Moving the Great Wall...of Sarah's Kitchen

After weighing the pros and cons of moving my kitchen wall (pro: bigger kitchen, con: moving a wall), I decided to go ahead with demolition so the wall could be moved 22 inches into the living room. It really wasn't a horrible process, although who really knows what we inhaled during the destruction!

Ugly kitchen wall that offers no structural support, thus proving my theory that it was a totally random location to put up a divider.

Luke, the official Kitchen Wall Demolition team leader.

Luke really got into the destruction...I think he may have some unresolved anger issues!

Finally, the skeleton of my new wall!

Thanks to Mom and Luke, who helped tear it down. And George and Greg, who put up the framework for my new wall in just a few hours! Now, if I can just figure out the electric, and throw up some drywall, I can start painting!

Smudging on Rocky Road

After visiting my new little trashed-and-then-abandoned house, Aunt Paula determined that there could very well be evil spirits of some sort lurking there, especially in the high corners of the rooms. Once she got home to Colorado, she engaged the services of a reputable shaman, and got a bit of Mountain Sage smudge that is supposed to drive the evil spirits out.

I don't know much about mountain sage, but this looks suspiciously like SOMETHING ELSE to me...

Well, now I know a little bit more about Mountain Sage, aka Desert Mugwort...it's going to get the negative energy out...and there is A LOT of negative energy in this house!

I would like to note that this not only looks like but also also smells suspiciously like SOMETHING ELSE, as well...and it gave me an asthma attack.

Wheezing and sneezing, I bravely soldiered on, and got into every corner of every room in the entire house!

I decided to drive out the negative spirits of the ghetto front door twice, just for good measure!

Overall, I would say the purging of the negative energy from my house went rather well. I didn't die from wheezing, and the house didn't burn down during the procedure. I would like to note, however, that two self-proclaimed experts (my mother and my cousin Amanda) both felt that Mountain Sage and Desert Mugwort could both possibly be more politically correct names for SOMETHING ELSE. Very suspicious! But once the smell of SOMETHING ELSE cleared out of the house, it did seem a bit fresher. Not sure if it was the negative energy being dispelled from my new home, or the gross carpet being removed and icky paint being covered...or just the fact that we were all being affected by SOMETHING ELSE. Regardless, things are shaping up on Rocky Road!

**UPDATE** Upon asking Aunt Paula about the Mountain Sage smelling suspiciously like SOMETHING ELSE, she just laughed. Very suspicious, indeed!

I'm Ready for Winter!!!

Just thought I would share my WeeMee, who is very excited for fall and winter to arrive!

(To get your own WeeMee, just go to WeeWorld.com)

Ruthie, aka The Cat with Thumbs

The other day I caught Ruthie drinking out of the kitchen sink, which she apparently is able to turn on herself. She is such a cute cat (maybe I'm biased), so I grabbed my camera on the off chance I might catch something good. And I did get some interesting pictures, that's for sure:

I'm not sure this is classified as 'good' but it does make me laugh...

I never really noticed how freakish Ruthie's paws were until I saw this shot on my computer!

My cat has thumbs!

Sarah Bought a House!!!

Okay, let me clarify that...I bought another house...down the road from my parents...sight unseen...at a foreclosure auction. So naturally, now that I own 10% of it, my mother and I felt the need to snoop around a little bit. Because who doesn't want to see if they made a huge mistake? Or start making plans for all the remodeling they are going to get to do? Certainly not me! And of course, my camera came with me, to document the experience that may or may not have been legal.

And our journey begins!

We decided to take the long way, walking all the way down to camp, and then hiking back up the gully path, which gave me ample opportunity for my daily picture taking resolution:

One the way down to camp, we saw wild asters, which happen to be my birthday flower!


Scary caterpillar...this guy was freakin' HUGE and trucking across the driveway like nothing I've ever seen...


Camp!!! (So sad that summer is over.)

Queen Anne's Lace

The secret road between camp and my new house...

My new house, from the top of Secret Camp Road...

Very deep gully that I apparently own as well...

The back of my new house!!!

Someone's abandoned hot tub...any ideas on how I am supposed to dispose of this?

