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missusLo
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Name: Lo
Gender: Female
Interests: shopping, food, sports (especially baseball!)
Expertise: keeping my husband happy, the SF Giants
Occupation: Operations Management
Industry: Media
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/6/2005
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| I am alive! And it's Wednesday night around 8:30 pm EST...and I'm at work. Not because I'm THAT dedicated (although I suppose I am...) but because the hubby has class.
Guess I should start with what's changed since April 1, my last post:
N quit his full time job at the Peace Corps in August and enrolled at GWU to get his masters in International Security Studies. What that is exactly I'm not quite sure, except he reads a lot about Taiwan and China and tells me everything about it. But as of May 2009 he'll have a bona fide M.A...so yippee.
I'm still at my job, though that's hardly a "still." I "still" love it, we're "still" growing rapidly and things are always changing and challenging. Besides my boss and owner of the company, there is exactly one other person (myself excluded) who was here in April. The other 4 are brand new.
Hubby and I left our 1st church here in the DC area, tried two others, and have finally settled at one with which we're quite happy. Good age and social mix, and best of all, we're in a small group with a bunch of other young married couples with NO kids and no kids on the way for the foreseeable future. Maybe no finally we can start living like we're in our 20s. (And the no kids includes us...you can check back in about 8 years.)
We celebrated two years of marriage. Mostly blissful, sometimes routine, always cherished.
N and I took a cruise with his family to the Caribbean and loved every relaxing moment. I got super tan, and am somewhat disappointed now to find it's fading and the winter whiteness is settling in.
We are coming back to California for Christmas and New Years...and I say that because only California folks read this. So hopefully we'll get to see YOU.
And I think it's xanga overload...that's enough for now...maybe in another 6 months the urge will strike again...or another 6 days. Who knows!
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| Woops, it's been a while. And I owe pix of my apartment.
But for now, I'll just say I got my hair cut in February. I
finally chopped it to a length it hadn't been for nearly three
years. And I think it's going to stay that way. A little
vain, but that's what this whole xanga is about anyways, right?
Here I am! This is me as of Friday, March 29th, just before I
went to work, by the way. It's for my work website...don't want
you thinking I make Nathan take random pictures of me just because!
And here's our living room, while I'm at it:
That's the dining room there with the green curtains, and here it is up close:
Our friend Jen helped make 'em.
As you can, it's a similar layout to our old apartment, just much, much bigger.
Xanga has issues with pix, so that's all I can show.
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| Just before we hop on that plane to come back to Cali, I had to share a little bit of Christmas here in DC 
Nathan and I went to the Kennedy Center on December 8th for a Christmas
Jazz concert...so here we are inside the Center. Not the theater,
alas, and you can't see much, but take my word for it  .
Then on December 9th we had Julia, Janet, and Jenn over to make ornaments and foam figurines...
We also exchanged presents, and here I am with the girls and their NAP gift bears:
And lastly, what's Christmas without cookies? No pix of the
cookies, but I'll leave with you a picture of Nathan processing the
sugar so it'd be SUPER FINE and lend a delicate texture to the sugary
delights.
Yup, my man can share the load in the kitchen!
See ya'll SOON, and MERRY, MERRY Christmas!
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| mmmm.....I love food. In case you couldn't tell. Anyways, it appears this last month of 2006 will be all indulging the culinary delights of the holiday season.
Thanksgiving certainly signals the kickoff of the feasting season, what with turkey and the trimmings overburdening our table. But the goodness didn't stop there, as we were left with enough sweet potatoes for round 2 of that marshmallow topped casserole, enough russet potatoes to attempt some "light" oven fries, and of course leftovers for nearly a week.
Once into December, we re-stocked our pantry and dined on butternut squash risotto (a leftover squash that didn't get roasted along with the bird ), turkey burgers made with ricotta on whole wheat buns, and one pot chicken and rice with broccoli and cheddar. (Okay, now I do have to admit one night last week I threw together a random soup for myself and made spaghetti straight out of the jar for Nathan  ).
Friday night we went to Tallula for dinner before our Chrismas Jazz concert at the Kennedy Center. A beer battered corndog, duck egg roll and miniature pulled pork bun for appetizer, then pork chop for me and short ribs for Nathan. Pumpkin cheesecake and fried chocolate finished the meal and sent us off to the show with a very full tummy indeed. (Funny story - the restaurant is about a block and half from my office, but it was about 20 degrees outside, so we drove....still ended up parking about a block away the other direction, but it was a shorter block, I guess. And we'd initially intended to go to dinner in our work clothes, since the website said casual dress, but our first drive by indicated a slightly fancier place than that, so...rather than turning to go back to the office, we changed in the parking lot. Okay, I changed in the backseat of the car, managing to wedge myself down on the floor behind the passenger side so as not to be indecently exposed. Once I was done, I took Nathan's spot in the driver's seat and watched as he ended up changing outside the car...yes, in 20 degree weather. He had to stand up outside so he could button his shirt, tuck it in, loop his belt on...all that sort of thing. Sorry for the graphics, but I just had to share.)
