In case the link doesn't work

As promised, marriage photos:

Downtown Pittsburgh (view from the restaurant where we had lunch afterwards - I'm putting it in at the top b/c it's a pain to try to place photos at the end, as I have discovered today).



Us with Judge Eugene Ricciardi



The reading of legal things:




With the certificate:


Yes, I know it's a bit underclassed to wear jeans, we had planned to dress up, but ran out of time & Drew was sick, so we'll have to wait on looking good.

First married kiss:


Duqesne Incline runs right next to the restaurant we were at. We forgot to take a ride on the incline, but we did catch a photo of it going by.

Facebook | Marce Schulz's Photos - Drew and Ericka get married!

Facebook | Marce Schulz's Photos - Drew and Ericka get married!

South Side Wedding

Well, we did it. D & I got married today at noon-ish (actually a bit after, there was another couple getting married ahead of us). The judge was very nice, and it was a sunny, bright winter day. D's mom & Jack came with us, and my friend Kate (who I've been friends with since my interview weekend at Pitt) was there too. Afterward we all went to lunch on the top of Mount Washington, and enjoyed the view over the city.

The only negative was that D has a sinus infection, and so felt pretty bad throughout the whole thing. He came home, and went back to bed, and he's been asleep for the past few hours.

And, our marital dumpster did not show up :( I put out NO PARKING signs this morning, moved the cars, and waited. Then I figured it would be delivered while we were out, since we don't have to be there to receive it, but there was still no dumpster when we returned. I waited another hour, and then called the people, but I just got voice-mail. So I'll have to track that down tomorrow.

But it was a lovely day anyway :)

Last Autumn Saturday

D & I went to our friends' house for dinner and the December installment of virtual wine tasting. We actually drank wine (the virtual part refers to a thing that she does on Bakespace's blog), and this month was Shiraz. We had three bottles, and M made gyro burgers (yum!).

Amazingly, I still made it up out of bed at 7:30-ish, so M & I went for coffee & to pick up some last minute stocking kinds of things on the South Side. We started doing this a couple of years ago, and I love having time with her, but sometimes schedules get in the way & we don't end up meeting for months. So it was good to get out this morning.

When I got home, I put together a crockpot baked shells kind of thing. I'd tried this before after seeing it on the crazy crockpot lady's blog (thank you Kristen!), and wasn't pleased with it, so I wanted to make a few changes. This time, I browned some hot italian sausage first (o.7 lbs) and added to two jars of sauce instead of just the one. This is so easy in the crockpot, I love it. Layer the sauce (with the sausage mixed in), then some uncooked shells, then more sauce, then some cheese. Repeat until the whole box of shells is gone, and you have sauce & cheese on the top. I mixed the stuff up a little bit as I went along, just to make sure that the pasta was all wet. Put the top on, and cook on high for something like 2 hours. I pulled a few shells out to check on it, found they were still a little bit crispy. So, I added another cup of water, and a couple of diced roma tomatoes. Cooked for another 30-45 mins on high, and then enjoyed.

This was so-o-o-o good! I only meant to have a small plate for lunch, and ended up going back for another one. D liked it too, and now we have a bunch to eat this week.

After a short wrapping session, during which I found myself watching a Dudley Moore and John Lithgowe Santa Claus movie (which is the movie in which they have Puce Pops!!!! Does anyone remember watching this, or making jokes about Puce Pops when we were kids?), I took a bath, took a nap, and then made my friend M's pumpkin spice cookies.

Departmental Holiday Party & House Updates

We do an annual holiday party in my department, people bring food & drink, and there's a new tradition of a "White Elephant" gift exchange. Basically, people bring in wrapped gifts, preferably things that they were given & have no use for, and we draw gifts one at a time. You also have the option to steal a gift, which makes for a fun hour. I had a good time & I'm glad I went, but I have to get in early to make up the last bit of work that I didn't do today.

I also got a snowman tie - so I'm happy. Not that I wear ties, but I like snowmen. So.

In house news, we decided on an HVAC guy, who turned out to be cheaper than the other guy that we liked by $2k. So that money can go to the deck or to buy a lot of drywall. I ordered a dumpster today, and will resume demolition and cleanup (with my respirator this time) next week. We're getting there.

Homemade Macaroni & Cheese

I had wanted to make some homemade mac & cheese for quite awhile - it was something I'd never done, and I had a hunk of gruyere to use. So, I looked around for a recipe & the best (maybe only?) one I found was in my handy-dandy Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

First, I had to make a cheese sauce. This was basically a white sauce with some cheese mixed in - but I'd never made a white sauce before either. I kept waiting for it to boil, as the book said it would, but it never happened. So I think I ended up thickening it too much, b/c I kept stirring for far too long. I made the sauce in advance & when I looked at it the next day, it was a solid.

