breaking the blogging fast... and summer goal #1

i have no excuses for the sabbatical, although i think the increase of tweets and status updates has a definite indirect relationship with the decrease in blogging...
i debated the best way to break the fast... should i write one massive blogging binge with all of the thoughts, stories, projects, and ideas that have passed since my last entry?  who would even venture to read such a thing??  so instead, i will just start right back up as if no time had passed, beginning with my #1 goal/project for the summer... tackling the dreaded closets.

i have been putting off the extensive purging of the closet for some time now.  as my fellow perfectionists well know, it's impossible to take on a task under the following conditions:

• the desired end result is yet unknown
• there is not sufficient time or energy to do the job "right"
• there is not sufficient time or energy to do the job all in one sitting

as a result, my closet looks like this:

 there are several problems:

• space:  the closet is spacious, but very deep, with two parallel clothing bars; i tend to use the one in the front and forget entirely about the bar in the back. 
• organization:  there is NO organization system.  and i doubt there is an organization system that exists that actually fits my space, which means a custom-made or hand-made system will be needed... one requires money and the other my husband's time :)
• doors.  ug.  ly.  and inconvenient.  sliding doors.  i just want to see the whole closet at once!

my #1 goal with this project is to SIMPLIFY... i would like to have LESS, less stuff, less clutter, less unused stuff, less, less, less.  i want everything in my closet to be something i will use and for it to be more easily accessible so that i will remember that it exists and actually USE it.

so, step one (must get done THIS week before vacation to CO!):
cleaning the darn thing out!  must get rid of all the clothes that are old, worn out, or inappropriate sizes!  this is a tough task.  i hate the old rule "if you haven't worn it in a year get rid of it."  it's hard to part with some things, you know?  i hold on to some things out of sheer stubbornness, because i paid money for it and feel obligated to get more use out of it.  and then there is the challenge of trying to simplify when there are so many different clothes with different purposes:  the dressy clothes for weddings/funerals, the somewhat dressy work clothes, the casual work clothes, the clothes for staying at home, clothes for housework, clothes for hiking/biking/running/swimming/fill-in-the-blank-activity, clothes for sleeping, clothes for sporting events, winter clothes, summer clothes, etc.  arg!!!  it can get rather overwhelming!

step two, which will be a future post, is to determine an organization system.  with my other summer goals, it is yet to be determined whether i will finish the closet project or not this summer.  but, setting my perfectionistic need to wait to start a task until i can accomplish the ideal aside, i will tackle this task in smaller bite-size chunks.  stay tuned for updates on this and other summer goal projects!

i'm a choir nerd...

...so, of course, i am loving the new season of "the sing off" on NBC. you may remember my obsession with committed.

hey people. this is why high school arts programs are important. because they give kids the chance to become this...

and this...

good stuff.

bathroom reno

really i just like to talk about renovating the bathroom but avoid actually doing any work. but, someday i will get around to the bathroom reno and then it will be beautiful. i'm going to share the plan with you all, plus some pictures that are the inspiration for my future bathroom, and maybe you can help me make some decisions.

here's my inspiration:

i like black and white complimented with BRIGHT colors (fiery orangey-reds, or limey/lemony yellow). i want black walls, but will probably do white bead-board or subway tiles 3/4 up the wall so it won't be super dark. we'll definitely paint the clawfoot tub black around the outside. love that. i like white towels but let's be realistic, they'll stay white for about 3 minutes. so, i'll probably find bright towels, maybe even some pattern. i'll know it when i see it. here are 3 inspiration bathrooms, all pretty similar. the medicine cabinet we have is identical to the ones in the first two pics and the train rack i want to get is similar to that in the 3rd photo.

so here's the plan:

*gut the whole bathroom and put in new drywall, lighting, electrical, and rearrange the plumbing.

*install new window.

*paint door/frame white.

*put in craigslist clawfoot tub, pedestal sink, and metal cabinet for storage. reuse existing toilet. purchased old fashioned looking medicine cabinet from restoration hardware. use gift certificate from RH to purchase a "train rack" for towel storage.

*still need:

1. lighting. probably will do recessed lights plus one or two sconces either above or on either side of the medicine cabinet.

2. fixtures for shower (see right), hand towel hook or ring, toilet paper holder, and a door knob. probably will buy new except for the door knob (want a cool vintage glass knob, i think).

3. flooring (maybe tiny hexagonal tiles, white with a few black added in as was customary in most bathrooms from 1930's bungalow homes or hardwood painted a glossy white).

