Tis the Season

Christmas gives us much to celebrate. We are thankful to God for our lives and the hope he instills in us every day. We look forward to a wonderful 2009.

sooo smart!

Today I finished and mailed in my last paper of the semester. My topic? "Examination of current positions held by Marsh (2008) and Dai (2008) in relation to selective education environments and their impact on academic self-concept."

Whew! It may not exactly sound like something you'd want to read at the beach, but these two groups were really going at it, debating whether gifted schools were actually more harm than good. I suppose if it's your job, you can get excited about anything.

Anyway, I took two classes this semester, and as of today I am done! Woohoo! The best part? Tomorrow is my birthday. In the past, I almost always had finals on my birthday. This year we can celebrate in style (I think we're going to Red Robin). My present (to myself) will be a hamburger with barbeque sauce and onion rings. Healthy? Ummmm .... no. Delicous? Absolutely. I'll have to go work out extra this week to burn off the calories.

kitty portraits

we got a fancy new camera. Pentax K20D. Kitty has been posing for portraits all week!

new job!

I recently started a new job. the pay is about the same, but it's 20+ miles closer to home, and about a 10 minute drive instead of an hour or more. it's work i like to do and i think i'm good at. it's a great fit and a huge answer to prayer!

but here are the (minor) things i miss about my old job:
1. hot water tap in the kitchen - it was perfectly hot right out of the side of the coffee maker - no microwaving water in a mug like i have to do now.
2. free coffee/tea
3. free disposable forks, spoons, napkins, plates, cups for lunch
4. having a microwave that DIDN'T smell like flowers/powder (yuck!)
5. helpful IT people
6. staff luncheons with free food, or free leftovers from other luncheons
7. a generally quiet office where i couldn't really hear anyone else talking, mostly because they were working and not chatting

things i don't miss about my old job:
1. commute!
2. commute!
3. commute!
4. taking meeting minutes
5. commute!

things i like about my new job:
1. free sick/personal leave that doesn't use my vacation leave and can be used for things like orthodontist appointments!
2. an hour lunch break!
3. free days off like nov 26-28 and dec 24-jan 2!!! plus any snow days!
4. my boss is nice
5. some of my benefits are better and cheaper

Cheer Competition today

I coach the freshman cheerleaders at the high school in our neighborhood (my alma mater). The fall season starts in August and we work hard until mid-October to compete in an invitational-type competition at an area school. Several schools put on Freshman and JV competitions around this time of year, and it's completely optional for us to sign up and prepare a routine. Only the Varsity cheer teams compete on a district/regional/state level. This year we only chose to participate in one competition because the others were either last saturday, when the girls had homecoming, or the weeks before that, which was too early to be ready.

The scoring system for cheerleading is similar in theory to a sport like gymnastics. They get scored on both difficulty and execution, so even if they do their routine wonderfully (which they did), if another team has harder skills, their score is going to be higher (which they were).

Today was our one competition of the year. My girls worked very hard for the past 2 months and performed very well today! There were 5 freshman teams and we came in 4th. They were disappointed, but we couldn't know what skills the other teams would show up with.

I'm proud of them! They worked hard! And... whew! It's over! :) :)

I'm not allowed to post any pictures or videos of the girls for safety reasons. (If you know my email, I can send you a video, but it's like 20MB!) so here's a picture of kitty instead:

what's my name again?

For most of my life, I have gone by the same name. I may in another post expound on certain temporary nicknames and their significance, but I largely have been called by the same five letters I was given post-womb (unless I was in trouble, in which case the four letters of my middle name were also added ... and a couple exclamation points). Every once in a while though I run across a person who cannot remember my name, or who thinks my name is something different than what it is. The first instance in my memory of a name foul ball was my tee ball coach when I was four, who (despite countless insistant corrections from my mother) called me Blaine for an entire summer. This later carried on in college when a neighboring coach kept referring to "that runner Blaise" when speaking of me. (On a complete misinformation note, there was a guy in junior high who I considered a friend and who called me Josh for a whole school year. I stopped trying to correct him after a while and I wouldn't be surprised to this day if he thinks my name is Josh).

Well bring in my fairly new job. In this position I finish all emails with a signature that says my name, position, address, and contact info, yet for some reason in replies I have been called these names:

• Brent
• Barry
• Brian
• Brett
  

I guess if it's short and it starts with a B it works. On top of that, there is another employee in a different office who has the same first name, and a week ago he earned a well-deserved and highly publicized promotion. He has worked with the company for more than 10 years (I've worked here a little over three months), but you would be surprised at the number of compliments I received both in person and by email. One lady, who has worked for the company for many years and knows the other Blake, wrote me an email about a business matter and on the top wrote CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION!! She knows I've only worked here for three months. What have I done in three months to deserve a promotion? Ha. I've had many many congrats. If only they were true!

