We had some friends over last night for a little 4th of July shindig; it turned out rather awesome. As with most of our friendly gatherings it was pot-luck style. I made Ground Venison Burgers with a Coffee Spice rub that were amazing. I also used a purple cabbage and some fresh cord we got from our CSA along with some hot peppers (including some cayenne from our garden!), carrots, lime, red wine vineagar and cilantro to make a spicy southwestern slaw. Keith and Laurie brought along an amazing whole grain mustard warm potato salad. Carey & Jared brought some hot dogs and brats. It was fantastic!

For dessert Megan made the most amazing trifle! Using some peaches from the CSA along with strawberries and blueberries she layyered the fruit with poud cake and an out of this world lemon curd. it was unbelievable.

Jared put on an amazing fireworks display in our back yard that was much more enjoyable than going downtown and standing in the rain amidst all the crazies – a great night indeed.

And as an added bonus, the leftovers for both breakfast this morning (trifle) and lunch today (potato salad) were awesome!

yesterday, the frank factor showed that even the internet is no match for it if it's angry enough. we went and got a shiny new battery charger for our lawn mower battery sos we could make it go mow. upon examining the battery, we couldn't find any indication as to the voltage. no worries, i memorized the model number of the mower real quick-like and went inside to use the google. not so helpful, as it turns out. we could find part numbers, diagrams of the various systems and even a manual, but none of these things simply said "12V battery." we looked up the battery number on the battery maker's site, and while they were happy to sell it to us, they didn't seem to think we needed to know the voltage. we'd found some indication that it was likely a 12V battery, but nothing really definitive, and since we could fry the thing if we set the charger to 12 and it was on some off chance a 6V, we weren't too comfortable with it. somewhere in the middle of the process we realized it'd be much faster to just call the man down the street who sold it to us and ask, so we did, but no one was home. finally, after trying every possible search combination known to man, some obscure thing came up to verfiy that it was, in fact, a 12-volt battery. that's right, it took us a little over half an hour to be able to hook our lawn mower battery up to the charger. it's a gift. sadly a non-returnable one. sigh.

and then halfway through the mowing process the blade belt came off and once we got it back on we couldn't get it to tighten enough to turn on. we stared at it for a while, jiggled things, then it got too dark to really see anything, so we gave up and our front yard has a lovely haircut now. i was talking to my dad last night and he had a suggestion, so hopefully that'll work when i get home tonight and i can take care of the silly looking yard and then ben and i can have the satisfied, accomplished feeling that makes the beer taste better and the gas-and-grass  perfume smell more pleasing. we were robbed last night, man. stupid frank factor.

after we had those scrumptious pizzas (brilliant idea i had there, i must say), we went downtown to war memorial auditorium to see ryan adams and the cardinals. the show was great, would've probably been awesomely fantastic had there been more vocals in the mix. alas. still, the band was super tight, i don't think i've heard them or any ryan adams band sound that good. i was kind of interested in how the show would be, because he's been clean for a while, but he also got married within the last few weeks, so he's (hopefully anyway) been happy and healthy and stuff, the combination of which i'm pretty sure is unprecedented. but, he is of course, still weird and goofy and geeky so it was great. at one point when the house lights were on, he noticed a guy standing up in the balcony was wearing the same shirt as neal casal, the guitarist and back-up singer. so he proceeded to improve a ridiculous song about it. hilarity. he also played a surprising mix of songs, all in the trademark faster rawkin' live version he tends to do. if you have heartbreaker, then you know the song "lucy." last night, he played a straight up punk version of it, which was clearly the way that song was meant to be done. glad he figured that out. he played for just about 3 hours, which was awesome, but also not, because it was sunday night and the show started at 8:30. very late going to bed for ben who had to get up at 6 this morning to go to the gym and me who should've gotten up at 7:20 to be at work at 8:30. don't tell anyone, but i didn't shower this morning. tiiiiiired. sleep and relaxation weren't completely on the agenda this weekend, though we did sleep in saturday a bit i suppose. it was a good spring break wrap-up weekend and hopefully a good "last weekend" for ben. they have a huge project at work, so apparently i won't see him until june. sad.