4. decide whether we want to do white subway tiles partway up the wall or nothing but paint. what do you guys think? see inspiration pics above.

we also need to decide on a layout. it's a tiny bathroom, so not a lot of options.

here's how the layout is currently but more awful because the ugly counter top stretches the whole length of the wall where the sink is:

here's another option:

and here's my favorite option so far:

i feel like this 3rd option hides the ugly toilet but also gives us the most space around the sink. my tall light blue metal cabinet will sit across from the toilet for storage and the train rack will likely hang right above the toilet.

thoughts? suggestions?

couch time

a friend of mine calls it "couch time"... that time when you just need to sit and pour out your thoughts and worries and listen to sage or sympathetic advice. i like that term. i'm pilfering the term.

anyway, this week's "couch time" for me came in the package of another goodie from isaac anderson of jacob's well. this time about joy. this is good for me to hear. i'm not good at joy. my two primary thoughts when listening to this, however, were:

1. joy doesn't have to be the ONLY thing i am able to feel at once. i know, i know, joy isn't really a feeling, but for the sake of this thought of mine, let's just run with it. anyway, a person is capable of experiencing joy and fear, joy and sadness, joy and heartache, trouble, worry, grief, weariness, etc at once. because joy is less about all things being ok and more about experiencing all things WHILE simultaneously walking with jesus, who gives us full lives. lives that are full of all of those emotions and experiences and yet still we live.

2. isaac references a biblical analogy of joy as an object, a burden really, that one might carry around on one's head, like laundry, or a basket of food, or a load of bricks (have you SEEN those crazy national geographic photos of workers in, like, indonesia or malaysia or somewhere carrying literally loads and loads of bricks using only their heads??). this reference was vivid for me as i pondered thought #1. if joy is experienced simultaneously with myriad other emotions, positive and negative alike, then joy really is like this great burden on my head. it's there, with me, but it may not always be the easiest burden to lift. strange that i think of joy that way? it resonates with me, though, because sometimes to have joy is strangely very difficult for me.

anyway, you should listen. perhaps my thoughts will be more coherent after a listen.

Click here to listen: Joy - Isaac Anderson

experimenting with a new recipe (aka trying to find a cooler way to cook in this inferno we call july!)

although her toothy smile and her irritating habit of occasionally turning on a thick italian accent annoy me, i generally like the food that giada de laurentis prepares on her cooking show "giada at home." the woman adds cheese to everything, therefore she has won my heart. so, i saw this recipe on her show the other day and decided to try it with a few mendy-alterations. the recipe is for butternut squash penne.

Penne with Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese on the Food Network

i had sweet potato on hand, so i decided to substitute it for the butternut squash which is not in season during summer. i also decided it was entirely TOO SCORCHING to crank my poor oven in my tiny kitchen in my small (albeit quaint) house up to 450 degrees for 45-50 minutes to roast the potato and onions. i don't like to use the oven in summer if i don't have to as it damn near heats the entire house! in the winter, this is a perk, but right now it only makes me want to toss the whole idea of cooking at home out the window and instead call a favored restaurant for take out! so i thought to myself why not use the grill instead? and so i did. or rather, kirk did. i also decided to add some turkey sausage to the dish because it sounded good to me.

so here's what i used in the order of appearance:

*those turkey sausages look a bit disgusting, don't they?

in a foil packet for the grill:

chopped onions

cubed sweet potato

olive oil

salt

pepper

stove-top:

whole wheat penne pasta

chopped turkey sausage (kroger brand)

add to pasta after draining all but about 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water:

soft goat cheese (add to the pasta while still hot and stir until creamy)

chopped fresh basil

add the heated turkey sausage and the contents of the grill packet

pepper

shaved parmesan

being an experiment of sorts, a few mishaps are bound to happen. for example, i had the grill set at too high of a heat and ended up having to cut the burnty ends off of some of the sweet potato. this resulted in far less sweet potato than i would have liked in the dish. also, i could do with or without the turkey sausage. since this was our entire meal, i'm glad we had a little more substance to the recipe, but i do think that this addition distracted from some of the great flavors of the original dish.

ok, i think i may veer away from food posts for a while. i might do a series of posts featuring different rooms in our house and some of the project ideas we have for those rooms. kirk and i have a hard time making decisions about which projects to do, which ones to abandon, and how BIG to make each project. anyone relate to that? really, there's any number of improvements, renovations, and alterations one could make to one's home, but we cannot do them all. so maybe i'll get some tips or advice from some of you with this next series of posts!

