lapp it up

last night we hung out with our oldest 'couple' friends, ryan & jodi. i have been friends with both ryan & jodi since high school, and we have all 4 been getting together since 2000. they are solid! anywho, we decided on a very impromptu date night and after much indecisiveness (which is the norm) we landed on going out to eat at vinola's restaurant in leola. (one reason being, we dropped kennedy off at a sitter's in leola...the other reason being, it was the only place ryan wanted to go). the astmosphere was cozy in vinola's and the menu was appetizing. keith & i ordered the southwest spring rolls (chicken/cheese/blackbeans/peppers/onion/corn) to start. they came out a little extra crispy, but were quite tasty & had a bit of spice....a little kick to the mouth. ryan & jodi enjoyed the stuffed mushroom app, which was stuffed with crabmeat. for the main dish, i ordered the roast beef asiago melt which was basically a small amount of roast beef on a big sub roll topped with way too much melted provolone. the sandwich came with au jus for dipping, horseradish, and french fries. the fries were good, but that's about it. a bit disappointing honestly. keith ordered the chicken & shrimp carbonara. after finding only 3 shrimp in his entree, he was saddened. he claimed that the pasta tasted like the water it was cooked in (let's be clear-i do not understand what this means)...but he's got some crazy tastebuds, so basically he didn't like the way it tasted. he ate most of it though. jodi ordered the fish & chips which came out as a good 12-14" piece of fried tilapia hanging off the sides of the plate, with fries & cole slaw. i think she said it was good. ryan had a spinach salad. i know, weird. but apparently it was very tasty. i guess we should all have ordered spinach salads and delighted in the creaminess of the goat cheese as ryan did. maybe next time.

following dinner, we went to dunkin donuts for dessert. we all enjoyed coffee & donuts while reciting nacho libre quotes. (you'll notice this is a running theme amongst my friends. you've been warned...this is a prerequisite to being my friend. if you don't like nacho, you don't like me.) our donuts were superb! but then again, when isn't a donut superb? when it's a fasnacht. that's when.

after dd, we had to go pick up kennedy from john & heidi's. their daugher mckayla watched kennedy for us and we were very pleased with the job she did! hooray! mckayla's youngest sister, corrin, offered to give me a full body massage, which i quickly agreed to. it was quite wonderful actually. she might have a little business going soon. (heather, beware!)

thanks ryan & jodi for another fun night! can't wait to do it again in september. :) (we hang out with ryan & jodi every month, once a month. whenever we have our get-together, we put our next get-together on the calendar so that our dates are always set in advance. a very good idea).

a crummy time

tonight my MIL came over to watch kennedy while keith & i went to regina & jon's new place for dinner. we enjoyed a hearty brinner (pancakes/eggs/bacon/potatoes)...all delicious! following our meal, we watched nacho libre and practiced our favorite lines from the movie with our best mexican accents whilst laughing hysterically. at the same time we were playing a very rousing game of phase 10 (best card game ever). keith won...grrrrrr. we also enjoyed some german impressions from regina. :) about halfway through the game we delved into my homemade chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. it was just scrumptious...and i was delighted to learn it is also jon crum's favorite cake. sadly, our evening came to end at 9pm when we had to leave so keith's mom could be relieved to go to work. :( on the ride home, keith & i enjoyed a 2nd round of contagious laughter when we recalled regina's german impressions. always a most enjoyable time with the degaecrums...(or crumtanos)!

