Family

Tue - April 12, 2005

We caught a house! ... We hope...

For those of you who don't check my other blog, Jenny & I found a house last week! It's in the Lake Highlands area of Dallas, and we couldn't be happier!

Now it's on to the inspections and all the other stuff one has to do in the option period. Then there's the mortgage stuff. But hey-- we found a house!

Here are some initial pictures of the place... more to come soon:

Posted at 08:41 AM

Wed - April 6, 2005

Jenny Quote of the Day

While watching last night's Baylor-Michigan State basketball game:

Announcer: And up against this zone defense, the Lady Bears have no trouble finding the gap.
Jenny: Of course they have no trouble. They're from BAYLOR! Finding The Gap is a REQUIREMENT!

Posted at 10:51 AM

Mon - April 4, 2005

Be vewy vewy quiet... it's wabbit-- er, house hunting season!

So, um... yeah. House hunting is tiring work. Jenny & I officially started our house hunt this weekend, although we've been looking informally for about a year. By that I mean we've been driving around neighborhoods, looking stuff up on realtor.com , making lists of what we like and don't like, that sort of thing. So you shouldn't be surprised when we say that we *almost* found the perfect house for us on our first day of actually looking. Almost.

The house itself is gorgeous, in very good shape, and has a huge and glorious back yard. Only problem is the neighborhood. It's not a bad neighborhood, but some of the homes to the south of it need some love. To the north, all the homes are in great shape, and the neighborhood is beautiful. It's just not 100% perfect, so we're not too sure it's worth plunging into it right now.

We also found what would have been the absolutely perfect house for us. Wallpaper/paint adjustments would be unnecessary. The kitchen is huge and beautiful. Hardwood floors throughout. Gorgeous neighborhood. The right price. But a freakin' pool. We DON'T want a pool. This will be a house where we'll start a family. We need a back yard that wouldn't be a death trap for an infant. (Not to mention, the doglet really needs a yard. It can be small, of course, but it just needs to be a yard!)

So we shall keep looking. And we've been taking along our digital camera... it's quite funny how awful some of these houses are. We're going to build a little photo site with some of the gems we've found. For example, we found toilet art.

Posted at 11:45 AM

Tue - March 15, 2005

Friggin' Albertson's

I am not the most disciplined grocery shopper. On my days off, when I must visit the grocery store on my own, Jenny sends me with great trepidation. I'm supposed to pick up tomatoes and nothing else? I also come home with cheese. Oh, and fruit. Maybe some flowers. I'm an impulse grocery shopper, the kind that stores must love.

Today, I vowed to be different. We needed tomatoes to go with dinner tonight, along with some sandwich fixin's for Jenny. I had a list. I was going to stick to that list for once.

The list included postage stamps. Now, I usually use the self-checkout lanes at my local Albertson's. But I'm not sure if you can buy stamps in those lanes like you can when you use an actual, human checker. So I stand in the express lane, proud that I've purchased everything on my list, and nothing more.

Then a woman comes over from the bakery, wheeling a cart filled with french bread, fresh out of the oven.

Resistance.... fading... No, I'll be good. After all, we're going to eat dinner in just a couple of hours, and I already have bread for Jenny's sandwiches and a baguette for tonight.

But... it smells soooo goood..... and I could use a snack.... and it's only a dollar....

I caved. I bet you, would, too, if you had that cart right in front of you, the pleasant aroma of fresh-baked bread wafting through the air.

So my streak of not being able to go to the store without an impulse buy continues. And I'm eating fresh bread while typing this. And I have no regrets.

Posted at 04:43 PM

Tue - March 8, 2005

Time waster of the day--Speck!

OK, so it can be lame to post pictures of your pet. But we were bored the other night, and Speck was playful, and we had a camera. So here you go.

You'll find the rest on this iPhoto page.

Posted at 01:44 PM

Wed - February 9, 2005

Even better than we thought

We heard back from alley's house with the totals from the other night.

Let's take a look at the big board.... (apologies to the MDA telethon)

$17,000! With 165 in attendance!

The goal was $10,000.

Posted at 09:03 AM

Mon - February 7, 2005

Fund-raising success

Jenny's probably not going to brag about herself, so I will. If you volunteer for a charity that needs a little P.R. for a fundraiser or somesuch, give her an e-mail. Better yet, if you're a marketing/P.R. firm that needs a tremendous talent, contact her .

Jenny did the P.R. for an event this weekend for alley's house, an organization that helps teenage mothers. It was an art auction held at American Fine Art & Frame Co. in Dallas. (Unsolicited plug: The folks there are super nice and there's some great art. So if you're in the market, go there)

alley's house hoped to raise $10,000 through the auction. We don't know the tally yet, but when we left at 9 p.m., before the second round of auctions, we figured that they had already made about $7,000.

