what have i been up to?

i apologize for the irregular blogging! i've discovered facebook and twitter and work full time and run and watch sports (football and basketball season overlapping causes me to double my daily sports-intake if you can imagine!) and hang out with friends and it's all just a lot to do, isn't it? well, so i figure it's time for me to recap what i've been up to... using pictures!

first up, the annual hutson's holiday breakfast for my students. they were so excited about it, they could not stop asking me all week, "ms. hutson, are you really going to bring food for us on friday? really? can i help cook? can we put peppers and turkey in the eggs? and cheese? can we have cheese? can you get cranberry juice too?" it was great. it was a completely normal time with students that i don't often have "normal" with. they took over the griddles, served each other, asked to help clean up, plugged their laptops into my speakers to play music for the whole group... very festive atmosphere and i LOVED it.

after celebrating my students, it was time for me to partake in my OWN celebrations:

going to see KSU beat #21 Alabama at the Sprint Center:

and celebrating the end of the 1st semester with my awesome co-workers... with epic breakfast (for dinner!):

and then some quality time and a rousing game of settlers of catan with my good friend Katie, her husband, Micah, and Kirk:

during the break, we had a lot of great time with friends and family and also a lot of time in the car (b00). but at least we had good music (what i'm listening to lately: gungor, quiet corral, the black keys, the head and the heart, the civil wars, mumford and sons, vintage waterdeep, and vintage mariah carey christmas album). got to see all of my cousins and their spouses on my my mom's side (the kinder family) for the first time in a long time! and spent some time with kirk's side of the family and the rundle family, singing and playing piano. also spent time with some good friends and felt like my heart was just filled up!

so, this weekend my brother and sister and brother's girlfriend will be home for a late buchheister family christmas and then next week it is back to school! i will follow up with more photos from my family time... hopefully! i'm just so busy, there's a lot of football and basketball to be watched...

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.

spring

this is a lovely little screenprinted book my sis sent to me for my birthday. i decided to share some of the clever illustrations with you, especially those that reflect my mood lately...

i have been thoroughly enjoying getting outside with my camera, taking walks downtown for brunch, and basking in the sun this spring, but...

...it does come with a price.

approaching the end of another school year and i am deeply needing a...

alas there is no rest until june 2. 29 days of school left, and counting...

here are a few shots from around my yard and on the walk between my house and downtown:

i have a few single tulips that spring up every year. i really ought to plant some more bulbs to fill it in a bit. a single tulip seems a little depressing.

i found this winding vine-thing (honeysuckle maybe?) to be really curious. i like it.

blooming yard = happy black thumb!

despite my shameful neglect of my yard and my ominous past as a black-thumb plant-killer, the magnolia tree in our front yard has the most beautiful blooms. they only last a short while, so i ran outside with camera to capture the moment before the wind swept all of the petals away!

this is one of my favorite shots, but it was not a very pretty flower! the blooms almost begin to look burnt at the edges when they start to fall off, makes for very curious-looking photos!

loving my new camera and it's ability to zoom in very close! this is inside the magnolia bloom, you can actually see the pollen!

i did take some other fun pictures from around the yard, but they're still on the camera so that will have to be for another day...

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!