I cleaned on the FlyLady plan tonight. I did 15 minutes for each area I was cleaning. I was successful in some areas and not in others.
I first started with the utility room while listening to my Ingrid Michaelson station on Pandora again. I was able to clear off some space on the shelves by the window and organized my gift bag and ribbon collection.
Then I went to the front hall closet and attacked the whole thing while listening to Jewel's "Rare Angels" cassette (yes, I'm still "old school"). I put all the plastic bags together and all the environmental bags together. I also hung up some items and put all the boots in one area. I moved the bowling bags to the top shelf, after reorganizing that, as well.
Next was the basement (still to the tunes of Jewel). I just picked up a bunch of items and put them back in their boxes/containers/bags. I made a box for all the items that go with the Jewish toy kits (i.e. Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, etc.). I put all the phonics magnets away when I came across them. I hope to one day find the piece they go into in order to hear the songs about each letter. Fifteen minutes wasn't long enough, but I knew I'd burn out if I stayed down there any longer.
Finally, it is bathroom week on FlyLady.net. I followed the task e-mailed to me today. It was to clean out the cabinet and reorganize it. I didn't find a lot to throw out or give away, but it's a lot easier to find things now.
I rewarded myself by watching "90210." :)
Side note: "Rare Angels" is an album put out by Jewel in the mid-90's. It has a lot of acoustic and improvised songs, most which never made it onto any other album. There is a song, however, called "Perfectly Clear," which was made into a country tune and also became the title of her country CD. In any case, I used to listen to "Rare Angels" a lot in college and listening to it again brought back memories. I even sang one of the songs at Theater of Ted (a midnight theater open mic at the college I attended).
Monday, March 15, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Indebted to FlyLady for life!
FlyLady had a daily objective of cleaning out the car. I decided to follow this objective and ended up finding my older son's kipah! It's this kipah we got him prior to his upsherin (which has his name on it in Hebrew) and thought he had lost in the move last August. I was so excited to find it again! De-cluttering is really amazing. :) I still have to tackle the basement and utility room and need a game plan for both. I'm procrastinating on them as it is. :P
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Knitting Envy
I didn't post a picture or blog last week because I was just being lazy. I had made quite some progress though. This week, I only worked on it Tuesday and tonight. I didn't work on it during "American Idol" yesterday because I was in the middle of an organizing project.
I still don't feel that it looks like a scarf. Maybe time will tell? I met up with a friend the other night and she pulled out this scarf she was working on and it looked amazing. I can't even imagine mine ending up as nice as that. I know she has a lot on her plate, but I'd love to take some lessons from her. :) I have a feeling she wouldn't overwhelm me. Not saying others would, but she does homeschooling for some of her kids, so I imagine she has a lot of patience and some good teaching skills. :) I also see the stuff my BFF is working on and am blown away each time by how perfect everything looks and how she's able to put together such neat color combinations. And finally, whenever I go into my friend's yarn store, I get this longing to be able to knit stuff as amazing as what is on display. Is this the beginning of a hobby or addiction? I don't know. All I know is that now that I enjoy knitting, I want to actually be good at it and have something to show for all my hard work that actually looks like what it's supposed to be. Is that too much to ask? I don't expect to win contests but I'd like to be as proud of my own work as I am of my friends' work. At least I know that my son will still wear my attempt at a scarf because I made it for him out of love. :) (Okay...talk amongst yourselves...)
