LeahAndMark.com

Wow. We’re really, really tired. Who knew we had so much stuff? Especially after you actually box EVERYTHING. It’s so much stuff - I wish I had a picture - well, I do, but there are technical difficulties and so I can’t post a picture of the boxes/furniture right now. Later I guess. So today you receive stock photos from um, well, from whenever over the past few weeks.

Exhausted is the appropriate term to describe the two of us. Seriously. Leah’s asleep right now and I’m still up having just finished my latest paper/homework assignment due tonight at midnight Mountain Time. Ummm. Fortunately, today was a relatively cool day so we were able to get the packing almost done without battling too much heat. It was actually kind of tolerable inside of our house. But we get to not live here anymore starting tomorrow! That’s so awesome. You have no idea.

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Moving out of this rundown shack is just another major step in the next step of our lives. Well, not really a ‘major’ step, just a big change. A physical change. Because we’ve lived here since we arrived in Atlanta and have been through a lot of uncomfortable times in this house. So uncomfortable that I almost doubt that we’ll even look back fondly on our time spent here. Seriously. You know how you can look back on a terrible experience and somehow the ‘good’ things come to the surface and that’s what you mostly remember? I doubt that’ll happen with this place. It’s just… we’re SO ready to get out of here. Leah was ready to get out of here 12 months ago. Yes. We’ve been here for 1.5 years.

Although there are probably some memories that’ll come to the surface after we’ve been away for a while. But definitely not anytime soon. Still. The new place is better in every possible way. Location. Central AC/Heat, insulation! modern fixtures! water pressure! two walkin closets! And um, Location!

So while Leah prepares to stop working at her job, and I prepare to um, be working, things are moving along nicely and somehow, we keep going without too much trouble (at least not enough trouble that it would force us to actually write about it here - cause if that happened, then you’d know it was SERIOUS.)

But I’m tired now. Good night and have an awesome Tuesday! ‘Aw heck. You know we’ll blog again tomorrow too.

Ah. Back when I used to run - A LOT.

Even though this is only a four day work week - it’s still Monday - so we’ll begin with something that makes us happy - Baklava! Honestly, I hadn’t ever eaten ANY baklava until… about 3 years ago when Leah’s grandparents? sent her some in the mail (well, you know, ordered it and had it delivered so it was still relatively fresh - and absolutely awesome.) Baklava has got to be in my top 10 ummm… dessert/pastry/type things ever. Seriously. Unfortunately, I could eat it for days. If by some unfortunate circumstance you’ve lived without ever having eaten any baklava - go and get some right now. Like RIGHT NOW.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we made our way to Ikea this past weekend. We bought a new sofa and a new bed/mattress. In the picture below, Leah’s pushing the Sofa and I’m pushing the bed frame parts. It was a good thing I had so much practice pushing our other sofa/bed combo to the curb the other day because I had to pull this down from the shelving and onto the cart since there were no Ikea reps around in sight. (On a completely side-note, I wasn’t sore or hurting at all after any of the furniture moving and hauling - and I normally would be all screwed up someplace, probably my back and shoulders area - except I’ve been doing workouts that mostly consist of running a lot, and using heavy kettlebells that they have my gym now. Ummmmmmm. Offtrack.)

These are Leah’s vegetarian Chiknuggets - which we ate at around 2am on Saturday night because she couldn’t sleep and was watching the 2nd season of Dexter (you have GOT to see this show) and I was attempting to work on some homework. Which brings me to another subject - how we don’t really have much actual FOOD inside of our fridge. It’s that weird situation where our fridge is FULL of stuff… but nothing to eat. We do have a large collection of condiments and parts - oh yeah, and of course Eggs… but not much real food.

Sunday morning? Belly of course! But I’ll spare you the latest pictures of the latest Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich. We also bought two Sunday papers for packing paper (and then realized that I could’ve just grabbed 4 or 5 of those ‘free’ papers like Creative Loafing or… Sunday Paper.

Looking back - it was a really, really long weekend - partly because we had the moving/packing/boxing job looming over us the whole time. We did get a whole lot done - about 3/4ths of the stuff and we even did yard work. Part of the problem is that I feel the need to box EVERYTHING. I mean almost EVERYTHING - and anything that’s not in a box… well, then it’s in a bag that we’re taking over and not having the movers bring over.

