currently {07.18.2013}

Loving: When we moved to Kansas City (Overland Park) last month, we moved into a house for the first time since we've been married... we've always lived in apartments so far. I'm loving that it has a patio and yard for Judah to play in, I'm loving the hardwood and tile floors that are so easy to clean (I HATE carpet), and I'm loving the brand new dishwasher. The rest of the built-in-1965-and-never-been-updated house leaves much to be desired, but I'm trying to focus on the good things :) Thankfully we're just renting.

Reading: Well, it's not technically reading, but we got the first two Game of Thrones audio books to listen to during all the travelling we have been (and will be) doing this summer. So far, I've made it through about 2 hours of the 30-hour long first book. I just don't do audio books... I have to have the page in front of me. I've always been a visual learner - if I see something I remember it. If I just hear something it goes in one ear and out the other. The Game of Thrones books are complicated... lots of characters and places and jumping around. I just can't get into them by listening, I need to SEE the names and be able to re-read parts etc. Thomas, on the other hand, is already in the middle of the second book. I want to get the actual paper-and-ink books, because I do want to read them... the 2 hours of the first one that I listened to was really good, if slightly confusing!

Watching: Sesame Street. And some more Sesame Street. Especially Elmo's World. With a little Bob the Builder mixed in there occasionally.

Looking forward to: The next month of travels! Judah and I are headed to Oregon next week. We'll be there for two and a half weeks, for a Congdon family reunion and then Thomas's brother's wedding :) We will miss Thomas - he is only able to come for a few days for the wedding. But we are super excited to hang out with Thomas's parents and five brothers, one of whom Judah hasn't even met yet! (Hi, Uncle Paul!)... And of course, we'll get to see Thomas's numerous and awesome aunts and uncles and cousins :)

Then, three days after we get back home from Oregon, Judah and I are flying to South Africa for two and half weeks to see my family. We'll be in Johannesburg for a few days, and then Cape Town for a week, and then back to Johannesburg for a few more days. Judah is going to meet his great-grandparents for the first time, and get to spend more time with my parents, whom he's seen twice, and my two brothers, whom he's seen once for two days!

Making me happy: We're pretty much travelling until early September, which is going to be crazy and fun at the same time with a 17-18 month old. We are going to miss Thomas, or Papa as Judah calls him. Missing Thomas is not what makes me happy, but rather the fact that Judah talks about his Papa all day long... when he wakes up in the morning it's "Papa? Papa?" and I have to tell him Papa is at work. He doesn't quite understand what that means yet, because then he says "Papa downstairs?"... haha. And we have to go downstairs and he runs around looking for Thomas, and I have to keep telling him "Papa is at work until tonight." Then he'll find one of Thomas's shirts or a shoe, or anything else of his during the day, and we start all over again... "Papa shirt! Papa shirt! Papa??" He likes to drag one of Thomas's shirts around all day like a blankie, too. It's kind of adorable.

And I'll end with two more things that are making me happy... these perfect pictures that Thomas took of Judah on the fourth of July!

life, lately

• Time has been passing in the blink of an eye. Probably because I have nothing much to do. I fill my days with crocheting, gardening, cooking, job searching... and sometimes even cleaning [though Thomas likely wishes cleaning would be first on that list]. I'm more of a creative housewife than a practical housewife. Which is probably why I was attracted to a practical man.
• Thomas is working hard, as he always does. We are grateful for his good engineering job in this economic climate. 
• Back to the time thing... I could have sworn just yesterday it was February. And now we're nearing June. I don't remember March turning into April turning into May... it all seems like a big blur.
• In about two weeks, Thomas's parents and two youngest brothers will be visiting us here in Dallas. We haven't seem them since Christmas in Oregon. They're in the U.S. for the year, so we get to see them more than usual. It's going to be so fun to show them around this city that we call home [for now].
• Texas is well on its way to being unbearably hot. Lucky for me, I'll escape one of the hottest months by spending July in England with my family - hurrah! [for escaping the heat, yes, but mainly for seeing my family]. To give you an idea of how long it's been since I saw some of them... the last time I saw my youngest brother Matthew was at our wedding in South Africa. He was eleven then. He is now fourteen. I hardly recognize pictures of him! Thomas is coming along for the first week of July, but then he has to come back here to work.
• Right after I get back from England at the end of July, Thomas and I fly straight to Oregon for a Congdon Family Reunion. Thomas's father is one of twelve Congdon siblings. And Thomas has over sixty cousins, just on the Congdon side of his family. It's going to be lovely to finally meet everyone... I've met many of them already, but with a family this size there are always more people to get to know!
• I've been really wanting to read this book... I've heard lots of good things about it. I want to see the movie as well, but I have a rule than I only watch a movie after I've read the book.

• I also really want one of these. The Kindle 3G. *Drool* ... then I could read Water for Elephants on it.

