Weird Weather Pictures

Unless you're living in another country, you probably know that much of the Midwest was hit by a major winter storm over the weekend. The weather people in Lawrence predicted 10 inches, and as usual, they were completely wrong. Not only did we not have 10 inches--we didn't even have any inches!

The weird thing about the storm was that both Topeka and Kansas City got several inches of snow while the worst of it somehow bypassed us. It was so bizarre, because at times the radar was showing snow on every side of Lawrence, and yet Lawrence itself was still getting only rain or maybe freezing rain. Even the south part of our county got more snow than we did! It's like we're in some sort of geographic or meteorologic bubble that's impervious to normal weather patterns or something! We often have storm systems split and go right around us. I don't understand it, but I find it completely fascinating. Maybe I should have been a meteorologist!

Anyway, after we had freezing rain much of the day on Saturday, we had a nice sheet of ice covering the entire neighborhood. I couldn't resist taking a few pictures since I love the beauty of an ice storm.



As you can see from the pictures, once Sunday morning came around the temperature shot up and the ice melted very quickly. It was actually a beautiful day in Lawrence, even though when we went to KC later in the day there were still several inches of snow on the ground! It was 45 degrees at our house when we got home from church, so I took the dogs for a walk while at the same time my nephews were sledding only 45 minutes away. The walk with the dogs was so beautiful, as the sparkling ice crashed down off the power lines all along the main street we were walking on. We made sure to stay on the opposite side of the road so as to steer clear of the falling ice, but it definitely made for a unique and entertaining walk!

Best of all, as you can see, my tulips made it through the ice storm just fine! They may not be heat resistant, but they're certainly rather cold resistant!

Par for the Course

Although I'm still a little bummed about last night's loss to Michigan State, I must say I'm not nearly as distraught this year as I've been after previous tourney losses. I will admit that I got a little teary at the end, but that was only because we were so close to winning that game! We played so confidently and so solidly in the first half I just can't believe we blew it at the end. Well actually, I can believe we blew it because we've blown so many other big leads this year! Somehow, our guys just never quite figured out how to play a full 40 minute game this entire season. I'm hoping that the loss will leave such a bad taste in the mouths of the players that they'll all be doubly motivated to come back next year and redeem themselves!

For most of the game last night we had a fun time watching with a few of our friends at Jack's, which is always crazy and loud and raucous during KU games. However, I'm positive that the change of venue was definitely not worth jinxing the win! I promise that next year we're sticking to the same viewing location as long as the winning streak continues!

Overall, I'm very proud of our Jayhawks, who should be proud of their standing as the Big 12 regular season champs. As it turns out, the Big 12 was a pretty darn good conference, seeing as we had 3 teams who made it to the Sweet Sixteen and 2 who made it to the Elite Eight. Although I'm super happy that Mizzou lost today and isn't headed on to Detroit next weekend, I'll be cheering for OU to make it to the Final Four tomorrow!

The Game

I'm already so nervous about the game tonight and tipoff isn't for about 8 more hours. Missouri's win over Memphis last night has created SO MUCH MORE pressure for a Jayhawk victory! I can't handle it!

In honor and in support of our Jayhawks I'm posting a video that I found today on KU's YouTube page. It's short but sweet! One game at a time, Jayhawks!



In the horrible event that we lose tonight's game against Michigan State, you can blame me entirely. I suggested that Chad and I needed to go somewhere other than our basement to watch the game, which is where we were for the first two rounds of the tourney. Chad is convinced that us hanging out at our house with our friends Cara and Dillon is good luck, but he reluctantly agreed that we could venture out into the world this evening anyway. We're at least going to wear the same shirts as we did last weekend in hopes of continuing our winning streak! Say, that reminds me--I need to go start some laundry!

Tulip Time

I was very proud of my daffodils last week because even after being frozen several nights in a row they still managed to keep their color for a few more days before giving in. On Monday, after a nice warm weekend, they were clearly on their last stems. They browned and wilted, but thankfully my white tulips made their appearance at just about the same time. These particular tulips usually only last about a week--I guess they're just very delicate! They usually croak the first sunny, warm day after they've bloomed. Thankfully, this week isn't supposed to be warm, but since it's supposed to freeze and possibly snow in the next couple of days, I'm guessing my tulips won't be around for long! I thought I'd capture a few shots of them today while they were still looking nice!

