This is Dave’s newest passion in life.

The 24 hours of LeMons, a play on the real French race of the 24 hours of LeMans, is basically a form of endurance racing which involves getting a team of 5 people together (hopefully one of whom knows an awful lot about car mechanics), purchasing a vehicle of your choice AND fixing it up for no more than $500, and then racing for 2 days.  I believe that you’re lucky to keep your car in running order and have it cross the finish line, let alone collect the $1,500 top prize.

This sport is obviously not about the financial upside potential, but more about the glory of being the fastest redneck.

I recently received a long awaited raise at work which amounts to almost exactly $500 extra in the monthly budget.  Dave sees this as a clear sign that God approves of his racing endeavors.

Grrrr.

While my sister Maggie stayed with us over New Year’s, we came up with the idea of doing craft projects for each other.   A bit silly, I’m well aware, but one trip to JoAnn Fabrics later and we had our ideas.  It turned out to be fun!

Maggie, who is an RA in her dorm at Ball State, got to go back to school with a giant glittery S, representing her last name.  While it looks cool and all, I’m under no delusion that the giant S won’t find it’s proper home in a college dorm either as a prop for a drinking game or as an accessory for a statue on campus somewhere.

Maggie took a much more practical approach to her craft and painted a birdhouse for our kitchen.   She didn’t have time to finish her project while she was in Chicago, but I hear there is a birdhouse in the mail.

Dave and I celebrated a low key Valentine’s Day this year, making time for a date night out on Sunday.  And while Dave had the luxury of a 3 day President’s Day weekend, technically, I did not.  To solve this horrible injustice, I put my vacation days to a good use and took the day off.

After some deliberation about what we should do with our free day, we came up with the great cheap date idea of going to the Shedd Aquarium, which is hosting free admission this week.   Unfortunately, we were not the only people with this brilliant idea.  It turned out that the wait to get into the aquarium was pushing 2 hours.

Dave and I promptly agreed that we are not cheap enough to stand out in the cold for 2 hours, and we paid full price to get into the Field Museum.

So, instead of learning about fishies, we learned about dinosaurs…

And found conclusive evidence of alien presence in ancient North American Indian tribes…

And when it was closing time at the Field Museum, the line for the Shedd Aquarium, which was staying open late to accommodate the crowds, was non-existent.

We did get to see fish after all, but a formidable mad-dash through a few main attractions would best describe our visit.

On walking into the aquarium, however, someone approached us with extra tickets to Fantasea, the dolphin show.

We were excited to see the show…for free…but it was honestly a disappointment.  It’s really just a rock concert style theatrical performance, to which any non-deaf person should bring earplugs.  It includes a plant child and mother in the audience who by “random luck” participate in the show, flying canoes, grown men dressed as fairies and an occasional animal.  While the animals are cool, they make up about 25% of the show.  My sister, Amy, tells me this is how things go at Seaworld, but I’ve never been.  I prefer the old school dolphin tricks on crappy bleachers at the zoo.

Fantasea may be best described by one of Dave’s favorite web-comic authors who lives in Chicago and recently chronicled an hourly comic which includes a reference to the show.  Check out the 6:38 PM time slot.

Dolphin light show complaints aside, we had a really great day.

Especially when things are busy and it’s cold out, it’s easy for Dave and me to focus on the daily chores and get in the rut of our own habits.  We need to make more of a conscious effort to get out of the apartment and do something different on occasion, lest we become too grouchy and reclusive.  Turns out married people should go out on a date every now and then!

#2 – Professionally print and frame pictures from our wedding.

The pictures are in fancy frames, so we must be really married now.

While I am very thankful that we are not under snow house arrest like our very favorite East Coast relatives, I am ready for winter to be over.  It’s halfway through February, and that means March is next and that means spring is soon and, to be honest, I have found myself daydreaming about this a lot recently.  I actually shopped for new flip-flops online today.

It really hasn’t been that bad of a winter.  Sure, there has been snow and ice, but we live in Chicago.  I think I just kicked the winter off on a bad note with getting sick.  Even though exercising is good for my spirits, I have struggled to get back to yoga and Nia.  And it’s never fun walking home from work in the dark.

Anyhow, I don’t really have anything to complain about.  Girl just needs some Vitamin D.

