Today I was working on a new version of the song:

Plants in the ground
Plants in the ground
Not looking like some fools with our plants in the ground

Or something like that. The third line is a little bit of a stretch with some extra syllables squeezed in, but it and this picture captures the fact that we have finally gotten all of the hostas from my cousin Deb in the ground. It only took 10 plastic storage containers to hold the old crappy dirt we scooped out and 14 bags of Miracle Gro Garden Soil to replace the old crappy dirt.

So... anyone want some crappy old dirt?

Project 365 Day 218: Utensil Skills

We are happy to report this evening that Amy's ability to hold a fork properly has returned! As you may recall, her wrists and fingers were not functioning the best after the wear and tear they took during RAGBRAI, but as documented in this photo from El Azteca (our local Mexican restaurant, woohoo!) she is now able to manipulate a fork in a manner more becoming of an adult and less like a 3 year old.

And that's not all! She can also almost completely cross her fingers and is close to making the Spock symbol.

You know, this one:

Project 365 Day 217: Grass vs. Weeds

With our bike ride across Iowa, and all the preparation that went into it, complete for the summer, we now get to focus on more everyday concerns. For example, how much would it cost to pour concrete throughout our yard in place of the current mixture of grass and weeds?

And would this violate our covenants in any way?

If we decide to continue with a green yard, then perhaps it is time to visit Walmart and check out the weed-killer section. After mowing the yard last Sunday, these weeds grew back up to about twice the height of the grass by Tuesday.

Project 365 Day 216: Haters Gonna Hate

Amy has a new favorite shirt. It is based on her favorite animation from the Internet. It features a portly fellow in a confident stroll with a thought bubble containing the phrase "Haters Gonna Hate."

For those unfamiliar with the phrase, it means something along the lines of, "people are people, everybody dislikes stuff, don't get worked up when people don't like the stuff you like (or don't like you), and don't waste too much time trying to get those people to change their minds."

Now you can see the elegant simplicity and rhythmic appeal of the much shorter "Haters Gonna Hate." Just a motto to make those difficult days and people a little easier to deal with.

And that guy is just a funny looking guy.

Here's the original animated version. Notice how he firmly plants each foot in his stride, reinforcing the soundness of his philosophy.

Project 365 Day 215: Tomato Craziness

We are now at the point where tomato pictures will begin to overtake RAGBRAI-related pictures in our daily posts. Thanks to our helpful neighbors, our tomato plants stayed watered last week while we were gone, and as you can see the plants continue to produce! Today I had sliced tomatoes on my lunch sandwich, we had diced tomatoes on mini-pizzas for supper, and Amy had a sliced tomato tortilla wrap this evening for a snack. Of course, BLTs are on the menu later this week.

Time to start looking for salsa recipes...

RAGBRAI: Tire Dipping at Port of Dubuque

A short video of the Port of Dubuque tire dipping site at the end of the ride. I don't think I could lift my heavy hybrid bike over my head like some of these people do with their road bikes. Apologies for the glitch in the video part-way through, my Android phone must have been as exhausted as I was at this point.

RAGBRAI: Potter Hill in Motion

Here is a brief 20 second video I recorded on my phone while catching a breather on my way up Potter Hill the last day of RAGBRAI (July 31, 2010). Notice how some of the stubborn bikers are not able to go any faster than the walkers. I was one of those...

Project 365 Day 214: Braces

Amy's days of dental braces are long gone, and I was somehow fortunate enough to never need them. However, our recent RAGBRAI experience has unfortunately resulted in carpal-tunnel-like symptoms for Amy. Thus, we paid a visit to WalMart tonight to pick up a different type of braces, the ones that go on the wrist. Hopefully they will speed her recovery and prevent the symptoms from getting worse.

Meanwhile, the list of things I owe her for doing RAGBRAI continues to grow. I believe "Hawaiian Cruise" is in there somewhere.

Project 365 Day 213: Amenities of Home

After returning home yesterday from our RAGBRAI adventure this past week we have found a new appreciation for all those things about living in a house that we had been taking for granted. For example:

1. Not having to carry a roll of toilet paper with us to the bathroom, just in case
2. Having a toilet that flushes
3. Not having to wait in line for 20 minutes after getting up in the morning to use the bathroom, when you desperately need to go
   
4. Availability of a sink in the bathroom with running water and soap
5. A bed that is not inflated each day
6. A bedroom that is tall enough to allow for an adult to stand upright in while getting dressed

We will enjoy these amenities and many other aspects of being in a comfortable house again. At the same time, we find ourselves using phrases like "if we do RAGBRAI again, next time we should blah blah blah...", so who knows what the future holds.