Name Change

Tonight I turned on the TV while I was changing into my pajamas and caught a few minutes of Dancing With the Stars. Maybe it's me, but I kind of think ABC might want to consider changing the name of this show. I know I don't watch much TV, but can they really get away with calling some of these people stars? Of the 12 contestants left on the show this season (one has already been eliminated) I could only immediately identify three of them. I should have probably known Shawn Johnson since I watched her in the Olympics over the summer and Lawrence Taylor since I'm fairly familiar with the NFL, but for the rest of those people I was completely at a loss. Am I seriously the only reasonably culturally literate person who doesn't know who these people are? Or am I just not really as culturally literate as I think I am?

Apache

As we were watching one of many basketball games over the weekend, some school’s pep band was playing a tune that Chad recognized but couldn’t place. It didn’t sound familiar at all to me, so I was no help in trying to figure out what it was. This morning on his way to work Chad finally put his finger on the melody, which originally came from this song by a British group called The Shadows. It's really not too bad of a tune, and apparently a few pro and college sports teams have adopted it as a rallying song on game days.

The funny thing is, even though it was originally a decent song, Chad initially became aware of it not through The Shadows version, but rather through an incredibad remake by a Danish singer/songwriter named Tommy Seebach. It turns out Chad had actually shared the song with me many moons ago when he first found it through a column on ESPN.com by sportswriter Bill Simmons. I think I must not have been blogging yet when I first saw this, because it is SOLID GOLD in the way of comedic material. I most definitely would have posted it if I'd had a place to share it at the time!

Bill Simmons actually does a much better (and much funnier) job of describing this music video--that is, if you can actually even call this a music video. I mean seriously—I don’t even know what this is. The song, the outfits, the dancing—it’s all just indescribable. I’ll just let the video do its own talking.



Really? Was that really someone’s serious attempt at entertainment? I mean the song is beyond awful in and of itself, but the video is just out and out atrocious. I mean, I know this was likely made it Europe and it was the late 70s, but really? What is with those dancers and their ridiculous choreography? What is with Tommy’s outfit and his creepy smile and his creepy swinging hips? I know the 70s were an era of questionable tastes but REALLY? Someone really thought this was a good idea in any decade in any country?

Sixteen Is Sweet

I have to admit that our weekend was pretty darn unproductive. We ran a few errands, did a little laundry, walked the dogs a couple times and worked out, but other than that we pretty much just watched basketball. I can't explain how much I love March Madness!

While my brackets are pretty much tanking (the best one is only in the 53rd percentile in ESPN's Tourney Challenge), I totally don't care because KU is still alive and dancing. Today's game was an incredible effort by Sherron and Cole, with Cole getting the first triple-double in KU school history (or at least since they started keeping track of blocked shots and assists in the 70s). The rest of the team actually played pretty poorly, but thankfully Dayton wasn't at the top of their game either. It might not have been the prettiest win ever, but it felt like we were fairly well in control the entire 40 minutes. All that matters is that we are headed on to the Sweet Sixteen in Indianapolis next weekend! Maybe Chad and I should look in to getting tickets!

I did actually miss the games yesterday evening because I was hanging out at my friend Leigh Ann's sampling some scrumptious sangria, but today we enjoyed watching all the games--especially Missouri/Marquette. Of course we were cheering hard for Marquette and it was a heartbreaking loss at the very end, but it was some great college basketball none the less. My dream bracket would have looked really good if Mizzou had lost and Siena had been able to pull off the upset against Louisville!

I know certain friends of mine (who shall remain nameless) are extremely sick of hearing about KU basketball, but when you live in Lawrence and you love college hoops, this is what life is all about in March! Rock Chalk, Jayhawks!

Basketball Basketball Basketball

Can you guess what's been on my mind all day???

I had no time for blogging yesterday because I spent all my free time preparing for this most wonderful day in the world of college basketball. I did all my research, made all my picks, filled out all my brackets and entered all of my pools. Today was remarkably productive at work, despite the fact that I listened to CBS games from 11:30 on. It's so much fun to root for random players you haven't watched all year just to see the underdogs succeed. I love cheering for whoever is losing just so every game will be close and exciting. March Madness is just so darn fun!

