iPhone lust

delayed gratification is difficult for me, but i'm trying to be good and not spend $600 on a new toy. so instead i've been reading blog posts of people who did get one. i'm sure i'll cave eventually, but honestly i think it's kelvin who has iphone lust more than me. i would have never thought he'd be swayed to the glowing apple.

she's here

if kelvin's not ready to have kids at least i have my friends to live vicariously through. my friends k&j welcomed their first little one on thursday morning early.

when i called to give my friend j an update this morning she had a great story to tell about her angel including all three baby bodily functions. made me enjoy my morning sitting at my desk.

birthday surprises

i've very delayed in posting my big birthday surprises, but everyone is usually impressed by kelvin's ability to surprise me so i will not deny you.

my birthday this year was on a tuesday, and i didn't really expect anything since we had tickets to see Wynton Marsalis the next weekend; boy was i surprised.

on thursday before, kelvin wanted chinese so we planned that i would meet him at our usual place around 5.45. i finished up work and went by the house to let the brat out and i noticed evidence that kelvin had been home-- laundry in the dryer, leftovers gone and the dishes in the sink, a spot of carpet cleaned and the cleaner machine not in the exact spot i had put it in the basement. i assumed he spilled something on him at work and came home to get it in the wash during lunchtime.

jumping back in the car, i called my friend j to see if she got the package i sent. i talked to her the whole way to the restaurant, even through some traffic. trying to get off with her, i walked into the restaurant to see kelvin sitting in the booth, with someone across from him. i think i squealed in the phone when i realized it was my friend S who had flown in from Tampa to surprise me for the weekend.

kelvin sent us to NYC for the day Friday. we at at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill and met up with my friends c&j for cupcakes at magnolia bakery. we also walked around and did a little shopping.

saturday k had planned for s and i to go for mani & pedi at a nice spa. we took out a little early to grab a yummy salad at Panera before our appointments. we drank wine and got pampered. we headed back to the house with the plan to pick up kelvin, go see a movie and get some dinner out. boy, was i surprised when i opened the door to find 20-odd friends here in the house. they had all come from NYC, Baltimore, Delaware, Easton and of course Florida to celebrate my big three-oh.

Wynton

what a great night last night. we drove up to the poconos and found a nice restaurant for dinner, and then to the Mountain Laurel performing arts center to see Wynton Marsalis with not only the Lincoln Center jazz, but also joined by Yacub Addy and Odadaa! to perform Congo Square.

we had amazing seats and the performance was unbelievably moving. i wanted to rush the stage when they did the traditional new orleans recessional. i think i miss home.

beautiful thursday

these weeks are going by so quickly; this is what happens to the summer. i wait all year for it and once it comes it's gone again. i finally had a decent day at work today-- a day where i feel like i had fun and accomplished things. those days have been few and far between.

i'm glad to report the bunnies haven't taken to my okra or the squash and red bell pepper. i think i might stop by the store and buy some short fence material just to be safe. i'd hate to take drastic measures on the cute bunnies.

i had an interesting experience yesterday. i went to the bris for a friend's newborn son. i got to meet several of her family members who i have heard stories about but have never met. and of course, the whole event was odd and beautiful at the same time. not the actual act, but the idea of a covenant steeped in so much tradition.

kill the rabbits

i feel like such a grouch. i'm not certain if my southern roots are showing or if the rabbits are really as annoying as i think, but i'm ready to invest in a b.b. gun. the bunnies are cute an all until they eat my flowers. i'm just waiting for them to find my red bell pepper, squash and okra plants on the side of the house. they eat those and it's game on!

such a dork

for those of you keeping up, you might realize the url changed for the blog. that's because i let my shoelessruth domain expire last week without realizing. i've been updating the blog and last night it gave me a crazy error. luckily i figured out the problem and i just filled out the thing to renew it. hopefully no one has been waiting around to buy it from me.

if they do, what domain should i buy?

pennsylvania hills + new bike = sucking wind

i persuaded kelvin to buy bikes this past weekend. i've been wanting one since last spring and I finally got my way-- what was i thinking? these pennsylvania hills are killer.

fuzzy cat

hariett hates me. i've been getting these nasty furry knots out of the fur on her hips. at one point saturday i was holding her and using kelvin's micro-touch on her while kelvin was trying to talk her into not biting my face off. it worked. and then i've combed the smaller ones out. she's knot free now; we'll see how long that lasts.

miracles never cease

three days in a row. i'm not even sure anyone comes to read anymore since i'm pathetic and fall off the wagon so often. my goal is to blog all summer-- we'll see if that's too lofty or not.

i'm actually sitting on the back porch drinking one of kelvin's smirnoff things in the "ice" flavor he doesn't care for. i however, find it extremely refreshing. i have the dog on his run and he has it stretched to its fullest so he can snif the air for the faint smell of rabbit (smart dog doesn't see the one about 10 feet from him in the other direction). and hariett is perched at the back door sniffing out through the screen and trying to catch an odd looking bug that's crawling up on the outside. it's a rough tuesday night at the bentley household.

k actually works longer days in summer so he can be off on Fridays. i'm jealous but on the other hand it's nice for him to have fridays off alone. he can cut the grass or sleep in or play video games or work as he most commonly does on nights and weekends. it'll be interesting to see how he uses this, his first friday of the summer off. me, i'll be in an all day "retreat" for work. oh what i wouldn't give to have my summers back.

cranky monday

i remember now that the problem with having a fun weekend is trying to snap back to reality come monday. luckily i had three appointments with people i really like to work with, and i listened to an educause webinar.

something else happened today that makes me realize i need to find some new local friends who are in no way linked to work or people at work for that matter. i just want a friend who doesn't care that i like cheezy, non-intellectual movies and is willing to watch ridiculous reality show and listen to top 20s stations. basically, i wish i could move my friend S. here. i'm sad i missed her birthday this weekend and that i haven't seen her in almost a year. being an adult sometimes really sucks.

