The Hunger Games

I know, I know, I'm late to the party.  Like really late.  But in this case it is way better to be late than not come at all.  Man, have I been missing out on this business.  Knowing we would have such a long car ride to Minnesota, I decided I would load my Kindle with the first Hunger Games book so I would have something to read on the way there.    Unfortunately, we started driving at night and I didn't have a good light for my Kindle, so on the way there I didn't get much reading done and I tried my best to do some while Nolan was napping during the course of the trip.  I eventually finished the first book the day we got back and I started and finished the second book in under 24 hours.  I started and finished the third book in two days.  After reading the second book, I literally had chills and not even a minute later I had the third one loaded and began reading it.  So in under a week, I read all of the books.  I seriously couldn't put them down.  I took my Kindle everywhere with me for the hopes that I could get a few words in.

It is such an interesting storyline and one that always keeps you on the edge of your seat.  I thought the second one was the best of the three, then the first one, then the third one.  But, all were absolutely fantastic.  For those who haven't read them, I'm not going to talk about it too much because I really don't want to ruin anything for you, but the premise is that 2 children, ages 12-18, from each district (one boy and one girl) get chosen every year to compete in the Hunger Games where the tributes fight to the death.  Once chosen, the whole thing becomes a reality show in the way that the tributes are presented to the world with their costumes, interviews, and eventually the games.  The world watches everything that they do, and can hear everything that they say during the games.

When I look at how many reality shows we have these days, it strangely makes me think of our society in the fact that we can't get enough of watching what other people do.  Whether it is completely tragic,  ridiculous, or enviously fortunate, we are becoming too obsessed with other people.  We want to see others fail more than we want them to succeed.  So the fact that the Capitol enjoys putting the Hunger Games on every year sort of reflects who we are right now.  It's kind of crazy to think about.

After completing the books, I became quite obsessed and started watching some YouTube videos to see trailers of the first movie.  I wanted to see how they portrayed everything and the type of characters they picked for each part.  I am really excited to see the first movie, which comes out on Blu Ray on August 18th.  Eeeeek I can't wait!  If you haven't read these, you must!

Here is a great trailer that gives a good indication of what the first book is about.  Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of here.

Minnesota Family Reunion 2012

Two weekends ago, we had our family reunion in Bloomington, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, Minnesota.  We had a very fun time and wish we could have stayed about one extra day to tie up all of the loose ends we wanted to see/eat/visit.

We decided to break up the trip and leave Thursday night for Clear Lake, Iowa, then woke up the next morning to drive the remaining two hours to Minnesota.

When we first got there, we decided to get to our room, which had an awesome view of the Water Park of America, they allowed us a VERY early check in, and we headed to the Mall of America for lunch and to walk around.  We passed by Nickelodeon Universe and took in the sites.  Nolan was getting quite tired, so we headed back to the hotel for a nap for all of us and then we got ready that evening to head to the Duffy Dome.  That is our family member's house that is shaped like a dome.  Pretty cool and they designed it themselves.  We had a lot of fun reuniting with everyone over good food and good drinks.

That next morning, Scott went golfing and Nolan and I went with my Dad to Ikea for the morning.  Scott had a lot of fun taking in the Minnesota views.  Nolan wasn't having Ikea as it was during his normal naptime, so my Dad graciously walked around with him and even took him to the cafeteria to get some french toast and eggs while I got to walk around.  Ikea is a wonderland.  I know it gets a bad rap sometimes, but it is an awesome place to go.  You walk in and there are places to eat, a cafeteria, many levels, and many rooms set up so you could envision the space in your home.  I found some of the neatest things for Nolan.  I didn't grab a cart on the way in cause I didn't know what I was doing, so all I had was this big Ikea bag I was putting things into.  You don't just grab everything and buy them, you have to write down or in my case take a picture of the location of the item you want and pick it up downstairs.  I started to collect everything, and if someone was watching me on a camera, they would have been pointing and laughing at me.  My Dad and Nolan were beyond the checkout line and I couldn't reach them, so I had to do it on my own without a cart.  Two chairs and a side table later, I was a sweaty freakin mess.  I did it though, and found a cart on the way out so I didn't have a heart attack.

