Hot Sheets

Some recent comments on a recent post have led me to believe that perhaps it's time for me to crack open the window and give you a peek into our marriage for just a sec.

Early in our marriage I learned very quickly that Ryan is very particular about many things. "Atmosphere" at restaurants, hotels, our home...and especially the bedroom is one of those things. There are certain conditions that must be in place for Ryan to sleep soundly and happily...and one of those conditions is crisp cold sheets. I discovered this in two ways:

1. During med school when Ryan was staying up late to study for the board exams I would head to bed early to get some reading in before Ryan came to bed. The lamp was on his side of the bed, so of course, I just layed there are read for an hour or so. Ryan got into bed and was immediately aware of the fact that his side of the bed was warm (which it was) as if someone had been laying on it (which I had). Ryan went back out to study for another hour and nicely asked me to not warm up his side of the bed anymore.


2. On another occasion, I was startled awake in the middle of the night by the sound of Ryan ramming and thrashing around, tugging at the sheets, throwing blankets on the floor, opening windows, closing vents, etc. You see, the sheets were too warm and Ryan was so uncomfortable that we literally got out of bed and changed the sheets so he could get back to sleep.

Marriage is hilarious. Ryan is hilarious. I love him.

Why the picture of the leaf blower, you ask? Well, because Ryan is really particular, which makes him really good at tasks like that!

Winter is just around the corner....

... so it might be a good idea to print out these tips and tape them to the dash in your car.

"When being pulled out of a ditch, do not drive immediately back into the ditch."

HT: BoingBoing

On wasting a perfectly good box of brownie mix...

A certain skinny, healthy friend of mine recently told me about delicious and nutritious black bean brownies. She said they are "So good, so fudgey and high in protein so they're good for you!"

Of course, I was intrigued so I decided to give it a try - I had simple instructions: instead of adding eggs and water to the brownie mix, simply dump in a can of black beans, stir and bake as usual.

21 minutes later I was totally grossed out! They were very beany...and you're not going to believe this, but I was really truly surprised! Maybe I should have pureed the beans first.

Seriously, not good people...not good.

If you google "black bean brownies" there are tons of people out there (Kelli) who apparently really love these crazy treats.

Give it a try and see for yourself. Personally, I think they're nasty nast!

Night Shift = angry arm shaking fist in air

Since October 1 Ryan has been working the night shift. He has been going to work at 7pm and getting home a little after 7am each day. I don't want to be a complaining resident's wife, but seriously, it has been the hardest two-weeks of schedule I can remeber in the last 4 years!

Here's what a typical day looked like for the last 2 weeks. I would wake up in the morning, get in the shower and hope that Ryan will get home early enough for me to see him before I go to work. He would get home, go to bed and sleep until I get home from work around 5:30 or 6pm to wake him up for dinner. His stomach was confused like he should be eating breakfast instead of lasagna, but its dinner time! We would eat, then he showers and goes back to work by 7pm.

We never made our bed for or two weeks because one of us was always in it!!

Praise the Lord Night Shift is over and Swing Shift begins - which means that for the next two weeks we can actually sleep in the same bed at the same time! He will go to work around 10am and work until 8pm...except tonight it's 9:30pm and he still isn't home because he had some late admissions he had to take care of.

I am so proud of Ry, he is working his tail off in residency right now and is doing an incredible job. For the sake of his sanity and mine...I can't wait for this rotation to be over!

Oh, Jerry...

I came home from work to discover the light on our home answering machine blinking...

"Hi! This is Kara from the Jerry Springer Show! Someone called us from this number and we were just calling back to see if you, your friends or family had any interesting stories or feuds you'd like to put on the show. Give me a call back with the story and you could be on the Jerry Springer show!"

1. Not too sure that someone in our home (myself and Ryan being the only options) called Jerry Springer with a story idea for the show.
2. Really? Kara, how much do you get paid to call random people asking for crazy family feud stories?
3. Did anyone else get called by the Jerry Springer Show lately?
   

ICYMI - 7 Yr. Old Break Dancer On Ellen @ Yahoo! Video

Chicago Marathon

The whole fam went to Chicago this weekend for three reasons:

1. It was our chance to finally meet this wonderful woman, Tracy who seems to be making my brother really happy.
   
2. To cheer Tracy on as she ran her 2nd Marathon.
   
3. And last but not least, just to be together, spending time with family, laughing, telling stores, building memories.

Congrats on a race well run Tracy! You are awesome!

