Sidney is Under the Weather...

I got some complaints for not giving Sidney equal blog time recently and so I took this picture. He loves to sit in the sink so we try to remember to close the bathroom door before he can sneak in there! Anyway, he loves to lounge in the bathroom (he seems to think its his own private spa) but the past week he's been spending all his time sleeping and sniffling!

He's always had a temperamental gastrointestinal system but it's gotten worse in recent weeks. We did some research and added a teaspoon of mashed pumpkin to his diet twice a day. That seems to have helped and he really loves the sweet bonus treat. However, he's also come down with the sniffles a couple of days ago. He still has a strong appetite and isn't showing any other signs of illness so we're just watching him closely and waiting for his little cold to pass. Send some happy thoughts his way! He's really such a sweet kitty. He loves people and loves attention and his only bad behavior involves eating anything he can put into his mouth! He only wants to sleep and snuggle, poor little guy!

Happy Easter, Peeps!

Happy Easter! We spent the afternoon at Lara & Tony's--and would you believe I forgot my camera? Lara said she'd email me a few pics. At any rate, this was a present from Dale--a whole bushel of tiny chicks! He really gets me, that Dale!

Hope you all had a lovely day, too!

Kitchen Makeover

Last weekend, we decided to do a little nesting! And we started at the greatest/cheapest organizational supplier we know of--IKEA! Which means meatballs. Ikea has this cheap-o lunch counter that serves oddly tasty swedish food! Note the meatballs and the 'lingonberry' soda! It cracks me up to eat there.

Okay, we wanted to get a pot rack to move our pots and pans off our baker's rack so we could take Dale's 50 coffee making devices and put them on the baker's rack so we could actually use our prep counter for, um prep.

Also, we have almost zero natural light in our kitchen--and our light fixture was dingy and small. So we picked up this new light fixture for $17. Seriously, Ikea is insane!

Our baker's rack is now festooned with Dale's many coffee devices--and our pots and pans are hanging!

Yay! A clean prep counter with hanging pots (have I mentioned how cheap Ikea is? It was like $20 for the pot rack)!

We also reconsidered where we put things and I feel like I have 10 times as much as space as I did a week ago. I cleaned out a catch-all drawer and now use it as a spice drawer! And I rearranged a few other things and now the top of the fridge is empty of cereal boxes! It's like we have a whole new kitchen! Yay!

The new lighting fixture and the cleaned-up kitchen in full effect! We also got a new sink drainer--you can barely see it here but our wood one was falling apart.

Dale's DIY Sandbags

Yet another thing I forgot to blog about!

Dale LOVES a project. And as winter dragged on in January, Dale decided to make his own sand bags. He didn't want to pay the $25-$35 each (click on prices to see the styles he modeled his after) at the camera store for a bag of sand--he just couldn't justify the price. He made a total of 10 and he said they cost him about $6.50 each to make, using the same materials as the commercial equivalents!

He borrowed a bag from our friend Pat and then reverse-engineered the bags to make his own. He's even had photographers on message boards offer to buy the bags (empty, of course)!

The bags started out as a simple piece of fabric, of course.

He had to add handles...

And without sand, it's just an empty bag. He put the sand in plastic bags to reduce leakage.

Finally! A bag with sand in it. Each bag has 15 pounds of sand--perfect to create leverage for his light stands!

Here's a link to his photo gallery, showing step-by-step how he did it. And here's a link to a PDF Dale created to give to other photographers with a do-it-yourself nature!

And here's a picture of two of them in action--against our still bare orange wall!

Dale's new lens...

Dale got a new "tilt-shift" camera lens. He's been wanting one for more than a year and he found a great deal on ebay so he grabbed it up. The lenses are known for sharp focus--that allows the shooter to create fake miniature photos! Which is my favorite kind of thing.

Here is a construction site from Dale's building! Look! It's a miniature construction site! But it's REAL! Hee. I'm easy. You can click on the photo to make it super big. It's sweet.

This also looks much tinier than it really is. And it's also in pretty sharp focus. Neat-o!