Saturday we had Julia, Jenn, and Janet over for a Christmas party. Beef Chili with bacon and black beans was the main course, along with honey butter cornbread. Janet made white chocolate raspberry cheesecake and buttery almond cookies that apparently smelled as good as they tasted (Julia was too full to eat one after a slice of pie, but her appreciative sniff told us everything we needed to know.) Then we made a couple of ornaments and S'more figures of reindeer, multi-cultural Santa friends and snowmen.
Sunday we ate leftover chili, and made Christmas cookies! We made dough, chilled it, rolled it out, chilled it again, and cut out Christmas shapes like snowmen, angels, stars, trees, soldiers, and penguins. Tonight I think we'll decorate a couple so they're fit to bring into the office. For dinner, since we wanted to save the remaining chili for Monday lunch at work, I made "Eggs in the Hole." I'd never heard of it, but my cookbook told me to cut out a whole from the middle of a slice of bread, place it in a hot buttered pan, then pour the raw egg into the hole. So the bread toasts while the egg fries. Yum!
To clean out our fridge this week before we head back to California for a week, tonight (and maybe tomorrow, if the leftovers are substantial) is slow-cooker pot roast. We shall have to see how that turns out considering the small size of our crock pot...it was a tad full to overflowing this morning. I've also got some ground beef left over from what we bought to make the chili so after the pot roast is gone we'll make Shepherd's pie, and then Chicken Pizziola (chicken with cheese and sauce and peppers and onions.)
As much as I do enjoy cooking, and honestly I'd probably prefer to do that than eat out a whole bunch, I'm certainly looking forward to the California culinary scene. Oh yes, things like In 'N Out, Tofu House, Sweet Tomato, Ohana (Hawaiian), Chinese food like dim sum...
So we'll see you Californians soon. We're back on the 16th.
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| Since I keep promisin' something....I figured I better deliver a little
or ya'll might lose even more interest in this than you already
have.
Thanksgiving (and my birthday) has come and gone. So in chronological order...
On November 19th, we went on the Odyssey Cruise on the Potomac, partly
to celebrate my 25th, but also because it was Mom and Dad Eb's
anniversary gift to us.
Here we are aboard ship, sitting down to a scrumptious dinner:
And then for dessert they stuck a little candle in mine when they learned what we were celebrating.
Backtracking a tiny bit: On november 5th (I think), we voted for the first time in a booth.
We'd previously both ever only voted absentee. So even if the results
didn't turn out QUITE as we'd have wished...we did proudly wear our
stickers. Sorry, this is just a pic of me. I know, a little vain 
Also on November 19th we went out to lunch with some church friends to
Bilbo Baggins restaurant. Yummy food and terrific fellowship.
We also enjoyed the beautiful cake Sara Beth so kindly made.
I have no idea how she knew my favorite color 
Then on Monday my office took me out to Hard Times (chili!), to which
we drove even though it's about a 6 minute walk away. Because I
was cold and was wearing high leopard print stilettos. 
Once work was over on Monday, though, so was any fun, because we had to
get the house is SHIP SHAPE for the Eberhardts' Thanksgiving
visit. I don't have any pix yet of the living room, and you'll
see just a tiny glimpse of the dining room, but you can be assured they
were spotless. The only reason I'm delaying pix is 'cuz we still
need to put up the curtains.
Here is the 2nd bedroom, though. Hard to fully capture in one picture, but hopefully you get the idea:
And the desk we bought and built from Staples, after our other desk saw its timely end during the move:
The guest bathroom (a little weird, sorry):
The shower is off to the left, and you see a tiny glimpse of the sink there on the right.
And lastly for now, our master bedroom:
Our friend Jenn made the curtains, the sheets are from Target and the
bedcover from Ikea. And I got that idea for the frames behind the
bed from Real Simple.
My side of the room:
Nothing fancy...a shoe tower and a mirror to finish preppin' in the morning.
A little better view of the frames behind the bed:
We got the "new place" in order just in time, and then welcomed Mom and
Dad and Lauren. Lauren was our very first over night guest and
got to break in that new bed (also from Ikea). She assured us
that it was comfortable, so now you definitely can feel free to visit.
Thursday was obviously the BIG day, and so we spent hours prepping the meal.
Besides us Ebs, Julia also came, and helped set this table:
This was our first time dining on the FINE china, complete with "fancy"
silverware and real crystal wine glasses (filled with sparkling cider
for the most part  .
And the main attraction was, of course, the food, which was overflowing on the buffet table:
Sticky rice, yam casserole, roasted green beans, bacon and herb
stuffing, herb roasted turkey wrapped in bacon, garlic mashed potatoes,
and cranberry/raspberry jello mold was enough to feed at least 12.
And finally, one family picture to share:
Happy Holiday's ya'll...and I say that to include Thanksgiving and Christmas and everything else.
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