Hand Selector

I am not at the Catalyst Conference right now, but since my friend Tim Stevens and my uncle Joel Hunter are both speaking this year I thought I'd check out the Catalyst website.

When I got to the site I found something that made me extremely happy! There is a "hand selector" tool where you can choose what type of hands you want featured on the menu. Girl hands, harry man hands, feet hands and even cat hands. I love it. So hilarious!

Have you ever seen any other website with this feature?

Match-o-Matic II

I am a big advocate of voting. Perhaps you are having trouble deciding who you want to be President. Well, ABC News has offered to help.
The ABC News site has a fun little quiz called the Match-o-Matic II that will help you decide by pairing quotes from both candidates side-by-side and challenging you to pick the quote that you most agree with. At the end of the quiz, the candidate that you least agree with get's launched off the teeter totter. I was surprised how many quotes were not obvious on who said them. Try it for yourself!

I know who I'm voting for...do you know who you're voting for?

5-year Reunion

The big event, Saturday night at New Holland Brewery. Almost 100 class of 2003 graduates came to the reunion event! 97 of our classmates and their spouses were registered to attend and a hand full more just showed up! It was a great turn out and everyone seemed to have fun reconnecting with old friends, eating pizza and watching the slide show that was put together for our Senior Banquet 5 years ago. I love hearing about all the amazing jobs and lives that people have today. From news anchors to brainiacs writing mathematical software for the government, to moms with 3 kids! I was so busy talking to everyone that this was the only picture I took!I got to see a bunch of the girls that lived on my floor in Gilmore and connected live with some of my blogging friends as well. Tiece, Mindy and Jen all have great blogs that I read on a weekly basis...and they read mine too! We have all grown closer over the last couple of years in the blogosphere than we ever were in college and decided that we should actually hang out in person sometime soon!

All in all the reunion was a blast. Thanks for coming everyone! If you want to stay connected to some of your friends from Hope check out the 2003 Alumni Facebook group!

College Students

College students are so great! Ryan and I had some of the best years of our life so far while we were at Hope. When we're back on campus we think about how we felt 9 years ago walking to class, going to chapel, eating at Phelps, living with all of our friends. We saw Chris for about an hour on Saturday afternoon. He met us at Subs n' More for some lunch. He is a college student, he is great and Ryan and I couldn't be prouder of him!I also got to see my friends Kara and Courtney. They were campers the years that I was a counselor at Camp Adventure, and now they are students at Hope. It was so fun to see their rooms, meet some of their friends and I even got to help Kara a little bit with her hair before the homecoming dance. So fun to see you girls! You are great and I am so proud of both of you!

Alumni Soccer Game

Saturday morning we went to Hope for all of the homecoming festivities and to watch a bunch of our friends play in the Alumni Soccer Game. It was the perfect fall day, gorgeous weather, sunny but cool and the leaves have just started changing in Holland. I couldn't believe how many players were back from the years we were at Hope!

It was so fun to see everyone. I even got to see my friend Ed! He's still really good at soccer and even scored a goal.

Luke's dad Harry enjoyed giving Ryan some skiing techniques during the game. Harry took Ryan, Luke and Bryant skiing a few years ago and loves to recant the stories to Ryan and all of his friends.

Brooke and Tiegan were at the game to watch Tim. Tiegan will probably grow up to be a soccer star or something.

Babies

Tiny Ayden was just born just 6 weeks ago - and this was our first time meeting the little buddy. Greg and Jen are good parents! It's so fun to see our friends with families of their own.
Luke and Lindsay are going to be parents in a few weeks, which is so exciting! Lindsay got to laughing really hard a couple of times, but we knew that Ryan could handle it if she went into labor because of the chuckles.

Burgers and Brats

We love to see Luke and Lindsay, Joel and Sarah, Greg and Jen and their tiny baby Ayden. A bunch of our great friends were in town for our 5-year college reunion this weekend...so we figured we'd take advantage of the situation and have everyone over for a grill-out Friday night. One of my favorite things about seeing Ryan with all of his buddies is how much they laugh when they're together. One of them will start telling a story, then a couple others will add to the story, then they all start laughing and can't finish the story. All of the wives also laugh... more at the guys than at the story.

Sarah made two INCREDIBLE pies (of course) but there was a bit of a mishap with the ice cream - it was too frozen to scoop. Luckily Joel and Ryan thought to remove the box first. Good thinking guys!