It's been a year(ish)?

So um...what's a blog and how do I write a post? 

I seem to have forgotten how to do that over the course of the past year. 

Whoops.

I've often thought over the course of the past year, 'hey, this would make a great blog post.' And then, of course, I never wrote it. 

So allow me to commence catching up on the past year of missing/unwritten blog posts in one post.

Don't worry, I have pictures.

I'm working in what one of my co-workers (semi-)fondly refers to as a "cube farm."

Here you can see just a tiny part of the maze of cubes.

One of the cubes way in the back towards the windows belongs to me. Yup, that's right- I'm near a window! I get to see daylight! But seriously, it's quite the coveted location.


Back in March, Jason and I traveled to South Florida to get away from what was a brutal winter (anyone remember the evil phrase "polar vortex"???) and spent a few days with my parents enjoying the warmth and sunshine.

In this picture, we were in a big park, just on the edge of the Everglades. We didn't see any alligators nearby, thankfully!

We got to do some geocaching, and I learned that rustling bushes in Florida is a lot different from rustling bushes in Wisconsin or Minnesota. I mean, there could be an alligator hanging out in that bush! Or a giant lizard!

Or, you know, it could just be a tiny little gecko like this one...

My parents took us on an airboat ride and we got up close and personal with some alligators as we rode through the Everglades. An airboat ride is a must-do if you're in south Florida- it's such a unique way to experience the Everglades and you see creatures you wouldn't (hopefully) see otherwise!

We spent a day in Key West, and toured Ernest Hemingway's house. It's famous for having polydactyl (more "toes" than usual) cats roaming the grounds, and let me assure you, they are everywhere. On everything. Literally nothing is off-limits to those cats, including glass display cases...

Here's an example of one of the polydactyl cat, see how its paw looks different?

Here's Hemingway's writing studio, along with his typewriter on the table, which he used to write a number of his books.

We gave ourselves a walking tour of part of the island and found a couple of geocaches. One of them was near this interesting wall.

And we walked through the Key West cemetery, where some of the inhabitants became famous for their sense of humor.

And then, unfortunately...we had to come home.

And the roads looked like this:

 In April, we bought a new laptop...and Jason was a happy guy.

I went to a CLE (continuing legal ed) and saw this. Nothing says classy like white socks and dress shoes/pants.

Hudson experienced a wee bit of high water in the spring...such that some riverfront roads were closed, benches and tables disappeared and trees were half swallowed up.

In June we spent a few days at a lake home near Hayward with Jason's family...but apparently I neglected to take any pictures.


We also celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. But again, no pictures. Apparently, I'm not very good at this whole "documenting" thing.


BUT, I (ok, Jason took it) did get a picture of us when we went camping for a weekend at Glen Hills County Park.

Jory stopped by my in-laws upon his arrival in Wisconsin after spending almost 2 months in New Jersey for a summer project.

Jason and I dogsat for his sister and brother-in-law's dog, Cooper. He was quite the handful. And liked to sleep 2 feet from his bed, you know, as you do.

I think that covers most of the past year, with the exception of the major holidays, but of course, I didn't take any pictures then either. My bad.

I guess I'll need to work on that.

Along with writing a post more often than, say, once a year.

The Finished Product- An Estate Sale Find

It's done. 

Finally.

Ok, actually, it's been done for almost a month. 

But still.

Like it?

For some reason the drawers look dusty in the above picture, but I promise, it's not. It's just weird lighting.

It's home is in a corner of our kitchen that would otherwise be empty. The piece itself is actually pretty short, so I found a little lantern for it.

 Here's a picture of it in the context of our kitchen. The patio door is on the left, the kitchen table on the right.

 

I had stained the inside of the drawers in order to get rid of the smell associated with the piece and so they were kind of tacky, even after being allowed to dry for a few weeks while we were in Europe. Hence, the need for shelf liner paper covering even the sides of the drawer. 

Also, I'll admit it...my stain job looked TERRIBLE. 