When Scott was done golfing, we met him back at the hotel where Nolan went back to take a nap and we headed back to Mall of America for a little while.  Mall of America with a one year old on a Saturday is not for the faint of heart.  It was a complete 180 going from Friday where we got a parking spot right by the door and had plenty of room to roam around to having to go 4 levels in a parking garage and just squeezing by everyone.  We got back and got ready to go to the Glockenspiel.  It is a German restaurant that was really neat and everyone at the reunion was there.  We basically took up the majority of the restaurant.  Great food!

The next morning, we gave ourselves a whole hour to swim.  I know, not long enough.  This is what I wish we would have had more time to do.  Nolan had never swam before and he was having fun so it would have been nice not to have to rush out of there, but we had to check out at 11:00.  After checkout we went to the Minnesota Twins game and stayed for 4 innings and decided to get on the road.  Nolan did so well on the ride back, I couldn't have asked for him to be any better.

We had a really fun weekend and I love Minneapolis.  I would go every year if I could.  We had a few restaurants we wanted to go to, I had a whole level of Ikea I missed, and it would have been nice to swim longer.  But, we will go again someday and make up for it all!  Great reunion and I can't wait for the next one!

Recipe: Creamy White Chicken and Artichoke Lasagna

I have never been a huge fan of marinara type situations so when I saw this recipe for Creamy White Chicken and Artichoke Lasagna, I knew I had to try it.  It is so delicious and has so much cream cheese in there that it makes it so delectable but yet probably heart stopping.  One piece was enough for me as it was very rich.  Nolan also really liked the food which is always a huge plus! Very very yummy and it will definitely be one we do again!

Recipe can be found here at Tasty Tidbits.

Another recipe we tried this week was Chicken, Rice, Bean Burritos found at here at Cooks.com.  I didn't get a picture cause I had to hurry and scarf it down before working that evening and the rice got burnt.  Overall craziness, but the rice that was good we used and made for quite a delicious meal.

My Week With Marilyn

 

We are on an incredibly good streak of good movies.  This by far was my favorite out of the three that I have discussed so far.  What an amazing movie.

The movie is based off of the book, The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me written by Colin Clark, who got to spend some time with Marilyn while they shot the film, "The Prince and the Showgirl" with Laurence Olivier.  Colin Clark is played by Eddie Redmayne and is in every scene. And why wouldn't he be?  He can only write about what he actually saw or heard and they need to keep it accurate to the book.  There aren't going to be secret conversations as those could only be fabricated and speculated to happen.  This is a true story, so they need to keep it as close as possible.

Colin Clark and Marilyn Monroe are the two most likeable characters I have seen in a movie in a very long time.  I have never been so immersed in characters before and wanting to hang on to every single word they said.  Colin's character is a young, innocent man who falls under Marilyn's spell and rightfully so.  She is a gorgeous woman whom every man is after.  What he doesn't realize is that she isn't "Marilyn Monroe" 24/7.  She has an entirely different side to her.  One that is depressed, longing for love, people to call family, and just plain drowning in her life.  He understood her.  Not her character, but her.  He made her feel safe and loved and that is why she wanted him with her at every moment.  When they are out touring the sights, they run into a bunch of fans and she says to Colin, "Shall I be her?"  Shall I be this persona everyone thinks I am?  You can tell she has fun with it when the situation calls for it, but behind closed doors you view a person who doesn't even want to get out of bed.  Someone who can't get out of bed because she is so heavily medicated.  She needs medicine to sleep, to wake up, and to function.  Or not function.  She shows so much confidence to the public while behind closed doors, you couldn't have seen someone more insecure.  About her looks, her acting, and her overall well being.  She even says to Colin, "Excuse my horrible face."  That while she didn't have make-up on, she still looked like the most gorgeous woman in the world.  She took on this role for the movie so that her work as an actress could be brought up a notch and her tardiness and the fact that she was so unsure of herself threatened the livelihood of this dream.  Eventually, the movie gets shot and she then goes on to make some of her most famous movies to date.

There are some scenes where Michelle Williams looked so much like Marilyn it gave me chills.  I didn't know who I was seeing.  She played the role absolutely perfectly and I don't think that they could have picked a better person to do it.  There were many different camera shots that showed Marilyn up close and just froze it there so we were looking just at a picture of her.  The directors wanted us to fall in love with her.  They wanted her to be frozen to us so that we would have to look at her.  Look at her charm, sophistication, and what she was to the world.  They never once froze a shot while she was laying in bed delirious.  They wanted us to see that, but they didn't want us to focus on that.  They wanted us to see a person who could charm and change who they were for the love of the people.  They wanted us to see why she was as amazing and iconic as she was. 