You are WHERE you eat
A lot of the fond memories I have from growing up revolve around going out to restaurants for meals. Since I grew up Reform and my family did not keep Kosher, there were a lot of available options for dining out. I wanted to highlight a few of my favorites:
*Ed Debevic’s: I was inspired to write this entry when my friend posted an article about a new 50’s style diner opening up in the Chicago suburbs. It made me think of Ed’s. The first time I ever went to Ed’s was after we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo with some family friends (at the time). We visited the downtown location and were amused and impressed. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. Our waitress had a button that listed the special of the day, which was Pot Pie when we were there. So my dad thought that was her name and kept calling her “Pot Pie” the whole time. The fun part of dining at Ed’s is that all the servers have attitudes and get to make fun of customers. The customers are aware and enjoy this treatment. Sometimes they’ll all get up on tables and dance to whatever song is playing. There are little jukeboxes at every table, so customers can pick what songs they want. At the end of the meal, the best dessert option is the World’s Smallest Sundae (that comes with an incredibly tall spoon). After that experience, we went to Ed’s in Deerfield often (before it turned into an overpriced Greek restaurant). We’d take out of town visitors there. I had my 11th birthday party there, as well. I even tried to get a summer job there when I was older, but I guess I wasn’t surly enough. The ironic thing was that when I worked at IHOP, I’d joke around with customers and one of them told me I should work at Ed’s. During the same year I had my birthday party there, I decided to make up a commercial for Ed’s to the tune of “Duke of Earl” (a song played there a lot) and recorded it on cassette during one of my pretend radio shows. My BFF still has the tape and we joke about it being used for blackmail. I guess the cat is out of the bag now! :) The final thing I loved about Ed’s was that I got to collect tokens from kid meals and would get cool T-shirts and buttons. My favorite was a T-shirt with a peace sign in rainbow colors. Another memory I have is that every time we went there with one of my cousins, she’d always want them to sing happy birthday to her, even though it wasn’t her birthday. She was probably the same age as my younger son at the time. :)
*Yen Yen: I pretty much grew up at this neighborhood Chinese restaurant. My family and I went there all the time. I used to only eat beef and gravy or beef in a nest because I was so picky. After I got a job there during my high school years, my tastes expanded and I got to try new items. It also allowed me to expand my tastes when I went out elsewhere for Chinese food (even though I felt like a traitor for doing so). I eventually got friends, as well as my husband, addicted. Yen Yen was the place to go for Chinese food if you lived in the Buffalo Grove or Arlington Heights area. I think it is the restaurant I frequented the most with or without my family. We had my maternal grandma’s 70th birthday party there, and went there for countless other birthday meals. It was also the place to go when we got back from vacations. And keeping with small world coincidences, one of my favorite waiters had a day job as a teacher and worked with “Will’s” mom. When I got back from Israel, he told me that he worked with someone who had a son who was there at the time. I told him that was the same person I got to see during my trip.
*Ember’s Charhouse: This was a nice steakhouse where the servers sang all the time. It was a great place to go with family for special occasions or on a date. For a while, a friend of mine from college worked there and on a quieter night, she let my sister and I join her to sing something from “Rent.” I think it was “Seasons of Love.” On birthdays, all the servers would surround the table and sing a song they made up for the birthday celebrant. When I was still eating non-Kosher meat, I really enjoyed their prime rib. They also had delicious French onion soup. It eventually closed down and I was sad to see it go. It’s a place I could have seen myself working, as I love to sing all the time. I sing while doing average household chores and I’m pretty much a server during dinnertime anyway.
These are the three that stick out. I was addicted to T.G.I. Friday’s during my college years. I also have fond memories of going to a lot of birthday parties at the Ground Round when I was a kid. There was a clown named Bingo and she would lead everyone in games of hot potato or pin the tail on the donkey. A couple other standouts are Bill’s Pub, where we could throw peanut shells on the ground; Lou Malnati’s, which has the best Chicago pizza in my opinion; Chuck E. Cheese, which was fun before it went all modern and a great place of entertainment when we were kids; Buffalo, for their fabulous sundaes and small world Jewish geography connections (when didn't we see someone we knew there?) and Fuddruckers, which had delicious burgers on top of which I would pump lots of piping hot cheddar cheese. Finally, there was Journey’s End, which had the best vegetable soup (that we now make at home) that was served in buckets and refilled often (and came with lots of oyster crackers). It also met its demise when it sold out to CVS. Every time I eat the soup at home, I still feel like I'm sitting at the round table in the area that looks like a ship.
These days, we still enjoy taking our kids out but are limited with where we can go. We end up at Ben Yehuda a lot, as they have delicious pizza and we love their cheese fries. It has become a favorite for our kids now. My older son was making up a song about going to Ben Yehuda once and it made me think of my Ed Debevic's commercial. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all.
