October 1, 2012

  • Odds and Ends

    It’s been a hot second since I’ve done an Odds and Ends post. Time has been slip, sliding away. Here we are on the first day of October. September really flew. This is how I’m feeling this morning:

     

     Home ownership has been pretty good. We’ve run into a couple just general “old house” issues, which is to be expected with a 100+ year old house. My favorite has been the light without a light switch. We don’t really know if the house had electricity when it was first built. I’m not wholly convinced that it did seeing how some of house is wired. The light switch for the dining room is in the front hallway. There’s no light switches at all in the dining room. A weekend or so ago, Phil went to go change a burnt out light bulb in the front entryway that had been out since we moved in. He changed it and then tried to find a light switch to turn it off. We tried all of the light switches in the hallway and apparently, there is no light switch to that light. We now see why that light had been left burnt out… sigh.

     

    Saturday was pretty busy for us. Phil and I got up early and drove to Congress Heights, which if you’re familiar with D.C., you may know that area of the city is not the best place. Congress Heights is one of the poorest areas in the city with quite a bit of crime. We participated in the DCBIA Community Improvement Day , which is basically a day where a lot of different architecture firms, construction companies, and anyone else associated with the building industry in the Greater Washington Metro area descend on a pre-determined place to fix it up. It is awesome. There were probably about 200 people who descended on this community center to improve the grounds. The playgrounds were repainted. Paths were paved. Fences were mended. It was really an amazing effort and I’m so happy that we could help out, at least a little bit. 

     

    Saturday night, we drove out to Charlestown, WV to meet up with my family for my uncle’s birthday. We went to the casino up there. Let me just tell you that I’m about the worst gambler ever. I just don’t get it. I hate losing the money. I’d rather be assured that I was going to get to keep my money and just spend it some other way. Lady Luck was unfortunately not on our side!

     

    Sunday was spent around the house. I did a bit of cleaning and organizing. I also did a good bit of gardening. The garden we inherited with the house is still doing great. The tomatoes and green peppers are still doing great. The green beans are monsters!!!

     

    How is life in your corner of the world?

     

    (this post was also posted at http://abookishaffair.blogspot.com/2012/10/odds-and-ends-back-again.html)

September 5, 2012

  • Come November

    Guys, we have just over 60 days until the election and for me, it cannot come soon enough. While Maryland (yes, we moved back to MD and bought a house recently) is not a battleground state, Virginia most definitely is and it makes me sad. I’m so sick of all of the political ads. It doesn’t matter who the commercial is for or against, they all irritate me to no end. I’m still partially undecided on who I will vote for and these commercials are not helping one bit.

    My indecisiveness isn’t really centered on Obama versus Romney. I’m not 100% happy with either candidate (are we ever 100% happy?). I guess I just want someone that I can be really excited about and I’m not finding that with the two major party candidates nor any of the third party. I do think that part of my indecisiveness comes from the ugliness of this campaign. With all the PACs involved, things have gotten pretty ugly. I fancy myself a pretty educated person when it comes to politics and even I have a hard time figuring out who is behind what ads, something that I think is important to know when using the information in the ads to make a decision.

    I know that I’ll eventually come to decision; it’s just hard to focus with all of the background noise.

January 26, 2012

  • In Your Own Time

    I got together with a good friend of mine that recently just came back from volunteering overseas for a couple years with the Peace Corps. We had dinner together and caught up a little bit. We were talking about how different our lives are. I’m relatively settled and she’s not at all. Either of our situations are not bad, just different. She asked me what it was like to be in this stage of life (married and settled) and if it was weird. She’s going back to grad school for another degree so our lives are very different right now.  Continue reading

January 18, 2012

  • Stop SOPA!!!

    This is what my posts (and your posts) could look like if SOPA is implemented (a whole lot of black and nothingness). Don’t know what SOPA is? Check it out here! (Highlight the rest of this entry to see what my blog posts could still look like without SOPA.)

     

    There’s been a lot of buzz about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). SOPA is basically censorship without due process. If someone thinks that you are possibly pirating an image, video, music, etc., your online life could be shutdown without warning. Search engine companies could be forced to censor the searches that you’re able to do Piracy sucks. We’ve seen some of the effects of it here on Xanga. People get really upset when someone’s posts or pictures get stolen and rightfully so but I’d rather take the routes that we have now (i.e. reporting possible piracy or stealing) than having the craziness that is SOPA. Orwellian in the first degree…

    So what can you do? Email or call your representative. Sign a petition. Make your voice heard. I don’t have a senator because I’m in DC but I have contacted my representative and I’ve signed Google’s petition. Make your voice heard!!!

     

     

     

     

January 10, 2012

  • Guess I’ll Wait…

    Another thing that I’ve been doing since not being on Xanga is watching lots and lots of the GOP debates. I can’t say that I’m really excited about any of the candidates…. sigh.

    I watched the debate on Saturday and I think I figured out what bothers me about all of the candidates and the election race in general: They aren’t talking about real issues!!! With everything that is going on in this country, I’m not sure standing one way or another on a social issue is going to have any bearing on building our economy back up or job creation. I would argue that those two issues are two of the most pressing and most difficult issues that face our country right now. I’d love to see just one of these candidates come up with a real, tangible plan for fixing some of the ills that our country faces.

    Iz onna fence. / Nor political or nuffin. / I jus onna fence. With me, it’s political…

    If someone would come up with a good plan (or even an interesting plan. At this point, I’ll take an interesting plan), I’d be all ears. But it’s just all noise. I guess I keep watching the debates just hoping that someone says something to intrigue me or light a fire (or perhaps its because the debates have rivaled SNL in hilarity). Eh, gotta find your something, no?

    Have you watched any of the debates? What do you think?