my need to get out manifests itself every so often in an intense desire to at least go somewhere, anywhere, even for a weekend, which is about where i'm at now. it's like cabin fever, but it's location fever on top of it. i just get unsettled, physically, mentally, everything-else-ally. i lose focus easily and often wonder if my skin is actually thick enough to contain all the chaos of my innards. the only way i can think to describe it is the feeling you get if you drink about a gallon of espresso on an empty stomach: jittery, a little nauseated, bug-eyed and like you must run around waving your arms and screaming "AAAAAAAAAARRRGH!" i think the fact that last week i turned in my graduate portfolio and my last french assignment and this week is spring break has given me a breather, time to think about the inevitable "next," and i gotta say, i don't see anything. i think this is largely job-hunt related, as nashville really isn't the best of places to find a job writering much of anything (especially not now), let alone something i'd want to do. it's all complicated by the fact that my current employment situation could end at any point really, if the spot at daycare opens, but how likely is that? and since there's a bit more to it than just a 'typical nanny job' or whatever, i'll feel really bad if i quit. but i don't want to go back to the 50-hour a week schedule i had this summer, if that's even an option. either way, i don't relish the thought of adding any more 10-hour days to the two i'm doing now. and i need to get a real job somewhere so i can finally stop being such a deadbeat wife, and if this were any other job, i'd have no qualms about quitting. of course, the likelihood of finding a job at this point is pretty slim, so who knows. argh. i'm just jumbled and my skin is too tight, so i whine on my blog about my poor hard life with my nice house and my abundance of food and love and general spoiledness, then i want to kill myself for being such an ungrateful jackass. see? it really is hard being me.

at any rate, as winter seems to have finally left for good (huzzah!) and the days get longer, school is winding down and it feels like something should be about to happen, or i should know something or have some idea of how life will look in june. it should be hopeful, brightly colored, new, this Future that should be springing. all these thoughts are bouncing around, nudging and poking, i can see green and flowers and still i'm waiting for the last thaw; i'm still wintery and cold, gray and immobile and i dont like it. i'm ready for spring dammit! or at least a chance to flee nashville for a minute. i know the latter ain't happening any time soon, so i'll keep praying for the first. and i suppose i'll twitch my way through the spring, because there's nothing else to do. then we'll go to new york in may, and that might last me for a little bit, until the summer beach twitch takes over.

on a happier (and certain to be mucho beneficial for my brain and my skin) is that the weather saturday was awesome and i got to play outside and then sit outside and drink a beer and everything (actually, i got to sit outside and drink TASTY beers friday night too. if you haven't been for food, the chef at rumours east is AMAZING; haven't had grub that good in a while. and yes, i went to a wine bar and drank beer, delicious high-alc dark yummy beer). ben, hayley, buckley and i went to edwin warner park and walked the short trail behind the nature center. it was so so so very wonderful, and the dogs enjoyed playing in the creek and meeting other dogs and generally running around and sniffing and peeing on as much as possible. more of than needs to happen. a lot. well, maybe less of the peeing every 3 feet, but you know what i mean.

i also learned that one should not use a neti pot if one intends to leave the home in the two-hour period that follows. or one should at least be smart enough not to bow one's head for prayers at church immediately following neti potting.

anyhoo, i read some stuff in english and vacuumed the house, because a few people are coming over tonight to watch special dead. which i hope is as wrongly hilarious as my friend tricia (who gave it to me) claims. i'm pretty freaking excited. and before that we shall have the lovely margaritas and diablo sauce smothered yums at la terrazza. if you live in nashville, it's the best mexican in town, fo' reals. they have an actual grill in the back, non of that griddle-top crap. it's not the one on nolensville; it's in nashboro village actually, but so worth the trip from wherever you are. YUM. and on that note, i should probably fold that pile of laundry over there what with the peoples coming over and all. plus that's a good excuse to not read ANOTHER boring bloody essay about literacy. UG. that stupid class better get better. or at least the crap we have to read better get better. or at least more diverse! bah. anyway, laundry...

it's snowing and it's rad. even more rad is that it's a holiday, so we slept late and now i'm just sitting here watching it, soon to be doing so with a mocha joe in hand. it's kinda sorta sticking, but it's slightly too warm methinks (couldn't have snowed on one of those days when it barely cracked 20, nooo). but it is sort of dusting things and it's veryvery pretty. falling snow somehow silences everything, slows it down, says 'peace.' i love it. i'm quite blessed to be able to just sit here and enjoy it from my warm house. but now i think i shall go out there for a second and stick my tongue out. then back to the warm view from under my blanket.

ben took this picture of me looking ridicuous catching snowflakes on my tongue:

the whole sickly thing ruined my weekend, the two days preceding it, and parts of this week as well. i was completely useless thursday and friday, which was truly unfornate as those days were scheduled for house-cleaning (it's so gross!), cavity-filling, bang trimming and even some french studying. so i had to push the dentist till this thursday, my long-overdue bang trim was rescheduled for this friday at 7:45. (i'm gonna have a raucous friday night, i can tell). at this point, i really should just wait until next week and get a haircut, but those is expensive and time-consuming. no houses were cleaned, no frenches were translated. saturday i was slightly less useless, but didn't do anything, including go over to keith & larry's to watch the titans debacle and then have game night. i missed game night! wah! ben went and reported that it was fun (stupid football aside) and that the new cranium games have new, um, tasks? challenges? activities? you know what i mean. apparently there's a puppet one, where one person is the puppet, and a person stands behind them and sort of forces them to charade something. the marionet doesn't even know the answer, so everyone's confused. wanna play! if ben ever remembered that this is his blog too and that he could sometimes post here, he might tell you about it. i wouldn't hold my breath it i were you. unless something smells bad in your particular vicinity, then it might be a good idea.