Taking care of the little things

One of my wardrobe updates post-marriage was a pair of buttonfly khakis from J.Crew. These don't have near the rugged mystique of the classic Levi's 501 buttonfly pants, but they do present a similar challenge. Has anyone ever made sense of the five buttons versus the typical one and a zipper? For posing in a Levi's 501 ad (with the proverbial v-neck shirt and beads of perspiration), you only have to button the buttons one time, but under normal conditions of use, the daily buttoning total can run into the dozens. Now for the traditional build quality of the Levi's buttons, even the most inconvienent levels of use would not be enough to affect the sewing durability. I've never had a pair of Levi's that had the buttons come off or need the zipper resown. But wouldn't you know it, the fashion-concious J.Crew buttonfly khakis have not stood up to persistant use. Every single one of the buttons has loose thread flowing down the leg, and some of them are so loose you could pull them off with a generous tug.

Now I'm not upset about this. Buttons need resown from time to time. But the interesting thing is that I thought of writing a post on my loose buttonfly khakis a long while ago. The current button situation has been the same for several months. It actually is quite impressive that the frayed threads have held the buttons to the pants for so long. My first post was going to be a poll asking for opinions on when everyone thought the buttons actually would fall off. I was certain that if I did such a thing though, all I would get was an all caps response from my mother that read, "STOP COMMENTATING AND SEW YOUR BUTTONS BACK ON!"

But this makes me think though of the things in our lives that we leave for an extended period of time, even when they are out of place, even when fixing them isn't particularly hard. I can think of a couple:

• Not ironing a shirt/pants when they don't really need to be done, but would look a lot better if they were
• Placing a new toilet paper ream on top of the empty paper cylinder versus actually replacing it
• Getting new papers/mail/etc. and piling them on top of the old pile instead of cleaning out the pile

Any others you can think of?

piper palin is the cutest

I love VP candidate, Sarah Palin's youngest daughter, Piper. She's 7 years old.

Watch here:

florida!

last weekend, we went to tampa, florida for the wedding of my friends, ryan and kate. i've known ryan since i was about 6 months old. our families have stayed friends ever since. kate's family is from tampa.


while tropical storm Fay was pounding the rest of florida, the weather in tampa was pretty good. it was very very windy, but warm and the clouds were moving. it only rained 3-4 times for about 10 minutes at a time.



blake and i were excited to find one of our favorite indiana restaurants: steak n' shake. i had some chili deluxe and a chocolate shake. yum!



the rental car company must have had a deal with chrysler because we saw an abnormal amount of PT Cruisers. ours was red. it was roomy inside and fun to drive for the weekend.

watch out Fay!

Blake and I are headed to Florida this weekend for a wedding... and we trust that Tropical Storm Fay will be gone by the time we get there! AND that we'll get through Atlanta on Thursday when she's supposed to be reaching Georgia! Pray that we get on to Tampa smoothly on Thursday!

What should we do on our extra days in Tampa (minus the time at the wedding on Saturday)? My vote is beach beach beach... but i've learned that Blake isn't as enthused with laying around for hours in the sun as I am.

can you push number 11 for me?

I started a new job recently, and my office is located on the 10th floor. Counting the parking garage (which is below ground), my daily commute includes four eleven-story elevator rides (one at the beginning and end of day, and two during lunch). With a minimum of 20 eleven-story elevator rides in any given week, I invariably am required to ride with individuals who I either don't know (because I don't work with them) or don't really have anything to say to. Sometimes, if two people come on who know each other well, the cab is filled with chatter all the way up or down. But usually, we stand there in silence. We don't look at each other, we don't say anything, and we either give in to silent fidgeting or cold, heartless staring. It's AWKWARD. I don't say anything, they don't say anything. I don't know what to do. You're in this confined space with strangers and you know that you don't have enough time for a long conversation, but you have too much time to give just a simple glance and smile/head bob.



Soooo, I've used this time to pay attention to people who I'm riding with (somewhat secretly, they're probably paying attention too), and I've noticed that people have different mannerisms or staring proclivities. Some look up at the numbers, some look at the lighted buttons, some look at the wall railings, some look at the floor.


