I <3 British TV

I would say that it is pretty well established that I love me some TV.

But I especially love British TV. BBC, in all it's glory, iTV. Yay!!

Where else can you see something as awesome as TJ Wheels!!!


And then there was "Hoop-La-La". Hoop-La-Freakin-Awesome if you ask me. I do have to say that they really benefited from the professional styling that the show gave them. They were on Britain's Got Talent. Even Simon ended up liking them.


Of course this video does not work now, but you can view it on the Hoop-La-La website. I think I just like saying "Hoop-La-La".

Lots of great variety talent shows on, that I enjoy so much more than Crap Idol.

Some things

I've noticed that the Germans are obsessed with their plants!! Not just their gardens, which are very wonderful as well, but house plants.


I remarked to Sarge the other day that when you drive past the oldest, ex-barn, tin roofed, run down house, there are always tons of plants in the windows. It's like they see an empty windowsill, and feel the need to fill it. Fill it with plants.

I have not taken any photos as examples, because I think it's kind of weird to take pictures of peoples front windows.

As a comparison, there is the front window of out American friend's house.

Only a few plants, and quite afew of those are dying. I laughed at her, but she said she warned her landlord when she moved in, and told him that she was death to plants, but he still left them.

Another funny/geeky thing.

These are the trash cans in the laundry room at the hotel we are staying at.
EXTERMINATE!!!!EXTERMINATE!!!!EXTERMINATE!!!!

I'm such a dork. Though in the photo they don't look quite as Dalek-y as they did when I initially saw them.

Target. WhatTheWhat??!

Oh Target how I love thee. I really will miss walking the halls of the bullseye on a regular basis. However your on-line site is made of win too, so there is some slight relief there.

But what's up with this??

I bought some rain boots for myself, some school shoes for Piko deGallo, a t-shirt, and a solar system mobile. I was taking advantage of their free shipping offer.

I got 4 different "Your order has shipped" confirmation e-mails!!

No, not that they e-mailed me 4 times to tell me that my order has shipped. 4 separate shipments!!

Is that normal? I suppose it could be that each item is coming from a different fufillment warehouse, but still. I guess I should just smile and be happy that I got free shipping on all of the items.

Come on, it's not just me, that's weird.

P.S. Mrs. S. I looked up the word for composting bin. BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA!!
it's Kompostierungssortierfach. Like I'm even going to to be able to say that to my landlord!! 25 letters man!!

Resting

Another day, another move.

We've gone from our base house in MD, to temporary lodging on base, to the LaQuinta Inn (THE AWESOME BTW) outside of Baltimore, to temporary lodging on base in Germany, to an efficiency apartment in a town outside the base.

We finally move into our house on June 1!!!

While on the base I was walking everywhere, safety briefing, commissary, post office, gym, housing office, Piko deGallo's school. Pretty much every day. This base is small, but not *that* small.

Our car gets here somewhere around the 10th of June. Though I don't even have my drivers license for Germany yet, so it wouldn't even matter if the car was here.

Side note!!! Hooray, I just got a call that some of our furniture has arrived! Woo!

So I'm in a wee town, with no car. I guess I'll take the day off from waking, and just veggie with the internets, and my 3 English language TV channels. Maybe walk around the village and get some Doner Kebab for lunch.

This is my happy thought.That is the view from our house's back porch.

Not complaining, just updating.

Good Girl!

I know I complain alot about Dog DeGallo. Or well, I complain about her alot to people I know IRL.

But she really is a great dog. Hello, she puts up with my occasionally dressing her up in Piko deGallo's tutus, and stuff like this:


I was a bit worried about her in all of the hotels and temporary housing we were going to be spending time in during the move, but she just makes herself right at home.


I'm making it official and putting out there on the internets.

I love my dog, farts, dandruff, snoring, bad breath and all

Best Sign

This sign was posted at the vehicle shipping center in Baltimore.

It was maybe the funniest thing I saw that week.

Ah, Germany!