As always, I filled out two different brackets (one dream bracket in which KU goes all the way and one reality bracket), but only after reading about 10 articles and watching many videos from "experts" who gave me the lowdown on all the teams. How is it that I can study the match-ups so carefully and still be at the bottom of all of my pools!? It just doesn't seem fair! In my defense, several of the big upsets that I picked to happen didn't happen, but they ALMOST happened (N. Iowa and American)! Does that count for anything?

Improvement

A few weeks ago when we thought we were going to try and sell our house we made a list of all the little home improvements we need to make before putting it on the market. One of the items on that list was a project we'd talked about for years but never actually completed--the upgrade of the ceiling fan in our bedroom. We'd gone so far as to shop for said ceiling fan on multiple occasions, but somehow we could just never find exactly what we wanted. This time when we went shopping for ceiling fans, we settled for one we liked since we couldn't really find one we actually loved. Since we're hoping to move sometime in the near future (although that dream home on farmland still eludes us), it seemed really silly to continue the futile search for that perfect fixture. I mean seriously, anything was an improvement from this:



Yes, that is an actual before picture of the actual hideous fan that has been hanging in our bedroom for the last 11 years. How incredibly embarrassing that we never changed it until now! Regardless, here is the new fan, which might not be perfect but is at least 95% better than the original!


Ahhhhh, much better. We actually put the same fan in a different finish in our guest bedroom as well, so now our guests won't be forced to stare at the obnoxious wicker and brass monstrosity that hung there previously. It's amazing how much a different light fixture can improve a room!

Stop Petland Puppy Sales

Last year I started a blog specifically for the purpose of sharing my views and experiences within the realm of dog rescue. I thought it would be good to have a place where I could get on my soapbox so that my family and friends who read this blog would be spared from my rants. A few of my friends are kind enough to check out Save A Dog Blog on a regular basis, but for the most part it isn't visited nearly as much as Luce Chatter.

Last week I posted some information about a campaign by the Humane Society of the United States on my other blog, and even though it's kind of lame to just re-post it here, I'm going to do it anyway. I think this is such important information that everyone should know and should share with their friends and family members. In a nutshell, buying puppies from stores such as Petland and Internet sites such as Next Day Pets is a horrible practice that supports horrendous breeding facilities called puppy mills.

Please check out the details and watch the HSUS video here. Pass it along to your friends!

Stupid Pet Tricks

My friend Brenda sent me this the other day and I thought it was so hilarious! Maybe it's just because I'm a Beagle lover. Really you can start the video about half way through because Dave just jabbers a lot at the start!



Since Beagles aren't known for being the most obedient dogs when not tethered, before the trick I kept wondering how he was going to set that dog down on the floor without a leash! I guess it works just fine when the trick happens in your arms! :)

Sad Day in Larryville

I can't believe it's March and I've barely blogged about KU basketball. I've obviously been following the season very closely and have barely missed a game all year, but I guess I just haven't had much to say about the team. If I were to describe this year's team in two words, they would be young and inconsistent. They've had flashes of brilliance and flashes of incompetence all year long--often all in the same game! They'll go on crazy a hot streak and then turn around and go ice cold for 10 minutes solid. If nothing else, they've been very consistent in their inconsistency! It's really quite amazing that they managed to win the regular season conference title when they're really not that great overall!

So today, when our #1 seeded Jayhawks lost to the #9 seeded Baylor Bears, I wasn't really that surprised. Disappointed, sad and depressed--yes, but surprised, no. Our two best and most experienced players, Cole and Sherron, both had pretty terrible games, and when your leaders aren't playing well you can't really expect much. That's really the good thing to me--I don't really expect that much! I know our boys have great potential, but you can't expect that much out of a bunch of freshman, a couple of sophomores, a junior and a Lawrence boy!

The other good thing is that today's tournament loss wasn't a tournament loss in the big tourney next week. We can only hope that Bill's Boys will learn something from their mistakes today and go into next week with a renewed sense of focus and determination! Bring on March Madness!!

Floral Confusion

Every year the daffodils in our front flower garden come out of the ground entirely too early. I guess it's because our house faces south and gets full sun all the time. All those bulbs need is a couple of warmer than normal weeks and they start popping right through the dirt and mulch whether it's February or April. Despite the fact that I replanted most of them a couple of inches deeper a year ago last fall (the project that was the subject of this post), this year they still started coming up in the middle of February!

