www.homesweetsarah.com

Hey y'all, just one final reminder that I'm blogging over here now, so please update your readers and feeds and links (oh my!) accordingly!

[Being as Chris's brilliant cousin Brant was able to transfer all my old posts over to the new digs, there's really no point in keeping this one around much longer, so I'll probably be deleting it in three, two, one...]

Coming to you from Northern California...

Dear Internet,

Not to worry, I have NOT fallen off the face of the earth...I'm still here, alive and well. I've just been a little preoccupied with, oh, I don't know, BUYING A HOUSE. And leaving my job. And relocating almost 600 miles to Northern California.

Chris and I are on the final leg of what I've dubbed The Great Relocation of 2009. Pending any changes, we are due to pick up the keys to our new house (house! As in, a garage! and and a yard!) tomorrow at 10:00 AM. There are a lot of things I want to say about this, but I will leave that for another day and another blog post.

Oh, and speaking of blogs, I have finally bought my own domain name. The official debut won't be until all the design aspects of the site are final, but in case you want to update your Google Readers, blog-rolls, links, etc., the URL is www.homesweetsarah.com

Until then, feel free to check out my flickr stream, as I [surprisingly] have been updating that fairly regularly. Here you can find some "before" pictures of the house. There isn't a whole lot to be done, other than some really deep cleaning and some cosmetic work. And here, you can see what few pictures I have taken during our little adventure up north.

I'm hoping to be back to blogging regularly and from the new digs, but until then, I'm going to go drown myself in a bottle of red wine. Or two.

Yours truly,

Sarah

I belive this makes me the biggest dork in all the Dork Land

Since I can remember, I've had this globe. This one right here:
There's been debate as to where it came from; my mom says she brought it to the relationship and my dad says he did. Either way, when I moved out of their house, I took it with me. [I also took a mismatched set of wine glasses, and over the years, have taken various pieces of art, a lamp, and most recently, a pepper grinder. What? Don't you go shopping at Mom and Dad's?]

Although this globe has always been displayed in my home, and although I have always been curious as to whence it came, it wasn't until last week that I started The Great Globe Dating Research.

A once-over of the globe narrowed down the date of its inception right away: Russia was U.S.S.R. and Israel was Palestine. Additionally, the globe-maker, the George F. Oram Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, had printed on the globe the names and dates of the three most recent people to reach the North and South Poles (North Pole: Amundsen in 1926 and South Pole: Byrd in 1929). Armed with these pieces of vital information, I determined that the globe was made sometime between 1929 and 1948. Too big a gap, if you ask me.

And so, the research commenced. Today I sat down, armed with a legal pad and a laptop, and scanned the globe, willing its history to speak to me. I originally thought Africa would be the answer to it all, what with its French West Africas and its Tanganyika Territories, but I quickly found that many of Africa's Belgium, French, and English colonies were not dismantled until the 1950s or '60s.

Oh a whim, I glanced at Asia and Googled Siam. Ah-ha! For those of you who don't know - because, umm, I didn't - Thailand used to be called Siam. In fact, up until 1939, Thailand was Siam. I was quickly closing the gap.

Because it was my first real clue from the begining, I moved on to the Middle East. It was here that I determined Iran was called Persia up until 1935. Eureka! I had narrowed it down even more. The globe was made sometime between 1929 and 1935.
At this point, Chris popped his head in to see how my Very Important Globe Dating Research was going. I told him that I had narrowed it down to a six-year window. He was impressed, but I told him it wasn't enough and I continued on.

I checked out a couple more African areas, thinking that perhaps Bechuanaland would be my answer. No dice. I went back to the Middle East and gave Trans-Jordan and Baluchistan a check. Their dates did not help at all.

I was about to give up, but decided to check out Asia one last time. Although it was the same color of China, I noticed an area that was separated by a thick red boundary: Manchuria of Manchoukuo. A quick Google and I found that this area of China was its own state from 1932 until 1945. This was the last puzzle piece I needed and determined that this globe, The Globe To End All Globes, was made between 1932 and 1935.

Yes, that's right, I. Am. Awesome. And also, I. Have. No. Life. But if you ever need someone to date your globe, you know who to call.

Why I shouldn't be allowed in public

The following is a story I've been wanting to share for quite some time, but I've been too embarrassed to do so. Until now. What's changed, you ask? Oh, nothing, just that this is a pretty good story, and I think you'll be entertained. Also, it'll probably make you think, Whew! Glad that wasn't me!, and I feel like if I can simultaneously amuse you and make you feel better about yourself, then I've done my job.

A little over a year ago, Chris and I went to the mall to see a movie. (For those wondering, we saw American Gangster.) It had been One Of Those Days, you know, that day when nothing is going your way. People were driving slowly and poorly, it was overcast and drizzly outside, my outfit probably wasn't its cutest, my hair and makeup not cooperating...you get the picture.

As we made our way through the mall...

[May I interject here so that we can discuss movie theatres in malls? I think mall/movie theatre combos should be illegal. I hate going to the mall when I'm there for shopping, so I get especially annoyed when I'm there for a movie and have to battle all the mall-goers. I've found a good way to combat this is to do a little shopping before the movie, but we did not have the foresight do to that on this particular day.]

...We got stuck behind a gaggle of teenage girls who were meandering through the mall/movie theatre combo.

[Let's interject again to discuss teenagers these days, shall we? What's with all their meandering about? I want to smack these kids and tell them, Walk with purpose! And stop shuffling your feet! And pull up those pants! And don't do drugs! And I am a crotchety old lady!]