The Commissary is small.
The Post office is inconvenient.
There are no Slurpies.
Too many Americans.

However....
Rolling green fields, and hillsides covered with grapevines in bloom.
A great elementary school for Piko deGallo.
We found a house with a garage for Sarge, a yard for Dog, a tree for Piko's swing, and a garden for me.
Yummy delicious, wonderfully crusty, delicious bread!!
The very wee commissary has Greek yogurt. Yumm!!!

All in all, this place is great!! I'm so glad Sarge took these orders.

Hotel Limbo

We're currently in a La Quinta Inn about 20 miles outside of Baltimore.
Just waiting to catch a plane to Germany.
Sarge, Me, Piko, Dog. One room.

Moving Jitters? And a Gym Rant

This morning I woke up at 4 freaking 30 AM!! 4:30 folks!! And I couldn't go back to sleep.

The movers are coming today. All that was running through my mind was what items I have to put notes on so that they don't pack them. The last time we were moved, a little piece of baseboard from the kitchen was found lovingly wrapped among our belongings. Granted the movers were Belgian, and probably though we were crazy Americans anyway.

So an early morning post for you all to keep me out of the kitchen. I don't think that Totino's Pizza Rolls at 5:00 AM goes along with Sarge's diet plan.

I'm using Sarge's laptop, which has a whole other set of bookmarks than mine, and I stumbled across this awesome post from Rob the Doorman over at Clublife. This pretty much sums up my whole attitude about people at the gym. Sarge would agree heartily with #1, and #9. I'm more of a #4, and #5.

While I'm not the most athletically gifted person by any stretch of the imagination, I did dance for quite a few years when I was younger. I would like to think that this gave me a pretty decent ability to mimic movement, or at least to see when my body is not doing what I want it to. Many of the exercises we are doing following the CrossFit plan are totally new to me. Clean and Jerk, Split Jerks, and those other Olympic type weightlifting moves. It took me some time to understand the right way to lift my elbows and thrust them under the bar in the same movement, I'm still not great, but I'm better. But I can definitely tell when I'm not doing it right. Sarge and I always talk about the funny we see at the gym, which is sometimes comically considerable. Sarge says that it's because people have a very hard time mimicking movement that they see. But I wonder, there are mirrors in the gym. Everywhere. Maybe they're looking at their awesome pecks, and are distracted. The worst offenders, squats, walking lunges, and dumbbell shoulder presses. Seriously? Squats and lunges are some of the best exercises for overall strength and fitness. If you do them right!!! Also, what's with doing the same exercises every week, and taking the 10 minute recovery rests between sets? Sarge says that this is the result of not altering the workout since High School, or reading. Look, I'm no exercise guru or anything, but let's just say results speak for themselves. I've been doing CrossFit for about a month with Sarge. I have more muscle definition in my arms and legs, and I have increased my strength by about 25%. Try something new at the gym people! That's what the internets are for, not just porn! What worked for you at 17 is not going to do it at 30. Granted I have the best, most patient workout partner ever, so it makes my voyage to the dark side so much easier.

We're not going to the gym for the rest of the week, mostly because of the move, but also because I'm sick. Moving and sick. Awesome. But I did look at the workout for today anyway. Ha-Freaking-HA! I probably would have barfed.

Too Much

Well, we're packing, again.
Do you think I have too much fabric?

See you all from Germany!

Take Me Out!!

The view the instant you step out of the Metro. The stadium is literally half a block away off of the Navy Yard stop.

This was the view from our seats. Piko was intrigued/obsessed with the big "W" on the grass. Sarge did a pretty good job with our seats. They were waaaaaay up there, but they were still very good. That guy in the blue hat kept blocking my view of home plate though.

Piko was having a great time.