So in their hurry to beautify our garden, this year my daffodils were snowed on and frozen late last month. I worried that they would be so damaged that they wouldn't bloom, but here they were last weekend!


This was the bunch that I missed in the replant of '07, which were slightly taller during the freeze and thaw and therefore took more of a beating. Obviously, they are struggling a bit! They might be blooming, but not all of them were actually standing! The ones I had replanted were looking a bit better.


Just days after I took these pictures we had a major thunderstorm, and the poor daffodils even got pounded with hail--as if the snow and cold hadn't been enough! After the hailstorm about every other one of them seemed to be drooping. To top it all off, this afternoon the temperature dropped below freezing, and it's currently only 26 degrees out. Since my poor flowers are in for a cold night tonight and I don't know if they'll survive, I decided to take a few more pictures after our walk.




Despite all they've been through, I think my confused little flowers look quite lovely! I somehow doubt they'll look this way after this week--it's supposed to freeze the next four nights in a row!

Revenge

As my favorite sister-in-law Jen and my dear friend Amber guessed, the nearby establishment that closed its doors on March 1 was, in fact, the Inconvenience Store! As most of our Lawrence friends and family members know, we unlovingly dubbed the Conoco station two blocks from our house the Inconvenience Store many years ago because they were so frequently closed during normal business hours. They often failed to post their hours so you never really knew when they'd be around to sell you a soda or a snack.

Despite the annoying irregularity of their hours, we continued to frequent the Inconvenience Store over the years because it was so close and Chad has a love of fountain sodas. That is, we continued until that fateful day in the summer of 2007 when Chad drank a soda from there filled with ants.

So now, after avoiding the store like the plague for almost two full years, we are finally seeing the fruits of our labor. The Inconvenience Store went bankrupt and had to shut its doors, thanks in part (I'm sure) to our lack of support. They just couldn't ever recover from losing our patronage! This is a huge development in the history of our neighborhood--a potential real convenience store might actually move in!

In related news, I have to give a huge shout out to my dear friend Erin, who was the only person (who isn't married to me) who apparently knew the movie quote from my last post! Come on, friends!! Everyone should know that was Fletch, shouldn't they?

Since my 10s of friends and family members who read this blog clearly need to practice their movie quotes, I'll give you all another one just for fun. This is the quote Chad used when talking about how he'd exacted his revenge on the Inconvenience Store.

"You mess with the bull, you get the horns."

Seriously, he did say this, and I was cracking up laughing. It's very funny if you know what movie it's from!

We Are Closed

This is the story I started to tell yesterday before I got completely sidetracked obsessing about Oklahoma Joe's. Did I mention you should check that place out? :)

So anyway, on the way home from our dinner field trip we drove by an establishment near our home and saw some signs on the window. To be exact, we saw this sign:


Any ideas what establishment this is? Here's another pic that might offer some more clues.



So you're saying you're closed? Are you sure? Because the four signs that say the exact same thing really didn't make it very clear.

What say you, friends and readers--any guesses as to what establishment this might be? Extra credit goes to anyone who can also guess the movie quote it makes me think of:

"So you're saying she moved out?"

:)

OK Joe's

Last night our Journey Group (what our church calls our small groups) took a field trip instead of having our normal weekly study night. A couple of our members had never been to Oklahoma Joe's BBQ in KC, and since the rest of us are big fans, we decided to make the 45 minute road trip and then stand in line for another 30 minutes so that we could stuff ourselves on the fantastic goodness that is OKJ's. Now I'm not really a fan of BBQ in general, mostly because I'm not a huge fan of meat in general, but this place is absolutely fantastic. If you've never been and live within a 100 mile radius of this joint, I highly suggest you make the trip--oh, and allow yourself ample time to stand in line for a while because the place it always packed. I recommend getting the Lean 'n' Mean (open faced turkey with cole slaw on top) and splitting their incredible (and incredibly large) order of fries with a friend.