An unlocked door, begging us to go inside...

My future movie/billards/mini bar entertainment compound...

Random toilet within what I can only imagine was a 90% unfinished bathroom...

Tiny Basement Bedroom #1

Tiny Basement Bedroom #2...

Sarah's Future Scrapbooking/Crafting Nook

View from foyer...

View of dining area from stairs...

View of Owasco Lake from dining area...

Very dirty living room...could this house be Sarah's Folly???

Tiny Upstairs Bedroom #3...

Incredibly Bright (even by Sarah Standards) Bedroom #4...

Barbie Bedroom #5

Barbie Bathroom off Barbie Bedroom...now I know this is not Sarah's Folly...I have finally found where I belong!

Rather messy, but ultimately kick-ass, ginormous garage so that Sarah's Sea-Doo doesn't have to sit outside all winter anymore!

SARAH'S GREAT PURCHASE, from the front...

My beautiful lake view!

My new neighbors' gazebo...some day I will have one too!

So I know, it looks a little ghetto, especially compared to my current house. But it's a great project for me, since I get to pick out all new flooring (I'm thinking Pergo), paint the walls, and install a completely new kitchen. Oh, and let's not forget the entertainment room in the basement! And it's on two acres in the country, so Izzy, Emma, and Casey will have plenty of room to play with their future yellow lab brother! And once it's done, I can sell it, and buy my condo in Ithaca! As Tracy would say, "Whoot!!!!"

How awesome is Captial One's new idea?

I went online yesterday to pay my Capital One bill of $6.86 (okay, so I don't use it very much) and was greeted with a new offer from them: design your own credit card. They give you two options: pick a photo from thousands already on their website, or upload your own picture. Note: nudity and pornographic images are not allowed, nor are photos of celebrities, so no, you won't be able to make a card with John Krasinski's picture on it. Believe me, if it was allowed, I would totally have done that! Anyhow, I went through my favorite pictures to find one that would fit on a credit card, and came up with an adorable picture of Izzy from when she was about 3 months old. My photo was approved today, and Capital One emailed me a picture of what my new card will look like:

Needless to say, I am pretty excited about my new card, which will arrive in 7 business days and was totally free! I might actually start using Capital One more often...although those 10% coupons from Target do make using their card very worthwhile.

Taylor Swift Sings in the Subway

So I'll admit, I was stunned when Kanye West hopped on stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance of her Best Female Video at the MTV VMAs this year and basically said to the world that she didn't deserve the award. I was disgusted, and felt horrible for poor Taylor, who was speechless and apparently had to be led off the stage after being so rudely interrupted.

What was amazing about the entire incident was Taylor's performance, just minutes later, of 'You Belong With Me' on the New York Subway. This was the song that Kanye felt didn't deserve to win, performed by a 19 year old who actually writes her own music. She did an awesome job, and now I know that there is a reason why I'll listen to Kanye on the radio (and sometimes enjoy it) but I actually will go out and buy Taylor Swift's music!

To watch Taylor's awesome performance of one of my favorite songs, just click the link:

Taylor Swift sings in the subway

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I need to stop drinking soda :)

So last May I had to go to the emergency room because of horrible pain in my side. Turned out I had a kidney stone, which I thought was odd, since I have no family history of that. So I did a little research on the internet, and found out that the phosphoric acid in soda can actually cause kidney stones. And since that was the worst pain I have EVER experienced, I would like to avoid future kidney stones. So I think I’m giving up soda. Nope, I AM giving up soda!!

See more progress on: stop drinking soda

Goal: Read all the books from the Rory Gilmore Bookclub

I actually started this project ages ago, and forgot about it, so I’m going to get back on track!