As we tried to make our way around teenage girl logjam, I exclaimed to Chris, "Gah! What is it, National Retard Day or something?!" And as the words made their way [very clearly] out of my mouth and [very loudly] through the air, they landed - not at the gaggle of meandering teenagers they were inteded for - but at the girl walking next to us. The girl who, as Chris put it later, very clearly had a physical disability. And she heard me (of course she heard me!), whipped around, and screamed, "What?!"

And so I did what any self-respectingcentered person would do: I made a beline for the movie theatre, very George-Costanza-Escaping-A-Fire-style, knocking over women and children and old ladies with walkers. And then I spent the remainder of my time at the mall/movie theatre combo hiding behind Chris and hoping FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, the not-retarted girl was not at the mall/movie theatre combo to see a movie. And, God, if she was seeing a movie, please please, please make sure she was not also there to see American Gangster. Which, for all intents and purposes, was a pretty good movie, albiet a little too long for my liking. But maybe that's just the embarrassment talking.

As I said, I hope this story entertained you and made you feel better about any insert-foot-into-mouth diseases you may be plagued with. Also, I think we can all agree that if those damn meandering teenagers wouldn't have been there, none of this would have happened.

Morning routine, interrupted

Earlier this week, Chris had a morning flight to Sacramento, so I told him I'd take him to the airport on my way to work. Normally I don't get out of bed until right after Chris leaves for work, so getting ready while he was there proved to be quite the...experience.

[Before you think I live a life of leisure, lounging in bed until late morning, you should know that Chris normally is up and out of the house by 6:30 AM. I know, terrible.]

This particular morning, Chris "slept in" and awoke at 6:00 AM. I arose at 6:30 to find Chris completely clean, dressed, with his bags packed and ready to go. The rest of the morning went something like this:

Chris: Good morning! What's going on?! What's happening?!

Me: Blank stare.

And then after my shower...

Chris: What do we do now?! Oh, we're busting out the tool-box! When do we use the power tools?!

Me: Blank stare.

Chris: This is so fun...It's like a vacation!

Me: Umm, excuse me?

The next 20 minutes involved either Chris asking me, "What do we do now?!" or Chris staring out the window to see what was happening in the neighborhood, which, at seven o'clock in the morning, was absolutely nothing.

When it was almost time to leave, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and as I finished up, I though to myself, Well, Chris is probably in the living room, ready to go. However, when I opened the bathroom door, I was met with Chris...standing in the doorway...waiting for me*.

*Chris maintains that he had JUST gotten there and had NOT been staring at me the entire time I was brushing my teeth. Umm, okay, sure...

Go 'Hawks!

In honor of the Seahawks playing their first [pre-season] game on Saturday, I thought I'd finally take this photo off my iPhone and post it here.


Also, I have never actually done anything with any of my iPhone photos, so I thought it was high time I did.

Also also, my flickr is sorely outdated, and even though this picture is from several weeks ago, I figure it's better than nothing.

Moving on...

Chris and I have been spending lots of quality time in the Sacramento and San Diego airports these days and have become quite fond of the Home Turf Sports Bar at SMF.

The last time we were in Sacramento, we popped by the ole' HT and Chris said, "Usual seat?" I said sure, to which Chris replied, "I guess we'll have to sit at the Patriots table. Damn Patriots get a table. Of course there's no love for the Seahawks."

I'm interrupting my story here to mention that, A) Until this moment, I had never even noticed that the Home Turf's tables had sports team logos on them, and B) If I had a nickel for every time Chris has said about there being "no love" for the Seahawks or the Northwest, etc., I'd be a rich lady.

Anyway, as Chris lamented the lack of love for Seattle, I glanced around me and realized I was standing directly above the Seahawks table.

Needless to say, this table has become the new "usual."

Marital mind-reading

The art of marital mind-reading is something I've admired about my parents since I can remember. They finish each others' sentences and always seem to have some sort of inside joke going on. Growing up, I always knew I wanted someone who could read my thoughts, someone who would finish my sentences.

Since [well maybe not since, but close to since] that first night I met Chris, when he offered to buy me a drink and I said yes and then he ordered a Sapphire tonic and then I ordered - wait, do I even need to tell you? - a Sapphire tonic, I thought, Oh, this guy's something. And every conversation we had from that first G&T until ten days later, when I told him I thought we'd get married, involved one of us exclaiming, "Oh my god, me too!"

And so obviously, I knew I'd met my match - that person who I could look at with those eyes who would know what I wanted or needed who would and handle the situation accordingly, rather than be all, "Do you have something in your eye?"

We're almost a year into this marriage business, and Chris and I are still perfecting our mind-reading skills.

For example, there was this one time we were at brunch with Chris's parents and brother and I wanted us to pay, except that Chris's parents will almost never, ever, EVER let us pay, and so I had to look at him very intensely and say, "READ. MY. MIND." And then I tried to telepathically send him the message, "WE SHOULD PAY FOR THIS BREAKFAST. QUICK! GRAB YOUR CREDIT CARD!" Except that Chris's mom can also read my mind (pft, women!) and so it ended up being a sort of battle - which woman could get their husband to read their mind and then which man could whip their credit card out fast enough. For the record, we won.

But then there are nights like tonight, where the girl sitting next to us at dinner - wearing fake eyelashes, by the way...Who wears fake eyelashes on a Tuesday? - said, "They send me spam emails, like, every day! Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday!" And I looked at Chris, all wide-eyed and knowing, and he said, "I know, I was thinking the same thing."

And so, whether our telepathy is "on" or not, I'm so happy to have found my mind-reader, someone who I can STARE AT LIKE A TOTAL CREEPER, but no matter the day - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Saturday - knows me better than anyone.