We had a crazy good meal last night, and the OKJ newbies (especially Pat) were very impressed with the BBQ. Pat is a great cook and kind of a food connoisseur, so when he couldn't stop talking about his sandwich minutes after finishing it, we took that to mean he gave the restaurant his seal of approval. We had a great time laughing about how quickly he inhaled his meal and were all amused when he proceeded to sample other people's sandwiches as well. Luckily, we stopped him before he sampled the platter of ribs belonging to the couple at the next table. Ha ha--just kidding, Pat!! :)

Dinner was so great, but Chad and I both ate enough that we were still miserably full at bedtime. Not only was I incredibly stuffed, but I also couldn't stop drinking water because I was so incredibly thirsty! The OKJ's fries have so much seasoning I felt as though I'd eaten an entire salt lick by late that night. Those fries are so terrible for you, but they're just so darn good! As a one-in-a-while treat, they are totally worth it!

Anyway, when I started out writing this post it wasn't actually going to be about Oklahoma Joe's--it was going to be about something that happened on our way home from the restaurant. However, it's clear that I'm passionate enough about OKJ's to make this a post in and of itself. Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened later on!!

Disappointment

Today we had a bit of disappointing news. Nothing major, mind you, but I have to admit I'm definitely a little discouraged. Here's the whole story in a nutshell, even though I'm not generally very good at shoving my stories into nutshells.

When we first went to look at the house out in the country that we really liked, our first step in making the decision about moving was to figure out if we could legally operate my dream dog rescue at that location. Chad contacted one of our county officials, who wasn't sure about the zoning and regulations, so he said he'd check into it and get back with us. We knew that there was a nice dog boarding kennel within a mile or so of the house, and we figured that there were probably tons of backyard breeders all over the county with tons of dogs, so we didn't really think it would be a big issue considering the property was on 10 acres.

Well to make a short story long (I have such a talent for this, I know), Chad got a call back from said county official, who basically indicated that the house we were looking at was zoned for rural residential use only, and the owners could therefore only have 5 dogs in their possession at one time. Since we already have three, it wouldn't be a very helpful rescue if we could only take in two dogs at a time!

The bummer is that these restrictions are in place for commercial kennels (primarily boarding and breeding kennels), but any sort of dog kennel, regardless of the purpose, is included in their definition. They didn't make a separate definition for non-profits or rescues, so as of now anything zoned for rural residential use could not have a dog rescue. The official said we could request a variance to get our rescue approved, but that several other people had tried this for dog kennels (I assume boarding kennels) and they had not been successful. Apparently, the land would have to be zoned for agricultural use in order for us to house more than 5 dogs there.

Ironically, we had already scheduled an appointment to go out and see the house again, and we didn't want to cancel last minute when we got all this information, so we went out and talked to the real estate agent as well as the homeowner. They were very helpful and supportive of my desire to operate a rescue there, and even volunteered to pester county officials with our request. However, I think this is going to be a long process that's not likely to be resolved any time soon.

The good news is, we're okay with the fact that the house we thought might be perfect isn't going to work for us--at least not right now. I'd actually been thinking all week about the master bedroom issues and how we were going to make it work for our family. This sounds crazy, but I'd been having my doubts because the master is in the loft of the house (Did I mention it is a log home? This is it, by the way.) and I couldn't see us carrying Celtic up and down those stairs during the next few years so that he could sleep in our bedroom. Actually, I could kind of see us carrying Celtic up and down, but then I couldn't imagine us carrying Hope (55 lbs) and Fresco (65 lbs) up and down those stairs in their golden years! It suddenly hit me that we'd have to eventually build a master bedroom on the main level, so I was doing all sorts of brainstorming about where it might fit. It would be a huge undertaking!

Anyway, for now the house is out and the search is back on, only this time we'll probably be searching for land that is zoned for agricultural use. We'll definitely also be petitioning the county commission to make some changes in the zoning regulations!

Baby Hutch

From the title, you might think that this post has something to do with a really small open-shelved cabinet on top of some drawers--but you'd be wrong. The hutch I'm talking about is little Mr. Hutcheson, the new baby of our friends Brett and Vikkie. Over the weekend we went to KC to visit our friends and meet Hutch for the first time. He is such a little cutie and I probably could have stayed at their house for hours taking pictures of him if Chad wouldn't have dragged me away. Here are just a couple of the many pictures from our visit!



