In May I got a brand new Kenmore Elite He5t washing machine with the Quietpak 9 and a matching He5 Steam dryer - also with the Quietpak 9. I didn’t know that I could love a washer and dryer this much. The very second that Sears drove away after delivering and installing them I had a load of wash going — and all the laundry baskets were neatly lined up so that I could wash clear into the middle of the night if I chose to.

I’ve kept those machines running on a fairly regular basis ever since. If something needs to be washed I scope out all the dirty laundry until I’ve got enough to fill a load.

And the Quietpak 9? Well worth the money. My laundry room is on the first floor and it’s right next to the living room, dining room, kitchen, and my bedroom. I needed a washing machine that did not make a peep. And this one is UBER QUIET.

Did I mention that I love it?

So this morning I threw in a load of sheets, and tonight I flipped the laundry into the dryer, and started the next load. Then I took a shower. And when I got out of the shower I noticed that the washing machine wasn’t running, and instead was flashing F32 on the screen.

And the door was locked.

And it kept flashing. F32! F32! F32!!

Yes, yes, F32!! But what does it mean?? I grabbed the owner’s manual and searched for all the error codes, F20, F21, F22, but no F32.

What!?

I started punching buttons on the machine, and finally had to unplug it from the wall to get the door to unlock.

Whew! I got all my clothes out of the washing machine, because even though they were dirty clothes, I felt relieved that they weren’t locked inside! I know, odd.

My husband came in the laundry room and tried to figure out what the problem was, and finally announces that “we’ll have to call for service”. Lucky for him the door right behind him is magnetic and there was a Sears Home Service magnet — which I grabbed and handed to him.

“It’s 8:30 at night, they won’t be open.”

“Ya never know.”

I fully expected him to go back to watching his tv show, and I was still wrapped in a towel, so I went to the bedroom to get into my pajama’s. I can see the couch from the bedroom, and I saw him sitting on the couch, then I heard him explaining to someone that the washing machine wasn’t working and it was giving him an error code.

Could he really be calling Sears? At this hour?? For me???

Sure enough, he called!

And I wanted to burst out into song like Giselle in Enchanted — twirling around in my pj’s That’s How You’ll Know!  

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

Over the past few weeks I've been running outside, rather than running on my treadmill. My dog, Maisy, has been my running partner. She does pretty good actually, and I'll bet we ran close to 15 miles last week, only taking Wednesday and Sunday off. Perhaps you've seen us running through the subdivisions off of Lilly and Hampton?

The only problem with running with my dog is that I don't want to push her, and in order to make sure she stays properly hydrated, I bought one of those Camelbak packs from REI. It's not the big one that goes on like a backpack, but rather a smaller one that actually I wear like a fanny pack and the water bladder rests on the small of my back. Surprisingly, it holds 48 oz of water, and Maisy is pretty good at drinking it straight from the hose like it's a bubbler.

Tonight Maisy and I were getting ready for our run, and I don't know if it was the water pack that got my daughter, Zoe, so interested or what, but she decided to come along with us. I thought about just doing the 3/4 mile loop through my subdivision, but she was doing so well that I keep on going my normal route and in all we went about 2.5 miles. Sure, we didn't go super fast, and we walked here and there, but I'm so impressed that my 7 year old actually did it! Our pace was slow, due to the walking, as well as I tried to teach her not to burst out full steam ahead.

Even though we both had our iPods on, she talked the entire time. Over time she'll learn to concentrate on her breathing, and maybe not talk so much, or maybe the talking will turn out to help her. Personally, I can't really talk when I run. Anyhow, normally I'd have dropped Maisy off at the house and then gone out again by myself to do another loop, but it was getting late so I didn't this time.

Thursday night I'll Storm the Bastille with my husband and my sister-in-law. My brother and my nephews are supposed to be running the 5K too, but we'll see, they changed their minds last year. This run is my favorite run of the year. I'm really looking forward to it!

Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head

Here’s the background: We’ve been listening a lot to Snacktime, by the Barenaked Ladies. It’s a children’s CD, but it’s fun enough for parents to enjoy too. There is this one song, Crazy ABC’s, where they go through the alphabet and list a crazy word for each of the letters and a definition of it.

Here’s the scenario: We were at dinner with my parents and my nephews. My mom was playing hangman with the kids when all of a sudden my husband comes up THE WORD to END ALL WORDS! The MOST FANTASTIC HANGMAN WORD EVER! He’s positive that they’ll NEVER EVER EVER guess it before their hangman is hung.

He tells them: _ _ _

Someone says: A

He fills it in: _ A _

Zoe says: Q

He gets a look of shock as everyone else at the table thinks our daughter has just made the dumbest letter guess ever because there isn’t a place for a U in those three slots, especially with the A in the middle.

And then she says: “qat, it’s an evergreen shrub” (quoted perfectly from the song, mind you).

Last night my husband and I ran the Superun 5K. It’s through Lake Park, and this run is challenging, but we love it anyways. Our times? Well let’s just say that we finished, and our times sucked. I hadn’t run in over two weeks, and my husband (who finished around 22 minutes last year) ran at my pace (which is no where NEAR 22 minutes).

It did not rain, and there was no beer on this race. It’s was all sunshine and hills.

The next 5K is Bastille Days, which is in July and is my favorite one of them all. I believe my brother, sister-in-law, and nephews will be running it too. That’ll be interesting. My nephews, who are 14, are now taller than me. They’ve got loooooooooooooooooooong legs and I’m willing to bet that they are going to sprint to the finish line.  

Speaking of my sister-in-law, I found out that she joined a triathlon class this summer, thinking that it would teach her the skills necessary for if she’d ever want to do a triathlon. Well, guess what, the class is ACTUALLY GOING TO DO A TRIATHLON. Yes, that’s right. She’s doing a triathlon. I think it’s a great idea, I wouldn’t want to do it — maybe one of those mini tri’s though, I could handle that.

I am vacationing in Door County with my family, which includes my husband, seven year old daughter, parents, and two 14 year old nephews. We are staying in Fish Creek, but yesterday we decided to make a day of it on Washington Island. I've been to Door County many times in the last 12 years, it's become a yearly excursion, and somehow we've never been to Washington Island. What would it be like? What would we do there? What adventure awaited us on the other side of the ferry?

There were seven of us, so we had to take two cars. Round trip tickets for a car is $24 (JUST the car), adults are $5.50 and children are $3.75. When we got off the ferry we immediately headed towards the Lookout Tower in Mountain Park where the view from the top of the tower was amazing! After that we split up for lunch, with my husband, daughter and I going to a restaurant on Main Street that promised breakfast all day, soup, sandwiches, wi-fi, and a baby grand piano in the dining room, oh and let's not forget the kayak tours. Close your eyes and imagine it with me, do you see a fireplace? Someone playing the piano? Customers lounging around, laptops open, blogging away? Coffee bar perhaps?

Okay, now you need to snap back to what I'd like to call: the reality of island life. The restaurant was about the size of my living room, the baby grand was in the corner with a fence (FENCE?) around it, zero laptops, no fireplace, and only two other tables of customers. The waitress moved on island time, and she even stopped taking our order at one point so she could help someone else find a fork. However, it must be said that that was the best darn grilled cheese sandwich I'd had in a while. AND I was able to log onto wi-fi with my iPod Touch so I could email my brother and check on my dogs.

After lunch we met back up at Jacobsen’s Museum were we met a life long resident of the island. Then we visited an Art & Nature Center, where I searched for a painting to add to my Door County collection (didn't find one though). My nephew bought a boomerang, which my husband immediately tried out in the parking lot. He threw it towards the woods, and I'm sure he expected it turn around right before the trees, but it didn't, and my nephew had to trounce around in the trees until they found it.

Note to anyone with a boomerang: learn to use it before you throw it towards the woods.