I just have this whole thing about having movers move anything that’s not big enough to be considered furniture, and stuff that’s not in a proper box that’s been taped closed. So that means I want to pack EVERYTHING in a proper box that can be taped shut and stacked. Other wise I feel it’s like… handing them a rolling cart full of loose items. I don’t know. Plus, we’re also trying to cut down on the time that the movers have to be there so the more ‘packed’ we are, the less ‘packing’ that actually has to go on when they get there - saving us money.

We ate a spot called ‘Tin Drum’ over in Sandy Springs this weekend and it was a good choice - not anything adventurous, but after our relatively terrible lunch at Saigon Cafe in Decatur… yeah, Tin Drum was awesome in comparison.

Penang chicken up above. Seriously. Lately I’ve been on this big um, ‘penang’ kick. It’s such a good flavor!… and I’m sure the coconut milk has relatively few calories right? I mean, like none. And fat? zero. Definitely. Well. Um. I guess I’ll take comfort in that it’s not ‘breaded and fried’ chicken right?

So. Work today. Homework. Yeah. Like every class, this latest one is really a bit of a struggle only because of the timing - but about half the time it’s really inconvenient anyways. I can’t not do the paper this week because it’s worth double the number of points of last week’s paper (which I did not due after the cost/benefit analysis of time vs. paper) so… this week’s paper, a MUST do. Hopefully I can knock it out relatively easy. Sometimes… it’s a real battle. Tonight? It’s the battle of me against the clothes.

Actually, the AC window unit and some fans are on in the LandM household. But we work best under pressure, and with our big move less than 48 hours away, the pressure is definitely on! The actual packing goes pretty fast… but we still have a bit of that left to do, plus taking apart a bookshelf, a desk, unhooking our electronics, and my least fave part: cleaning. I bet James and Terry are soooo sad to be in Phoenix right now, because they’ve helped with at least 5 of my moves in the past 4 years. And now they have to miss out on this one, which is probably the biggest one of all, since we actually own furniture now and we’re actually taking it with us. Minus the sofa that is still on the curb. I need to call the City about that…they were supposed to pick that couch up last Tuesday.

Anna and Chris are total rockstars and they brought over a huge case of beer and a bazillion boxes last week. Then Anna packed our huge Ikea bookshelf in like 10 minutes. Then they tried to do more, but we wouldn’t let them. Mwahaha. Really, we just like to put stuff off to the Very. Last. Minute. So, any guesses on what I’ll be doing at 4 a.m. Monday?

Okay….I’m really going to pack some more now. Really. Ciao!

It thunder’d/lightning’d/rain’d hard here in Decatur for about a second - long enough to knock out the power in our house and the entire block around us - so after attempting to wait things out and sweating thru the humidity - we abandoned that idea, grabbed our laptops and headed over to Breukelen Mojo cafe down in Kirkwood.

However, these shots are from dinner last night at Carpe Diem down the street, in Decatur. We seem to always go there for an early dinner (early by mostly everyone else’s standards) and the place is usually pretty empty - compounded by the fact that it’s quite spacious. Whatever, we like the food most of the time. Of course, I’ve only ever ordered one thing from their menu - over and over again. The Salmon Ciabatta sandwich.

Sure this shot isn’t a stellar presentation - but the better sandwiches out there aren’t pretty sandwiches. At least not once you start biting into them. You want the ingredients to go together, to mix, to be cohesive and not slide apart, not fall away, but to coordinate their flavors so that they hit you with an overriding force that causes the fastest eater, the one who barely manages to taste his food - to slow down, take smaller bites and pay attention to every moment of that sandwichs’ existence.

Or, like the Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich, I could just say that I like this sandwich so much that I’m afraid I’d regret ordering anything else off the menu when this is a sure bet.

Oh yeah. So while the power is out - that also means that the packing is on hold - which kind of sucks. Even though everyone’s probably tired of hearing us procrastinate on the packing. We also went to IKEA today, dropped 1k (picked up 1k in debt) and got a new sofa, and a new bed. They’ll be delivered on Tuesday afternoon at the new place. Awesome.

Up above? Calamari. Good stuff too. Not the usual ‘fried calamari’ appetizer - these were great ’cause they weren’t greasy at all + the sauces were awesome, a teriyaki dip and a yogurt curry type thing. Awesome.

I keep holding onto the idea that it’ll be fun to stay up late, packing and getting things done when things cool down. It’s Saturday night - the only night other than Friday when you can stay up as late as you want, and not really have to worry about work as a consequence the next morning - unless of course, you go to church and if you do, well, you probably have many other things to worry about that we don’t. Still. Whenever Friday or Saturday night come around, I feel possibility opening up - because it does. Hours that are normally off limits, are all of a sudden freed and available for use.