*Ed Debevic’s: I was inspired to write this entry when my friend posted an article about a new 50’s style diner opening up in the Chicago suburbs. It made me think of Ed’s. The first time I ever went to Ed’s was after we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo with some family friends (at the time). We visited the downtown location and were amused and impressed. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. Our waitress had a button that listed the special of the day, which was Pot Pie when we were there. So my dad thought that was her name and kept calling her “Pot Pie” the whole time. The fun part of dining at Ed’s is that all the servers have attitudes and get to make fun of customers. The customers are aware and enjoy this treatment. Sometimes they’ll all get up on tables and dance to whatever song is playing. There are little jukeboxes at every table, so customers can pick what songs they want. At the end of the meal, the best dessert option is the World’s Smallest Sundae (that comes with an incredibly tall spoon). After that experience, we went to Ed’s in Deerfield often (before it turned into an overpriced Greek restaurant). We’d take out of town visitors there. I had my 11th birthday party there, as well. I even tried to get a summer job there when I was older, but I guess I wasn’t surly enough. The ironic thing was that when I worked at IHOP, I’d joke around with customers and one of them told me I should work at Ed’s. During the same year I had my birthday party there, I decided to make up a commercial for Ed’s to the tune of “Duke of Earl” (a song played there a lot) and recorded it on cassette during one of my pretend radio shows. My BFF still has the tape and we joke about it being used for blackmail. I guess the cat is out of the bag now! :) The final thing I loved about Ed’s was that I got to collect tokens from kid meals and would get cool T-shirts and buttons. My favorite was a T-shirt with a peace sign in rainbow colors. Another memory I have is that every time we went there with one of my cousins, she’d always want them to sing happy birthday to her, even though it wasn’t her birthday. She was probably the same age as my younger son at the time. :)
*Yen Yen: I pretty much grew up at this neighborhood Chinese restaurant. My family and I went there all the time. I used to only eat beef and gravy or beef in a nest because I was so picky. After I got a job there during my high school years, my tastes expanded and I got to try new items. It also allowed me to expand my tastes when I went out elsewhere for Chinese food (even though I felt like a traitor for doing so). I eventually got friends, as well as my husband, addicted. Yen Yen was the place to go for Chinese food if you lived in the Buffalo Grove or Arlington Heights area. I think it is the restaurant I frequented the most with or without my family. We had my maternal grandma’s 70th birthday party there, and went there for countless other birthday meals. It was also the place to go when we got back from vacations. And keeping with small world coincidences, one of my favorite waiters had a day job as a teacher and worked with “Will’s” mom. When I got back from Israel, he told me that he worked with someone who had a son who was there at the time. I told him that was the same person I got to see during my trip.
*Ember’s Charhouse: This was a nice steakhouse where the servers sang all the time. It was a great place to go with family for special occasions or on a date. For a while, a friend of mine from college worked there and on a quieter night, she let my sister and I join her to sing something from “Rent.” I think it was “Seasons of Love.” On birthdays, all the servers would surround the table and sing a song they made up for the birthday celebrant. When I was still eating non-Kosher meat, I really enjoyed their prime rib. They also had delicious French onion soup. It eventually closed down and I was sad to see it go. It’s a place I could have seen myself working, as I love to sing all the time. I sing while doing average household chores and I’m pretty much a server during dinnertime anyway.
These are the three that stick out. I was addicted to T.G.I. Friday’s during my college years. I also have fond memories of going to a lot of birthday parties at the Ground Round when I was a kid. There was a clown named Bingo and she would lead everyone in games of hot potato or pin the tail on the donkey. A couple other standouts are Bill’s Pub, where we could throw peanut shells on the ground; Lou Malnati’s, which has the best Chicago pizza in my opinion; Chuck E. Cheese, which was fun before it went all modern and a great place of entertainment when we were kids; Buffalo, for their fabulous sundaes and small world Jewish geography connections (when didn't we see someone we knew there?) and Fuddruckers, which had delicious burgers on top of which I would pump lots of piping hot cheddar cheese. Finally, there was Journey’s End, which had the best vegetable soup (that we now make at home) that was served in buckets and refilled often (and came with lots of oyster crackers). It also met its demise when it sold out to CVS. Every time I eat the soup at home, I still feel like I'm sitting at the round table in the area that looks like a ship.
