Things to Do in the Month of September:
Join the Gym
Start shopping for a new car
Go to the Renegade Craft Fair
Go to Wolff's Flea Market
email 5 friends I haven't talked to in a while
Pick apples
Observe Rosh Hashanah
Celebrate Martin's Birthday
Maybe go to Naperville for This
Send my aunt Rhonda a 50th birthday card
Call Karen
Decorate my cube
Start trying to make my Hawaiian pillow

Labor Day is upon us.
I had no idea that it wouldn't be warm enough to go swimming in our pool this week. Freaky. I guess it's already that time to put away my sandals for a good 6 months. Yuck.
I had a wonderful salad for lunch. Or rather fruit salad. It had grapes (2 kinds) and apples (2 kinds) and dried cranberries and pecans and I tossed it with yummy yogurt. Call me Fruit Gal I guess.
So, if someone doens't update their blog in say, six months, can you kind of write them off as being loyal bloggers? I think so.
Martin and I are trying to come up with an adventure for the weekend. It will probably consist of laying in the hammock and playing pinball in the basement. That's not so bad really.
I need to figure out what trees grow in my area. And make a plan for the backyard. A plan for where the trees should go. That way, in 10 years, when the hoodlum behind us has hoodlum kids of his own he can't throw rocks in our now absent pool because he can't see our backyard! Mwa-haa-haa Maniacal Laughing continues...

I wish I had something more to add. My job is not that bad yet, but then gain I'm not really working yet. They don't seem to want to ease me in. So therefore, I'm not doing a whole heck of a lot but sitting around and looking at articles on our databases. No complaints there and I should enjoy it while it lasts.

Hoodlums from the 'Hood
Well, surprise surprise! We found out that the kid who lives behind us is a true little skunk. We found about 8-10 big rocks in our pool on Saturday evening. He had apparently chucked them over the fence in an attempt to just see if he could.

*(This is from the house behind us that has spent over a year building a two-level patio that is built at a slant and we beleive to be sinking on a daily basis. After they did finish it they furnished it with a tiki umbrella and spent the better part of the sumer painting fleur-de-lis on the concrete. There is a chair that has it's back to our yard that M. has dubbed the "death Chair" because if anyone ever leans back in it they will probably end up through the fence and dead in our yard.)

So, we took some time and drove around the corner and down the block to the neighbor's house and showed his mother the damage to the side of the pool and she even volunteered to come over to the house to get some evidence of her own. So on Sunday afternoon the little punk came over and preceeded to volunteer to jump in the pool and retrieve all the rocks.

So not only do the neighbors behind us have a questionable sense of what backyard decor should be, but they also have a child who rides a dirt bike in the backyard and throws rocks into someone else's pool.
Who said the 'burbs were boring???

A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.
Can someone explain this to me? I am continually not impressed with the Beloit Mindset List that comes out every year. Most of the statements are lame at best and make me think that maybe these new students aren't really all that different than say, students from 10 years ago. I realize that the lists are made to help professors understand new students and to shock old farts into seeing how much has changed since, say 1978. But really? The things on this list don't present me with any surprises and it kind of shows how mediocre things have gotten.
And if you care to look at the list, I have always found Mr. Rogers to be more trusted than Walter Cronkite. And unfortunately, Mr. Rogers is not with us anymore. I am definitely not the class of 2010 so tell me something I didn't already know.

And now that I'm working, I have much better things to worry about than how many kids are running around my lawn. It's nice to be back out in society!

So, this is becoming a daily thing...
I've decided to try and attempt nanowrimo again this year. I really don't know why I am so intent on attempting to write a novel in a month again, but really, why shouldn't I be? i've gotthe ideas, I've got the moves...
I've hung a poster of Shrek in my cubicle at my new place of employ. The poster is very green.
Speaking of new place of employ, it's not too shabby. They are nice and I don't have to share a phone or a trash can. And I have access to Academic Search Premier. All that is missing is my own personal mini fridge and it will be just like college.

My mom is up in Chicago this weekend for some dietitian thing. We're taking her to eat steak on Thursday. Which is funny, because we're going to partake in a large slab of cow this evening as well.
I'm also wanting to go to the Bucktown Arts Fest on Saturday. I think it would be fun and a part of Chicago I have yet to see except from an EL stop.
I'm sneezing a lot today. Think i might be coming down with something gross. Hope not.

Top 20 Things we did in Kauai
1. Watched a tiki torch flame catch an entire tiki torch on fire
2. Saw a cat walk across a tin roof
3. Hiked a muddy muddy trail for 45 minutes to frolic in a waterfall
4. Ate lots of plate lunches and shave ice
5. Ate mediocre tacos
6. Yelled “chicken!” every time we saw a chicken
7. Rented snorkels for the week and used them once
8. Drove up on some sort of missle site and beat a hasty retreat
9. Drank guava nectar
10. Wished the Coco Palms Resort was rebuilt
11. Saw Elvis at the L&L Drive-Inn
12. Walked a lot in the rain
13. Really expected to a see a dinosaur
14. Rediscovered that Tevas are the best shoes in the world
15. Ate the best Hawaiian Bread ever
16. Made friends with a chocolate Labrador
17. Saw the strangest ashtray/penis sculpture
18. Jumped across the Hanapepe Swinging Bridge
19. Talked the Subway guy into giving us free chips
20. Saw Menehune at the Menehune Fish Pond

Well, I was going to have an impromptu get together this weekend thinking that the whole world is as starving for fun and something to do as I am. Alas, I am mistaken. So if the party is a bust. What should I do this weekend besides stare at my unfortunate and pathetic plants on my patio?

Aloha! We have returned from a wonderful in Kauai. Not Honolulu or Oahu or the Big Island of Hawaii, but Kauai. It was beautiful to put it mildly. We spent our trip snorkeling, hiking and kayaking and jumping waves at the beach. It rained some and was sunny the last two days we were there. We also ate plenty of shave ice and plate lunches that were extremely yummy.
We returned to IL to find our house in fine shape, if hot. The pool is still marvelously clear and we got in last night because the a/c had been off in the house and we missed the freakishly hot week we had in Il by going to Hawaii where it was about 20 degrees cooler. Weird.
If you are not sure where Kauai is, it is the western most island in the Hawaiian islands that can be easily visited. I remember a few years back when I first went to Hawaii with Martin and this girl I worked with kept telling me to go to Ni'ihau, or "The Forbidden Island" like I could just hope a plane to the only privately owned island in Hawaii. She made it sound like she had been there a dozen times and that it was no big feat to get there. I have decided that she was exagerrating the truth just a tiny bit after everything we saw and read and heard about Ni'ihau. Apparently you can't get there very easily unless you go for a quick helicopter ride or sign up to go hunt wild boar or sheep there. Huh? Anyway, we settled for a very far far away view of Ni'ihau from the top of Waimea Canyon.
On another note, I wish i could make Hawaiian quilts. They seem much more organic than the geometrical quilts on the mainland. They are also super expensive becasue they are made by hand. Doesn't anyone own a Singer in Hawaii???
Love Live Elvis.