Happy Holidays or whatever.

Hey there. Sorry for the lack of updating, but things have been busy (sucky?) lately. We found out about a month ago (on my birthday no less) that A's dad's cancer has spread to his liver and there is nothing more they can do for him. He's been in hospice about a month, and although he's deteriorating physically, he continues to be as smart, funny, sarcastic and generally awesome as ever. Thanks so much to everyone who has been so supportive through all this. I know I could pick up the phone at 3am and call lots of people who will talk to me whenever I need it. You guys rock. A has been handling it OK (how well do you handle the death of your father?), and we've been trying to look at the bright side -- we have had lots of time with him, many good talks and we've heard some truly wacky stories about his misspent youth. We haven't always been the closest with that branch of the family -- usually seeing them once yearly on Christmas -- but I feel like we've gotten to know each other better through this experience. Christmas was bittersweet; knowing it was his last and trying to keep it together, but at the same time being so grateful that we could spend it with him.

Also during these past few months we had to put Morty to sleep and we have a new niece! A's sister had her baby Ava on December 4. Luckily she and mom are fine and have been cleared for travel, so they're winging their way to see the family as we speak. We're so glad they're going to be able to come -- A's dad (a.k.a. Grandpa Dude) wants so much to see his new granddaughter. As for Morty, well he just became very ill suddenly and was basically in complete liver failure by the next morning when we rushed him to the vet. I hate livers. LT hates kidneys, I hate livers. Poor little guy. It sucked really hard, but he was really suffering there at the end and maybe it told us something about going peacefully. We had him cremated and he's currently sitting in a tin on the shelf until we decide what to do with him. Anna was lonely and confused the first few weeks (she kept looking in the car every time we came home, as if to say "OK you took Morty away in this thing, where is he?") but now she's truly embracing her role as Only Dog. She's really a wonderful dog and truth be told, while we loved Morty so much (well I did anyway!), it's so much easier only having 1 dog who we can trust to run free during the day and not pee in the house. Anna's totally eating up all the attention -- being let into the house for loong periods of time for the first time in her life.

What else? My massage office is working out really well -- business has been good mostly (I sold lots of gift certificates for the holidays), although I haven't been doing that much massage since we're up in Columbus all the time. But I love how it's turned out so far.

I'm not sure what else to say right now. I hope everyone's holidays are going well. Will try and update this blog as I can but if I'm not back before then, Happy 2008!

Yes I'm a nerd

So this weekend I went to The Office Convention in Scranton, PA. For those of you who haven't ever seen The Office, go and rent it now. No time to write the details but here is a picture, lest you don't believe me.

More details to come!

Yummiest dinner (and lunch leftovers) ever

I'm apparently a cooking genius and whipped up the tastiest dinner last night, which I just enjoyed for lunch as well. Get this: chilled tuna pasta salad with red potatoes and carrots with a creamy dill sauce I made from scratch! Do I rock or what? The potatoes were a little questionable in the leftovers but otherwise, muy delicioso!

Monday is going along. Have been laughing like an idiot looking at LOLCats. Warning: I busted a gut looking at these while trying not to be too loud at work. Seriously folks, I was crying. Other than that, I've been doing a little work, eating leftovers, etc. but can't believe it's 12:30! What the hell dude? I should run to my office to put down the rug I bought this weekend.

Also this weekend? Super productive times! We finally put up the lamp my granny made us for our wedding (that, you know, we meant to put up in July!) in the back cabin, and it has multiplied the coziness in there by tenfold. Can't wait to hang the curtains we got -- it will be so cozy we'll never want to leave! Which might be a bonus when it's 20 degrees outside. I also devised an ingenious way to keep the neighbor dogs off our porch (plywood gate) and cleaned up the yard. Yay me!

Other than that, Wonder continues to be uber-cute one second and than annoying as all get-out the next moment! I think being on his own from such a young age taught him to 1) eat everything (SunChips, tortillas, cereal, ice cream, but not as I found out yesterday, carrots) and 2) just help himself to it. So he crawls up on your lap while you're eating, tries to jump on the dinner table and in fact ate some Crumbs rolls while we were out one day. That little sucker.