Hmmmm.... not going too well so far. Well, I added some more milk, and pushed onward. And promptly made too much pasta, because in my head I was supposed to make one pound of elbow macaroni. The book actually says 1/2 pound, but I trusted my memory instead. Not good.

I finally finished making this on the day that I had HVAC contractors in to give me some estimates. It smelled amazing, and I was very excited. It tasted ... bland. The pasta was too mushy (maybe I shouldn't have let it sit overnight in the sauce?) and we both had to add a lot of pepper, and it wasn't particularly cheesy. Hmmm. Fail.

I will try to make it again, but: 1) will make correct amount of pasta; 2) won't let sauce get so thick; 3) will add fewer breadcrumbs to top, more cheese; 4) will add more spices to sauce; and 5) will actually make the whole thing at once, rather than getting lazy after 30 minutes and deciding we can have it the next night for dinner.

holiday stress

I'm a bit worried that Drew might lose his job. He's a lot more worried, but it's hard to tell if he's just paranoid or what. His company had a security break-in, which was not his fault, but the IT manager has cut his group off for a couple of weeks, and D's floundering to get his developers back up and running. So, this is stressful.

He has plenty of money saved, but that's supposed to go for the heating system. And we wanted to get the deck done this year too. This stuff has to happen, because the house is just a great big pile of crap if we don't upgrade it. And he doesn't seem to understand that by being as stingy as he is, nothing gets done, and he doesn't end up with the money in the end either - it just goes to random stuff we don't need. I can handle the bills if he gets out of work (although it would be really nice if he could at least collect unemployment), but I can't take on any more debt (what he suggested for the heating system). And it would be really tight financially - I'd have to stop contributing to retirement & stop saving anything, and I'd still only have ~$200 a month for miscellaneous spending & as a buffer. I'm not looking forward to this, if it happens. I'm going to be really angry at him all the time, and I don't like that.

I understand that he's stressed, and needs to talk about it to someone, but in some ways I wish he wouldn't tell me these things. (If he does lose his job, obviously I would want to know this, I just don't really want to know ahead of time - thinking about it consumes me, and I have other stuff to do. I get angry at him in advance, and dredge up all the bad feelings from the last time he wasn't working).

That was yesterday, or Wednesday.

Then last night, he picked me up from work, we drove home and ate a modest dinner. During the day I had been talking to an old friend, and the subject of holiday presents came up. Friend did not think that my new computer keyboard was a very romantic gift, and I tried to explain that I am the one who asked for a (very specific) vacuum cleaner last year - D & I are not romantic in big showy ways. So the keyboard is romantic to me because: 1) my old keyboard had broken, and the 2 key in the number pad wasn't working. 2 is part of my zipcode, and a pain to lose when filling out any kind of address. 2) The decoy replacement D gave me was truly awful - the shift and enter keys stuck, and I hated it. and 3) every time I use the 2, shift, or enter keys now, I think of how D gave me a Christmas present early because he knew how annoyed I was getting everytime I tried to type.

Anyway, I had tried to explain this, but I don't think my friend was buying it. To him, jewelry is romantic. But I got home, and went in the kitchen, and remembered that D built shelves for me in my tiny kitchen, because I hated working in it before then. And I have to work in it. Just like I have to type, even if my keyboard doesn't work. So these are the things that are romantic to me - the many small ways that my everyday life is better, because he does little things that he hopes I will like. And sometimes big things, like finding the house that we both love. And pointing out the view to me when he sees it & is reminded how great it is where we are. And bringing me flowers that he cut from our yard. Or fresh tomatoes, or fresh mulberries, or fresh peaches. Or finding the cats that we both get a kick out of. Making sure I can print, in color, from anywhere in the house. And coaxing me out into the yard on summer evenings, when I'm stressed out & he knows that 5 minutes out there will take all of the day's frustration away.

So I thought of all of these things last night, and just got overwhelmed with how much I love this man.

More reasonable estimate = YAY!

We've been having contractor drama lately. There have been problems getting people to show up (although it has been really cold in Pgh lately, so I understand that emergency calls take precedent). We got our first estimate on Monday last week.

First, a description of what has to be done. We need a new forced-air heating system (including all ductwork) to be installed (w/AC - I can't get D to compromise on the AC, I think the house does not get that hot) to heat the 2nd and third floors. The upside is that we're having the furnace put in on the 3rd floor, and most of the walls are down in the second floor. We don't care if they make a mess, as it is already, well, a construction zone. So running the duct-work, while still time-consuming, will be quicker than if, say, the walls were all up & we needed to pump all the air up through the first floor (10+ foot ceilings) to the 3rd floor & distribute through both the 2nd & 3rd floors.