I took the drawers out of the unit and stained the inside of that as well and...there's a reason I didn't take a picture of that. It's not pretty. But thankfully, how the stain looks doesn't matter at all, because you can't see any of it.

I found the shelf liner at the Dollar Tree. Even I'm surprised they had a nice design like this and I'm not ashamed to say- it might be one of my favorite stores. 

And the smell is gone thanks to the stain, so it's a win-win. Pretty drawers, no gross smell.

I'm kind of amazed that I managed to turn out a piece of furniture that I'll not only allow in my house, but that I'm happy to have in my house. Still not sure how that happened. And it's useful, too!

So, what do you think of it? Willing to take on a project of your own?

An Upgrade?

If you read this post then you know that I frequently have to move around to different desk locations throughout my work day.

However, the court commissioner's office was recently renovated and reorganized and now I have been upgraded to my own work space.

But, is this really an upgrade?

The judges don't seem to think so and are always offering for me to work in their offices so I can have more space.

But how can I beat having not just one, but two desks all to myself? Now that's a tough one.

Best Courtroom T-Shirt

I heard a story from my boss recently that I thought was too interesting not to pass on. 

A couple of years ago he was holding a temporary restraining order hearing or something similar, probably involving either a stalker or ex-boyfriend, and a guy (the respondent) came in with a very classy t-shirt.

It read: I'm not a doctor but I'll take a look anyway.

My boss thought that, although the t-shirt had no bearing on his decision, that perhaps the t-shirt was not the best wardrobe choice for the particular subject matter of the hearing.

What a person wears to court and how they act sends a lot of signals to the judge regarding credibility. I think I'd have to agree with my boss that the shirt was not the best clothing option...would you?

An Interesting Court Specimen

I often sit in on court proceedings and today was no exception. I chose a temporary restraining order (TRO) because, let's face it, those are pretty much always interesting. 

Generally, someone has filed a TRO because the other individual ticked them off or said something mean or stole their significant other. Only very rarely is someone in legitimate danger or did someone do something to warrant the placement of a TRO.

Today's hearing didn't reach the point where the parties spill their sob stories and explanations...it ended up getting postponed to next week.

But, one of the parties was certainly one of the more interesting characters I've seen in a courtroom.

This woman may have tried to dress-up for court...but didn't quite make it.

Hot pink was her "theme color".

Hair, scarf, tank top and shoes. All hot pink.

The pink tank top was covered with a black tank top and she was wearing a white skirt. 

Also, her bra straps were showing.

Whoever said law was boring never spent time in a courthouse.

Dublin, Ireland

If you've never been to Ireland...go book yourself a ticket. It's gorgeous. While Prague was our favorite and the most beautiful city, the beauty of Dublin is not in the city itself, it's in the coast, countryside and the mountains just outside the city.

We took a bus from the Dublin airport (word of warning- the Dublin airport is terribly signed and not easy to navigate!) to right near our hotel and this is the view we got...

We got to Dublin pretty late in the evening, so the next morning, we took a bus tour of Malahide Castle and the north coast.

When we got to the castle, a peacock was standing guard.

These are the ruins of the chapel that used to serve the castle, along with the family burial ground.

Here is one of the towers of the castle.

 This is Jason in front of the castle. Even he busted out the long sleeves for Ireland!

Here I am with the expansive castle grounds behind me. 

And here's a good view of the castle. We toured it, but pictures weren't allowed. The same family lived in the castle for about 750 years, up until the late 1970s, when taxes and upkeep got to be too much. A lot of the furnishings we saw were owned by the family and original to the property.

One of the rooms in the castle is covered with stained oak paneling, and in one of the walls there is a spot for a key. Presumably, the paneling can be opened up somehow...and there is plenty of room for compartments because the walls are 6 feet thick. But even though the castle has been state-owned for about 40 years now...they haven't even tried to examine the paneling! I, like my mom, have apparently read too many Nancy Drew books, because the not-knowing and potential unsolved mystery would be too much for me!

On the grounds of the castle, there was a path to the village and along the path, there were pieces of exercise equipment. Here's Jason testing one of them out.

