serenaded hourly and celebrated sourly

We have a new house! And we are mostly moved in. I can't wait to share stories and pictures soon, but right now it's such a jumble. Soon!

I'm sorry - I meant to put in the names of the top 50 bands meme but I forgot... until now!

Here's the entry with names of bands/artists: http://twoswimy.livejournal.com/478683.html

Now here's a meme I can get behind! Using lastfm and google images - post pictures of your top 50 bands and make your friends guess who they are.

The only problem here is that Lastfm just doesn't seem to want to track the music I listen to in the car, on the ipod or by suqeezebox (since those are coming from our "server" and saved on our third PC) and that's pretty much all I do these days. I don't listen to music on the computer really at all. So in all honesty, this is more like: Lauren's top 50 bands of 2004-2006. Some of the bands on here I rarely listen to these days, and some of the bands I am listening to a lot currently are no where to be seen (Nina Simone, The Talking Heads, Los Compasinos!, Antony and the Johnsons, to name a few). But it was still fun to make the list and dig up the pictures.

I also noticed as I was going through the list, that there are a few bands in my top 50 that have just one or two songs I really like and so they made the ranks by being my own one-hit-wonders. That doesn't seem fair... so I fudged things a little. I'm sure you don't mind. The game is still fun for you!

So let the guessing begin!

1 Magnetic Fields


2 Belle & Sebastian


3 Mountain Goats


( 4 to 50 )( 4 to 50 )

Rembrandt passed away today.



I'm too heartbroken to talk about it much right now... But I will say that he was the best guinea pig I ever met. He is the only one of my three who would come to greet me and gladly let me pick him up and liked to give me kisses on the cheek. I knew something was up because his food dish hadn't gone down much in the last week or so, but he wasn't acting strange last time I held him. I could tell he was getting old though. Poor guy. I miss him so much.

We brought Rembrandt home from Meijer in early November 2004 - from LJ posts it looks like we might have brought him home on the 4th. Here's a post from the 9th:

http://twoswimy.livejournal.com/256441.html#cutid1

I'm sorry about all the broken picture links. I'll fix it soon so you can see the pictures of him, but in the meanwhile I uploaded some of them to my flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenhenderson/tags/rembrandt/

Broke the handle on one of my favorite coffee mugs. This day (year??) just keeps getting better and better.


Me circa late 2005 with aforementioned mug.

Go figure... as soon as I "resolve" to write more in my journal LJ starts having issues.

It seems odd - in this world where technology changes and grows so quickly - that I'd still be using LJ. Is it even stranger that I refuse to change the "look" of LJ and so I have kept it all along on the old fashioned "look" so it is as close to how it was when I started in 2002 as humanly possible? I'm stuck in my ways I guess.

Unfortunately I have never found an alternative to LJ that I prefer. Twitter is cool but doesn't always work for us verbose types. Plus I can read about so many more people on LJ... I think I only have 8 twitter followers. Only a few of which actually post regularly.

So I guess we ... stick it out and see what happens?

I wrote about Twitter on the TPL Techblog.

Then I tweeted on Twitter about my blog entry about Twitter on the TPL Techblog.

Then I journaled on my Livejournal about how I tweeted on Twitter about my blog entry about Twitter on the TPL Techblog.

Perhaps she died! (Of dorkyness)

Taking a break from cleaning the house... Procrastinating. I've run out of steam for the time being.

Back in the world of teaching... and it's not as stressful as it was last time. The only thing stressing me right now is contract negotiations. Economic issues. Things I can't control. The children, while they have their moments of hair-ripping annoyance, are lovable. I love all of them. If I could, I would buy them all ponies. For the time being, books will have to suffice.

Birthday festivities tonight. Tomorrow I'll be 25. I've always been keen on square numbers. I feel like 25 is the last fun milestone. 30 40 50 etc. all sound depressing. So I need something really spectacular. Where can I go to find 25 doves? Hmmm...

I'm in a sitting room near the lobby of Kutcher's country club. The weather is gorgeous - that fabulous summer to fall transition weather. A man from a band I don't recognize is playing the piano and it's beautiful. Just beautiful.

This whole weekend has been a unique experience. It's like summer camp, only we've all grown older and more good-looking. Old enough for beards and alcohol. The people here are spectacular. Kind and sharply dressed. The bands are casual and friendly.

Last night I danced on stage with Les Savy Fav. Their set was fantastic and all together too short. I felt the same way about Low - fabulous set, great energy, TOO SHORT. I guess that's how it goes when you have so many bands in one night - it never feels quite long enough.

Soon I'll head over to the pool... or maybe go for a rowboat ride on the lake. But for now I'm going to enjoy a few more minutes of warm laptop and soul-stirring piano.

Sorry to neglect you live journal... in a world of facebooks and twitters I've become fond of one-sentence updates. It's a terrible thing.