#65 – Watch a movie with Dave once a week (6 weeks).

This is another of my goals that I actually completed before the end of the year.  It all started when I was sick and watched a lot more movies…instead of…you know…cleaning the house or going to work.

You may ask why I had to actually make this a goal.  I know that most people watch a movie at least once a week.  I don’t though, and I know that Dave wishes I would watch more movies with him,  so that’s why it was on the list.

Last summer when we were in LA visiting Dave’s family, my mother-in-law pushed me for an answer about what my favorite movie is.  I fumbled on my response.  Honestly, I have never been a big movie person.  It’s true that I don’t actually have an all time favorite movie.  I’ve tried to think about why this is.  I can watch hours of mindless cable without blinking, but watching a movie…I don’t know.  Maybe I have a short attention span.  Maybe I didn’t watch enough movies as a kid.  Maybe I like my entertainment to be in the form of mindlessness that can be turned off at any time.  Who knows?

So the movies that Dave and I watched together over 6 weeks include…Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Gattaca, Paranormal Activity, The Village and Up.  I promise…I stayed awake for all of them.

Oh, and speaking of the cable, we did cancel it in December.  I have been reduced to watching crappy network sitcoms and public television.  I am still going through serious withdrawal.

#51 – Read a science fiction book.

I have actually completed a handful of the things on my “To Do” list recently, all of which I will write about shortly.

I had never read a genuine honest to goodness science fiction book before, and Dave challenged me to do so.  That’s why this goal made the list.

First, I chose to read The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, because I had actually heard of H.G. Wells, Wikipedia referenced it as one of the original science fiction works and, I’ll be honest, I was browsing the book store in my office building one day and I noticed how short it was.  Dave told me it didn’t count…no spaceships!!

My second choice, after realizing the spaceship criteria, was Ender’s Game.  Another quick search online revealed it as a quintessential spaceship science fiction book.  Turns out that Dave had recently read the same book.  Shame on me for not actually caring what he was reading, just lumping all of his selections into the evil category of science fiction.  But there it was, we already owned a copy of the book.

So, I read it, and it was good.  Not like John Steinbeck good, but I did honestly enjoy reading it.  It had lots and lots of spaceships in it, and it was well written and entertaining…until the big plot twist…which I read standing up on a Chicago Avenue bus one day and it made me want to put the book down and give up on my goal all together.  I won’t reveal the plot twist, but I will say that I didn’t see it coming and I really kind of hated the book and gave up on it for a couple days.  But I did go back and finish the book.  In retrospect, I would give the book 3 out of 5 stars.

Anyhow, something that struck me in reading this book are the similarities between science fiction and the scary horror books that I always enjoy.  Stephen King is one of my favorite authors.  He is known for the dramatic, the inappropriate and the gruesome.   But often times his books have an element of fantasy or, quite honestly, science fiction.  I didn’t fully appreciate this until I read a genuine honest to goodness science fiction book.

Turns out our interests in reading aren’t that different after all.

This is why my work clothes are constantly covered in cat hair.   We found Moxie sleeping on Dave’s clean shirt when we came back to fold the next load of laundry.  Dave put the T-shirt on top of her…funny thing is she actually stayed napping like this for another 30 minutes or so.

Guess Moxie was cold.

Not being in Chicago for Christmas this year didn’t stop us from getting our own tree.  And thanks to our parents who collected and kept safe all of the ornaments from our childhood, we were able to decorate the tree with great memories.

Hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas.

Dave and I spent Christmas in Indiana with my family.  All six siblings, plus their respective significant others were in town, which is a rare occurrence.  As you can see, my parents purchased a very large tree to celebrate the occasion.  Having everyone together was crazy, and lots of fun.  We maintained our sanity by staying at a hotel.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve in Chicago with my sister Amy and her husband, my sister Maggie who is staying with us for a while, and my brother Michael.  Maggie helped me make cabbage rolls for dinner, and Michael hosted the party with champagne toasts and everything.  We actually spent most of the evening in a very heated game of Settlers of Catan.  We did, however, take a break to properly ring in the midnight hour.

All told, the holidays were busy and great.  It was really wonderful to visit with my whole family.  Insults were flying the whole week, of course, but no one ended with a black eye,  so I’m going to call the holidays a success overall.

Happy New Year!