So to reiterate: Jenny's good.

Posted at 02:09 PM

Tue - January 11, 2005

Jenny Quote of the Weekend

Upon one recommendation for lunch after church on Sunday:

"I would say that it is jostling my world, not rocking my world."

Posted at 10:43 AM

Mon - January 10, 2005

Canvassing the neighborhood

Jenny & I spent Saturday morning with some friends from church. Our church has adopted a refugee family-- they're Sudanese, and they arrived back in September. Here's what made Saturday so much fun... and challenging:
-- We learned that we've had the family's last name wrong for the last 3 1/2 months.
-- We learned the above information because the family's public assistance is about to run out and John, the father, has no job yet. So we canvassed the family's neighborhood in Old East Dallas, looking for places where he could work. And we helped him fill out job applications... which, of course, require the correct last name.
-- John speaks very little English. So this made the job search even more difficult.

John spent 25 years operating his own tailor shop in the Sudan. If someone needs a suit or dress altered, he would probably be fantastic. But only if you told him the instructions in Arabic. Otherwise, who knows? He's been enrolled in an English class, but his instructor would sometimes fail to show up. Nice.

John is a very nice man who is eager to work. It's gotta be difficult moving to a new country and not be able to converse. And I'm sure there's a pride issue with him not being able to provide for his family.

Our group on Saturday split up-- Jenny & I went on our own, looking for fast-food places and grocery stores that would consider hiring a refugee. The others took John to a couple of tailor shops. We got some good leads, and a couple of the tailor shops were interested, but the language barrier will be a problem.

Oh, and one of our leads panned out-- he has an interview at the Weinerschnitzel today. There's something amusing about a Sudanese refugee who speaks Arabic but little English possibly working at a fast-food restaurant with a German name. Anyway, your prayers -- and even job leads -- are welcome.

Posted at 11:36 AM

Wed - January 5, 2005

Back to the land of the VCR... sort of

Ever since we got TiVo (whoops!-- make that "our TiVo brand digital video recorder" ), our VCR has been gathering dust, tucked away behind the wooden doors of our entertainment center. TiVo watches the shows we love. TiVo watches its own guilty pleasures, too. (A Chris Rock marathon? Really?) Rarely in the last three months have we needed to unearth an old VHS tape. And never have we needed to record anything on the VCR.

But then there's tonight's conundrum. Alias returns on ABC, this time on Wednesday nights. At 8 p.m. Opposite The West Wing. Arrrgh! See, we have the basic TiVo standalone unit. If we had one of those fancy DirecTV receivers with the built-in TiVo , we could record both shows at the same time. Alas, we don't and we can't.

Jenny, who claims to not be technically adept, but who is very logic-adept, asked me, "Couldn't we just hook up the VCR in another room?" Genius! While we do have the community satellite feed going into the cable jacks in each room, if you don't have a receiver, all you get are the basic broadcast channels.

One problem. Our VCR is wired between the TiVo and the TV. To unhook it and put it in the other room would require loss of signal. Or a cheap part from RadioShack to splice the loose cables together. Then there's the issue with rerouting the power cord, moving the VCR every week to catch Alias then back to watch the show. A hassle.

Potential solution: My father, who seems to collect VCRs. For a while, he had one for each room in the house. He'd pick up a cheap one from his favorite thrift store and find a place for it in the house.

But thrift store VCRs are often at the thrift store for a reason. While Dad has at least four VCRs, only one of them works. So I couldn't borrow one from him. I didn't want to go thrift-store shopping because, well, I want a VCR that I'm sure will work.

I had the day off yesterday, and I took Dad to lunch. Jenny assumed I would come home with one of his VCRs and all would be well. Not so much, of course, but I failed to mention this to her when we spoke early yesterday afternoon. This set up one of those conversations that always makes me SO much more endearing to her.

Jenny: So what will you be up to this afternoon?
Me: Not much. Probably watch some TV. Play on the computer. Go get dog food.
Jenny: OK. Have fun.

Then about 30-45 minutes later, she calls me on my cellphone to talk about a project she's working on.

Jenny: So anyway, that's what's happening. (pause-- she hears music in the background)
Me: Oh, by the way, I'm at Fry's. Is $59 too much to spend on a VCR?
Jenny: Wha... what? Are they next to the dog food?
Me: No, I'm at Fry's. We need a VCR.
Jenny: Weren't you going to get one from your dad?
Me: None of his worked. So is $59 too much?
Jenny: I wasn't planning on an equipment purchase. Um... yeah, that seems too much. Can't you get a DVD player for, like, 30 bucks now? I think you can get a VCR for much cheaper.
Me: OK, I'll look somewhere else. What about a cordless phone?
Jenny: Huh?
Me: You said last night that our phone was dead. Do I need to look for a new one?
Jenny: The batteries were dead because I'd been talking on it for a while. Our phone is fine. Just go home!