Colin was warned that his heart would be broken and certain enough, it was.  Marilyn was married at the time and when they were done filming, she had to go back to her life and her husband, Arthur Miller.  While Colin was sad she had to go, I don't think that his life would ever be the same and I think that he was thrilled that he was able to spend time with this woman.  Someone he understood and loved.  I think not only should Michelle Williams have deserved her nominations, but Eddie Redmayne should have received some as well for his wonderful acting of Colin.

Scott and I decided to then watch "The Prince and the Showgirl" so that we could actually see the movie that they were filming.  It was fascinating to actually see Marilyn Monroe in that role.  It was interesting to see the scenes that they said took 20 takes to do, where she showed up flawlessly in the film.  She showed up as Marilyn, the natural, confident woman.  The movie was actually pretty funny and entertaining.  Marilyn's character was hilarious.  It was neat to see the other side of it.  I would suggest watching this movie after watching "My Week With Marilyn" as it adds even more depth to just about everything.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Recipe: Kale Chips

I've always wanted to try Kale Chips so a couple of weeks ago I decided to actually go out and find a recipe for them.  Very simple to make, but I put the first batch in at the time it said to and I feel like they had a burnt taste to them.  So, the second batch I put them in for only 12 min.  They tasted pretty good at the start, but they just have the weirdest aftertaste that is not good.  I would like to try some store bought sometime to see what they should taste like.  I ate about 5 of them, Scott had one, and Nolan kinda choked on one.   The rest went in the garbage.  Probably not going to be making these again.

Before going into the oven

After coming out of the oven

Recipe can be found here at Kath Eats.

Recipe: Feta and Veggie Pasta Salad

Here is another delicious and healthy dish that I found for us to try- Feta and Veggie Pasta Salad.  We had some of it for dinner on July 3rd and there was so much left over that we decide to bring the rest to the Graham's house for everyone else.  (And yes, feta again.  Any recipe that has feta, I am in.)   We loved it and everyone there loved it as well.  One person asked to take some home with them, so that was cool.  It was a very yummy, healthy, summery, fresh side or meal for you family!  I don't think I used enough describing words there.

Side note- I substituted kalamata olives with black olives cause I like those better.

Recipe can be found here at Kath Eats.

Recipe: Asparagus and Baby Artichoke Quinoa Salad

Whatever happened to us getting healthy around here?  Did that just go down the tube?    And my answer is yes- everything has gone down the freakin tube.  I was doing so good.  Like SO good.  One lb away from my ultimate weight loss good and then I started back at my old job.  My old job where they make you breakfast, lunch, and snack.  And I'm not talking ham sandwiches,  I'm talking made to order omelets for breakfast, and for lunches-salmon, pastas, chicken encrusted with things with many sides, and a salad bar that could put most restaurants to shame.  Not to mention the desserts. Most of my plate consisted of salad, but the chef's ranch dressing was drowning the leaves.  I can't help myself.  In the 2 1/2 weeks straight that I was eating in the office and chef Scott's food, I gained 5 lbs.  I didn't even mean to.  I was cognizant of it and it still happened.  Urg.  You may remember our chef as he cooked our rehearsal dinner food.  MmmMmm.

Anywho, so we aren't back on the healthy train, but I am trying to find healthy recipes once in awhile so we aren't so depressing.  I've really wanted to try the super food, quinoa, so I searched for some recipes and found this gem- Aparagus and Baby Artichoke Quinoa Salad.  This dish has everything I like in it and more, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Let me tell you, it was so delicious.  Everything in it was healthy, but it was full of a lot of flavors- salty mixed with sweet and your insides didn't feel like they wanted to punch you in the face.  And you get to put some feta on top. I love me some feta. Nolan even ate quite a bit of it too!  We sided it with some asiago focaccia bread to dip into one of my favorite concoctions of extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese.  We used the shredded Parm here, but I would recommend the grated due to the fact that it soaks up all of the oil making it quite tasty.  I would love to make this one again!

Recipe can be found here at Closet Cooking.

4th of July Week

Usually you say 4th of July Weekend, but it was such an odd placement this year, it really just messed everything up.  Not really, but it was quite confusing when I thought all day last Wednesday was a Saturday.  Not too shabby getting two Saturdays in a week, though!