We watched the first three innings complete. Then since we were on the verge of horribly under dressed, it was pretty windy and cold. Piko and I set off in search of some hot chocolate. Wouldn't you know, we walked around the whole freaking stadium, and there was only one vendor who had hot chocolate?!??! It took so long for us to find it that by the time I thought about it, all of the potato knish's were sold out!! BAH! We finally made our way back to our seats for the end of the 6th inning. By the 7th inning stretch Sarge was ready to go, so we made our way down to the main concourse.

Here they are, stopping to view the game from another angle.

Of course we stopped briefly at the "Strike Zone" and let Piko have a go in the bounce house. But we had to be quick to get outside to line up for what was surely the highlight of the day.
Kids run the bases!!!! It was mighty awesome to go out on the field. The Rushmores were at every base cheering the kids on as they ran around.

All and all, Piko gives a day at the Park the thumbs up!

Ow!

Look at what happened to me today!

Sarge and I were done with our workout today (hang power cleans. My max load 65lbs! WOOT!) and were messing around wasting time. I'm determined to be able to do a pull-up some day. Seriously, I can't do even one. It's pretty pathetic. He was showing me how to swing to work my way up to a pull-up. Suddenly RIIIP!!! OW! MAN! I have been working on building up that callus for some time now.

Dang it! Now I have to be a lame-o and wear a glove on that hand for about a week.

A Question

So, I was thinking I would take a sort of poll.

I just finished this quilt for our bed.

Here is a close up of the fabric.


I love it. It is the first queen sized quilt I have ever made for myself.
Anyhoo, several of my friends have commented on it while it was in progress.

"Oh! That's nice. Is that for your room? Sarge is going to let you put that on the bed? My husband would never sleep on something so flowery."

BUH??!?!?!

This is not the first time that I have experienced this either. Some husbands will not "allow" pink towels, flowered sheet sets, or any other color than blue for a bath poof.

Sarge, what does he care. If it's soft and comfy he'll use it. It's not like the man police are going to bust down our door and arrest him for pink sheets. Besides, see that yellow pillowcase under the blue one on the left? That's his pillow, it has flowers and butterflies.

Anyway, do men really care about stuff like that? Or are my friends just lame?

Really though, I do already know the answer.

Big Sigh

Well, only 2 more weeks until our house is packed up and loaded on it's way to Germany.

I got the reality check when a friend dropped by yesterday to pick up some of my container gardening items. Librarian, you will be happy to know that the planter "Turkey Dinner" gave to you, and you gave to me, is going on to a new good home. It's funny to look out into my yard and see those bare spots where things used to be. It's also kind of sad because the weather is slowly coaxing my garden back to life. Too bad too, because last year was a transplant year, so much of what I had was very sad during the growing season. This year, I was really hoping that my peony bush would actually bloom. Not to worry though, I'm sure I'll be able to have a great garden in Deutschland.

In other busy deGallo news. Sarge has taken to calling me "The Sewing Hermit". That's pretty much what I'm doing all the time these days. Teachers at the school found out that I'm leaving, so 4 of them put in orders for seat sacks. I had to cut it off after those 4 were done. Uniform orders keep showing up at the door, literally. I opened the door this morning, and a bag of uniforms was there. I told Sarge that they've taken to just leaving them like orphans on our doorstep. I'm trying to bang all of this "work" stuff out so that I have time to finish some personal projects before I lose my BFF for a couple months. Not that I'll be able to use it much over in Germany. Sarge did say that I could buy a 220V machine though. WOO!

In between relocating appointments and sewing, Sarge has managed to convert me over to the dark side of his exercise plan. CrossFit. And while I am always bitching and moaning about exercise, I actually kind of like this program. The exercises are extremely varied from day to day, and some workouts are long, some are short. And hello, yesterday, I deadlifted my body weight. Well, my body weight -10lbs. But that's still pretty good, cause I'm no 98lbs!

And on a creative front, I've made these water bottle holders for the kids in Piko deG's class.

We are going to miss the "Field Day" celebration at the school. So I thought that these might be good for the kids to carry their bottles of water in. That way they can keep their water with them, and they don't get misplaced as easily, or mixed up with each others.