nerdy school teacher art

last month, i spent a fun weekend in KC and, among the many various activities, we visited the flea markets in the old west bottoms. i was obsessed with all of the vintage fans, dressers, and globes, of course, as i seem to have a compulsive magnetism towards them. but, i managed to control myself and came away with this incredibly colorful old pull down map of kansas. isn't it great? much cheaper than any piece of artwork of the same size! and it seems to fit with my nerdy teachery self!

i wasn't sure of the best way to hang it and finally decided on a pair of antique wooden clothing hangers. here's the inspiration for that lovely idea (courtesy of design*sponge blog).

comfort

this past weekend kirk and i gave ourselves the gift of a clean house. remember my new year's resolution to clean for 20 minutes a day in order to keep my house a happy clean house? well, that lasted about 2 months. and i'm pretty sure i haven't cleaned my house since. i do plan to re-instate the resolution as soon as summer (aka free time) begins. anyway, i really enjoy my house, especially clean. it's very comforting. i opened up the windows and let the breeze circle through the house while i planted myself in my bed and read books for most of the weekend... other than the bit when i was cleaning. i decided to take a picture of my clean room to show you so that you can understand why that was just about the perfect weekend for me...

...isn't it so comfy looking??? natural light, breezy, dark walls making it small and cozy, fluffy pillows, wrinkly-looking duvet, piles of antique quilts from my grandmothers and great-aunt stacked in the armoire, clothes and clutter put away, the smell of lemon-y furniture polish, the sound of my wind chime drifting in through the open window, and plenty of books waiting to be read... perfect.

then, i realized that i probably never showed you my new bed.

you'll remember that i ordered it back in november. unfortunately it was delivered minus a few key parts so we ended up having to return the ENTIRE bed so they could send us a new bed (exactly the same bed, mind you) but with all the appropriate bits and bobs so that we could actually put it together and use it for sleeping! this delivery-return-redelivery process took many months and resulted in a $100 gift card and free delivery after i very nicely told restoration hardware that i was less than satisfied with the experience. but, in the end, i received the bed and i'm very happy with it and my room looks like an adult bedroom and not a college dorm.

i also never showed you the great dresser i found on craigslist! you know i have a problem with dressers. can't seem to get enough.

ok, back to my original topic: i find it rather strange that i equally (but for entirely DIFFERENT reasons) enjoy being at school with loads of noisy, energetic students, and all of my exceptional co-workers, AND being at home alone in my room with a stack of books, napping cats, and a pleasant-y breeze. seems a little bipolar, yes? anyway, this got me thinking: what is the most comfortable room in your house and what makes it so comfortable?

how to have fun in kansas city

last weekend, kirk and i had a mini-getaway to kansas city (ok, not really a getaway, considering i work in the metro area every day and it's really only 40 minutes from home, but still "away") for our anniversary. we stayed downtown and tried to participate in as many local fun activities as we possibly could in less than 24 hours. here's some shots to tell the story...

on friday we went to the west bottoms to check out the antique shops and flea market area that occupy the first floors of several old warehouse buildings. not only is this a perfect use of old buildings and a fun area to explore, but the shops had a lot of great finds and they seemed to be reasonably priced. we bought an old pull-down map of kansas that we plan to hang in our living room. i'll post pictures of it once i have it up.

friday night we went out to the "K" to watch the Royals. here's alex gordon running the bases after his home run. it was also "fireworks friday." good times.

so, after the game we were hungry and the only places open near our hotel were QUITE expensive...not exactly in our plan for the weekend, but what were we to do?? so, we splurged on a very tasty dinner of mahi tuna, potato gnocci, and fried zucchini. as fate would have it, we also managed to get a hotel room with a view of a brick wall, located directly below the massively loud air conditioning unit for the entire hotel, and directly between the rooms reserved for a wedding party (bachelor party on the left and bachelorette party on the right). after being awoken several times in the night and early morning with the plethora of sounds, we decided we would not be paying full price for this room. at check out, we politely mentioned the variety of issues and the very nice lady at the desk sympathetically discounted our room and took off the parking charge. she wondered why we were not given a better room considering we had made our reservations over a month before...i wondered the same, but appreciated that the discounted hotel room helped me to feel better about the very expensive mahi tuna.

after this, we walked down to the city market for breakfast. we enjoyed the scents of the spice market, the pastries from Bloom Bakery, the view of the city, and coffee before we headed for home.

