"this is the first time we've ever seen matt with a girl"

~gary, the husband of one of matt's teacher friends

believe me, that sentence was met with lots of laughter. lots and lots. this was on saturday night when I met a bunch of 8th grade teachers from his middle school. it was fun but certainly a tinge awkward, as they all digressed into talking about their students and there wasn't anything I could say. but by the end of the night all was well, and I even said yes when one of the other teachers asked if I could maybe come talk to her class about science. we shall see...

so, friday was fun--well, except for the part where the hostess at waraji was a total beeotch and said--and I quote "since you're not using all of these seats we're going to take this table so people can sit at it." they totally stole the table. no apology, no reluctance, nada. I'm glad Beth thought to grab her drink. but other than that, good times. :) Kevin sang Happy Birthday to me (he has an awesome and strong voice) and I drank lots and lots of beer and we went bowling. here are some pictures from that night--and I feel kinda bad 'cause matt isn't in the group picture--but I didn't realize he was getting beer! so he gets two close ups.

oh, and, I got ALL SORTS of hilarious or yummy or wonderful birthday things. I may take pictures of some of them, or maybe just of some of the funny cards--music, a fuzzy koozie, blue bell icecream, sushi, coffee from costa rica, liquor, pink elephants (yes, really)--my friends rule. gifts were not necessary, and y'all are far too kind!

saturday AM was the youth sunday practice and I was a leeeetle not together for that one. I did make a point of wearing a kaydee shirt though--I feel like maybe I can break a stereotype or two for our highschoolers. we shall see. anyhoodle, after that was The Shower!

the strata was a huge hit, and there were pies and yummy cheese and fresh fruit (oh strawberries-mmm!) and exquisite company. and the mom-to-be, patty, was fabulous, per usual. it was a little awkward when she asked who was having kids next and I felt like people expected me to answer first, since, you know, I was the only non-married there! I really felt like we all learned a lot!

after an unsuccessful attempt at a nap Matt and I went to his place to make cheesy meatballs and little smokies in bbq sauce for his teacher shindig. and then we went.

and sunday, that was youth sunday itself. I was at church at 8am. That's before I usually get to work, people. fortunately I got a nice long nap that afternoon--and since my sinuses have been going bonkers, it was a very good thing, a very good thing indeed.

other updates since then:
lost in translation--the teacher who wants me to come talk to her class was talking to matt yesterday, and he said that would be great except don't ask me why I'm a Chemical Engineer, since the sum up is that I made straight A's 'cause my mom told me I could go anywhere I wanted for college if I did, and that I picked Chemical Engineering because it's the hardest thing you can do. This? not entirely true. The straight A's part is accurate, but I loved science ever since Mrs. Vincent taught me, and I wanted to be a scientist since 4th grade. (And yes, I've thanked her. repeatedly!) In high school I was told I was the best Chemistry student my teacher had ever had, and my physics teacher asked me if I'd heard of Chemical Engineering, and since I hadn't, I checked it out. It was still science-ee but had many more job opportunities and paid better, so I tried it. later I found out it's the hardest degree to get. this story is a little better, methinks.

pies-matt has already eaten 3/4 of the apple pie, and has somewhat changed his mind about not liking pumpkin pies. he'll still pick apple over pumpkin, but he "kinda likes" the pumpkin pie.

waraji-I called and told the manager of our poor service. she apologized, said she'd talk to the hosting staff, made a note of my name and told me to say hello to her the next time I came in.

monday-I was at work until 740 pm!!! thank goodness for beer, brixx pizza and heroes. matt and I earned our shirts yesterday. this means we're halfway to getting to have a party!

teachers-apparently the non-ongoing-joke is that when I snap matt comes-a-running. they make these jokes about another guy's wife. I guess I've been let into the club. :)

just incase there was any doubt...

today is totally a Monday.

I started a cute post about the weekend. It will have to wait.

instead, I bring you ranting. ready? go!

~this morning I overfilled my leak proof mug, thereby negating it's leak-proof-ness. I found this out the hard way, and Mattie (my car) got a nice roof wash with coffee.

~I cut my toenails too short.

~I keep waiting too long to add more liquid to the vacuum filtering, which means some of the orange stuff gets through and I have to start over again.

~three hours into my reactor heating the variac decides to stop working. for no apparent reason.