amazing tattooist

while leafing through a copy of 'international tattoo' i came across that tattoos & art of ulrich krammer. absolutely amazing....check him out: www.myspace.com/facethefacttat2

a night with dee

just got home from hanging out with my friend desiree. we originally planned to go see 'mama mia' at lititz springs park, but since it rained all afternoon and we didn't have chairs to sit on, we decided not to go. instead we met at cafe chocolate in lititz (www.chocolatelititz.com). it took us a while to decide what to order. even though we had both already eaten dinner, the food on the menu was way too appealing to pass up, so we each ordered a savory item to start. because as you know, if one of us was going to order food, the other had to do the same. that's the way girls are. :) so she ordered the flatbread pizza which had a sundried tomato spread and provolone, and i ordered the west african peanut chowder...which wasn't a chowder at all. it was a creamy butternut squash & sweet potato base soup with crushed peanuts. it was a bit spicy and very delicious! we also had special beverages...dee had an iced mocha frappucino and i had a strawberry cooler which was basically strawberry puree topped with pelegrino. yum! of course we were full after eating our food (remember, we had both already eaten dinner), but after perusing the dessert selections, settled on 2 to share. we ordered the heart cake, which was a banana cake with pecans, topped with melted chocolate drizzle and coconut. it was really tasty and we both enjoyed every bite! our 2nd choice was a chocolate velvet pot de creme which was basically a chocolate mousse topped with raspberry puree, whipped cream and berries. also delicious!

after we ate, we were extremely full, and decided to walk over to lititz springs park and check out the movie set up. there were lots of people there and free drinks & popcorn were available. we watched a couple minutes of the movie before deciding to head to penn cinemas and see if there were any movies that struck our fancy. we would have seen 'the time traveler's wife', but it didn't start until 10pm and it was only 9pm at this point. :( so after a few minutes of thinking, we settled on barnes & noble for a little magazine browsing. once in barnes & noble, i was immediately taken with all of the new fiction bestsellers and told desiree all about the books i've read recently and who she should be reading. desiree admitted that she's not much of a reader, but after a few minutes of my very excited book-raving, she decided she'd try to read a book or two soon. (and she better do it!)

we then headed back to the cookbook section, which is desiree's comfort zone. she is an absolutely amazing cook/baker girl. she is very talented! (check out her blog: www.honeydearest.blogspot.com) she was really taken with all of the julia child cookbooks, having just seen 'julie & julia.' i have to say i was impressed...julia child seems to be a bit out of my league...but desiree could definitely cook with the best!

we settled in with a few magazines and ended our evening chatting about the food network chefs we love, like, and not so much. it was another delightful evening with dee! can't wait to do it again. :)

the coolest toddler bed ever

we're not ready for a toddler bed yet, but when we are, this is the one i want to get for kennedy: 

www.epinions.com/review/Step2_Snooze_N_Cruise_Convertible_Bed/content_97110822532

baby names

since most of my friends love researching baby names, i thought i'd share a website that my friend, mandy, shared with me:  http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/

the site offers name suggestions based on other names you like, it tells you what people think of a particular name, the popularity of a name, and then the coolest thing....there's survey results for whether people are teased for a particular name or not.  that has to be the most helpful tool in baby naming i've seen yet!  check it out!

silly late night worries

why do i have to be such a worrier?  ever since sunday, when i attended my friend, jess', baby shower, i've been thinking about a conversation i heard there.  one of jess' friends was telling her how difficult it was to leave her toddler, to go to the hospital to deliver her 2nd baby.  she missed him so much and had never been away from him before.  she worried because she didn't know what he'd be doing while she was away at the hospital.  

well....i had never even thought of this before.  a new thing to worry about.  granted, i'm not even pregnant with my 2nd baby....but i can just imagine the emotions i will go through when it is time to leave kennedy to someone's care while keith & i go to the hospital to deliver baby #2.  yikes!  we have been away from kennedy before, so i know that will be okay.  but the fact remains that if i have a c-section again, Lord knows how many days i'll be in the hospital.  eeek!!!  

jess' friend did say that grandma did special things with her toddler....such as they made a scrapbook of all the things they did together while mommy was in the hospital.  then they gave mom the scrapbook as a gift.  i thought that was so sweet!  i hope one of kennedy's 3 grandmas think of something clever & cute like that.  