Oh, and my mom is currently on alert to be evacuated because of wildfires in and around San Diego, so keep your fingers crossed their new house, into which they just moved a month ago, is spared. Wildfires......never had those in Ohio.

Next blog: How I am a total nerd and am going to an Office convention. As in, dedicted to the television program The Office. Don't judge!

One more thing

I went to a conference yesterday and although I asked for a veggie meal, they accidentally fed me chicken! I thought the raviolis tasted weird, but my table mate ate some filling and assured me it was fish. So I kept eating it, but dug most of the filling out because it didn't taste good. Then I ran across 1 cheese ravioli and began wondering what the other stuff was. My tablemates summoned the waiter and you guessed it! It was smoked chicken ravioli. They felt really bad and apologized profusely, as well as offered me things (piece of cake? potatoes? another salad? more bread?) which I declined. I mean, in the great scheme of things it's no big deal and they felt really bad, but I did feel kind yukky the rest of the day. Totally psychosomatic I'm sure.

I wasn't going to say anything to the conference presenters, but I was the only veggie so he made sure to ask me if my food was OK. I told him the story and he felt really bad too, but I assured him it was OK. Know what his boss said? "What happens now, do you go to hell?". I thought that was pretty funny.

So, poll: do you think I will go to vegetarian hell? :) Where, according to JB, you have to eat meat all day long.

Fall is here!

The weather is absolutely beautiful today, so what am I doing? That's right, sitting inside, computing! I just worked on my website (www.erinnash.com) after a year of procrastinating actually doing anything with it. Got some good advice on an FTP program to use, and so I downloaded it this morning and got to work! It's pretty barebones right now -- I uploaded only the stuff I already had, but I'm going to be working more on it in the weeks to come. I swear.

I just met a super-cute dog! She's a 5 month old German Shepherd Mix named Blue that belongs to a friend of mine. She's so cute! And so soft too. There's a work picnic later today and Blue might be there, so I'll try and convince A to go. It sounds really nice -- hiking, eating, hanging outside, and dogs!! I think Anna will like it there. Morty, not so much.

The dogs in our neighborhood have been running amok this week. For some reason Oz the Weimeraner (sp?) decided he wanted to live at our house on Thursday and refused to leave. He's so sweet it makes me feel bad to be mean to him and yell at him to go away, but he was making Anna and Morty crazy. The same goes for Angel, the pit bull. She's just unbelievably sweet and cute, but Morty kind of wants her dead and although she's really submissive, I don't want to see what happens in the pit bull v. beagle showdown. I'm afraid Morty wouldn't come out of that very well. Plus? Those damn dogs feel free to make themselves at home on our bed! On top of all my clothes. That even our dogs aren't allowed on. I had to actually walk Oz all the way home on Thursday, because he just refused to leave and every time I tried to turn around and ignore him hoping he would go back home, he just came back to follow me. See? How could I be mean to him?

The leaves are starting to change and it's really feeling like fall. Things are beautiful on our new property. I'm looking forward to tromping around in the thinned-out woods with A and the dogs sometime soon. Plus A's mom is coming back to Ohio! Yay! And will hopefully be coming down to visit.

I should run but here are some weird dreams I've been having lately: that I won a Survivor-type reality show called The Last Soprano ("I don't even like the Sopranos!" was my refrain on the show), that I owned a gelato shop in Athens, and another one where I won The Amazing Race by burning a song on a CD the fastest. Why do I keep dreaming I win reality shows? It is because I know I'm a winner?

Gotta go make a covered dish for the picnic later. Bye y'all!

Protein is for the birds

So....eating more protein. Is really hard if you're a vegetarian and picky like me. But you know what? I just heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me that pickiness is hereditary, so suck that! I blame mom and dad for the fact that I don't like nuts, melons, apples, raw carrots or any of the other millions of foods I don't like. The message here: IT ISN'T MY FAULT!

But anyway, I went to see my sister's acupuncturist for a variety of ailments, mainly this yukky eczema over my eye that has been plaguing (yes! plaguing!) me since last year. Her advice? among other things, eat more protein. And good, complete proteins like nuts (ew, see above), eggs and quinoa. I'm trying hard, but her suggestion to eat things with protein powder hasn't gone well. Because it tastes like ass. The whey vanilla kind is OK if you hide it in, say, pancakes, but I was a little concerned about the cholesterol in it, so I got some veggie protein instead. And it tastes even worse. Even A couldn't eat it, and he'll eat anything.