I have a bit of a weakness for electronics stores.

Anyway, I picked up a $40 VCR at Target and hooked it up this morning. We're all set for Alias now.

Posted at 12:35 PM

Tue - December 21, 2004

Tuesday three-fer: Jenny quotes of the day

I need to revive this little feature... especially after three gems at breakfast.

Jenny: Look-- we got a Christmas card from Duncan.
Me: Duncan from Kiwanis? (pause)... Of course, the only Duncan we know?
Jenny: No, from Duncan Hines. "Thank you for enjoying our products." Betty Crocker sent the lovliest note. And the Gorman fisherman sent a box of shrimp, but I had to send it back.

And a couple of minutes later:
My brain is all about logic. Well, half of it is. The other half is about chocolate and shoes.

And when discussing the chimichangas she made last night, which I will take to work for dinner:
They're made with lots of love. And cheese.

Posted at 08:42 AM

Fri - December 10, 2004

Gearing up

You know you're in for a good day when your to-do list involves picking up alcohol and getting postage for the Christmas cards.

Or, as I wrote it:
--Liquor
--Stamps

A recipe for a good time!

We're getting ready for our big party tomorrow night. And we're going "all-out." Lots of martini fixin's and wine. Cookies galore. Food, food, food. (Central Market is playing a major role.) And -- wait for it -- chafing dishes. When Jenny first said we needed chafing dishes, I thought, "Wow. That sounds painful!"

Posted at 01:54 PM

Wed - December 8, 2004

Whoops

Oh well, we didn't use that bowl much, anyway.

Posted at 04:09 PM

Cookie Time!

Today begins a new tradition for us... well, for me. Christmas cookie time. Jenny's been making sugar cookies with her family forever, and now I'm being brought into the fold. So imagine the fun that will be had tonight. I get to mix dough! And spill sugar all over the place. It'll be like I was 5 years old, only messier, probably.

We're making a double batch so we'll have cookies to share with family, friends and our party on Saturday. Oh, yes, the party. We're (translation: Jenny) also making fudge and magic bars. Oh, and we're (translation: both of us) also going to make tree- & wreath-shaped cookies later. A lot of baking going on at the Pecht household these next few days!

I must admit, though, it was pretty fun yesterday at the grocery store, loading up on all the baking needs. Big bag of flour, check. Sugar, check. Bags of chocolate chips: check. And, of course, a few little old ladies looking at me in the baking aisle, list in hand, smiling knowingly. Yup, it's that time of year!

Posted at 02:15 PM

Fri - December 3, 2004

Speck's nuts roasting by a glassed-in fire

Disclaimer: Yes, Speck is neutered, so the title is technically impossible. But I'm working with creative license, here!

Our fireplace is finally fixed! It only took our apartment complex 4 or 5 months to get to it. Now that it's cold and all. The fireplace is gas-powered and was one of the perks that enticed us to live here. Our pilot light went out sometime during the summer, so I called in a maintenance request. In August. The guy came and said that it was a faulty generator. he had to order a part.

We kinda forgot about it for a while, so I called again in early October. Nothing. I called once more in early November. Another guy came out and said it wasn't the generator; it was a faulty gas valve. He'd have to order it.

Weeks went by, so we asked about it again when we went down to the office to pay rent. Another maintenance guy came by yesterday while Jenny was working from home. Jenny reports that it's the guy who keeps comparing me to the Verizon tech dude . Anyway, he says that, yup, it's the gas valve, and several have gone out. But they cost about $90 each, and the complex has been reluctant to order that many. Hello! When you buy an apartment complex, you kinda have to accept the maintenance requirements! But the maintenance man found a part somewhere, and now we have fire.

This makes the perfect opportunity to post some pictures of our apartment, bedecked in holiday wonders. Enjoy!

That gingerbread man is Speck's newest, er, toy. It has a voice chip inside it, so we're just waiting for him to pounce on it in the middle of the night, only to be startled by "Run, run as fast as you can!..."

Oh, one more decoration: Our new nativity set! We bought just a few pieces to start-- we hope to add the wise men, shepherds, angels, etc. in future years. If you're looking for a gift idea for us (*ahem*), the set is part of the Willow Tree collection and is available at Hallmark and other fine stores. :)