We decided it was time to head back to the ferry. My dad's car got on no problem, but we were told we'd have to wait an hour for the next ferry, so we pulled off to the side to wait. Next thing we know we are being waved ahead, once we got up to the ferry it was pretty clear that only one of those little Smart Cars would fit on the deck. The guy leans into the driver's window and says to my husband, "okay, what you're going to do is turn around here and backup onto the ferry, (and then he pointed) sideways there behind that car". And then I looked and saw him point towards my mom, who was already rummaging around in the cooler that was in the hatchback of their Equinox. My husband and I looked at each other, surely this is a joke, right? He didn't just tell us to back up on the ferry, did he? And then we laughed. And from the look on his face we realized that it wasn't a joke, and that we were going to be backing up sideways on the little itty bit part of the deck.

So that was our once in a lifetime Washington Island experience. I think that it'd be a perfect place to go for a bike ride. Maybe next time!

On Saturday my husband, daughter, and I were at Panera for lunch, it was the Brookfield location at Ruby Isle, and if you’ve been there before you know about the separate dining room that is off of the main room. It’s quieter in there and for some reason it’s Zoe primo spot when she’s choosing a place to sit.

So we were eating our lunch, and there was a couple of ladies a few tables away, but other than that we had the room to ourselves, when all of a sudden, I swear to God, I heard a bird chirp. I glanced around and didn’t see a bird, nor did I see anything that could have made that noise, so I went back to eating. A few minutes later I heard the bird again. I looked up, thinking I’d catch it flying across the ceiling or something, but again, I saw nothing. My husband and daughter heard the chirping too, so at least I wasn’t hearing things.

This is where I have to say that stuff like this drives me nuts! I know I heard a bird, but I never ever saw it. I’ll bet in all we heard it at least five or six times over a 20 minute period, yet every time I looked around, I couldn’t find it. If it were not for those ladies sitting a couple tables down, I would have done a complete top to bottom search of the room. However, since they were there, and didn’t seem to even notice the chirping, I’d look rather insane if I dropped to my knees and started looking underneath all the tables in search of where the chirping was coming from. Although, I did take the opportunity to look behind the garbage cans when I cleared our trays.

Zoe kept saying, ‘Okay, if I hear that chirping again then I know there’s a bird here for sure!’

Folks, let me tell you this: There was a bird there, I’m sure of it. And if I would have had the time, I would have done a stake out, if only to say ‘A ha! There’s the bird!’  and then I’d have gone about the rest of my day, just waiting for the next crazy thing to happen.

One time, at our last house, I was in our family room watching tv. My husband, and daughter, who was just a baby, were both sleeping. All of a sudden something flew across the room! My mind started to flip through it’s internal rolodex of all the possible things it could have been, and it stopped on: bat. A BAT!!! There’s a bat in my house! In the room where I am sitting!!!

And that’s when I started shrieking and threw a blanket over my head. I was frozen in my chair, and thought that if I got up and ran to the other room, the bat might just fly into me. SHRIEK!!!!! SCREAM!!!!!

My husband came running from the bedroom, saw what I was screaming about, and pretty much commanded me to get into the kitchen where we could close the swinging butler door behind us, thereby quarantining the bat in the dining room and family room area. I shot like a bullet across the room, with a blanket over my head, and he shut the door behind me.

Now what do we do? How in the heck do we get that freaking bat out of our house? Well, we walked around outside to the front door, opened it, and then waiting for the bat to fly out. Which he did, and it only took a few minutes actually. That stupid bat. That was probably one of the craziest things to ever happen.

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

My daughter is seven years old, and she's desperately wanted a swingset for as long as I can remember. That child has always loved the swings. ALWAYS. When we'd take her to the park, she'd spend the entire time on the swings, and if we were able to pull her off of them and over to the slide? She'd slide down and then race straight back over to the swings, as if to say: "Are you happy now? I went down the slide! FOR YOU!! Now I'd like a push, please."

My daughter, who is an only child, also snubs almost any toy she gets. Moon Sand? She had to have it, played with it once. American Girl Doll? She couldn't live without Nicki (and her horse, and her dog), but really isn't interested in playing with her. Wii? No thanks. A bicycle? Sometimes. She's just not interested in any of them. However, give the kid an artbox and a pile of paper and she's making drawings and pictures until the cows come home. While she's extremely talented when it comes to drawing, she's a kid and she should go outside and play! Put down your markers and go run around! 