We had a fun couple of days surrounding the 4th of July.  On the July 2nd, I got to attend my 2nd Freedom Fest with my company.  It is full of good food, games, drinks, and beautiful fireworks.  The last time we were there was 5 years ago and there was over 2,000 people there and it was considered the third largest fireworks show in Nebraska.  It was pretty amazing for a 150 people company.  Since the economy took a toll, it has slowed down a bit, but it seemed like the same party to me, but with about 1/5 of the people since there were restrictions on how many people you could bring.  We took Nolan for the first hour so that I could show him to people, then I sent Scott back to my mom's to drop him off and he came back and we enjoyed the rest of the evening just the two of us.  It was pretty fun and the show was spectacular.  Probably the best show that I've seen since the last one.  Very fun night!

Tuesday, I had my Annual Meeting at work that I mentioned briefly in this post, while Scott and Nolan had a fun day together where they went to the restaurant HF Crave.   Scott said it was the best burger he has had in his life and that he wanted to imitate it for our grill-out on the 4th.  HF Crave was rated Best Burger in Lincoln 2012 and they also use only grass fed cows that are hormone and steroid free, which makes it even better!  I would definitely like to go sometime with them.

And Wednesday on the 4th, Scott, Nolan, and I met my best friend McKenzie and her family at Seward Days and had a great time for a few hours.  There were quite a bit of people that we knew there so it was fun to see people we hadn't seen in awhile.  We had lunch, walked around to look at all of the crafts, and were able to see a tiny bit of the Air Show that was going on outside the Seward.  We came home with some jalepeno beef jerky and Italian Fusion dressing.  There was a metal pig I had my eye on but at $35, it just didn't seem like a reasonable purchase.

Wednesday night, we went over to our good friends Kyle and Melissa's house and had a grill out with their family and friends.  The girls (3/5 of whom were pregnant. No, not me- I promise.) spent time with the little ones in the cool inside chatting about woman things and all the guys sat on the deck  grilling, drinking, and of course chatting about whatever guys talk about.  Scott made the burger like the one he had at Crave which consisted of meat with cream cheese in the middle.  It was SOOO good.  Definitely will be trying that again.

We had a great time last week!  I got a few recipes I need to share as well as my take on the most recent movie we have watched, so be looking for those to come soon!

Dance Party Time

Nolan and I have several dance parties throughout the week.  If we are just having one of those moments in the day where we need a little pick me up, I put on some music and we dance our little butts off.   Literally.  Some of Nolan's moves are bouncing up and down on his bottom, waving his hands in the air, singing, and clapping to the beat.  And yes, he has learned to clap to the beat.  We are learning at the same time here, people! My moves are just too awesome to explain.  Mommy can also build some energy from it too.  I find that I am more awake and alert after a dance party which benefits everyone.  And, there is nothing more fun than seeing your little boy have a blast.  He laughs and smiles so much, it makes me so happy.  I'm not going to take it as him making fun of me though....

Recently, there are two songs that always make the playlist and they are:

"Some Nights" by Fun  (Music doesn't start until 1:02 min in.  It's a long music video, so just start it there.)  This song does have one word of profanity, so I wouldn't blast it at work or around kids who like to repeat words. :)

and...

"My Body" by Young the Giant
This is a perfect song to have on your Ipod while working out.  It is one of the most motivating songs to get you to move that I have heard in awhile.

So, take some time out for a little dance party on your own.  Relieve some stress. Do it by yourself (if you don't want anyone seeing your spectacular moves) or with your kids- it is so fun and freeing!  And, you burn some calories in the process.  If these songs don't get you moving, you might want to re-evaluate your life and go have some fun!

Operation Sink Etc.- Part Two

Now where were we...we are ready to install the sink!  Disclaimer- Scott did pretty much everything while I helped lift things, hold flashlights, and come up with brilliant ideas with my even more brilliant mind.

It was a great thing that we decided to replace all of the different parts as we probably saved about 45 min of our time not having to undo everything.  We were able to install part of the garbage disposal (which I did during a nap) and the faucet onto the new sink before we even put it in (which Scott and I did before we got started).  Saving some time and neck pain.  All he had to do at that point was unscrew the sink from the counter top, loosen the pipes, and cut the copper wire.  Once we got Nolan to bed for the night, we were ready to tackle this thing.  We started with the obvious- the cutting of the dreaded soldered copper.  It ended up being extremely easy.  He was able to cut the wire with a tube cutter majigger that the Lowe's guy recommended.  I was quite skeptical of it and even asked the guy- "This will cut the copper?"  He said, "Yep" and ran away so we couldn't find him again.  Not really, but I wouldn't have blamed him. We did all of this of course after shutting off the water and electrical to the disposal.  Unfortunately, we had to shut the water off to the whole house (because our house is awesome like that) so we basically had one shot to get this right since we cut the pipes.  I imagined us screwing up and going without water for days while we had to pay $1000 to cover any damages and for someone to have to redo it anyways.  We would have to find other people's sprinklers for water and showers for all of us and cry ourselves to sleep for about 3 nights.  Four nights would have seemed excessive, I think.

