Mandolins

I'm behind in my updates.

Not that there's much to update with.

Chris and I made some pretty good homemade cream eggs over Easter. I'll have to post pictures and recipes, but I's not at my computer right now... Eventually.

So I've been scoping out mandolins. Chris and I visited a local store and they had one for $200. I'll have to do some saving to get it. And check out other brands and prices. If you have a mandolin you're getting rid of... let me know.

I've been reinspired to work on my musical talent. Haven't really played much of anything in years. Did guitar a little in college, but the fingerings were hard for my small hands to reach. The mandolin seems very doable. And it's such a fun sounding instrument!

I should really pick up playing the piano again too... I'll have to dig around and find my music books and retrain myself.

Chris and I have been training for the River Bank Run. We have not stuck to our schedule very well... We were supposed to be doing a two-mile run yesterday, but the weather deterred us. I'm going to struggle in a few weeks when we actually have the event.

I've biked to work a couple of times in the nice weather. I convinced Chris to go on a ride with me instead of going for our run one night and we did about 15 miles. It was fun and the weather was perfect.

Come bike with us sometime!

PS - Here's a good place to check out a wide variety of mandolin music: Mandolin Cafe

BIking and Pizza

Chris and I took the xtracycle out for the first official errand. Yes, I've taken it to work a few times, but nothing where I've had to "haul" anything.

So today, we missed church, so for whatever reason we transformed it into a date night. We ordered pizza at a local place about 2 miles away, hopped on our bikes and picked it up. We ate some pizza there, then ran into Blockbuster, strapped the pizzas to the bike and headed home.

The boxes didn't budge from the bike, but the pizzas rattled around quite a bit inside... Good thing we ate some before it got jostled!

Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera along, so no photos of this trip.

Now we shall spend the evening watching Twilight, which everyone has been raving about.

Blah.

I've been intending to post for awhile now and have not.

And now that I'm posting, I have nothing to say other than I've been sick for the past 5 days... I hope I can make it back to work tomorrow. My biggest concern is spreading germs to my colleagues. But I think I may finally be on the upswing of this...

Ants (Part 2)

So I think Chris and I took care of the ant problem.

We cut some PVC pipe into short pieces to become some new legs for the bin. Then we placed the legs in some bowls of water (I made it soapy for good measure, but don't think that would have made a difference). So basically, the ants would have to walk across the water to get into the bin (or out). It's a good moat.

I had also read some good tips for safe ways to get rid of ants. (Safe for your family and pets, not safe for the ants).

Cinnamon will suck all the moisture out of ants, basically mummifying them upon ingestion.

Corn meal will expand in their stomachs when they drink water, "exploding" them.

Who knows if these two things are true, but we put some down just in case.

Ants

Well... I have a small ant problem.

Don't tell my mom.

I think it's because I don't have enough paper bedding in there yet, plus the food needs to be wrapped better. When we put in our compost for the day, the food should really be wrapped in damp newspaper. I just need to train Chris to do that and do it myself, and hopefully that will take care of the problem...