We decided to make her swingset dreams come true and we bought her a Rainbow Play System. This is where I tell you that we didn't specifically set out to buy her a Rainbow, but it ended up that way, and we could not be happier. It was installed on May 5th, and she's outside playing on it every chance she gets. Friends are popping up from the subdivision too, which is really nice to see because when we moved to Menomonee Falls we chose to keep our daughter in the school she was previously attending, which meant not living near school friends.

And the added bonus (besides the fact that she's watching a lot less Sponge Bob Squarepants and Hannah Montana)? The Rainbow is big enough so that I can play on it too. There's nothing like revisiting my own childhood on the swings for a while, and yes, I've even jumped off mid-swing. Wouldn't you? 

Yesterday my daughter and I spent the day at the Milwaukee Art Museum. We were there for a children's class about Georgia O'Keeffe, however Art in Bloom was also going on and we stayed the day so we could attend the workshop with the lovely Lois Ehlert who wrote and illustrated many children's books. The event is going on again today, and Lois will be there again from 1-4PM, I highly recommend stopping in to meet her, read a few of her books, and then create some art to add to the flower garden. It was a lot of fun!

I'm dreaming of a getaway to Door County. Last June, right before the busy season, we vacationed for five days in Fish Creek and it was wonderful! We spent our time doing things like: riding our bikes through Peninsula State Park, painting pottery at the Hands On Art Studio, visiting The Peninsula Bookman (where the owner has my dream job), drinking lots of coffee at Blue Horse Bistro (where the owners have my other dream job), and eating as much pizza as we can at Moretti's Pizzeria -- YUM!

Where are you dreaming about getting away to?

It's been a super busy week! And Daylight Savings hasn't exactly helped. My sleep is all off, my body clock is off, and I'm hungry for lunch at 11 a.m. -- sometimes 10:30! I don't know how I've managed to get out of bed early every morning so that I can run 3-4 miles before I get my daughter ready for school, and then go to work. Perhaps it's just because I know that I won't have the time in the evening to do it. And my pants were getting too tight. And those darn Thin Mints are so good!!!

So what is on my agenda for the weekend? Well first up is wine club on Friday night. This month we are tasting Super Tuscans. I don't have a lot of experience with these wines because they are rather pricey, but what I've had, I've loved!

Saturday is Sleeping Beauty at First Stage Children's Theatre. We haven't been to a theatre performance in a while, but they are always enjoyable.

Then on Sunday afternoon is the Admirals hockey game with my daughter's school, Milwaukee French Immersion. She received a free ticket for reading and she's pretty excited. I haven't been to a hockey game in years, but I used to go fairly often when I was in my early 20's. There was a point where I was as in to hockey as I'm now into grand slam tennis (VERY!).

In between all of that I have a final project due for my Productions and Operations graduate course.

Have a great weekend! I'll post a wine recap on Saturday.

p.s. In case any of you are wondering, my phones are plugged back in. That's right, the phone company had unplugged my wire at the big box up on the corner. They thwarted my phone-lines-are-located-in-the-basement security system and everything! Kudos to you AT&T! But I'm plugged back in, my iPod is charged, and since my DSL is working too I can continue to blog about stupid little trivial things .... like how much I love this video and I'm trying to talk my husband into taking our two treadmills and putting them side-by-side so that I can practice the moves.

My family really enjoys a good water park. We've been to a few of them, some have been outstanding and some have been disappointing. For instance, Paradise Landing which is located in the Milwaukee Hilton was a complete waste of our time. The Kalahari was too large to keep track of everyone easily, and that toilet bowl slide? I didn't see how that was fun, I mean a girl could lose her swimming suit on that one. However, Moose Mountain Falls at the Timber Ridge in Lake Geneva is worth the trip.