A Tale of Two Kitties

A Cat's Tail, Part One...

This is Bela. Bela loves his stuffed animals. We call them his "babies" though each one is Mr. _______. So Mr. Teddy Bear is Bela's favorite. And he's also fond of Mr. Horsie and Mr. Frog. Last weekend we added TWO new babies to the mix: Mr. Sheep and Mr. Duckie!

When Bela gets a new baby he first rubs his face against the baby very aggressively. Then he pushes the baby around on the floor for a little while. Here he is rubbing Mr. Sheep while Mr. Duckie waits his turn.


After the baby is appropriately rubbed up, Bela then carries the baby around (though he usually does this out of our sight/our camera's sight so this is a very rare shot of Bela walking his baby around the house). In the middle of the night he can often by heard "caterwauling"--or yelling--at his babies. I do not know what he thinks they've done but he's very strict with them!

Finally he lets the new baby rest at his feet and keeps an eye out that his brothers do not get too friendly with the new toy before he's had a chance to really make it his own!

A Cat's Tale, Part Two...

At least once a week Dale sets about grooming our long-haired kitty, Monty! First Dale grabs Monty and pets and soothes him, being sure to rub his belly and ears!

Once Monty is good and relaxed the brushing starts--and then the scissors come out! Poor little guy. He gets really bad clumps of hair under his tiny pits (that would only get worse if Dale didn't work them out). Dale tries to brush them out first and if one is really bad, he'll grab the scissor and cut through the fur (very, very carefully and slowly) to break up the knot.

Little Monty is pretty used to this routine so he actually just lies there as Dale sets the scissors aside or switches back and forth from brush to hand to scissors. It's really too cute.


Finally, Monty is all neat and pretty! Brushed out and fluffed up and free of knots of hair on his tummy. And he hangs out with his big brother, Sidney (who doesn't need much but enjoys getting his hair brushed; he also enjoys playing with the stuffed babies but not as much as Bela).

Two of our favorite places...

We don't like to admit but we are creatures of habit...
and we habitually visit these places!

This is the cafe at Borders, just around the block from our apartment. We usually stop in here on the weekends, have a coffee, and browse some magazines and books before finally buying a Buffy comic book, a photography magazine, and something the Martha Stewart magazines family.

This is the bar at one of our favorite restaurants, Cucino Paradiso. They suffered a fire last year but are now back and better than ever! If you come visit, we'll likely take you here (or if you've already visited you might have already been here).

Pat's 40th Birthday Party--Surprise!

Last night we had a lovely time at our friend Pat's 40th birthday party. It was a surprise party thrown by his wife (and my BFF) Rebecca!

Pat's a great guy--just look at him!--and we were happy to spend the evening celebrating in his honor!

Dale took some photos, of course, and you can check out the gallery for Pat's party by clicking here. But I took this photo of Dale--and since he's both camera shy and reluctant to smile I think this one is extra special! He's smiling and at the camera!

Heather Visits...

I'm sooo behind on blogging! Last month Heather came to visit and we had a weekend of visiting, snacking, and Tri-Ominoes! It was very exciting, clearly. It was great to see her and to have a nice long stretch of time to visit with Lara, Rebecca & Heather. There we are in Lara's cooking show-quality kitchen. Thanks Tony for taking the picture!

Graduated! Kind of.

In the last eight weeks I've been taking the manuscript editing course at The University of Chicago Graham School and I completed it this week. This is a picture of my text book--the Chicago Manual of Style. It was a heavy course load but it was enjoyable and will be a nice little boost to my resume!

Oscars

I never posted about the Oscars. Dale and I watched it with our friend and neighbor, Tara V. We ate chips, dips, and shrimps and I won the Oscar ballot--I got 11. It was a quiet scene, not the parties of yore we used to enjoy at my girl Paula's parties!

It was still fun to watch the pretty dresses, the bizarre plastic surgery, and the spectacle. Seriously, how weird did John Travolta look? What is he up to with those hair plugs and that wacked-out face/mask he was sporting?