These days, we still enjoy taking our kids out but are limited with where we can go. We end up at Ben Yehuda a lot, as they have delicious pizza and we love their cheese fries. It has become a favorite for our kids now. My older son was making up a song about going to Ben Yehuda once and it made me think of my Ed Debevic's commercial. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all.
What *don't* you know?
I have a few friends who knit and blog and we've decided to embark on a blog project that has nothing to do with knitting. We're going to take turns coming up with a topic every Thursday and we each have to blog about it by the end of that day and post links to each other's blogs so that people can see our different perspectives on the same topic.
Check out the backstory about how the project was conceived and how we all came together.
Here are the other blogs:
Froggie Knits Like Crazy
Charmingly Random
Desperate Madness
This week’s topic comes from yours truly again. I was watching “American Idol” last week and each of the contestants had to share something that most people would not know about them. I decided to have everyone, including myself, do the same.
(While the topic was mainly influenced by "American Idol," I also thought about how my mom recently told me that she used to knit when she was around my age or a little younger. I never knew that about her before!)
Here goes:
The ironically funny thing about me choosing this topic is that I’m an open book. I think everyone knows almost everything about me now that I’ve put myself out there so much on Facebook and have been blogging about things that come up from past memories. However, I was able to come up with something that I’m sure most people who didn’t know me at the time will have as new information and people who knew me then will have probably forgotten about it anyway.
I bet you’re thinking that the first time I ever traveled overseas was to Israel in 2002. I probably would have won a lot from such a bet because the first time I traveled overseas was in 1992, during the summer between sophomore and junior year of high school. I went to England for an exchange trip through my school.
Time to backtrack first: In the fall of 1991, there was an opportunity to host girls who were visiting from England for a month (and we’d also be able to travel to England the following summer if we chose to). I went after this opportunity right away (being that it’s not a lengthy visitor, and neither were the girls). The girl they paired me with was really nice. I remember that she liked frogs and collected erasers (which she called “rubbers;” something amusing to be yelled out loud in stationery shops). All the girls got to participate in school activities and check out the classes. They also went on field trips all over Chicago. I got to tag along for some trips, including one further away to Springfield (since I didn’t go there when I was in junior high, it was nice to be able to participate). On weekends, the girl would spend time with my family and me. We tried to keep her entertained as much as possible. I think my mom did that by herself though. She was the victim of a bad hair-dying experiment (from a salon, oddly enough) and also decided to get her ears double pierced. The girl thought my mom was trying to be a rock star! We had a fun time having her stay with us and participate in some of our daily or weekly family routines. We had some funny miscommunications due to my unfamiliarity with some British terms. Once she asked for “cotton” and I gave her cotton balls. She was actually asking for thread. Also, things sounded really cute in her dialect, like when she said our dog ate her nuggets (new-gits) or that our cat was massive (mah-siv). When she left to return to England, I was sad to see her go, but determined to go visit her the following summer.
Finally, it was June of 1992 and I was overly excited to board a plane that would take me overseas for the first time in my life. It was a long flight, but I read, watched movies and slept. When we arrived, I had major jet lag, but they decided to take us touring right away. In one town, an old lady asked me to help her cross the street and I was so freaked out by the change of traffic directions that I was practically running with her to get across safely! I also had trouble distinguishing pounds from pence when I went to get ice cream. And I even asked someone what a kwee-wee (queue) was! (That later became an inside joke with my husband.)
We spent a weekend in London before heading closer to Birmingham to meet our host families. While we were in London, we walked, took their underground or rode trolleys to get where we needed to be. We stayed in a youth hostel overnight, but it was very loud and hard to sleep. The lady managing our trip brought sandwiches for everyone but they were disgusting and birds wouldn’t even eat them. I did enjoy seeing a lot of London even though it was such a whirlwind trip. I think I’d enjoy it more now that half the books I read take place there. At night, we got to see a musical. I was hoping for something along the lines of “Les Miserables” but the trip wasn’t budgeted for such a show. We ended up seeing “Me and My Girl.” It was decent, but had more of a dinner theater feel.