• A few days ago I discovered Pinterest. I have been pinning and re-pinning all my favorite things to my boards non-stop. I love it. [You probably have no idea what I'm talking about... basically, it's a place online that's one big virtual creative idea board].  I'm getting so many brilliant ideas... good books to read, new recipes, fabulous designs and concepts for my future dream house, ways to better organize space in our little apartment... you name it, Pinterest has an idea board for it. You can follow people's boards, kind of like on Twitter. If you want an invitation (for some reason, you have to get an invite to join), let me know. It's awesome.
• I feel obliged to share something about Thomas now since most of this post is about me. How egocentric of me. This is the Congdon Chronicles, after all. Not the Sarah Chronicles. So. Thomas. He likes this site called Gizmodo. It's all about newfangled gadgets and technology and world events relating to such things. He keeps up with all that, so he always knows about stuff like the newest smartphone and when space shuttles are taking off. 
• Currently, Gizmodo [along with much of the media] is ablaze with comically satirical articles about how today is apparently the beginning of the end of the world... May 21st 2011... which, according to a fellow called Harold Camping, is the day of the rapture. I don't know about you, but I'm still here. *Looks around* So is Thomas. Gasp!  We've been left behind!
• Anyhoo, back to Thomas. He's just smart, and he knows everything, and he can fix anything. When the computer isn't doing what I want it to, I tend to bang on it. Thomas comes over to rescue the poor inanimate object, and makes it do what I need it to do with a few clicks. When a giant Texan tree cockroach gets into the house, he hunts it down and disposes of it. Things that fall apart in my hands are capably put back together in his hands. What would I do without him? {Confession: I just glanced over at him again to make sure he hadn't been raptured without me. Now that would be unfair.}
• Well, there you have it, folks... the happenings of our lives, lately.

a little of this, a little of that

This post is going to be completely and utterly random, just for your information.

So, the day after I wrote the last post about my dream car, we actually went to the Mini Cooper dealership to look at the Mini Cooper Countryman.
Just for the heck of it.
And they had the absolute perfect one. It even had Union Jacks on the side mirrors!

Happy girl

Thomas liked it too

View from the roomy back seat

I wanted to drive home with it. * Sigh *

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I made a roast dinner for Easter, and it turned out deliciously.
I roasted potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, red onions and garlic together, with fresh rosemary from my little herb garden.

We also had garlic-rosemary sirloin tip roast, and steamed green beans.
And yummy gravy.

It was scrumptious.

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Thomas desperately needed a hair cut... he was beginning to look Bieber-ish.
One afternoon this week it was nice out, so I decided to cut it on the patio. Which, I might add, was not the brightest idea. There was hair flying everywhere in the breeze as I cut it.

Before:

Halfway done.

Much better. And very handsome.

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Then on Thursday I got all excited about the Royal Wedding, and I made English scones.

We had them with homemade strawberry jam [from the multitude of strawberries that we picked a couple of weeks ago], and freshly whipped cream. And tea, of course.

And I totally got up at 4am on Friday to watch the wedding live. Because I'm British, and it would be like high treason to miss it.

The service was beautiful and majestic, and Prince William and Kate Middleton were adorable together.


The stunning, elegant dress.


The Queen looks fabulous in yellow.


I loved the tiara


Prince Harry and Kate's sister Pippa.


The official pictures in Buckingham Palace.






It was beautiful, and it was nice to celebrate something on a world wide scale. Apparently around 2 billion people watched the wedding. It was an uplifting glimpse of joy and happiness amongst all the tragic things that have happened in the world recently.

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It was quite the weekend for world-wide events... just today President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden has been killed by U.S. forces and his body is confirmed to be in U.S. custody.
Obviously, I'm glad he is no longer a threat to the world. But I'm not entirely sure what to think about the ethics surrounding his death.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And on that note, I will end this haphazard, wandering post. I had no idea what I was going to write about when I began. So there you have it.

Thomas's little project

So if you've read recent posts, you'll know that we just bought a TV and an Xbox 360 Kinect. We don't have cable or anything, so we don't get any TV channels... we just use it for the Xbox, and watching movies on Netflix. On Saturday evening Thomas found this YouTube tutorial on how to build your own TV antenna out of wire coat-hangers and a few other things (click here if you want to see the tutorial)... so off he went traipsing around Dallas finding all the parts. He came home an hour or so later with everything and got to work.

This is what my engineer husband does for fun.

The finished product, with the cable going to the TV. I think it looks like some kind of destructive weapon.

But it actually works... we get like 8 different channels. It was quite exciting when we hooked it all up and it worked. We didn't really expect it to.

Thomas was quite chuffed with himself. He even asked me to blog about it :)

So cute.

[Hi Thomas :)]

So yeah. We have 8 whole channels, and I think only one of them is in English... the ABC channel. The rest are in Spanish. Haha.

We'll get for-real TV when I'm done with my classes. It would be too much of a distraction right now.

Speaking of classes, this is my little [BIG] project until March 10th.

Somehow, it will all get done.

* Sigh *