learning our history

if you want to know more about one of my favorite topics in U.S. history, or if you, like myself, enjoy being a lifelong learner, i just have to tell you to please, please, if you do nothing else this week, watch Oprah on wednesday, may 4. if you're not an Oprah-watcher, i apologize for being cliche, or pop-culture, or whatever, but on wednesday, she will be reuniting the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists that were the heart of the non-violence movements in the south in the 1960's. one of my favorite heroes in history, Congressman John Lewis, will be on the show to talk about that time in his life as he marched along MLK, Jr and many others. i hope that it will be a show that demonstrates hope, reconciliation, and redemption. i plan to watch it by myself and cry until i am satisfied that all the tears are out. then, i plan to show it to my students since we studied non-violence movements and John Lewis earlier this year. but, first i have to get the crying out of the way! please watch this very important show with me!

and, if you would enjoy fictional reading that shines a light on that same era in history, you should definitely read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, one of my favorite reads of 2010, if not ever!

worth the view

i've seen some excellent movies/shows lately, thought you should know. mendy's must-sees, so to speak. as always, please heed my disclaimer: i am not easily ill-influenced by movies, so i'm open to almost anything. i may enjoy movies that others would take offense to, but my favorite movies always provoke, inspire, teach, and inform me. so, don't be shocked if you watch a movie, or read a book i've recommended, please just keep your mind open, is all i ask. ok, disclaimer aside...these are some pretty darn good choices:

*PBS Masterpiece Theater's series "Downton Abbey" examines difficult class and social issues between lords and the serving class. fascinates me.

*also on PBS Masterpiece Theater: a great twist on one of my personal favorites, "Sherlock" features Sir Arthur Canon Doyle's famous characters set in the 21st century. and it's hilarious. you will have to find the first season on netflix as pbs only shows repeats for a limited time.

*True Grit: had the pleasure of seeing the new version with my mom-in-law, Judy. very aptly named movie. highly entertaining.

*The Fighter: i know i've mentioned this already, but it is just that good. mind the profanity. it's boston, what do you expect? i, of course, was not bothered by the cussing. shocker. amy adams was feisty and awesome. christian bale...very deserving of the award nods he's received.

*The King's Speech: true story about england's prince albert and his speech impediment. so clever. colin firth, as ever, was incredible and witty. laughed out loud deliriously. my favorite scene is when albert discovers that he does not stammer when he's angry and swearing...had me snorting i was laughing so hard. don't judge for thinking swearing is funny...it is british cussing, which is somehow less offensive and more than a little charming. one of the many injustices of life, to be born without an interesting and charming accent.

useful things

last week, i posted about how to clean your house in approximately 20 minutes a day by following this list of tasks to do each day over the course of 30 days (please only do 1 of these tasks a day...the list is meant to take you 30 days to work through!...there was some confusion about how a person could possibly work through all of those tasks in only 20 minutes a day! no, that would definitely NOT be possible!). this cleaning plan has been very useful and helpful to kirk and i and has even inspired us to tackle some organizational projects that have long been neglected! this got me to thinking about other useful things. so here's a few useful things that i've been enjoying lately:

*my brother the chef got a fancy-pants set of knives for

christmas which prompted the question: "what utensils can you not live without?" i realized that i'm fairly simplistic, i need a GOOD chef's knife, but it's pretty much the only knife i'll use; wooden spoon, a classic; kitchen shears for trimming fat and tendons off of poultry, cutting that too-large-for-the-toaster slice of bread, and opening those ridiculous bags of shredded cheese that say "tear here" but always manage to screw up the resealing zipper (you know what i'm talking about, i'm sure of it); a good spatula; and measuring cups (i RARELY bake, for which purpose i'm sure measuring cups are essential, however i use them for measuring and estimating food portions...see useful thing #2). obviously, these are not the only utensils that i use in the kitchen, but definitely the most frequent flyers. so, what are your essential utensils that you can't live without?

*online food journal: i've kept a "journal" of the food i eat since november and it's made me a MUCH more conscious eater. i've not really changed what i eat, still allowed myself to have all of my favorites (popcorn at the movies, coke, cheese, CARBS), but i feel much more knowledgeable about how much i'm eating, portion control, planning ahead, and creating balance. so (fingers crossed!), we'll see how it goes!

*my bike: since the stress fracture (or the almost-stress-fracture), i've not been able to run or play soccer or anything high impact. therefore my bike has been my best friend! also useful is the trainer that it sits on that allows me to ride inside, like a stationary bike, instead of having to hit the frozen roads in january!