So the moral is, it's hard. (that's what she said). I'm trying new things, like eating Eggo Whole Wheat waffles with almond butter (complete protein, woo!). We tried smoothies, even bought a blender, but I'm also not a huge fan of plain yogurt either, and it's senseless to try and mask something you don't like (e.g. protein powder) with something else you don't really like (e.g. yogurt). But I'm trying. And, related or not, my eczema is MUCH MUCH better! Even the rash under my arms which randomly appeared has gotten better. So I will continue to press on.

Here's a pretty picture I took last week in our yard.

I'm mostly moved in to my new massage room - yay! I think it's very zen in there and enjoy being there, so that's awesome. Have only done 2 massages there yet, but this week I've got some more scheduled.

I've also been putting more hours in at Children Services helping out with home visits. It's not the funnest job ever -- lots of running around and hanging out in the houses of people who don't really want me there, because I work for Children Services, but the kids I'm working with are so super cute. And it's been eye opening to see what the caseworkers really do and how much they really care about these families. They kind of rock!

That's about it from here. 5 weeks till my birthday yo! I've got plenty of suggestions if you need a gift idea :) . I'm all about skipping gifts on Christmas, but my birthday is all about love, adoration and GIFTS! I have to hint very strongly to A to get him to pay attention ("I like this _______. Are you listening? My birthday is soon, are you listening?") but he usually gets it and comes through with something nice.

Later y'all!

Long time no see people!

Hello everyone! So it's been a really long time since I posted here, I admit it. The past year has been busy and strange and kind of difficult and lots of things happened, but here I am!

A and I moved again, which we swear was not in our gameplan, but this just came up and it was the perfect (?) opportunity. Those of you who know us know we moved to Athens because we wanted to build our own house using alternative construction. So we've been living here and there in the Athens area for the last 8 years, but hadn't gotten around to that house thing yet. Randomly in June, I was perusing the ads in The Athens News as I do every Monday and Thursday, and came across an ad for a straw bale house and 5 acres for sale. The price seemed insanely low, so without consulting A, I called the guy and made an appointment to see it that evening. Then when I got home I informed A we were going to look at it! I am normally not that type of wife, but in this case, I was overly bossy. Shut up! I am NOT bossy normally!

Anyway, long story short, we loved the place and made an offer the next day. It's an unusual place, with 2 very small cabins, 1 bathroom, an outhouse and lots and lots of trees. We moved in June (recommendation: hire students to move your stuff next time. They come cheap and although aren't always the sharpest about household-related stuff, they work hard) and have been enjoying the oddness of sleeping back in the woods, about 800 feet back from the main house. It sounds really luxurious to have a separate bedroom and it has been fun so far, but ask me again when it starts getting really cold! We need to do SO.MUCH.STUFF before winter, and haven't historically been good at doing stuff like that in a timely manner, but we're trying! The straw bale cabin roof is a must-do, as is getting some insulation in there. A, per usual, is all "I CAN DO THAT!", I'll just get a book! Here's hoping he doesn't injure himself because we have no health insurance!

In other news, I have a new massage office (will take some pictures soon) that I have just moved into. It's kind of scary to be out on my own, but the price is right and I looooove having my own space. Going tonight to do some more decorating but most everything is there already. Had the inaugural massage on Saturday! Thanks Sara for being my guinea pig.

Have just been busy at work and doing massage and house things and new kitten things (see left, ain't he cute?) but I'm going to try and keep this updated more than I have been for the last year.

To sum up, here's how the last year went:
* major move x 2
* planned my first fundraiser! And it made money!
* new massage office!
* some friends moved away from Athens
* met some cool people who just moved to Athens
* reoccurance of stupid depression and anxiety, necessitating going back on medication
* many declarations of my awesomeness from my boss and massage clients
* my memory is getting worse and worse and I no longer remember what else I did in the past year!

Next blog topic: trying to eat more protein sucks! See you all soon!