~and, my personal fave. today I was using helium instead of nitrogen for one of the projects I'm working on. I asked one of our technicians if I could use the line on the gas manifold, and he said yes. I did. This afternoon he came up to me and told me that I'd bled our entire six pack of cylinders pretty much dry. Long story short: it is not possible to hook up the line to the gas manifold as is and not bleed the cylinders dry in a matter of hours--you have to use a needle valve or your flow rate will be way, way too high even if your pressure is suuuuuuper low. yet, the set-up in the lab makes it appear that using a quick connect is going to be peachy with a side of keen. egads, I tell you!

and I know I'm not the only person who is particularly un-fond of this monday. yick.

I'm sure this seems like jibberish, but I assure you it is both frustrating and annoying. And I want to go home, have beer and watch heroes. And I shall.

[baking] the [pie] fantastic

I baked until the wee hours of the morning--I made three pies last night. Two pumpkin, one apple. The apple I made combining two recipes--one from Martha Stewart and one from Everyday Food--but I used my great grandmother's crust recipe. And I used gala, granny smith and golden delicious apples. (I just noticed that they're all G's!) And of course the pumpkin pie is my great grandmother mae's recipe too.

When I talked to my Granny last night she was amazed to learn that I prefer using two forks to using a pastry blender when making my crust. I told her I was a little nervous since a)I'd never made an apple pie before and b)I was improvising the filling recipe and she told me "Carrie, it's in your blood. You're gonna be just fine."

I haven't tasted it yet, but it looks like it's gonna be yummy. It isn't beautiful, but it's not too shabby for a first attempt, I think.

also, I managed to burn myself, per usual. but on my dinner. I cooked it in the to-go foil thingie which is waaaaaay flimsy, and the sauce jumped up and got me. I also had to use my bbq tongs to remove the few pieces of pasta from the bottom of the oven--while it was at 475. yikes. thankfully, that was my one and only burn. and it looks much better this morning than in did last night--here's how it is now.

if you'd like to send kisses to my boo-boo please let me know so I can arrange to catch 'em.

and I also made an egg strata--or really made the parts of it. there will be a drunken assembling post-bowling tonight, methinks. it's supposed to sit overnight, so I've got to wait until tonight to do it.

oh, and corners of my home. that frame is what matt gave me for our six months--you can't tell, but some of the pictures are further in/out than others. I like it, and it's in my bedroom.

and then here's my table, all done now. the fruit thing is michelle's, and I changed the photo (corrie it's your fave!) and got new candles too. all done, all done. :)

this morning gobi and hazel were waaay sleepy. I guess 'cause it's raining. seeing them made me want to call in sick and crawl back into bed. they're so cute and furry and cuddly. :)

today will be a busy day, but per usual, I am so so so SO glad it's friday.

like a butterfly wing in a summer rainfall

~iron and wine

so, my birthday? totally a success! I got birthday cards, birthday phone calls, birthday emails and birthday presents, and even got to take a birthday nap! and matt got me this beeee-you-tiful necklace--this picture totally doesn't do it justice! he also kept saying things like "there's only an hour and a half of your birthday!" in a sad-ish voice or when I told him I kept getting confused and thinking wishing it were Wednesday he said he was really glad it wasn't --because then it wouldn't be my birthday. too cute, too cute. (and if you just vomited in your mouth a little (ahem, sterling) well I hope you have a breath mint or something, 'cause I'm not going to withhold the cuteness just 'cause you get sick easily. ;) )

we had dinner at macaroni grill, which was nice and quiet and yummy. and? on tuesday nights their house wines are even cheaper than usual. I had no idea they 1)served them in a juice glass, which was probably 1 1/2 glasses of wine per pour and 2)left the bottle on the table so you could help yourself, and just used the honor system in counting the number of bottles of it. crazy!

they even brought me a piece of birthday cake and I got to blow out a candle and make a wish. and no one sang, which is preferable if you're in a very empty, very quiet restaurant.

and? the celebrating isn't done yet (yippee!)--friday is sushi and bowling, and on of my very best-ests, mary alise, insists that we celebrate again when she comes into town in three and a half weeks! I am extra super duper wonderfully pleased about this, yes I am.

so, right now it's raining off and on in the triangle. normally I'm not a fan of having to drive in the rain--it's so hard to see! but this morning, no problemo, 'cause we neeeeed it. like, extra bad. so it's good to be getting it. and kat? you can totally send your rain over here, okay? thanks.