*food processor: this was a gift from my mom and i haven't even used it yet but i have loads of plans for it! can't wait to make pesto and use it to try so many new recipes! right now, i just have ideas in my head, so if you have favorite pesto recipes or any other recipes involving the wonders of a food processor, do tell!

that's the short list of my useful things. later this week: more pictures of found objects from my parents' basement, the back of the drawers under the stairs, and etsy. also, a post highlighting the buchheister family "christmas" in january.

new year's resolutions (a week late...i know, i know) and decorating dilemmas

as you know from my post last week, i am torn in my opinion of the importance (or irrelevance) of making resolutions. however, kirk and i did have a good chat last week about how to be more productive with our time AND simultaneously creating time to rest. we talked about what it looks like for us to rest/be productive on a daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal basis. anyway, we came up with a few ideas, such as kirk taking a few vacation days a year to go for a good long bike ride (that's rest to him...crazy), or spending 10 minutes a day cleaning/tidying so that the house doesn't become overwhelmingly cluttered. so, then i found a handy little list on apartment therapy for cleaning house 20 minutes/day in 30 days. i like this plan because it doesn't seem too daunting; it breaks up the chores so that it keeps cleaning from becoming a huge, all-day project. here's my altered version:

Tips for cleaning the house in 20 minutes/day:

1. Deal with what comes through the door (mail, keys, coats, shoes, etc)...still working on that one. don't really have a great system.

2. Deal with dishes, recycling, composting everyday after dinner so it doesn't start to pile up.

3. Set the timer for 20 minutes!

Daily Tasks over a 30-day period:

1. Surface clean living room and kitchen (pick up stray items, dust)

2. Clean bathroom (toilet, shower, sink/counter, mirror)

3. Surface clean bedroom (put away clothes, dust)

4. Surface clean extra rooms (office, basement, laundry room, dining room, etc)

5. Surface clean living room and kitchen

6. Clean bathroom

7. Clean all interior windows

8. Sweep and vacuum all floors

9. Surface clean bedrooms

10. Deep clean living room (dust baseboards, artwork, windows)

11. Clean bathroom

12. Clean out closets (hang up clothes, etc)

13. Surface clean extra rooms

14. Deep clean bedrooms (organize, tidy closet, dust)

15. Surface clean living room and kitchen

16. Deep clean bathroom (clean out drawers, mop)

17. Clean all doorknobs, remotes, switch plates, banisters, etc (this one is weird to me, i'm not really one of those germ-people...maybe i'll just take this day off!)

18. Clean out the fridge (take out food, wipe down, organize, make grocery list to restock)

19. Clean entryway, sweep porch, clean out car

20. Surface clean living room and kitchen

21. Surface clean bathroom

22. Surface clean bedroom

23. Sweep and vacuum all floors

24. Clean/tidy linen closet (organize towels/sheets)

25. Surface clean living room and kitchen

26. Deepclean kitchen (scrub appliances, wash out trash can, dust baseboards, wipe and reorganize cabinets

27. Surface cleanbathroom

28. Surface clean bedroom

29. Clean one area that you've been meaning to get to but have neglected (yardwork, hello!)

30. Sweep and vacuum all floors

so far, the daily task has taken longer than 20 minutes/day (about 45-60ish) but i'm thinking that if i keep up with the list, it will get more and more efficient each time. if i am sweeping all the floors 3 times a month, for example, instead of once every 2 months (embarrassing!) then, it will not be such a big job each time.

in keeping with this theme of getting my life organized, i reorganized my "office closet" on saturday (i'm a party animal). this, mind you, was not on the cleaning list for saturday, but i will share with you what lead to this:

our c-mas tree was sitting on a dresser i found on craigslist (for $35 or $40, i think!) that i bought with the intention of painting a bright color to act as a tv stand in our living room. here's the dresser in it's "before" state:

problem is, now the look of it is kind of growing on me, so i'm debating whether or not to actually paint it. i wanted to paint it a glossy lemony-mustardy-yellow like this, because you may notice a theme in our living room: A LOT OF BROWN (big brown bookcase, big brown piano, brown hardwood floors, brown couch, brown, brown, brown). i need something different, something exciting. so, dilemma #1 is to paint or not to paint. what do you guys think??