My daughter attended a birthday party at the Country Springs Hotel's Waterpark and when I picked her up I thought it looked like the perfect afternoon getaway. The cost, $25 per person. Right, like I have an extra $75 just laying around to go the waterpark for the day. I don't. Good news though because they do offer special rates occasionally and I was able to get tickets today for only $15 per person. That's a pretty good price, and if it weren't a school day, and if three people at work weren't in Mexico right now leaving me in charge (my plane leaves on Feb. 7th!), I'd be willing to be at the water park at 9:59 a.m. with my swimming suit on!

My family could use some fun, have you been reading about our lives lately???? What with the near explosion, the vegetable oil spill, a car crash an eye infections and a waiter who changed his tip, or how about a boulder of ice --- I think my family deserves to ride the Triple Dog Dare until the cows come home!

Let me know if you have any indoor water park recommendations!

It’s Girl Scout Cookie time, and my husband has just informed me that he ordered six boxes from one of Zoe’s friend’s from the neighborhood. My first question for him was this: How many boxes of Thin Mints did you order? His response: Three.

Three boxes of Thin Mints, and they are all for me!

This is one of the perks of living in a house with two people who do not like mint flavored food. Of course, he’s willing to try any gross thing they serve on Survivor, yet the Thin Mints will not touch his lips. My daughter, who will not eat any thing other than chicken fingers, Cheetos, bananas, and grapes ( and a couple other things), doesn’t like mint either.

Her and I were at Macy’s the other day and there is a gumball machine at the Origin’s counter, well how was I supposed to know that those white gumballs would be mint flavored???? She practically ran to the nearest garbage can to spit out her gumball, holding it in her mouth very carefully so that it did not touch a single taste bud.

The first year my husband and I were married, a girl scout came to the door while I was at work and my husband was home alone. I don’t remember how many boxes of cookies he ordered, but let me just say this, he did not order one single box of Thin Mints. Apparantly during our courtship we had never gone over our Girl Scout cookie likes and dislikes. I didn’t know he didn’t like Thin Mints, and he didn’t know that I coveted them like the Holy Grail.

So let that be a lesson to all you unmarried folks out there, if you want your spouse to order you Thin Mints, you should probably put it in your wedding vows, or at least go over the scenario should a girl scout come to the door when the other isn’t home.

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

The photo hunt was the street lights located at the confusing intersection where Appleton Ave., Menomonee Avenue and Pilgrim Road all come together. Both Paul Wickesberg (Paul's Falls) and Margie R. correctly identified it this week! Paul told me in his email, "Did you know that years ago former public works director, Dennis Droese, actually named them? They were known as Huey, Dewey and Louie." I, of course, did not know this. Did you?

I was gambling with the photo this week. I thought it would be either too easy, or very hard. Every day I drive down Appleton Avenue as I head home from Germantown and can see the glow from blocks away! However, my husband never even noticed the lights until I made him stop the car so I could take a picture. I wondered how many others have passed them countless times without really seeing them.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and my plans are quite simple. My husband's grandmother is taking the family out for dinner. This is the second time we've done this, the first time was about five years ago, and it was when my husband's grandfather was still alive. It was his [grandfather's] idea, and while it seemed very very wrong to be eating Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant, it actually was very enjoyable. I won't list all the perks, but I'll get to the most important one: NO CLEAN UP! It was heavenly.

I'll most likely start out the day tomorrow with a quick workout at the YMCA, then I'm going to park myself on the sofa and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I've watched the parade for the past two years, I don't really know why I haven't watched the parade prior to that because I really enjoy the performances.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

I wrote this a couple years ago, and since it's (almost) Halloween I thought I'd share it with you today. Boo!

Do you like scary movies? I love scary movies! Except for when I’m watching them, scared out of my mind, then I wonder why I love scary movies so much.

I think it’s the adrenaline rush that I get from being scared? Or maybe it’s the cuddle-factor? I love to cuddle up with my husband while watching a movie.

