Mmmmmm, The Penguin

Harry and I hate Tuesdays. We feel that Tuesdays really have nothing to offer the work week. Everybody knows Monday is rough; first day back from the weekend, you're tired, overall, it's just going to be yucky, but you get through it. Wednesday is, for lack of a better term, hump day. You are half-way through the week. You know you can make it. Thursdays mean one more day to go; meanwhile, Fridays rock! You've made it. But Tuesdays, what redeeming quality can Tuesdays offer? The answer, my friends, is none!

To help us get through this deplorable day, Harry and I decided to go to the Penguin Drive-In downtown. If you frequently watch "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" on The Food Network you may have seen the Penguin. It was featured last year when the show came to Charlotte because of it's remarkable (greasy) comfort food. After our run, Harry and I loaded up in the Jeep and headed to the Penguin. We got a half order of fried pickles (yes, they fry everything here in the south), 2 single blocks (cheeseburgers), and shoestring onion rings. Delicious, although we completely canceled out any good we did with our run. Oh well, you have to do what you can to get through the worst day of the week.

Thank you, Penguin, thank you!

A Nice Little Saturday (and Sunday)

Yes, Frank-the-Tank uttered this phrase in "Old School" and Harry and I are going to steal it for our next post. Our past weekend was pretty uneventful; however, 17th Most Popular readers demand more posts, so we are trying to meet this demand.

We started out our Friday with a little karaoke and bowling... a stellar combo! We did not sing, but every wana-be country star in the Lake Norman area did. You have to love it when amatures sing "Red Neck Woman". Classy. I amazed the bowling alley with a 61 my first round. I really stepped it up my second game and bowled an 82. I lost the first game and Harry lost the second (there were 3 other people, we are both just that bad). Clay and Karen, you leaguers would kill us!

Our bowling hero... Ernie McCracken from Kingpin.
Reminds you of Harry, right?

On Saturday Harry began working on his next wood-working project. He is making us a new desk for the office. You can see our Pottery Barn model.


The only difference would be our desk will have 2 file drawers on the left (and no smaller drawers). It is coming along well and should be complete soon. We'll keep you posted.

Yesterday I worked on my resume' for a political office... I shredded documents! Oh, I know, the excitement never stops for us Thompsons. Harry continued to work on his project. Despite this lack of activity, we are still both exhausted today. I guess it's just our awesome lives that keep us going.

As the good times keep rolling here, we'll keep you posted!

The Office Complete!

Today, we took all the tape off the trim in the office, loaded all the furniture back in, and are ready to share the finished painted product. Check it out... the room looks fabulous!

The view from the door again. I know, it's wonderful.

The futon, again, set against a blue wall. Ohh, ahh!

All I have to say is WOW! Look how incredible!
(Yes, I did clean up the corner we don't speak of, it is much more organized now.)

Now, those of you that complain that we don't post enough, are you happy? I mean, just imagine how empty your life would be without seeing the before and after pictures of our office this weekend. We get it, our lives are just so awesome you have to see what we do every weekend. We will try to keep up the posting; but with all this excitement, you can see how we sometimes run out of time! :)

Snowy Day and Painting

Yesterday, the Carolinas got snow again. Unfortunately, the snow didn't stick. It did, however, ruin our plans to go hiking. So, Harry and I decided to paint the office (no, not scenes from the show, The Office, but our office) the last unpainted room in our house. So far, we don't have any after pictures, but I will post some later today. Here is what the room looked like before we painted.

The view from the doorway. Yes, it is very tan.


Another view of the room with our fawesome futon taking center stage.


This is the corner I don't speak of. It is cluttered and unorganized. Hopefully it will look better when we load everything back in.

I would also like to show everybody that it did, in fact, snow here yesterday. I even got an email from our church saying that the 8:45 service and the 9:45 Sunday School is canceled today, due to icy roads. Give me a break.

A picture taken from the office window. (The snowman still stands, although it looks pathetic.)


The same view this morning. DANGER! Ice is clearly taking over the road. (Insert sarcasm here)

The Idiot or The Tiger?

So I was surfing the internet, I mean, working today and I came across this article. Turns out that the teenagers were in fact taunting Tatiana, the siberian tiger at the SF zoo that attacked (naturally selected?) a California moron on Christmas day. It really irritates me that they killed the tiger after the "attack"...after all, Siberian tigers are a critically endangered species, but the world is overflowing with idiots. I'm just a little upset Tatiana wasn't able to peer pressure a couple of her cellmates into jumping out to take care of the guy's friends.