Pipes were cut successfully and the stop valves the Lowe's man recommended just snapped right on.  We were about to get other ones, but he recommended a certain type as it is much easier to install and it sure was.  They were just a few dollars more than the ones we were going to get, but worth it.  Now that we have these, we are able to shut the water off just to this supply if necessary.

See the new stop valves connected to the pipes and the part disconnected is floating above.

Once we had all of that done, we put on our handy gloves and were able to lift the sink out with everything attached out of the counter.   I did some good scrubbing around the edge of the hole to get excess caulk and other residue cleaned. We were ready to get the new sink in.

Once we had the faucet all hooked up to the sink, which was about as easy as pie, we were ready to to insert the sink with the faucet and half of the garbage disposal attached into the sink hole.  New use for that word?  I think so.  The first thing that Scott did while I held the flashlight was to screw in the sink with little screws all along the underside of the sink.  It was not an easy task as the area is quite cramped and small, but he did it and we were looking good.  Everything was going oddly well for us so far.  We can't hang a picture without something going wrong so to think everything was going well was quite unsettling. 

The next thing that Scott did was to install the basket strainer which required some plumbers putty and a bit of manly strength.  He had to insert plumbers putty just under the ring that goes about the sink so when it screws down, it squeezes out the excess and even more so when pressure is applied.

Then, he installed the rest of the disposal and we started aligning the PVC pipe in the necessary areas.  Because the sink was about 5 inches deeper than the previous one, I came up with the idea to switch two of the PVC's around which worked, but we were still about 2 inches off so Scott took one of the pipes outside and cut it so it would fit.  And it fit beautifully.  Once they did, he hammered like a beast tapped the disposal into the lock position.  He then hooked up the disposal to the dishwasher (or something) I kind of missed that part and its been a couple of weeks so my mind isn't as fresh.

The next steps were to screw in our water lines to the new stop valves, plug in the disposal, double check to make sure we got everything hooked back up, turn the water and electrical back on, and pray to God that everything was going to work and not leak everywhere.  Sure enough, we had WATER!  And no LEAKAGE!  And our sprayer WORKS!  OMG WE DID IT!  OR SCOTT DID IT PRETTY MUCH BUT WHATEVER IT IS SO EXCITING!  It took us just over 2 hours to do this.  No hiccups and everything ran smoothly.  Couldn't have asked it to go any better.  I caulked some silicone sealant along the side of the sink and we were done.

What was our labor total for doing this ourselves?  Just over $40.  The stop valves cost about half of that and we had to buy caulk, a caulking gun, the wire cutter, gloves, and plumber's putty.  And, we are able to use most of it again on future projects.  Everyone needs a caulking gun, right?  So we basically saved almost $800 by doing this ourselves.  Well, according to one company.  But still, a significant amount of savings.

Gloves, Caulk Gun, Wire cutter- yup that little thing is the wire cutter. That's it.

Let's look at some before and after pics. 

Before

After.  Before the sink basket strainer was in place.

For a little more perspective, here is the before and after with the Brita pitcher in place.  The faucet barely fit over it to fill before (and Nolan still drank bottles) and below that you now see there is plenty of room.  What.. a difference.  We knew the new sink would help break him from his bottle habit.

The sink has been in place for a couple of weeks now and we had one little mishap with the connection to the dishwasher.  The first time we ran it, it was pooling up with water.  I apparently missed a step when I was first hooking up the disposal but Scott was able to detect it quickly and thankfully was able to fix it just as easily.  We have run it about three times since and haven't had an issue again.  I love everything about it- the space and the sprayer.  How did I survive three years without a sprayer?!  I use it at least twice a day.

I love the satisfaction you get when you do something on your own.  Yeah, the sink would have been exciting if someone else would have done it, but it was even more exciting knowing we put it in ourselves and that we worked hard on it.  You never realize how much you are capable of doing until you actually just try doing it.  I don't know if we will have much DIY left with this house, but I'm hoping in the future we have a house someday where we are able to do more.  I just want to see what we can do.