tonight is scout meeting #2. they're going to get to pick out their troop crest, so that's fun. ellen and brooke, do you remember that ours was the waterfall? I totally thought about bringing my old sash, vest and vest to scouts to show the girls, but then I thought that might look like I was bragging. Oh well. Maybe next meeting. Also? I realized that somehow my Gold Award pin never made it onto my vest--I might have to get one when I get my-GASP!-leader uniform.

this just made me even nerdier, huh?

well, I'm okay with that. :)

so, tomorrow I think I'm going to have a bake-a-thon. I am co-hosting a shower for my dear friend Patty (who sent me a fabulous ecard yesterday that made me say awww out loud) this saturday and I'm bringing most of the food--breakfast casserole and pumpkin pie and maybe zucchini bread, too. And then to thank him I want to make Matt an apple pie because it's his very fave. It'd be great to get to have it when we get home from bowling on Friday. So I may go a leeeetle overboard and go all Betty Crocker. But don't worry, I'll break for Grey's.

and again, friends o' mine, thank you, thank you, thank you. kisses for all! muah!

i'm glad it's [my] birthday

~the beatles.

so see these two kids? yeah, they just added a dimension. aka went from being in the transitional phase of 26, the only number that falls between a square (25=5x5) and a cube (27=3x3x3), to actually being 27.

and, um one of 'em is a lot nerdier than the other, can you guess who?

It's only 1230 and so many faboo people have already said happy birthday to me. And I even convinced my mother NOT to call me at 5:11AM eastern time (because, you know, 4:11 am was the time of my birth).

also, you know it's a good day when--before eating breakfast--you've already had gouda cheese and a hershey's kiss. mmmmhmm. I made myself these scrumptious and bad-for-you cinnamon rolls and splurged on a naked drink to go with my breakfast. and tonight matt-the-fabulous will be taking me out to dinner. I'm excited! and this day is turning out quite spectacularly! :D

thank you, faboo friends. even those of you who send me silly e-cards like this one. hey, there's nothing wrong with celebrating a lot. I'm excited about the entire MONTH of october because it's *my* month. but it was too funny. so thanks (potentially in advance) for all of the terrific cards/calls/emails/texts/e-cards/presents/roller-coaster-rides and for coming for bowling and sushi on friday.

muah!

so, I can't think of another title, okay?

deal. :)

so, I've discovered that my tummy isn't doing so awesome, still. if I forget to take the probiotics the symptoms just return. and since I have to store 'em in the fridge, well, it's easier to forget.

luckily, I put a post-it on my bathroom mirror, and that has helped.

however, after speaking to my doctor today she believes I may have either small bowl bacterial overgrowth syndrome or irritable bowel syndrome. which were totally not possibilities before. we're going to do more tests, but fortunately these are much much less miserable.

but really I'm just happy that my tummy is maintaining okay when I DO remember to take the probiotic. I mean, that's a start, right?

oh, and I am supposed to eliminate stress. hmm.

next, onto more fun: I really really really want one of these puppies. It's called a gorillapod and my friend ellen was telling me how cool they are--and they ARE. I've been thinking about getting a tripod for a while now, so this will be a wonderful one, I think. I wasn't wanting one of the big ones, and this seems like just the thing for me. I'm a tinge disappointed that my camera is too big for me to use the smaller one that comes in color, but it isn't a big deal. apparently they're super handy and they've been getting all sorts of awesome reviews. and amazon has 'em cheaper. and they seem to be an environmentally-minded company (offering them for cheaper if you opt to not get the packaging!)

and one more super-neato thing. one of my co-workers told me about this airline, skybus. they are based out of columbus, ohio, but apparently they're either building their next hub in greensboro, nc or richmond nc, which are one and two hours away from me, respectively. which means I could maybe get cheap cheap cheap flights to kansas city from greensboro, and kansas city is soooo driving distance from t-town! if you book early enough you can get a flight for $10 plus tax, no joke! they mostly just go to/from columbus right now, but once they expand, yippee!

also, it is exciting for me, personally, even if the route doesn't open up, because if I fly to columbus I can easily drive to indiana, michigan, kentucky and west virginia. and take pictures. and knock out five states in one trip without an insane amount of driving. perhaps matt and I will go this spring/summer? anyone wanna meet us there? I'm pretty stoked about this--mmmhmm!

oh baby I wanna get with ya and take your picture.

