Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Dresses

Yesterday, Sarah and I went to the David's Bridal in West Springfield to try on some bridesmaids' dresses.

We ended up trying on the two dresses I featured in a post earlier this month. These dresses were quite nice. I especially liked the strapless one, though the other dress was lovely -- I just thought it would looked better on others. We also tried on this dress, which Sarah really liked and might get.


There was also a shocking moment, when I realized that the color I had been looking at for all the dresses and thought was a teal (online) is actually a navy. To make matters worse, David's Bridal discontinued their teal. Now Seth and I aren't 100% sure what we're going to do with the color. We probably will go with the navy because I have picked out the dresses pretty much already. Maybe we'll have the guys in tan suits, which would be very fun and non-traditional and good for the summer, just how the navy will be good for an evening wedding.

Sarah and I also looked at shoes online. I like these silver ballet flats especially, although there were some other cute silver ballet flats at Payless too.

So, things are coming together once we finalize on the color. Seth and I plan to look into that more tonight, and then we should be all set for my friends to order their dresses!

Monday, November 23, 2009

The Goings-on with Lily

Lily has been the most wonderful girl lately. She has been doing all sorts of things I never thought she would. I feel that some day in the future, she might turn into a real lap cat.

Lily used to never share furniture with you. In fact, originally, she never sat on any furniture except her special window seat, which she continues to adore, and the disk chair, which she has deserted of late. Lily loves to spend time sitting with Seth and me on the couch. This is especially desirable when Seth has the star quilt out. Indeed, Seth and Lily take up so much space that it is sometimes difficult for me to get a spot at all. Lily also spent a lovely night, curled up on my lap for over an hour. This from a cat who never used to sit with me for more than ten minutes tops. She also spent about fifteen minutes on my lap while I was surfing the web last night. (I had to remove her from Seth's laptop -- a new favorite spot.)


Lily does love her little enclosed spaces. She spent some time in Seth's hamper last night.


Lily is such a good girl. I like to think that we are doing right by her and taking care of her in ways that accommodates for her rather special personality and nervousness. Again, I feel she's been doing very well with this. I think she's been happier since we moved to Echo Hill and got the condo where it is so much quieter, recent difficulties with the electric (company -- not the electrical work in the house which is apparently fine), which has resulted in a lot of people visiting, aside.

I am very thankful that Lily (via Missy) found us. Her Mommy and Daddy couldn't love her more!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Anniversary and Twist

The Fall Phonathon ended Thursday with a great deal of success. This made me quite happy. I was also excited to sit down to a dinner with Seth for the first time in two weeks. A special bonus - it was our anniversary!

The celebration actually started on Wednesday when Seth had flowers sent to my office to celebrate my last Phonathon shift (Maddy worked the Thursday shift) and our anniversary.


He sent carnations - my favorites!

Thursday ended up being such a crazy day. We were having trouble with our internet and then Comcast said it was an electrical problem and the story, as of yet unresolved, continues for annoying length the result which promises to be a very expensive electrical bill. Although it is to note that the problem is probably not our electrical system at all which appeared fine to the electricians but something created by the cable company. This is no 100% certain but is likely. Even though we spent all of Friday dealing with the situation we'll have to wait until Tuesday for likely resolution. But I digress.

Thursday, after Seth dealt with the craziness all day and I spent the day at work, we decided despite our worry about the cable situation to go out as planned. We went to Tabella, a lovely restaurant in Amherst, where we had somehow never been. We had a lovely dinner. We shared some chickpea fries to start, then had a great risotto and some duck with a chutney. We then had dessert - pumpkin pie for Seth and a wonderful bittersweet chocolate creme brulee for me. It was a wonderful time, and I was delighted to get to spend time with Seth after such a long time without getting to share a meal with him.

Friday we dealt with the electrical/cable problem during the day. But in the evening had a great time going to the Twist craft fair in Northampton. Maddy went with us which was lovely because I have hardly gotten to see her at work what with our crazy schedules trading off evenings at the Phonathon.

As per usual, I got some cool stuff at Twist. Seth got me some soaps from Bunny Butt Apothecary, my favorite hand-made soap place.


He also got me an adorable little stuffed pig for my desk. Lily is already obsessed with the pig, and you can see a bit of her fuzziness and wiskers in the picture.


Finally, I go myself a neat magnet. The picture didn't come out that well -- the button says "Knit Nerd." Funny!


I've actually been doing more spinning than knitting, as I have been working on spinning up the yarn for the craft basket The Smith Fund is putting together for the Development/AASC annual winter charity auction.



I finished plying the first bit earlier this afternoon and am in good shape to have it all done by December.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Writing This from My New Netbook

I am writing this post from my new netbook, an ASUS Eee 1005HA with Windows 7 Starter. I got it last night, and have been looking forward to doing some typing with it, as I want to see how the keyboard it. So far, seems good, though I definitely notice that it's only 92% size. Not a bother though, considering I am petite too. The netbook and I are on the same page with that.