Back in March when we began this blog, I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to survive after our trip to China. That was the primary reason for its creation - even if we said otherwise - but fortunately, we’ve lived enough life on a daily basis that we can fuel a daily entry. And while some posts/activities are contrived and planned (saying stuff like ‘we can take photos and post them!’) - even that excuse has helped greatly because it gets us out of the house. It gets us to do things we may not otherwise do.

But in conjuction to doing more due to the thin excuse of ‘for our blog’ - everything has served as a great reminder that our lives can easily pass us by without us paying attention. And different from our personal/individual/private journals, this one doesn’t even house our random thoughts and ‘deep thinking’ essays - we can barely fit in the actual things we do, let alone all of the things we’re thinking about. Although I’m sure I squeeze it in on the slow nights.

1st. Y’all need to blog today so I can read.

So it’s finally Friday. Exciting times up ahead. Packing. No really, we are coming down to the wire now since the movers will come on Tuesday morning - so we’ll be doing the majority of the packing tonight and then all day Saturday and whatever’s left on Sunday.

Because writing an actual entry would take too much effort on this Friday… I’ll just talk about someone else’s entries. But first! Food that I’ve been meaning to post - but never got around to - these are from a birthday lunch that Leah’s Grandmother (Bubbi) prepared for Leah’s Father:

Homemade Fried Chicken!

Biscuits

Pecan Pie.

And you may all let go of any self control. Eat good food this weekend.

After going down the links in my sidebar to catch myself up on everyone’s posts (I really should set up that rss feed reader) - I stopped to read the latest entries from our friend Ark A. - also an Atlanta resident/transplant - about her recent trip to Canada/Toronto/Montreal. - and in the process made me feel like I’m wasting my time posting nothing posts that meander about infinitely worthless subjects. *writes note to self: ummmm… nevermind I forgot*

So while I wait for the next season of No Reservations/Anthony Bourdain to verify that this past season is where the show truly ‘Jumped the Shark’ - I just have to keep looking for travel blogs/entries like the ones Ark A. posted this last week.

The trip to Canada started on a Friday morning. A simple two hour direct flight from Atlanta and we were in Toronto International Airport, the cleanest, quietest most spacious airport I’ve ever seen.
Dad picked us up. He couldn’t believe it had been almost five years since we saw each other.
He said I hadn’t changed a bit. I love him.
This is what I call smiling so hard it hurts…

I have a lot of history in that neighborhood. Loves found, loves lost, school, work, old friends, new friends, formulating the plan to get to Seattle to meet the whole other half of my family - it all happened there.

And then when they land back in Atlanta:

A two hour flight later, I was in what can only be described as severe culture shock… Hotter than hell, humid, southern accents all around me, no French, a pig carcass that had been cooked in the ground on a long buffet table, a live auction for football jerseys and country music star albums. Where am I?

And… apparently she’s back in Montreal now. Lucky her.

Here are the three posts in order:

1. Return to Canada - Part One: Toronto
2. Return to Canada - Part Two: Montreal
3. Return to Canada - Part Three: Montreal

Have a great weekend! - But obviously, we’ll have a new post up tomorrow.

We didn’t realize that we already had two dozen eggs so Leah bought another dozen - so we’ve been eating eggs every morning lately + avocados! We didn’t buy bread so it’s just the two items + coffee! ‘Cause obviously, more than anything else, coffee is a breakfast staple (for me at least!)

Okay look. I just haven’t had the time to cook-up my 3 small meals that I eat while at work (all part of my six small meals a day-lose-weight-build-muscle-plan) so, I’ve been cheating and splitting up panda express food. But wait! Before you all out laugh at me, let’s look at the nutritional facts… ah nevermind. Ah um. Okay. The short run-down. Compared to their Orange Chicken which is about 500 calories + like 14 grams of fat per serving.

If you choose mandarin chicken or kung pao - that’s roughly 250 cal per serving + white rice which is something like 380 cal per - SO. If you get the lunch combo with 2 entrees and white rice, then divide it into two - that’s two ‘meals’ at roughly 600 calories… um. Okay. When you do the math it’s a lot I guess - but not compared to eating the whole thing at once. 1,200 calories in one sitting? AND that’s with the lighter entree options - just think if you get the orange chicken for lunch, the math works out like this: 

(500 cal per serving X 2) + (760 cal. 2 servings of rice in a to-go container) = 1,760 calories for lunch.

And now to negate all that ‘health’ talk - up above is the ‘Sunrise’ bagel sandwich - Oh, it’s so good - from my usual coffee stop before work - Bagel Boys Cafe.