     

     

January 6, 2012

  • Oh Hai!

    So the other day for whatever reason, I started thinking about Xanga. I’m friends with a lot of Xangans on Facebook so I see everyone’s posts as well as the posts in the Xangaville group. It really made me sort of miss this place. Okay and I started thinking about all of my various political rants here in this space and I miss having that outlet. So maybe I’m back…

    So what have I been up to since the last time I posted? The answer is not too much. Lots of work. Lots of play. Lots of enjoying just living in our Nation’s Capital. It still sort of blows my mind that I live so close to all of this stuff. I love it down here. I definitely can’t do it forever but for right now, it’s good for the Architect and I. It’s funny; I feel like we used to see a lot more of DC when we didn’t live in the city. Now that we live in the city, we stay in our neighborhood or the neighborhoods just to the north and south of us. There’s so many things to do right here that we don’t feel like we need to leave that cocoon.

    Living down here has also made me feel a lot busier than I used to be. It’s like you can’t get away from the pulse of the city. I think feeling overwhelmed is part of the reason that I’ve been scarce on Xanga.

    Anyhow, I’m anxious to catch up with you all! Tell me the best thing that’s happened to you in the past week!

September 11, 2011

  • 10 Years Later

    For most Americans, this is a hard weekend. It’s hard not to remember where you were and what you were doing 10 years ago today. I live in DC proper now and those memories have sort of been thrust in our face by the news warning of things like increased suspicious activity (the bridge by my house that I walk over at least twice a day to get to and from the Metro to get to work was closed for a few hours on Friday due to a suspicious package) and heightened security warnings. It makes everything that happened 10 years ago feel that much more fresh. I’m not scared; I figure that we’re safer now than we have ever been and especially on this day, everyone is on high alert and everything will be just fine.

    It’s amazing how fresh and raw the wounds that our country suffered a decade ago can feel. All week on the news, there’s been clips of that day. I vividly remember that day but now the footage and the pictures are starting to look old.

    10 years ago, I was a Junior in high school. I was sitting in my AP U.S. History class. Little did we know how the course of history would be changing for our country at that very moment. I can remember the look on my teacher’s face. I remember his indecision on whether to keep changing or to go to another classroom to watch history changing (history being made won out). I grew up in a town less than 50 miles away from DC and it has an Army base and therefore I went to school with a lot of kids who had parents in the military and were down at the Pentagon a lot. It hit close to home.

    I think about the way that things have changed in the past 10 years and it’s almost hard to remember how things were…

July 24, 2011

  • A Grand Adventure

    I’m getting ready to go to Ukraine (yes, Ukraine) of all places two weeks from today. I’ve had my tickets for several months now (can’t remember if I talked about this before I became a derelict Xangan). I’m going to go visit one of my dear, dear friends who is currently working over there. I’m getting a little bit anxious to go. I’m going by myself and that’s by far the furthest I’ve traveled by myself. My friend is meeting me right at the airport but I’m having recurring nightmares that somehow I don’t find her and end up chillin’ in the Kyiv airport for two weeks (which would be teh suck). I’m sure it’ll be fine.

    We have a lot of grand plans to see Kyiv and to visit Odessa, a town on the Black Sea. We also plan to visit the smaller town where she’s working. My great-great grandparents came directly to the States from Ukraine so I’m also excited about the familial aspect. Unfortunately the town that my great great grandfather was from no longer exists and the town my great great grandmother was from has been swallowed up by Poland (it’s crazy how much the country borders in that area of the world have changed during the 20th century!).

    It’s going to be a fabulous trip and I can’t wait to share pictures when I get back!

    Where are you going this summer?

July 10, 2011

  • Congress: Stupid is as Stupid Does

    This morning, as usually for most Sunday mornings in the Cheshire/Architect household, we had the Sunday political talk shows on. The topic d’jour was of course the debt talks taking place here in DC-land. The deal is that something needs to be done about the debt ceiling as we’re scheduled to crash into it in early-August.

    Watching the Republicans and Democrats fight back and forth about this whole thing is pretty crazy. Rick Santorum was on one of the shows that I was watching and he said something smart (and bless his heart, he doesn’t say smart things too often!). He said something along the lines of Washington doesn’t do anything until there is a crisis. Sad, but true. Even though we seem to be at the point where something needs to be done but no one seems to be willing to compromise or to come up with something daring. It’s crazy. Cut spending or cut taxes or cut benefits. No one seems to want to do any of it.

    It’s hard not to be frustrated. Compromise should be one thing that politicians should focus on. It’s ridiculous that our elected officials don’t seem concerned with actually working this out.

    What do you think? Do you think the government is going to be able to do something before we run out of money?

June 3, 2011

  • On Getting Older…

    May was a hellacious month. June is definitely starting out a little better. I tried to write a couple Xanga entries in between my last one and this one but it felt like all I really had to say was complaining about something. I miss writing, I really do so I’m back for now…

    The Architect’s grandfather passed away last week after a long hospital stay of over 2 months. We knew it was inevitable but it’s never easy. The Architect’s grandmother now needs to move out of her house because she really can’t be there alone. I think losing your independence when you get older has to be one of the most traumatizing things to go through. It’s not like when you’re a little kid and you haven’t yet tasted the freedom and independence of adulthood. At that point in your life, you’ve tasted it and slowly it’s taken away.

    I’ve had getting older on my mind for awhile. I don’t fear turning 26 like I will this year and I don’t fear hitting the 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 milestones. 70, 80, and 90 are a little more scary. I volunteered in a nursing home throughout high school and saw many people who either didn’t have family alive to visit them anymore or their families had simply dumped them in the nursing home and went on with their lives. I just hate the thought of nursing homes… Luckily I have a long time before worrying about that but I just can’t help myself from thinking what might happen.