This weekend we'll be venturing out on a real road trip. Haven't been on one in a while and I'm super excited.

Our itnerary:

Thursday morning: Leave early, drive from RO to Cleveland.
Thursday afternoon: Spend the day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Eat dinner at Lola!!
Thursday evening: Drive to Buffalo - stay in a hotel!
Friday morning-afternoon: Drive from Buffalo to Boston, stopping at a few fabulous NY rest stops for free wifi and awful food.
Friday evening: Jon & Becky's rehearsal dinner at fancy restaurant (finally an excuse to wear my new Betsey Johnson dress - which I'm pretty sure Betsey Johnson created with me in mind).
Saturday all-day: dosboof & mandy_moon's wedding - wooo!!!
Sunday morning: Grab breakfast with forever_dreams and meet her Jason!!
Sunday afternoon-evening: Drive the long haul back to RO.

About 90 hours away from home, work and any sort of stress. New places explored. Fancy dinners consumed. Fancy dresses worn. Friends I rarely see. New friends to meet for the first time!

And best of all - BECKY & JON ARE GETTING MARRIED!!!

My next update will likely be an anecdote from the road - or maybe some photographic evidence of our trip. Either way, it promises to be better than my current hum-drum How I Spent my Summer Vacation Thus Far.

How I have neglected my LJ friends!

I got a job teaching for next school year!!

Sorry if you knew that already via facebook, and even more sorry I forgot to mention it here until now. I've known for a while.

Dream come true: I'll be the media specialist in a K-5 IB school in the district where I grew up. I've come back to the ol' stompin' ground. You know... that same old place that I laughed about? Well, the names have all changed since I hung around, but those dreams have remained and they've turned around.

Who'd have thought they'd lead me me (who'd have thought they'd lead me) here where they need me (here where they need me).

Oh dear... sigh. Sorry about that, I was having a moment.

Remember how I said I was going to donate 10+ inches of hair to Locks of Love this summer?



( ZOMG )

( News in Photos )

I'll be taking more pictures of my flowers as they get established and start to look more full and beautiful... but for now here are some early season flower pictures.

This will also serve as a record for my soil issues... some of my flowers are dying for no apparent reason. Also I have a lot more plants to monitor this year so we'll see how well I can keep up with the extra greenery.

( Flowers! )

Never Let rachiestar Down.

( Food Pics )

As is tradition we spent this weekend Up North. First "Up North" of the year... so wonderful. Last time I was Up North I was panicky about Wedding Stuff and Homework and whatnot so I actually drove to random establishments that had (free?*) WiFi so I could "keep in touch". The point of Up North is not to "keep in touch" it's to pretend the world no longer exists and your life is "Woke up, ate a sandwich, went to bed" as a wise sock once said. This time I went completely internet-free and only made two calls to my mom and answered one from Cassie. I was as disconnected from Down State as possible. Highlights of the weekend were reading an entire book before breakfast, antique shopping with my MotherIL and playing Ticket to Ride and Monopoly with the FamsIL (got beat down in both, but when you have fun playing EVERYBODY WINS).

Since my schedule is totally whackadoo (what's new?) I'll only get to go Up North 1 or 2 times this summer before Labor Day Weekend (last "Up North" of the year). We're planning on July 4th and possibly one other weekend in mid July or early August. Cross your fingers for swimming and campfire weather.

T minus 38 days until massive hair cut. I hadn't measured in a while, but today my lax pony tail is 12" at its longest point. I'm horrified and thrilled at the same time. I foresee nightmares featuring scissors.



*After a coffee or a meal that you feel obligated to buy because you're sitting in their space using up their internets... is anything ever really free?

I had my parents, grandmothers and aunt over for dinner tonight. It was a good excuse to clean up the house - which was seriously dumpy. It still could use a good cleaning... I tend to use the "sweep it under the rug" aproach rather than acutally cleaning.

For dinner we had cheese and spinach tortellini in a homemade sauce and goat cheese, asparagus, and garlic toast. For dessert: mini pineapple upsidedown cakes and chocolate muffins. I forgot to take pictures, but recipes are under the cut.

( Exceptional Dinner )

Matt and I stayed up late last night making a big decision. When we got married in September 07, we decided not to take a honeymoon right away - rather to put it off and figure out what to do at a better date. As our one-year anniversary approaches, we thought of no better way to celebrate than to take that honeymoon... and we have decided when and where:

September 19-21 in Monticello, NY.

That's right...

We're going to ATP NY!!!

Best. Honeymoonniversary. Ever.

A Photo Post to accompany today's Wordy Post.

( Four photos - one may be gross? )

No fooling - the song from the end of Portal came out for Rock Band today, FREE! I sang while Matt played guitar and I got a 100%!

P.S. The cake is a lie.