Years ago we rented Scream, and within 10 minutes I was curled up on the sofa with him, and the two dogs. After the movie we had to walk the dogs. In the dark. On a summer night. He tried to get me to walk them, I tried to get him to walk them. Finally, we walked them together. Every little noise made us jump. It was breezy, so even the rustling of the leaves was enough to get our hearts racing. Every shadow became a dark cloaked figure. We learned our lesson, no more watching scary movies at night, in the dark.

When we rented The Others, we watched it during the day.

All the lights were on.

All the blinds were open.

And I think we played music in the background.

It was still pretty scary. I didn’t see that ending coming. Did you?

There have been plenty of scary movies since then, the last was The Grudge. We saw this in the movie theater. Hello!? What in the heck are you thinking??? This was clearly a dumb idea. Have you seen this movie? There is a scene where Sarah Michelle Gellar is in the shower, and a hand comes out of the back of her head, which she touches while washing her hair. THAT was creepy! Can you even imagine??? Here you are, alone in the shower, relaxing, washing your hair, probably even singing a little tune, right? And all of a sudden there is a hand behind you! That would totally freak me out.

And it did.

One day I was in the shower, alone, relaxing, washing my hair, not singing a tune because I can’t carry one. I was standing under the showerhead, facing the back of the tub, with the water spraying down onto the crown of my head. My hands are washing the suds out of my hair, when all of a sudden I feel something behind me. I barely grazed it, but I touched it enough to know that it wasn’t my other hand, nor the wall, and the showerhead was above me about 6″. I jumped out of my skin, and might have even let out a shriek! As I snapped my head around, looking for the guilty Grudge hand I saw not a hand, but the other showerhead!

Oy! The other showerhead. Yep. I picked the damn thing out, and paid extra to have it installed when the bathroom was remodeled. It’s adjustable, sliding up and down on a vertical bar so that shorter people (like kids) can use the shower. Or I can shower without getting my hair wet. And it comes off the bar all together so you can rinse the shampoo off a kids head who wants to take a bath instead.

Whoever used showerhead #2 last (that would be me) didn’t swing it in towards the wall, so it was sticking out and the rest is history. Creepy. Scary. My-heart-skipped-a-beat. History.

What about you? Anything creepy, scary, your-heart-skipped-a-beat, ever happen to you?

Don't forget about the photo hunt!

Tonight my husband and I are switching from Mid-America Bank to Landmark Credit Union. Why? I've been unhappy with Mid-America ever since they switched from St. Francis Bank, and the only thing that has kept me from switching before this is all the automatic payments that I'll now have to change.

I didn't set out to switch our accounts, but I think he secretly set a plan in place where I would come up with the idea, and then because it's my idea, do it.

Here's what happened: He and our daughter have been saving all their change in this huge piggy bank we bought in Cape Cod when we first got married. They 'feed the pig' and every once in a while they'll weigh the pig and see how much it's gained since the last weigh-in. It's like the opposite of Weight Watchers, the heavier the pig, the better. About a month ago they took the pig up to Landmark Credit Union and opened a savings account. We are saving for a vacation, and coin by coin, we'll get there. It's realistic. I once sold items on ebay for three months and had enough for a 10 day trip to the Disney World ... including the meal plan, which by the way, is a good deal.

I digress..... In order to put my name on the savings account he needed to escort me to the credit union where I'd then have to sit in front of a very pleasant banker who had account literature on her desk. I think he called ahead and asked her to take her time in preparing the signature card: Fake like you are working on the paperwork until she takes a brochure. After she opens the Current Rates brochure then you can ask her to sign the signature card. So I waited, and chatted, and waited, and chatted, and waited, and then reached for the brochure.

I think witnessed a fist pump and a victorious 'yes!' from my husband as I noticed the interest rate on the Premium Checking account.

After verfiying that the numbers were not a misprint, I looked over at my grinning husband who said, "Clark Howard always says to go to a Credit Union".

"What about customer service? Is there an 800 number that I have to call where I'll get some worldwide call center where I'm just a number and no one cares?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," the banker told me with a note of sarcasm, "You'll get our New Berlin office."

"We'll be back on Thursday."

 What about you? What would motivate you to change banks?

To read more of my writing until my next post, please visit Thoughts Outside My Head.