Here is the action shot.

I hope that they use them.

Henna Party!

Last night we had a Henna/Movie/Pizza night at our neighbor's house.

Awhile ago my neighbor came back from a trip to Florida. She and one of her daughters had visited an amusement park there where they were doing henna tattoos. They didn't have time to stop for one, but brought a kit home. I was over at their house one day and noticed the kit. I love doing henna!!! The librarian can attest to this. When we were roommates after college the whole Madonna/henna thing hit the mainstream, with her Ray of Light album. I spent some time decorating myself and my roommates. It was some fun.

Anyway, that first henna kit she bought from the amusement park was for crap, and didn't take. So, she went to AC Moore and bought this kit. This kit is awesome! The henna powder is very fine and has no clumps or debris. They provide a great applicator bottle, with an awesome fine tip that makes wonderful lines. There's lots of eucalyptus oil, and the mordant liquid they provide is pre mixed and does not stink at all.

And though the amount seems very small, it was enough to do all of these designs.

Plus, my own left arm, and my feet.
I don't have any "after" pictures yet. but just based on Piko, and my results, it came out very well.
Is it bringing back memories Ms. Librarian?

I forgot to add the funniest moment of the night. A couple of us were in the kitchen applying henna, and the rest of the children (3, 1 of mine, 2 of hers) were in the living room "playing". Suddenly there is crying and yelling. It went something like this.
Kid 1: Waaaaaaa!!!! She broke my wand!!!
Kid 2: I did not!!!
Mom: What happened?
Kid 1: She broke my wand! WAAAAAAAA!!!
Mom: Kid 2, did you break her wand?
Kid 2: Well, yeah....
Mom: Why would you do that?!? I think you should apologize.
Kid 2: Yeah, but...
Kid 1: She broke it!!! She didn't even say sorry!
Mom: Tell her you're sorry!
Kid 2: Yeah, but she was hitting me with the wand, and that's why it broke!!
Mom:................You kids are going to make me crazy!!
Me: (in the kitchen, to myself) Too late.

Well....Thanks, I Guess.

I came home from marketing the other morning and Sarge greets me with:

"I got you a present!!!! Well, actually it's more of a presnt for you that's for me."

You know I don't like Victoria's Secret! I tell him.

"I know that!!" He says. "It's much better! I got baseball tickets!!"

Well. Yay?

"They're for the Nationals, at the new stadium!"

Ok, I'll admit, this does kind of sound like a good time to me. We used to get tickets for an Orioles game about once a year whenever the Red Sox would play in Baltimore. But we have been slacking quite a bit the past two or so years. I know that Sarge probably bought the cheapest seats available, and is bringing me along so that I can keep Piko deGallo entertained, but I'm easily swayed by overpriced hot dogs, lemonade, and cotton candy.

Anyone want to take bets on how many innings we get through before Piko and I end up here?

Oh! My Aching Shoulders!!!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Sarge is trying to kill me.

Thursday at the gym we did this workout. I think my time was something like 17:35, but I substituted a 25lb dumbbell for the kettleball, and had about 110 on the pull-up weight stack. Since I couldn't do a pull up to save my life, seriously. Then we played about 20 minutes of tennis. Man, we suck at tennis, that's the reason we play tennis, we are equally sucky, so nobody gets mad, it's fun and not competitive. But COME ON!!! That was a combined run of .75 miles, 63 dumbbell swings, and 36 pull-ups.

The previous day I had been working on this for a friend:

I guess her church is having some kind of singles luau/dance.
So my shoulders were pretty achy already. That freaking thing was bout 9 feet tall, and 12 feet long.

Thursday afternoon after I had gotten the approval on the finished mural, the friend reminded me that I was going to do a Tiki mural as well. Well, crap. So I got started on that one as well. As I was finishing up with the coloring and shading of that one, a PTA friend called an let me know that the dance Piko deGallo's school was having the next day needed decorations. I agreed to show up for that after dinner.