Summer beginning

kelvin and i just had our first summer party last night, and for some reason that seems to feel like summer is really beginning. i love that our parties seem to have a special guest stars attend-- it's always wonderful to have our local friends over, but we also feel so blessed to have friends who will travel from New York, Boston, and Alexandria Virginia. This parties special guest starts were Kelvin's friend Paul Snatchko from his NCSC days and his friend Erika and her husband Rob.

from Russia with love

i can't believe we've been home more than a week from our week in Moscow. i tried out yahoo! photos to post some of our pictures. you can view them by lookng at my album

Lee Gribbens & Ron White

i had a fun saturday. we went to emmaus to eat at Lee Gribbens on Main. we spent the week with Manny, one of the co-owners so we wanted to eat there. the food was some of the best i've eaten in the valley. we shared and order of manny's fries and then kelvin had soup and i had an amazing salad. it was mixed greens with green apple and blue cheese dressing with a little blue cheese on top. for my main course i had the chicken marsala which came with sweet snow peas and triple mashed potatoes. it was amazingly good, and although i was stuffed, manny brought us a chocolate lava cake which we forced down.

we left there and got to Reading, PA just in time for the Ron White show. it was pouring rain, but we found a metered parking spot right by the theatre. i love ron. he appeals to my white trash side, and i laughed so hard my face hurt.

i'm a mutant

i went to the eye doctor today for the first time in a long time. i love the reaction when they start looking in my left eye and find my coloboma. this doctor was so interested he took digital pictures of the inside of my eye and gave me a copy. so i share it with you:


Coloboma is a Greek word, which means mutilation. People with Coloboma are missing a portion of the structure of the eye. The human eye develops between the fourth and fifteenth week of pregnancy. As the eye starts to develop, a gap opens on the underside of each eye bud. This gap provides a way for the developing eye to be nourished. This gap, called the optic fissure, has to close before the eye is fully developed. Coloboma is the incomplete closer of the optic fissure. Gaps can occur in the eyelid, iris, ciliary body, lens, retina, macula, choroid and optic disc. It can cause from mild to sever vision loss. Coloboma occurs in about 1 in 10,000 births.

52 Cupcakes: Dark Dark Chocolate Holiday Mini-Cupcakes with Peppermint Bark Frosting...Yummie!

my friend c sent this to me today... doesn't it sound like a great way to spend a saturday morning?

52 Cupcakes: Dark Dark Chocolate Holiday Mini-Cupcakes with Peppermint Bark Frosting...Yummie!

wonder if i can coat my chocolate kelvin in pepermint bark frosting... i'll not blog about that though.

first flurries

as i was walking back to the library a few minutes ago classes were changing and flurries were scattering all over the quad. it reminded me that i forgot to mention that we got our first flurries yesterday morning. they were big flakes but of course they didn't do anything buy flutter around before melting a foot or so above the ground. it was nice to see real signs of winter though; i thought it would never get cold.

i've come to realize that dealing with the cold is all about the scarf. all those years living in the south we always used scarfs as added color to drape under the collar of a coat, and i didn't fully come to appreciate scarfs until i cut my hair off-- when you're necks cold there is no warming up.

december already?

weeks keep passing me by, and i haven't kept up as i would like. i did get the tree up last weekend after our quick thanksgiving trip to detroit. this weekend i finally made it to the moravian bookshop and bought what i would consider my first official christmas present of the season. we'll be spending the holiday here with the fury kids, and i seem to have a hard time buying presents when i won't actually see the rest of the family on christmas. of course, this year, we'll see my family soon after for c's big day.

just to sit on my couch with the dog

it's been a wild travel month which is precisely why instead of cleaning my skanky house i'm sitting on the couch with braut pressed as close to me as he can get. i packed a suitcase and drug it to Nanny's funeral in Nederland, Texas then to Dallas for Educause and finally to John and Fallon's wedding in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (there are some pics in my flickr acct). i was home four whole nights before i left for Portland, Oregon. all such different experiences, but it's been a great month. i feel recharged and ready to accomplish things.

do you realize christmas is only about two months away? the thought of buying presents makes my anxiety level rise. why is that? i love buying things for people, but it's the decision making process that kills me. i did decide that i'm putting up our tree this year. i think we'll be here for christmas alone so it'll be entertaining to watch harriett climb the tree in search for all things shiny and ribbon.

lazy wednesday

it's been a lazy wednesday. the big storm last night destroyed the mail server at work and also left the campus without power. so it's like a snow day today, but without snow. it is pretty hot though so the kids and i have been chillin' with the a/c on. god knows what our electric bill may look like this month.

i keep telling myself i should work on some things, but just sitting her playing my DS and watching stupid television is good enough for me. speaking of DS, have i mentioned how addicted i am to this game Animal Crossing? it's nice to have a game to play that's fun and at the same time doesn't cause my blood pressure to boil or foul things to spew out of my mouth. i'm in the eighth world on the new mario brothers and it just makes me anxious to play it now; time limits, fire pits, dive bombing buzzards... who needs them?

so i'll continue holding down my end of the couch a bit longer i guess.