So far, I have been very pleased. The netbook does just what I expected it to do well well. It is lightening fast on the internet. If one only has a couple of programs open, it's speedy as can be. It seems to go as fast as my approximately one-year-old Dell PC at work, which is great. I did optimize the netbook a little bit, taking items off the start up and that really seemed to help.

The computer boots in about 45 seconds which is great. The only annoying this is how long it takes to open and delete programs in the control panel. It's then that one remembers that one is only using one gig of ram, but I couldn't care less about this. I probably won't open the control panel again for a long while - I'll just be checking my e-mail and using the web. The netbook does both of those things way faster than the poor old IBM, which, as I have said, I still love dearly.

Windows 7 took a bit of initial getting used to. At first I couldn't figure out where you did run commands or where things were located on the control panel - but it's basically your same Windows. I am not, in general, a Windows hater. I thought XP was perfect for my needs and like 95 fine before that. I anticipate a similar experience with Windows 7. Yes, I know that my netbook would go much faster with Linux, but I am used to Windows and that makes me happy. Plus, I think that the aero is nice. Yes, it slows down the works a bit, but not for the basics, so no problem.

Perhaps you have heard how Windows 7 Starter doesn't let you change the wallpaper on your computer. This is true, and totally crazy - the people at Microsoft and I are not of one mind on this. Fortunately, the people at ASUS think that this is crazy too and make a system tool that allows you to change your wallpaper to whatever you want. Now I am happy to have my picture of Lily as my wallpaper.

The netbook advertises that it has 10.5 hours of battery life. I am sure that this is true if you completely compromise system performance, don't run aero, et cetera. If you don't do any customizing to optimize battery life - as I have done - they you get just under seven hours, which is way more battery than most people would need most of the time. I am very glad to have a computer with a new battery. The IBM, which used to have awesome battery life for its day, now can only go half an hour ultimate max without being plugged in. Additionally, the battery monitor is totally faulty and thinks the computer is without battery after fifteen minutes and then it's a gamble from there if the computer will keep going or not.

In sum, so far, so good. I am enjoying my little netbook.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Working

Things are moving right along with work, wedding prep, and my hobbies. Lily has been working hard too.


First, the Phonathon is almost 2/3 over. We were actually featured on the Smith College news page, The Gate. You can read about the Phonathon (and see a picture of the Phonathon Center) here.

For the wedding, Seth and I finished with writing the ceremony. Seth did most of it, and did a great job. Now we have to disseminate the finished product to the officiants. Also, I have plans to go shopping with my bridesmaids around Thanksgiving. I've been looking at dresses that look like this.


And this.


Actually for the second one, I was looking at this dress (click) in teal because it's closer to the first one. For some reason the website wouldn't let me download a jpg for it though.

Seth has also been working on the invitations, starting with the save the dates. He has done a wonderful mock up. The invites are going to be in teal as well - teal is the color we're using. The invites will be modern and with a geometric feel. We talked briefly about having the pattern on the cake echo the invites but no plans have been made yet, and the cake and invites are Seth's area of expertise.

I've also been doing some spinning.


I am thinking of spinning this yarn and donating it for the charity auction that happens for our office in December. It's very cool yarn, so it might be good for that. The yarn I donated last year was popular and got knit into a baby sweater. So cute!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Maze

Whew! It's been busy, and I have not posted in a while. The past few weeks have been extremely busy at work as the Fall Phonathon has been taking place. So far, so good though.

Yesterday, Seth and I took a break from the busy schedule I have and went to Sunderland to Mike's Maze, an eight acre corn maze at Warner Farm.


This year's maze was Darwin.

(Image from Mike's Maze website)

One gets a map and the game is to locate certain points in the maze.


At these points there are information placards pertaining to the theme of the maze. One gets points for finding all the locations in the maze and gets a sugar pumpkin as a prize.


Seth and I had loads of fun and found all the locations in the maze and even some of the bonus ones.


At home, Lily has been chilling out with us a lot. The couch, where she never used to sit, is now her new favorite spot. She's also fancying the linen closet. Here, Lily does her best "I am a blanket" impression.


Also, perhaps the next time I blog, I will be doing so from my new computer. My dear, dear, IBM, I love you so, but after seven years, things are starting to become difficult for you. Some days are good, some days, not so much.

To help take the strain off the IBM, I am getting a netbook - an Asus eee 1005HA with Windows 7 Starter Edition in blue.

I am eagerly anticipating it's arrival. It's a simple computer, designed only to surf the web, read e-mail and create the occasional Word document, but that's all I really use my computer for now anyway since I am no longer a student. My much beloved IBM will still be my favorite before all other computers, and I will definitely still keep it, just more in an inactive role. It has earned its retirement.