This is a sea salt bagel sandwich from Belly the General Store in Virginia Highlands. Leah gets these and loves them. Oh. Below is a picture of the ‘General Store’ - look, it looks all vintage and ‘old time’ - kind of like the Cracker Barrel except this place isn’t full of ‘vintage’ garbage and knick knacks that you shouldn’t ever buy.

But still, this place is one of my favorites because of one thing. Their Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich. Forget doing the math (’cause I’d die) - I don’t see a reason for ordering anything else on their menu. I haven’t ordered anything different and I won’t - simply because I know that no matter what, I’ll wish that I had chosen to get this sandwich instead. In fact, here’s a link to our first post + video about Belly.

It’s Thursday! Just one more after today and then we’re free for the weekend… free to pack, do homework, sleep in, eat more food, workout, and just generally rock this life.

We decided that we were going to get a new couch/sofa when we moved to the new apartment. Our current one is a pull-out sofa bed and it was just torn up (by our cats) and old. Since it was an old pullout, that meant that the metal frame was actually iron - which meant that the whole sofa was REALLY heavy as far as sofas go these days. So moving it out of the house and to the curb was going to take some work. Coupled with the fact that Leah’s wearing a wrist brace right now - this wasn’t going to be easy. However, given my general stubborness when it comes to moving heavy objects (I can do it!) - I secretly vetoed Leah’s plan of helping me, and decided that I should do this when she wasn’t at home and was instead taking care of her mom/visiting her grand mother.

I can’t have some rational woman yelling at me to stop moving heavy objects - since I’m obviously not going to listen - it didn’t work when I/we moved the washer and drier up/down/up the stairs, and it was not going to work in this situation either.

After removing all of the other junk we had sitting in the front room (chairs, bikes, boxes) I put One-Two and Three-Four in the bedroom and literally pushed the couch thru the living room, out the front door, and then slid it down the front steps. That was the easy part. The couch doesn’t really slide too well on sidewalk/concrete. So it took some scraping/pushing/pulling to get it to the point you see up above.

But I couldn’t just drag it up the driveway - I don’t think it would’ve made it all the way and the scraping was making a really horrible sound. So I just sort of horizontally flipped it end by end, in a circle. The side closest to you in the left picture is the side furthest from you in the right picture. Doing it this way, I only had to lift one end and then walk it to the ‘other side’.

See? It kind of crawled up the driveway like that. But when I got it onto the grass, things got slightly rougher because the ’feet’ were digging into the dirt - I don’t know why I didn’t just keep going up the paved driveway.

Now if you’re wondering who took the pictures - I did of course. I stopped after each turn, grabbed the camera and snapped a shot. But eventually I did get it to the curb.

And you may ask, “Why didn’t you ask for help?” - well, this is the price I pay for not having any friends close by - (not true, I could’ve probably asked Chris of Chris & Anna) - but also the price I’ve always paid for just being too stubborn to ask for help - especially when I can clearly just lift the heavy object and get the job done. *Hulk is Strong!*

Oh yeah. Doing this on a cool day is one thing - but yesterday was kind of warm and humid - so I was really sweating after the 23 minutes it took to do this. Also, in case you were wondering if I could’ve asked any passers-by for help - the only people who passed by were women running/walking with kids in their strollers.

When Leah did get home there was still more than enough daylight to take more photos.

Goodbye!

Okay, so, I’m all set to order the wedding dress online. I’ve been e-mailing the designer, my measurements have been taken, etc. But there is one detail about the dress I remain unsure about… the stitching on the bodice. I keep going back and forth as to whether or not I want it. And I have to make the decision before I order it, because she adds the stitching before sewing the whole dress together.

So, I’m taking a poll. Please comment and tell me which you prefer. Feel free to comment anonymously, if you’d like - I’m really just looking for feedback here.

Pics of the dress might help, huh? Here ya go!

Edit: Thanks for the comments thus far!!  I’m definitely planning on keeping the sashes in the back, I’m just debating the stitching because I haven’t figured out the balance of funky/unique and traditional that suits us.  I think if I do go with the stitching, I’d want it to have a little more oomph to it… maybe use darker thread or something.

As for the straps I discussed with you, Chi… I was mainly considering that because I didn’t think a strapless dress would look that good on me, but then I tried some  on and I liked the strapless ones a lot, sooo… I decided to go with the strapless.

Thanks again - and if you haven’t added your two cents yet, please feel free.  I love hearing everyone’s ideas!