The first estimate was $25-30k. This is considerably more than we expected to hear. The representative actually asked me if I was sitting down before she told me. I still need to call her back to confirm that this doesn't include solid gold ductwork, or perhaps they mistakenly thought that we wanted a system for the first floor as well.

Our second estimate came in today at a much more reasonable 10k. By the guy recommended by D's mom.

Just out of curiosity, I checked Angie's list to see if either person had any reviews. The first people seem to charge ~4x what everyone else does - lots of people turned them down because of this. The second guy (Fazio Heating) had a lot of positive reviews & 1 pretty negative one with pictures that did not look good. So, I've selected another company to call for another estimate, & we'll also try to goad our friend, Jeff, into getting his butt down here, taking some money from us, and doing a good job.

But, we'll have heat up there by mid-January :) And then we can put in walls.

Holiday gifts?

Hi guys,

Just wanted to check in with the family about gifts this year. Are we sending homemade stuff? $ limit? We're a little low on cash this year - trying to save up for heating system + other repairs, so I just wanted to check to make sure no-one minded if we did el-cheapo holiday options :)

Thoughts? Comments? I check the blog pretty much ever day, even if I don't post, so you can leave any feedback in the comments section....

Will post more substantively later, there was a cookie day yesterday & more chores today :)

Oh, and Dad - Kristmas Kielbasa is just normal kielbasa with extra spices, I guess. There's a lot of kielbasa and other types of sausage (and pierogis) in Pgh. lots of polish families.

Post-Thanksgiving break

Well, I had hoped to have posted something before this, but every time I sat down to do it,


I couldn't come up with anything to write.

D & I made our trip to Philadelphia without mishap, despite the dubious driving practices of most of the state of Pennsylvania. Only one sharp braking and some swearing on my part, and I didn't damage the rental car in any way. Thursday's dinner was nice, & it was good to catch up with D's father, step-mom & grandmother. We had many rounds of food, and they even had strawberries with chocolate fondue (a nice touch with some coffee). In the evening, we watched Wall-E before turning in. I thought this was cute, but it must have been one of the most boring voice-acting jobs ever. "Ev-uh?" "Wall-ee" were the only two things those robots ever said!

On Friday, we did a grocery store run, visited some cousins, & got a fabulous dinner at a local Thai restaurant. Saturday, D & I drove home again (and good thing, Sunday was freezing rain all day, and I'm glad I wasn't driving up in the mountains for that).

Sunday, we went and bought a door for our kitchen, and picked up some random things at Busy Beaver (local hardware/home improvement chain), and at Target. We didn't fare too badly for a Target trip, and now we have enough paper towels and soap for the next year. At home, our friend M joined us for some Football viewing (Steelers won 33-10 in a very exciting game vs. New England). After football, we indulged in a Sushi extravaganza, and then visited a friend's new house down the street. A very full day, and neither one of us wanted to go to work this morning.

Poor D couldn't sleep last night, and I got up at 6 am to go for some exercise. It was a bit cold this morning, but once I got moving it was all right. I hope that this habit will stay around for awhile, or even that I can turn it into a habit, as I'm tired of carrying around the last 14 pounds that I gained in Sweden, many, many years ago. I don't like feeling fat, and I'm starting to feel pretty out-of-shape cardiovascularly as well. So, root for me to keep up the exercise.

I also noticed when I got home that I was much more alert after moving around than I usually am at 7 am. I put together a list, and drove down to the grocery store to replenish our completely empty fridge. Got back at 7:45, put food away, got dressed, and went to return the rental car on my way to work.

Having already bored you all with too much detail, I'll spare you the saga of forgetting to top off the gas tank, and getting from Hertz to school. Work stunk today, as I'm going through my files and reorganizing. And our lab is just not a comfortable environment socially. Still, I listened to a car talk podcast that I hadn't heard, got some stuff done, read some internet, did some ordering for an experiment next week, and filed my expense report for SFN (which I had forgotten to do last week). A wrapping up of loose ends kind of day.

D picked me up (his day was awful), and we headed to his mom's for dinner (special Kristmas Kielbasa, asparagus, salad, potatoes & leftover desserts from D's aunt N). Had a good time, and headed back with extra left-overs. D's mom & I made plans for a holiday cookie baking time on Sat morning. Then back home, where I did some dishes, and sat down to read blogs. Whew! I've been busy too, it seems.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving, I know some of you did by reading your posts. I wish that I could have been with you all. Love you & have a good week!