Where would you be most likely to look? What would you think about? How would you pass the time?

fancy bag

i finished my real bag! it's so sturdy and thick and heavy... it really sits up like that on its own. it's got two pockets on the inside. :)

bag lady - *UPDATED*

our fabric shopping trip was fantastic. we went to four stores that got progressively larger as the day went on and blake was a trouper. not unfamiliar with the fabric world (his mom sewed a lot while he was growing up), he enjoyed looking at all the crazy patterns and amazing handmade quilts on display. plus, there were other stores to visit in the various shopping centers. trader joe's was a big hit.

upon my realization that standard patterns now cost $12-16(!) i decided to go with a cheapy pattern ($3) and practice with some remnant pieces i found in my mom's basement. once i get a feel for what i really want, then i'll start on the real thing. and with fabric at $9 a yard, i want to make sure i know what i'm doing first!



i started sewing monday night and found that it all came back to me pretty quickly. the pattern is pretty easy and i'm about halfway finished (will post pictures soon). the fabric i found at my mom's house is pretty ugly (70s polyester at its best), but they were of the few larger pieces she had. i've already noticed places that i should have been more careful in the detail (the pockets don't line up on the sides), but that's good info for my next bag.

kitty was also a very big helper. when i layed out the fabric or pattern to cut, he layed right on top of them. when i opened the instructions to read, he layed on top of that too.

etsy day

have you been to etsy.com? it's a place to buy/sell craft supplies and handmade items. so, if you make afghans or jewelry or crazy tissue-box covers... you can sell them here. or if you want to find a hand-made quilt/dress/necklace... you can buy them here. plus, you can buy/sell craft books, fabric, and anything you could think of old or new.

so there's a seller who hand-makes beautiful reversible bags and my friend, laura, asked me to help her pick out fabrics for the one she'd order. the process was so much fun, that i decided to look through all the fabric choices (read: nearly any fabric from any seller) and order my own bag.

laura's bag:


then, i was looking through the fabric pictures so much that i thought: what's more fun than picking out my favorite fabrics for someone else to make me a bag?? picking out fabrics to make the bag myself! so, i've mapped out a route to some local fabric shops and i'm going to see what i can find. if i don't find what i want at any of the stores, i can order fabric and a pattern online and go from there.

here is some fabric i like (but not necessarily all together):

chubby teens

At work, I've been working on the same study for the past 3 1/2 years (read: I schedule the meetings for the actual researchers). It's called the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. There is a large network of researchers who have been studying the same 1,000 kids for 17 years and they write many papers about all sorts of different topics based on the ton of data they've collected. The findings of one of their recently released papers has been covered in the news.

Here is CBS's coverage.

and USA Today.

most major news outlets have covered it this week.

For a rainy day

One of the hallmarks of youth is impulsivity, at least it seems. The stereotypical youth spends money as soon as they get it (or runs across a "must-have" gadget), rushes to experience life as it happens, and rarely expresses the patient restraint exhibited by elders. I tend to be fairly patient when it comes to life decisions, transitions and purchases, but I do think I have a lot to learn when it comes to actually preparing for the future instead of just experiencing it as it happens. One way this has come to light this week is in thinking about retirement. To date, I am 27 years old, and honestly, I would guess that most of my friends and associates (who aren't under a workforce-mandated plan) don't have any kind of retirement. It's just not something our age group thinks about. How many U-30 year olds want to think about decisions they'll need to make when they are 70-75? How many want to purchase life insurance or justify putting away a percentage of their income each month to make sure that life after 60 is as much fun as life at 25? In truth, I know several people I've worked with who were over the age of 40 and still had not thought seriously about retirement.

So, in an effort to take responsibility and avoid potential pitfalls, we've started talking about our retirement/investments. I don't know that we need to get into all the specifics of what we have and what we need, but what do you guys think? How do young people take responsibility for their finances and justify putting money away when there are so many cool things to do with our money right now? What do you use to help you exhibit restraint or what are things that have helped you grow money slowly? Do any of you avoid investments entirely? What type of plans should we seek out?

horse!

when we were visiting blake's family in wyoming, i played with blake's cousin's daughters, ebony (2 1/2) and kierce (1 1/2). they are super cute and we all know i love babies. when blake was speaking in sunday morning church, kierce sat with me and we explored the contents of my purse. i couldn't believe she sat quietly with me for the whole service - what a sweetie. then we all went out to lunch for chinese food and ebony sat with me. she doesn't talk much, at least not to me, but she sure does love her dad's horse, sonny. we colored the paper place mat with all the chinese zodiac animals on it. i pointed to the animals and asked her what they were.

t: where's the puppy?
e: silence
t: where's the chicken?
e: silence
t: where's the horse?
e: Horse!
t: where's sonny?
e: Horse!

so, ebony knew the word horse and which one was the picture of the horse, but apparently didn't care much about any of the other animals. now, blake and i still laugh when we answer "horse!" to any question. and the joke has taken on a life of its own.

t: what do you want for dinner?
b: Horse!
b: what movie should we watch?
t: Horse!

and that's the story of "Horse!"




oh, here's kierce eating with chopsticks, because it's funny and cute:

In the beginning ....

Welcome to our new collaboration, the blog of Blake and Tiffanie. In this we will highlight and explore the curious happenings of life, and we welcome you to join us in thoughtful introspection. Enjoy.