yesterday i determined to be better and we went to church and kept our monthly meal/bonding time with cara & dave (yay!). today i'm pretty ok except for the larger-and-stuffier-than-normal head and the occasional hacking sound. i'm trying to be a hands-off nanny today, we'll see how that works out.

in other news, it's freaking COLD and only getting colder this week. i'd like to move now. there was a really think layer of frost on everything this morning - my contactless eyeballs had me wondering if it wasn't snow. i even had to dig out the ice scraper for the car. horrors. and poor lil hayley dog outside all day. at least she has her nifty jacket and can get in her house.

hilarious side note: the wee one has the hiccups and is laughing whilst walking herself around the baby cage holding on to the sides to come n get me. laughing hiccups are awesome.

hmm. what else can i regale you with? ooh! we got our new bed thursday, in time for some nice sickly late sleeping. i can't really overstate the wonderfulnessosity of a really supportive comfy bed after you've been sleeping on one that was neither of those. also, our new bed is flat. flat! whoda thunk? the middle and the sides, all the same height! as much as i enjoy snuggling with the ben, i gotta say that whole sleeping in a pile at some weird angle was really unpleasant.  my 100-year-old spine didn't like it either.

i suppose i should get back to that french book for a bit. i'm taking the class, and so far it's been pretty easy, for two reasons. one, it starts with the assumption that one knows no french, and as it turns out, i actually know quite a bit (who knew?). two, it's designed for non-french majors to learn to READ french, so it's not as bogged down with those endless pesky articles. it just wants me to be able to read french and understand it, not translate english in to french, which is much more of a problem pour moi.

as for my english learnings, well, classes belmont-wide start on wednesday. when they start for me, i don't yet know, which i must admit is making me a lil nervous. hopefully i'll know something today, as all the professors are back, including dr. c, who will hopefully still be down with the idea and stuff. nothing was nailed down before the break because it took so bloody long for dr. dept chair to just meet with me. ug! anyway, i'm trying to maintian that whole, no worries, God's got it under control thing i am sometimes good at, but dagnabit i'm slightly worried. *breathing breathing breathing* zen face. k. so anyway, i am going to end my rambles and read some frenches before the hour of baby food arrives. i don't want her getting all giant and turning green on me. she's much too cute for that.

*halloween blog, as dictacted to megan by ben.

and now, for a wee bit more detail perhaps. we did in fact get dressed up, ben before he went to work even. he was a psycho lumberjack. i didn't have to work, other than at home all day stressing me lil brain to produce an essay. i stopped that around 5 to begin making myself into what the general consensus seemed to call the angel of death. something tells me the angel of death doesn't have as much trouble as i did getting ready to go out. first the hairspray bottle said no you cannot have hairspray, i shall not squirt it on you. so i had to pour it into an empty spray bottle we had hanging around for cleaning products. that is NOT the way you want to use hairspray, lemme tell you. so after i got my hair issues resolved and moved onto my face, i learned my rad awesome eyelashes were in cahoots with the hairspray. no sticking. none at all. since they were my basic plan for my face looking cool, i had to just wing it. these things made us later getting to carey's for the pre-zombie hunt gathering than ben would have liked. oh well. we still made it for one halloween car bomb, which is an irish car bomb in halloween glasses and shot glasses. then we went downtown and met the rest of our peoples for the scavenger hunt. we apparently finished fourth out of 6, so we did not win any lame prizes. but we did run around downtown for three hours, which allowed for some interesting people watching (especially since nine inch nails was playing). oh and dan, dearest dan, whom we love to make fun of for being single with four cats, actually bought the "crazy cat lady" costume and wore it around, bringing much joy to myself and pretty much anyone else who saw him. ben and i saw it whilst halloween shopping and of course sent him a picture of it because we're evil. it's a pink bathrobe with cat heads and tails all over it, and a cat headband, which had a head in the front, four legs and a tail. and apparently it's a great outfit for picking up middle aged women. anyway, we hung out at the bar where the zombie hunt ended for a bit, then went to keith and laurie's for a fire, which was created from a pallet that may or may not have been stolen from kroger. then we came home and took these silly pictures and then i took a shower and we went to bed. and yes, i did have amazing bed head the next day.