Isn't he just a doll? My pictures certainly don't do him justice. They make me realize how much I need to take a photography class! I see all of the beautiful pictures on all the photography blogs I follow that are clear and sharp and well-lit and never look like they have the harsh glare of the flash and I'm dying to know how they're always so perfect! Is everyone in the world bouncing a flash except me? Help me, photographer friends!

Okay, enough of my photography obsession--back to the subject at hand: cute baby Hutch!! Hutch was born on February 15, so he was exactly 2 weeks old in these pictures. He was such a good baby while we were there and wasn't fussy at all. I know Vikk and Brett are going to be great parents because they've raised a wonderful little Beagle son already!

Welcome to the world, little Hutch! Congrats, you cute little family!

Bowl Breakage

If you've ever come over to our house, you know how excited our dogs get when we have visitors. They pretty much spaz out and lose all control for like five minutes before regaining their composure. There's a similar scene when Chad and I come home from work in the evenings, except that the excitement then is due to the fact that it's dinnertime. Our girl Hope especially loses her mind when it's time to eat, bawling and bouncing around like a puppy. Unfortunately, last week her bounciness led to some mild destruction in our kitchen. As she was waiting for me to fill her food bowl, she bounced up excitedly and landed with a foot right smack in her water bowl. Not only did water go everywhere, but the ceramic bowl itself went flying off its stand and crashing to the floor into pieces.

I spent several minutes cleaning up water and shards of the bowl all over the kitchen, but of course as soon as Hope came back inside after dinner she went straight to the site of the accident and started sniffing around. As I was carefully disposing of (I thought) all the pieces, I hear her crunching something in her teeth behind me! I yelled at her to drop it, but I couldn't ever find it if she did. Her and her darn pica made a bad situation even worse! Thankfully, she hasn't shown any ill effects from eating a chunk of pottery!

This probably wouldn't be a blogworthy event at all except that the dogs' water bowl was a piece of ceramic pottery that I painted at Sunfire Ceramics many years ago. We've established that I have no artistic ability whatsoever, but this bowl was actually something I was kind of proud of! It had served its purpose so well for many years and I was so sad to see it go! I had no pictures of it in its life, so I thought I'd share a picture of my bowl in death.

Goodbye my lovely bowl! I'm sorry you met such a tragic demise!

Sleepwalking Pooch

If you're a Dooce.com reader then you can skip this post entirely, because I blatantly stole it from her site today. I just couldn't resist--it made me laugh so hard I cried while sitting at my desk at work this morning.



When I first started watching, I was thinking that this wasn't really that big of a deal, since our dogs often twitch their little feet and even whine and "ruff" while they're sleeping. They've been known to this quite often. When that dog started full out running like a Greyhound in the midst of her slumber, however, she entered a whole new realm of doggy sleepwalking. How hysterical and slightly sad when she jumped up and ran into the wall! I think I cried because I was laughing and because I felt so sorry for her!

Children of the World

This morning was had a special program at our church that was really wonderful. It was a concert by a children's choir called Children of the World. This group of precious children between the ages of 7-12 are a traveling international choir of kids from children's homes from various countries around the world. Many of these children are orphans and most of the rest of them have lost at least one parent who was then unable to care for them. They were given the opportunity to travel to America with one of three traveling choirs for 10 months out of the year. They perform at churches to raise money and sponsors for needy children through World Help, a nondenominational Christian organization that provides humanitarian aid in needy countries around the world. Alumni of Children of the World also all receive a 4 year scholarship to college in their home country.

I can't explain how adorable these kids were (we saw the central team) and how touching their stories were. They were so energetic and entertaining and their performance was quite impressive. They sang so many songs in several different languages, all with lots of choreography. They were just so precious and so happy to be performing!

This isn't the same group of kids that we saw, but this was the last number they did this morning, and it was definitely my favorite. The song holds a special place in my heart, and my mom and dad and brother will understand why. We actually sang this song as a family in church when I was about 5 years old!



I was so glad our church was able to bring this group in for a performance. They were great to watch, but more importantly, they opened all of our eyes to the struggles that they and millions of other children face in their home countries. Thankfully, the group also offered a simple way to help these children and children like them! For just $30 a month you can sponsor a child through World Help to provide them with food, clothing, education and medicine. It's an incredible ministry for a bunch of wonderful kids!