i am comforted in knowing that by the time baby #2 arrives, kennedy will be 3 years old (if everything goes according to plan).  she should be a bit more stable by then...and dare i say...even happy to be away from us for a couple of days???  fingers crossed! :)

catch me if you can

i read an article today in the paper about a woman who was walking to her car at 11:30pm when 2 guys came up out of nowhere, grabbed her purse and then slashed her in the face a few times. this happened just about 10 minutes from my house, and virtually around the corner from my friend's house.  (eek!!!)  i cannot believe that things like this happen.  i have such a fear of something like that happening to me...i think about it all the time.  i feel like i would be so full of adrenaline that i would totally kick the person's face in...amongst other things.  but who knows?  i could be so scared i play dead.  i like to think that the self defense lessons i had a few years ago would kick in and i'd instinctively know how to get 'em right in the nads.  

i must say that since i am so aware of danger lurking, and always assume that i am next, that i think it will never happen to me.  i feel like i carry myself in such a confident way that people know not to mess with me.  also, when i feel like i am going to be in a situation that could potentially involve encountering scary people, i pray in advance that God will protect me, put angels all around me, and that people would be afraid to even come near me, because they sense God all around.  so far it has worked.  

i think that this fear of being attacked has stemmed from a violent episode i witnessed on the subway in nyc.  it was a few years ago...i was visiting my cousin in hoboken, nj with my mom. we had taken the train into the city for dinner and on the way back, we were just sitting there, while a group/gang of teenagers, guys & girls, were throwing paper or something at this business man.  after a while, he got fed up...so he stood up, walked up to the kids and started hitting one of them.  well of course, the gang mentality kicked in, and all the kids jumped up and started attacking this guy.  they punched, kicked, stomped, you name it.  the guy ended up on the ground...bloody...and after a few minutes, he was able to get up and get off at the next stop. 

i was never so horrified in all my life.  i was always very sensitive to violence before that, and since that incident, i truly feel i suffer from a little bit of post traumatic stress disorder.  i have a fear of groups of teenagers as a result.  so now i basically can't watch any movie/tv show that has violence.  if i do, i just play it over and over in my mind and drive myself crazy.  it's sad.

but seeing that guy and feeling so helpless...was horrible.  i mean what could we do?  everyone on the train just kind of got up and moved forward, away from the fight.  it seemed like no one watched...but me.  i wanted to DO something.  i basically cried and hyperventilated because i wanted to do something, but cell phones don't work down there, and even if they did, how could you tell a cop where you were?  it was all over in a matter of moments.  i think about those kids still from time to time.  i pray for them, and wonder what has become of them.  i wonder if they often get into fights and hurt people like that.  how do they live with themselves?  do their mothers know they hurt people?

no, i don't know what i would do if i were faced with a violent situation personally...but i pray that i never need to know...and that those angels really are surrounding me.  cuz my confidence only goes so far.

blast from the past

facebook has reunited my friend, hope, and i.  on tuesday, hope met me downtown at binn's park, after not having any contact for the past 7 years or so.  hope was my bff all through high school and we shared a million hysterical memories together...so it really felt awesome to reconnect with her.  

while i was driving to meet hope, i felt very nervous...and in fact, the closer i got to binn's park, and the further down chestnut st. i drove...the more i thought 'how the heck am i going to speak to her without throwing up???'  alas, i did not puke, but was very nervous.  my hands were shaking and everything!  i confessed my anxiety to her, and she told me to stop it, and thankfully i quickly got over myself.  it honestly only took a few minutes for me to feel totally comfortable with her again.  we were able to catch up on each other's lives and even realized we both worked for the same non-profit straight out of college (we were both social work majors). 

it feels downright refreshing to have reestablished my friendship with hope.  now all those hysterical memories can be shared again with the only person who will ever truly appreciate them!  hooray!

outside wondering (the poem)

what motivates,

fear overtakes

the life i lead.

with you i plead.

trees above me

so high above me.

my mind wanders...

pious artist types crowd paintings already painted.

escape me, oh me!

(i wrote this poem 12 years ago...please be kind)