Operation Sink, Etc.- Part 1

Yes, this is a part one because I believe that if this was one post, we might have some skimmers.  And you know how I hate skimmers....Just kidding.  Do what you want.

I believe that I mentioned a certain Mother's Day gift that Scott surprised me with back in May.  Well, he heard my cries of small sink issues and decided to get me a sink that was double the depth of what we have and that would include a sprayer.  I have never been so happy.  Ok, I have, but this was also a good moment for me.  Our sink measured at 5 inches in depth.  5 INCHES. They don't even sell that size in any home improvement stores and you can't wash a bowl without getting water all over the place.  It was time for an upgrade.

Old sink.  Ewww:

We decided to go ahead and replace everything at that point: the sink, faucet, garbage disposal, everything.  We might as well do it right.  We got terrific deals from Amazon on all of these things and had everything shipped right to us.  We order everything online, so it didn't really make us nervous that anything could be wrong and everything showed up perfect thankfully!  Once we finally did have everything we wanted and the sink sat up in the "crap room" for over a month, we were ready to get this thing in there!  We called a really good company that we have used on two occasions for our house: to install our humidfier, and to fix underneath the toilet when the pipes broke causing water to drip into the basement (thankfully in the unfinished storage area).  Did I mention this house is cursed?  ELEVEN YEARS OLD.

Anywho, Scott wasn't going to be there when the guy came to give the estimate, so he gave me a number that we couldn't go over and I was to stick to that.  The first two things this company did for us were pretty reasonable in price, but we both feared it would be much higher than our target price for this project, and as luck would have it, we were right.  The guy explained that the copper water pipes were soldered together so he would have to cut those and put stops in since our faucet was a "screw in" water pipes situation.

See, soldered, water line piping:

 

See, new faucet needs to be able to screw in to the water pipes.  This was a predicament...or so we thought. My iPhone took this picture with zero editing.  I was so impressed with the focus on it:

Any faucet we would have gotten would have had to go into something and the pipes would have to be cut no matter what so that was one thing he would have to do. He would also have to switch out the PVC piping since the sink is about twice as deep as our old one.  Ok, whatever, give me the estimate.  He calculates everything in his head and gives me the quote of $833.75.  I hope he didn't just hear me shart my pants.  I pretend that I'm not about to pass out and say that was way more than we would ever pay.  He goes on to say they could probably knock off a couple hundred dollars of overhead and I tell him that it is still way over what we are able to pay.  Hell to the no.  To install a sink, faucet, and garbage disposal?  I dreaded telling Scott, but I told him right away and we were like what the heck do we do?  We are not going to have someone install this for twice as much as we paid for all of the parts.  And yes, we already had all of the parts, it was ONLY to install them.

The PROOF:

I told Scott we should do this ourselves.  The plumber basically told me what we would need to do by telling me what he was going to do.  WE CAN DO IT.  Young House Love does everything on their own and uses the people at Home Depot and YouTube to help them on their way.  Why couldn't we do that?  I have a not-so-secret desire to buy a semi fixer upper and fix it up ourselves.  Not like completely rat and termite infested fixer upper but more of a cosmetic situation where we could make it the style we wanted.  Our house already came with good paint colors and things so there was no reason to change much.  Except for the fact that if falls apart on occasion.  Scott texts me,  "Alright, here is the DIY project you wanted."  YAY!  Give me a challenge and I will do it.  From much research on both of our parts, watching YouTube videos, and an incredibly helpful person at Lowe's that told us what to use for the copper pipe cutting, the type of stop valves we would want to buy, and the kind of plumber's putty, we were on our way.

Stay tuned for the 2nd installment of Operation Sink, Etc.- Part 2.

Juli Burney

I feel like I have quite a bit to catch up on the blog- things that happened well before this week, but I thought I would post about a lady who came to our Annual Meeting at work as the speaker on Tuesday.  She is a humorist by trade, speaks nationally and internationally, and happens to be from Lincoln.  She is hilarious and motivational and all that is right with the world.  She spoke for over 45 min and I feel like we were watching a comedy show with some words of inspiration mixed in.  She said a lot of things that I will remember and resonated with me.  I hope you all have a chance to see her in real life sometime, but in case you don't, here are some snippets of some of her jokes/stories.  These were not at our event, but ones I had just found on YouTube.