001 A Month Of Sundays by Julie Mars
002 The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
003 Small Island by Andrea Levy
004 My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
005 A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
006 My Life in Orange by Tim Guest
007 Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett
008 The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
009 The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
010 How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
011 The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
012 Nervous System by Jan Lars Jensen
013 The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
014 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
015 How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland
016 Oracle Night by Paul Auster
017 Quattrocento by James McKean
018 The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
019 Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
020 Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
021 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
022 The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
023 The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
024 Old School by Tobias Wolff
025 The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
026 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
027 The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duff
028 Brick Lane by Monica Ali
029 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
030 The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
031 Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
032 The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
033 Property by Valerie Martin Find out more
034 Rescuing Patty Hearst by Virginia Holman
035 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
036 Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
037 The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander
038 Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
039 Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
040 Fat Land : How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
041 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
042 Unless by Carol Shields
043 Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
044 When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
045 Songbook by Nick Hornby
046 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
047 Extravagance by Gary Krist
048 Empire Falls by Richard Russo
049 The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
050 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
051 A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
052 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
053 Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
054 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
055 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
056 The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
057 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
058 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
059 Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
060 Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
061 The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
062 A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
063 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
064 Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
065 Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
066 Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
067 The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
068 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
069 The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
070 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
071 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
072 Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia De Burgos by Julia De Burgos
073 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
074 Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
075 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
076 The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
077 Night by Elie Wiesel
078 The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse
079 Hamlet by William Shakespeare
080 Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
081 Beloved by Toni Morrison
082 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
083 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
084 Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
085 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
086 The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
087 The Awakening by Kate Chopin
088 Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
089 Time and Again by Jack Finney
090 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
091 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
092 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
093 Sybil by Flora Schreiber
094 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
095 Cousin Bette by Honore De Balzac
096 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
097 Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
098 The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
099 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
100 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
101 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
102 The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
103 1984 by George Orwell
104 The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
105 The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
106 An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
107 Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
108 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
109 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
110 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
111 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
112 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
113 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
114 The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
115 The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
116 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
117 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
118 Emma by Jane Austen
119 On The Road by Jack Kerouac
120 The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I think my next book on the list will be The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, since I’m pretty sure I own that one already!

See more progress on: Read all of the books from Rory Gilmore's bookclub

UPDATE: Emma Enters Finger Lakes Wine Country Facebook Contest

Emma did not get chosen for the Top 12 of the FLWC Dog Mascot Contest. I feel kind of bad for her, so I'll be giving her extra special treats for the next few days. :(

Emma Enters Finger Lakes Wine Country Facebook Contest

If you are on Facebook, there is a group you can join called Finger Lakes Wine Country. I joined for obvious reasons - I live in the Finger Lakes, and I love going on wine tours! This summer, they have been having a contest for a dog mascot for the Finger Lakes, so I entered Emma:


I think she totally deserves to win...she loves the lake, she loves hanging out in her grandfather's vineyard, and she'd probably love wine if given the opportunity to drink it! Could you get a better mascot for Finger Lakes Wine Country than that? I don't think so!

Our Newest Family Member

So I've been a bit busy this summer, working lots of overtime, and not being at home very much. Sadly, my few minutes of internet time at night are spent on Facebook, which is quite addictive, so I've been a little negligent about blogging. I realized today that I never even introduced our newest family member, and she's actually been living with us for over two months now!

Casey

Casey is a two-year-old border collie that my friend Tracy let me borrow while she was on vacation. We liked Casey so much that Tracy and her family let us keep her!

Casey likes hanging out with friends, particularly her BFF Izzy:

Izzy and Casey

She is also an active member of the Seward Ave Canine Soccer team:

Emma, Izzy, Sally the Mormon dog, and Casey

We are all very fond of Casey...well, except for Henry and Ruthie, who have decided that they do not like being herded around the house and yard.

Colorado Adventure - Day Eight

After driving almost 9 hours, from Boulder to Devil's Tower, the Mothership and I are a little tired. So in lieu of a complete blog for the day, here's a little teaser:

Devil's Tower, looming over us!

(I know I'm falling woefully behind on my blogging, but I figure I'll have plenty of time to catch up once we're back in good old NY!)

Old Baby Pictures

I really, really miss my babies! And I couldn't even find a picture of my poor little Ruthie, but here are some of Henry, Emma, and Izzy that I just took a few weeks ago:

His Lordship of Seward Ave, Sir Heinrich

My un-photogenic little brown dog, Emma.

Izzy-dawg, who looks sad in this picture despite being the canine form of Prozac in real-life!