When we finally got settled with our host families, I got to take a real nap and catch up on all the sleep I missed. Then I had tea (which is really dinner) afterward. I got to stay with the girl we hosted the previous fall. Her family was so nice. I adored her mom and even helped do chores around the house without being asked. I was there during Wimbledon season, so I got to see a lot of tennis. I was cheering for Agassi, of course. It got all heated between me and the family, but in a fun way. I got to partake in family traditions such as Sunday dinner (which is really lunch). I helped the girl and her mom cook using the metric system. I also read a lot of books that I wouldn’t have found in the US. I got hooked on watching “Neighbours” and “Home and Away” and laughed at all the funny commercials that came on during the shows. I also caught up on some classic movie musicals, such as “Oklahoma.” I’d stay up at night talking with the girl and laughing about crazy things. Other times, I got pretty homesick, especially after I talked to my family on the phone. I missed some of my friends too. A month feels a lot longer when you’ve never been overseas before.
During most of each week, I would go to school with the girl and check out some of the classes. I made friends with some girls I met in those classes. Everyone was fascinated by the fact that I was American. I think they found my dialect as amusing as I found the girl’s dialect the previous year. There was one time when we got to check out an elementary school and help out the kids with their assignments. The kids were asking me a lot of questions. (One was “Is it proper for a boy to marry another boy in America?” I wonder if he watches world news these days?) They also laughed when I said “period” instead of “stopmark.”
We also had some big field trips. We went to Bath, Oxford, Stratford, downtown Birmingham, etc. I have tons of pictures from all the places we visited. I also kept a journal detailing my trip (which I came across again while cleaning my closet and looked over some entries from that time). I purchased tons of souvenir items, as well. In the evenings, I’d spend time with the girl and her family. Sometimes we’d go out for meals and sometimes we’d stay in and barbeque. The food was interesting too. They had different names for things and it got confusing sometimes. I really liked Shepard’s Pie though. However, I was put off lamb after overindulging in it there. The girl’s mom was a really good cook, so I enjoyed all the meals. Ironically enough, I got to celebrate Independence Day with all the other people from America that came on the trip. (There weren’t that many of us.) We had a barbecue at the home of another host family. By the time I got comfortable with my surroundings (enough to cross the street on my own or figure out how much money to put out for an item), it was time to go home. On our last day there, the girl and her mom took me to a movie theater to see “Howard’s End.” Despite the fact that it was a boring movie, it was cool to experience a movie in a British theater. They have an intermission halfway through.
Overall, I had a great time and the memories of that trip still resonate with me enough to write a blog about it! I stayed in touch with the girl for a few years after my trip. Then we lost contact for a long time until I found her on Facebook. It’s great to be in contact with her again and to see that things are going well in her life. I’d love to go back to England again sometime, but mostly to check out more of London. It would be neat to pay a visit to my host family if it were accessible to make a trip to the Birmingham area. Staying with them was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
Check out the backstory about how the project was conceived and how we all came together.
Here are the other blogs:
Froggie Knits Like Crazy
Charmingly Random
Desperate Madness
This week’s topic comes from yours truly again. I was watching “American Idol” last week and each of the contestants had to share something that most people would not know about them. I decided to have everyone, including myself, do the same.
(While the topic was mainly influenced by "American Idol," I also thought about how my mom recently told me that she used to knit when she was around my age or a little younger. I never knew that about her before!)
Here goes:
The ironically funny thing about me choosing this topic is that I’m an open book. I think everyone knows almost everything about me now that I’ve put myself out there so much on Facebook and have been blogging about things that come up from past memories. However, I was able to come up with something that I’m sure most people who didn’t know me at the time will have as new information and people who knew me then will have probably forgotten about it anyway.
I bet you’re thinking that the first time I ever traveled overseas was to Israel in 2002. I probably would have won a lot from such a bet because the first time I traveled overseas was in 1992, during the summer between sophomore and junior year of high school. I went to England for an exchange trip through my school.