I show up at the school, and the only person there to decorate the cafeteria besides me is the friend who called me. Dude, we must have blown up about 500 balloons that night. Thankfully she had these little hand pumps that did most of the work, but AGH, again with the aching shoulders. We get mostly done there at about 9:30, and I head home.

Crap! The Tiki still needs detail outlining. Shoulders again! I wish I was ambidextrous. But it turned out freaking awesome! I want to paint one of these in our house, but Sarge says not. Though as you can see, it is totally Piko approved.
This gives you some idea of the scale I was working in.

Back to the school on Friday for the "dance". Pre-K, and Kindergarten are first, so Sarge and I attend. Balloons popping galore. I guess we have to replenish the stock for the other classes. Which means more using of the hand pump. Ow, OW! OW!!
But the kids had a great time, (however the DJ kept playing that damn "Apple Bottom Jeans" song, which is another rant entirely!) and by the time the 2nd graders got into the dance there was less popping of the balloons. Thank goodness.


So I guess I'm blaming Sarge, but it looks like he was only about 25% responsible for my current state of pain. My own stupid volunteering self is responsible for the other 75%.

Though last night, he was trying to convince me to do the split jerk workout. Um, NO.

Maine Photolog

As you can see, there was quite a bit of snow built up. Piko deGallo is standing at the top of a snow bank (or "snow hills" as she calls them) on the edge of the in-law's driveway.


Funny enough, I checked the weather in Sarge's town this morning, and guess what?! IT WAS SNOWING!! LOLerskates!

Piko deGallo and Sarge put up a pretty impressive snow person in the front yard. And then that was pretty much the end of the outdoors for us. It got very cold overnight, and rained, so that nice snow turned into slick ice.


The first of some wonderfully fresh seafood we had. Though this was the only bit that was not battered and fried, as is the way in Downeast Maine.

Yum, fresh steamed clams!


Piko deGallo learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Thank you so much Grandpa deGallo!!! She only dumped seriously once, and I got it on camera.

And then I couldn't go a week without being a tad bit crafty. I reeled Piko deG, and her cousin off of the computer and we created some very festive Easter egg trees. I didn't feel like blowing a whole bunch of eggs, so I bought a bunch of fun foam and cut out egg shapes, then had the girls decorate them. I then cut out some cute birds from some cheap scrapbooking paper. So cute!

Holy Crud!

Well, we're back!

And we're leaving in a little more than a month!

I've officially had to start thinking about the fact that we're really moving to Germany, and all that entails. Crud. Packing, yard sales, last minute appointments, dealing with the dog, cleaning my house. All things I thoroughly enjoy of course.

Maine was pretty good though. Lots of snow, fried seafood, chocolate milkshakes, Piko deGallo milestones, and family. Low on privacy, high octane coffee, companionable silence, and privacy, did I mention privacy? I'll post some pictures later.

We also drove up (in 13 hours!! a deGallo personal best!!) in our Sienna, and drove back in an Outback! Seriously, Maine must be the Subaru capital of the universe.

We're off! Yay?

Maine ho!!!!

Woo-freaking-hoo. It's finally starting to get warm here, and we're heading off to the land of 6 foot snow drifts.

It's better than here though I guess. Monday night the PTA imploded, the new board cut funding for almost all of the student activities the previous board was supporting. They blamed the previous board for mismanaging the budget, and for sabotaging the latest fundraiser (whhhaaaa????). I did get my money for the Science Fair refunded though, so there was a plus for me. I'm seriously hoping that the next school we're at has a PTA that can actually work together, and do, you know, work.

So away from here, to the frozen north. It's going to be a great visit, I can already tell. The other night Piko deGallo tells Sarge.

"Do Grandma and Grandpa have more than one TV? I don't want to have to watch CRAP IDOL with them."

I swear, Sarge must have peed his pants from laughing so hard.

I'm looking forward to going to the discount fabric store. Thank goodness we got our tax return!