~sir mix-a-lot

um, so. tomorrow is my birthday. and for the record--if all birthday celebration stopped right now, this would still be my best birthday yet, hands down.

friday night we had dinner at brixx and went to see The Shins! it's a bummer that we missed the opening band, Vetiver, because it took 25 minutes plus for the guy to close out our bills, and that was a bummer. but we got there in time to buy drinks and shirts and we saw every single second of the shins, so it's okay. oh, and they played pink floyd in their encore--too cool! here are our pictures of the show, ourselves and post-show.

do notice matt's antics with looking at the camera! he sure thinks he's funny.

after that we went to the flying saucer, where I was hellbent on finding the oklahoma plates. and find them I did. see?

and christina told me this sign described me perfectly. nice.

and here I am with two VERY appropriate drinks--a pete's wicked strawberry blonde and a red-headed slut 'cause sterling said I had to have a shot. too funny. also, matt is pretty darn cute in this picture.

we got home around 1 and went to sleep, and on saturday got up earrrrly to go to kings dominion. it was sad to see how falls lake is a prarie, not a lake. :( sterling, christina and I all slept while kind matt drove us, and though I took a highly amusing picture of s&c sleeping in the back I will not post it since I'd like to stay friends with them. but trust me, tres cute.

kings dominion was so so so much fun--of the wait-a-long-time, frightening, repeated-neck-injury, boob-jostling persuasion, but a lot of fun nonetheless. we made the mistake of riding a pirate ship thingie that hangs you upside down while we waited for matt and jess to arrive, and were thankful for their mad tour-guide-ing skills ex post facto. all in all, we rode the pirate ship, did a cool scooby doo haunted house (and I have a cool picture of the four of us on it but I'll have to show it to y'all later) and went on at least six roller coasters!

and this sign led to a lengthy discussion and hilarity ensued!

christina and I were man enough to ride the rebel yell backwards, which was fun but quite painful. it made our boobs hurt. and necks. and shoulders. and backs. and the places where we were strapped in. but it was hella fun! here are our series of emotions during the ride. happy/excited, alarmed, and frightened!!!

and earlier when matt and I went on the anaconda we staged a silly picture for the camera moment. we re-created it later. and yes, we did do this on a roller coaster. like, while it was moving. and while we were about to go underwater.

and here's what we sang so that christina could get "surrey with the fringe on top" out of her head. notice we're in line here, people.



we all agreed that the last ride, the grizzly, was the best. it's a wooden coaster and matt and I rode in the very very back. it was dark out, so we couldn't see where we were going, and we laughed hysterically the whole time.

then, sushi with mary alise and michael. and I introduced christina to sushi, and she actually liked it! the only pity was that the place didn't have any cream cheese, so no philly roll. p.o.u.t. and of course, there was more picture taking. and I was nice to michael, mostly 'cause his bday was last wednesday and I can't hate on a fellow octoberian during their birthday month!

we got home around 130 (after my heavy breathing/snoring in the car while christina and sterling sang karaoke to the tunes on my ipod) and then played apples to apples until approximately 3am. this might've been a poor choice, but it was an enjoyable one!

sunday was church (and yes, I got my kiss, and no, I haven't eaten it yet, and yes it was everything I hoped for and more) and then I met up with s&c and ellen and her boyfriend at mellow mushroom. we walked around a little, and our paparazzi friend, aka stergate, took pictures of us. I feel like we look like a clothing ad.

oh, and we also almost rescued a little german girl, the daughter of a priest?, from certain death in the form of two feet of water with a concrete bottom. and by rescued I mean the five of us slowly surrounded her, found her owner and then left when he wasn't concerned. tres awkward. but we all agreed we couldn't just leave her like that--she kept leaning over to touch the water and was about to fall in!

then there was the trip to schoolkids (where I got all sorts of music I'm sure I'll be quoting at you soon), the making of picture cds after matt joined us once his soccer games were done, and the sad, sad goodbyes. :(

also, did I mention my friends are amazing? 'cause, uh, they are. just wanted to make sure you knew that.

and that, my dears, sums up the events of the weekend. I have more to tell you, but that shall be in another post!