Time to backtrack first: In the fall of 1991, there was an opportunity to host girls who were visiting from England for a month (and we’d also be able to travel to England the following summer if we chose to). I went after this opportunity right away (being that it’s not a lengthy visitor, and neither were the girls). The girl they paired me with was really nice. I remember that she liked frogs and collected erasers (which she called “rubbers;” something amusing to be yelled out loud in stationery shops). All the girls got to participate in school activities and check out the classes. They also went on field trips all over Chicago. I got to tag along for some trips, including one further away to Springfield (since I didn’t go there when I was in junior high, it was nice to be able to participate). On weekends, the girl would spend time with my family and me. We tried to keep her entertained as much as possible. I think my mom did that by herself though. She was the victim of a bad hair-dying experiment (from a salon, oddly enough) and also decided to get her ears double pierced. The girl thought my mom was trying to be a rock star! We had a fun time having her stay with us and participate in some of our daily or weekly family routines. We had some funny miscommunications due to my unfamiliarity with some British terms. Once she asked for “cotton” and I gave her cotton balls. She was actually asking for thread. Also, things sounded really cute in her dialect, like when she said our dog ate her nuggets (new-gits) or that our cat was massive (mah-siv). When she left to return to England, I was sad to see her go, but determined to go visit her the following summer.
Finally, it was June of 1992 and I was overly excited to board a plane that would take me overseas for the first time in my life. It was a long flight, but I read, watched movies and slept. When we arrived, I had major jet lag, but they decided to take us touring right away. In one town, an old lady asked me to help her cross the street and I was so freaked out by the change of traffic directions that I was practically running with her to get across safely! I also had trouble distinguishing pounds from pence when I went to get ice cream. And I even asked someone what a kwee-wee (queue) was! (That later became an inside joke with my husband.)
We spent a weekend in London before heading closer to Birmingham to meet our host families. While we were in London, we walked, took their underground or rode trolleys to get where we needed to be. We stayed in a youth hostel overnight, but it was very loud and hard to sleep. The lady managing our trip brought sandwiches for everyone but they were disgusting and birds wouldn’t even eat them. I did enjoy seeing a lot of London even though it was such a whirlwind trip. I think I’d enjoy it more now that half the books I read take place there. At night, we got to see a musical. I was hoping for something along the lines of “Les Miserables” but the trip wasn’t budgeted for such a show. We ended up seeing “Me and My Girl.” It was decent, but had more of a dinner theater feel.
When we finally got settled with our host families, I got to take a real nap and catch up on all the sleep I missed. Then I had tea (which is really dinner) afterward. I got to stay with the girl we hosted the previous fall. Her family was so nice. I adored her mom and even helped do chores around the house without being asked. I was there during Wimbledon season, so I got to see a lot of tennis. I was cheering for Agassi, of course. It got all heated between me and the family, but in a fun way. I got to partake in family traditions such as Sunday dinner (which is really lunch). I helped the girl and her mom cook using the metric system. I also read a lot of books that I wouldn’t have found in the US. I got hooked on watching “Neighbours” and “Home and Away” and laughed at all the funny commercials that came on during the shows. I also caught up on some classic movie musicals, such as “Oklahoma.” I’d stay up at night talking with the girl and laughing about crazy things. Other times, I got pretty homesick, especially after I talked to my family on the phone. I missed some of my friends too. A month feels a lot longer when you’ve never been overseas before.
During most of each week, I would go to school with the girl and check out some of the classes. I made friends with some girls I met in those classes. Everyone was fascinated by the fact that I was American. I think they found my dialect as amusing as I found the girl’s dialect the previous year. There was one time when we got to check out an elementary school and help out the kids with their assignments. The kids were asking me a lot of questions. (One was “Is it proper for a boy to marry another boy in America?” I wonder if he watches world news these days?) They also laughed when I said “period” instead of “stopmark.”