This kind of reminds me of another ignorant human-animal story. A couple of years ago, one of the local parks in Charlotte decided that the Canadian geese (and their respective droppings) were making the park unpleasant for visitors. Rather than maybe saying "Hey geese, sorry we destroyed your natural habitat with our construction projects", we apparently decided that the best course of action would be to try to persuade the geese to leave (I'm not really sure they expected them to go...). A number of methods were attempted: dogs; probably some signs...because you know, geese can read; but the final solution (Hitler pun not really intended) was a series of lasers to discourage the geese from landing. Lasers. REALLY?

I'm really suprised the animal kingdom hasn't staged a meeting of the minds (like this scene from Bambi) to develop a full fledged attack on the idiot humans...or maybe they have?


Since we're being all nature-conscious today, I thought I'd recycle a picture used in a previous blog post, from our trip to Grandfather Mountain. At the time, we thought this sign was humorous, but it turns out that for some people, I guess you can't rely on common sense. Oh well. That's all for now.

Let it Snow, Then Rain, Then Freeze!

Last night we got snow!!!! Yea! Wonderful, beautiful snow. It was not a lot of snow, only about 2 inches, but that was enough to cancel school. (Yes northern readers, school was canceled for 2 inches of snow.)

I got some pictures of the snow before I left for school (teacher work-day). Enjoy!

The view from our kitchen. Our little peach tree is in the foreground and the street beside our house is in the background.


The view from our front porch. (Notice our Clemson Flag proudly displayed.)

Once I got home from school I took some more pictures. Much of the snow has melted because it is now raining. The weather forecasters are predicting ice tonight.

This picture was taken from the sidewalk next to our house. This road leads back to the community pool.


Our next door neighbors created a snowman. Very cute!


The front of our house.


Finally, this picture could only be taken in the south. Our front garden is planted with pansies each winter. They will actually live all winter long, and get quite large. I love pictures of them covered in snow because this would never happen in Ohio. The pansies would have died long ago.

O-H-I-O

Today must be Ohio day. I got 2 Ohio emails today. Now, I have gotten both of these before, but many of you not from Ohio may never see them; so I decided to post them for all to enjoy! Thanks Barb and Joanne for sending them.

THE CREATION OF OHIO

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days.

Eventually, Michael the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look Michael, look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth, "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth while southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. Over here I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people," God continued, pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a large land mass and said, " What's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Ohio , the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful lakes, rivers, sunsets and rolling hills. The people from Ohio are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, "What about balance, God?" "You said there would be balance!"

God replied wisely, "Wait until you see the idiots I'm putting around them in West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Kentucky!

Jeff Foxworthy on Ohio

You might be from Ohio (pronounced O-hi-uh), if:

• You think all Pro football teams are supposed to wear orange!
• You know all the 4 seasons: winter, still winter, almost winter and construction.
• You live less than 30 miles from some college or university.
• You know what a buckeye really is, and have a recipe for candied ones.
• 'Toward the lake' means 'north' and 'toward the river' means 'south.'
• You know if other Ohioans are from southern or northern Ohio as soon as they open their mouths.
• You can spell words like Cuyahoga, Olentangy, Bellefontaine, Tuscarawas, Wapakoneta and you know which letter is doubled in Cincinnati .
• 'Vacation! ' means spending a day at Cedar Point in the summer and deer hunting in the fall.
• You measure distance in minutes.
• Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
• Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
• You've had to switch from 'heat' to 'A/C' in the same day. (Or, if you have no A/C! - added by Meredith)
  
• You know what should be knee-high by the Fourth of July.
• You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. For example: 'Where's my coat at?'
• You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
• You think of the major four food groups as corn, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
• You carry jumper cables in your car.
• You know what 'pop' is.
• You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
• Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow. (Amen!)
• You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightgown.
• The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires six pages for sports.

Yes, We are Boring

You may have noticed that there have not been any posts in awhile. It appears that we missed the entire Christmas season. Actually, we did not. We did, however, spend the holiday with my (Meredith's) family. That is going to be my excuse for not posting... we weren't home. After we returned to Charlotte we went to movies, shopped, and spent time with Harry's family. Yes, we are boring.



So, what are we up to? Nothing! Harry works, I work, and on weekends we play. This past weekend we went to our friend Kevin's birthday party at the Forum. It was a blast. Kevin had rented out the VIP lounge. We really enjoyed helping Kevin celebrate his 35th birthday.

Now, I am trying out some new recipes from some of my Christmas cookbooks. Tonight, home-made tomato soup. Yummy.


The tomatoes stewing


The completed soup

See, I told you we were boring. If you want to check out another couple that thinks they are boring you can see Clay and Karen's blog. In their Monday, January 14th post they declared that they had "become that boring couple we feared". To them I say, join the club! :-) We love our boring life, even if it isn't that exciting for others to read about or for us to write about.