ok, but let me get back to how this led to my organized closet. so, we switched out the new found dresser after taking down c-mas decor for the old dresser-acting-as-tv-stand, which lead to kirk having to finally clean out his junk drawers from the old dresser. hideous. i tried to set up a little drawer for keys, phone books, etc and kirk soon absconded the drawer for papers, batteries, loose change, cords, cables, and all sorts of things that i have no idea what to do with. so we spent HOURS zip-tying all of the cables, sorting everything into categories, and i got to make labels for all the plastic bins accordingly. i love labels.

so now, dilemma #2: as you see from my living room pics above we have a lot of woodwork in the house (door frames, window frames, baseboards, etc) and we are debating whether or not to paint them white. our main objection: a lot of work. we're kind of lazy, ultimately. but really, we both prefer white painted woodwork unless the woodwork is HIGH quality, which ours is NOT (which you could see from closer up...most of the varnish is sticky, wood is cheap, and in a few rooms the window sills have so much sun damage that we really need to refinish them anyway, but to take on the whole house...whew!). almost every home in design blogs or magazines that i love has white painted woodwork. we really have to decide before we start our bathroom project because we are going to gut the bathroom and whatever we put in there for baseboards and windows i will want to match the rest of the house, so...what do you guys think??

lastly, and not really a dilemma, i had an idea of what to do with our previous dresser-as-a-tv-stand (pictured on the left below). i think i may paint it with blackboard paint and put it upstairs in our future attic-guest-room-playroom-media-room. i have wanted to use blackboard paint for something, but really don't enjoy using chalk at all (hate the chalk-under-the-finger-nails thing). so, i thought i could turn the dresser into a "toy bin" of sorts, filling the drawers with sidewalk chalk, crayons, markers, craft supplies, toys, and kids books for when we have the nieces and nephews over. my worry: by the time i make this attic-playroom-etc a reality all of our nieces and nephews will have grown! kirk says that by then it will be our nieces and nephews' children playing in our attic-playroom!

favorite things - lawrence/holiday/Olympus Pen edition

well, i survived the first half-week of the 2011 spring semester...barely. so, in honor of it being the weekend (!), this post will celebrate some favorite lawrence places, activities, holiday moments and traditions, and show off a few more photos from my new camera...prepare yourselves. this is to be the MOST random and unrelated list of items you ever did read:

*good idea for brunch in lawrence: Mirth. kirk and i frequent Mirth almost every saturday and always order the same things. for kirk: a "short" stack of honey whole wheat blueberry pancakes and coffee. for me: a half order of vegetarian biscuits and gravy and a half spinach and pear salad (yum!). downside? smelling of roasterie and onions (rather like the famous "Radina's smell" from our fave coffee shop in Manhattan).

*good idea for a family tradition: making homemade pizzas. growing up, my family made homemade "buchheister pizzas" which was only appropriate considering mom and dad met when they worked together at pizza hut during college. my personal journey with pizza has continued with kirk's family tradition of making a dozen different types of pizza at christmas: pepperoni pizza, bbq chicken pizza, veggie pizza, chicken and bacon alfredo pizza, shrimp pizza (not MY personal fave, but it seems to be rather popular with everyone else),you name it. just make sure you come with a ready appetite!

*good idea for a game night with friends: settlers of catan (nerds, i know). the davidsons and hutsons have a fairly competitive, yet amiable, board game relationship as you can see.

*good idea: visit a local movie theater that shows indie films. in lawrence, that would be liberty hall. really i just wanted to share photos taken with my new camera.

*good idea for a movie night: and my favorite movie of perhaps the last year: the fighter. christian bale...so good. marky mark (i don't think he still goes by that name...), also wonderful. definite favorite.

and to complete this post of celebration i must acknowledge that the chiefs made a most improbable turnaround this season and are heading to the playoffs for the first time since 2003! although i am still reeling from the shock of our heinous performance last week against the raiders (did our offensive line conspire with charlie weiss against matt cassel or am i being paranoid??), i really believe that the equation for success against baltimore is not outside of our reach. my keys to the game (by the way...my journalist cousin, josh, despises amateur bloggers that charade as sports writers, so i make this disclaimer: i am not claiming to be a professional sports analyst or journalist! i promise, josh! just my opinion! plus, i am too scatter-brained to keep a sports-only blog, as my reader friends all know). anyway, back to my keys to the game: run, run, run the ball. involve d. bowe early in the game. stop the run (baltimore's passing numbers are not great so we HAVE to stop their running back, ray rice...he is the biggest threat against us). no excessive going-on-4th-down decisions (ahem. todd haley). no turnovers. these are the strengths that we have shown in our wins this season, and really, this is not breaking news or rocket science, just really good ideas. go chiefs!