We also had some big field trips. We went to Bath, Oxford, Stratford, downtown Birmingham, etc. I have tons of pictures from all the places we visited. I also kept a journal detailing my trip (which I came across again while cleaning my closet and looked over some entries from that time). I purchased tons of souvenir items, as well. In the evenings, I’d spend time with the girl and her family. Sometimes we’d go out for meals and sometimes we’d stay in and barbeque. The food was interesting too. They had different names for things and it got confusing sometimes. I really liked Shepard’s Pie though. However, I was put off lamb after overindulging in it there. The girl’s mom was a really good cook, so I enjoyed all the meals. Ironically enough, I got to celebrate Independence Day with all the other people from America that came on the trip. (There weren’t that many of us.) We had a barbecue at the home of another host family. By the time I got comfortable with my surroundings (enough to cross the street on my own or figure out how much money to put out for an item), it was time to go home. On our last day there, the girl and her mom took me to a movie theater to see “Howard’s End.” Despite the fact that it was a boring movie, it was cool to experience a movie in a British theater. They have an intermission halfway through.
Overall, I had a great time and the memories of that trip still resonate with me enough to write a blog about it! I stayed in touch with the girl for a few years after my trip. Then we lost contact for a long time until I found her on Facebook. It’s great to be in contact with her again and to see that things are going well in her life. I’d love to go back to England again sometime, but mostly to check out more of London. It would be neat to pay a visit to my host family if it were accessible to make a trip to the Birmingham area. Staying with them was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Be Our Guest
The guest room is now ready for my parents to sleep in this weekend. I even cleaned out the closet in there! I went through old photos while watching "American Idol," instead of knitting like I usually do. After "American Idol" was over, I finished up in the guest room and went about cleaning out the linen closet. That was quite a feat. It's taller than me, so I had to stand on a wobbly step-stool to reach the items on top. The closet looks a lot more organized now. Yay! I think the front hall closet needs a makeover soon. The dining room also needs to be cleaned up before Shabbos.
Tonight's cleaning was done to my Ingrid Michaelson station on Pandora. It plays musicians similar to her style, such as Adele, Sara Bareilles, Lenka, K.T. Tunstall, etc.
Tonight's cleaning was done to my Ingrid Michaelson station on Pandora. It plays musicians similar to her style, such as Adele, Sara Bareilles, Lenka, K.T. Tunstall, etc.
"It's a Small World" is not just a Disney ride
I always love experiencing or hearing about bizarre coincidences or small world events. I wanted to share some of my own and will share more as they come up.
*In 2002, my husband took my mother-in-law to a Judaica store in West Rogers Park. The salesman found out that she lived in Cleveland and started talking about how he knew a family in Cleveland. It turned out that he was roommates with my brother-in-law at Yeshiva. A few months later, we were at a family friends’ house and the same guy walked in. He was also friends with their son!
*When I was working at my medical billing job, a patient’s name came up over and over. After I moved, I saw the same name on Facebook, as someone a friend of mine is friends with. I’ll never reveal names for this because of privacy reasons, but it was one of those names that is such a rare combination and the location was the same. It was amusing more than anything else.
*When I started my new job, I ended up talking to a girl who said she grew up in my husband’s old neighborhood. When I asked her if she knew him, she said she went to prom with him!
*I also discovered that I went to the same high school as another girl I work with. It made me feel old when she said her graduation date, but still, what are the odds?
This is all I could think of for now. I’m sure more will definitely come up!
*In 2002, my husband took my mother-in-law to a Judaica store in West Rogers Park. The salesman found out that she lived in Cleveland and started talking about how he knew a family in Cleveland. It turned out that he was roommates with my brother-in-law at Yeshiva. A few months later, we were at a family friends’ house and the same guy walked in. He was also friends with their son!
*When I was working at my medical billing job, a patient’s name came up over and over. After I moved, I saw the same name on Facebook, as someone a friend of mine is friends with. I’ll never reveal names for this because of privacy reasons, but it was one of those names that is such a rare combination and the location was the same. It was amusing more than anything else.
*When I started my new job, I ended up talking to a girl who said she grew up in my husband’s old neighborhood. When I asked her if she knew him, she said she went to prom with him!
*I also discovered that I went to the same high school as another girl I work with. It made me feel old when she said her graduation date, but still, what are the odds?
This is all I could think of for now. I’m sure more will definitely come up!
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