After we left the castle, we finished our bus tour of the coast...it was stunning. This picture is looking out to the Irish Sea.

Here is a view of the Dublin Bay and yes, those are palm trees growing in the foreground.

We visited the Trinity College campus and toured the Long Hall library and saw the Book of Kells. Here I am in the Long Hall library, where they keep books of historic value and teach you about book preservation.

There are thousands of books in here that require extensive upkeep and restoration. Apparently the ink used in many of the older ones will actually destroy the paper because of a chemical reaction and the books need to be treated to prevent this from happening.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the Book of Kells, so I posed with the sign instead. The Book of Kells contains the four gospels and is very ornately illustrated and of course, was written by hand. It's also over 1000 years old and has survived periods of war, fires and various other events.

We took a walk down Grafton Street, which is the famous shopping district in Dublin.

Dublin is also the home of Guinness beer, so we saw and smelled their factory from the tram we took back to our hotel, but we passed on touring it. 

The next morning we had an early flight back to the States, but I had to take one last picture of the Irish countryside before we left.

We had an exciting ride back to the airport- the wheelchair door decided to open while we were on the highway, so the driver had to pull over to get it closed.

Also, getting back into the States is a lot harder than leaving. We went through some form of security 5 times before we boarded the plane: passport check, Irish security, U.S. Customs (now you go through customs before you get back into the States), U.S. luggage security, and a final "have you had your bags with you and under your control since you arrived at the airport" check while we were in the jetway, just steps from getting on the plane.

I was happy to be back on U.S. soil when we landed in Newark, and it was pretty cool to fly past the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Ellis Island before going on to Chicago. 

While this post concludes my city-by-city recap of our trip, I'd be honored if you kept reading my blog! I have a finished piece of furniture to share with you and I want to show you the super cute town we live in, plus anything else that catches my eye, so stay tuned!

London, Pt. 2

Our second day in London was a busy one, since we had so much left on our list of things we wanted to see and had to catch our flight to Dublin that evening.

And of course, we had to take the Underground from our hotel, after we had walked the mile-plus to the train station...so it took a little while to get going in the morning.

On the subway, a class of elementary school students got on with their teacher. All the students were dressed in neon vests that you would see a crossing guard wear here in the States. They immediately spread out all over the car we were in and the teacher and her two assistants were walking all over the train the whole time to try and keep tabs on them. I couldn't help but think traveling that way must be a teacher's worst nightmare! 

I had read in a book about one of the most famous skyscrapers in London, so we decided to see it. It's called "The Gherkin" and yes, it is shaped like a giant cucumber.

We got back on the subway and found the Sherlock Holmes Museum. We didn't go in because the line was ridiculously long, but we were glad we found it. We had gone completely the wrong direction when we got off at the Baker Street station, so it took us a while to figure that out and get turned around.

Here's the famous address:

The Baker Street Underground station is decorated in a Sherlock Holmes theme...I thought it was awesome. This giant profile of Sherlock Holmes in the station is actually made up of tiny images of Sherlock Holmes.

Here you can see the tiny profiles that make up the larger picture, above.

This is a view of the Thames River in London. If you look really, really closely, you can see part of the Gherkin in the background.

Here I am with the London Eye in the background. We didn't go on the Eye because: (1) the line- super long, and we hadn't bought tickets in advance, and (2) the price...$45/person. 

Next, we found Big Ben. I'm pretty sure that's the most famous sight in all of London. Or at least, when I think of London, that's one of the first images that pops in my mind.

Here I am in front of Big Ben.

And here's Jason...

I thought this was a classic picture of London, the Eye and a red double decker bus. Those buses aren't just for show, by the way. They are everywhere and run regular routes all over the city.

This is a really good picture of Jason standing with the Eye in the background and a corner of another red double decker bus.

Next, we walked to Westminster Abbey, which is pretty much just across the street from Big Ben (and the Parliament buildings).

This is me in front of the Abbey. See the line that stretches from the doors off to the right of the picture? Yeah...we didn't go in the church either... This picture actually only shows one part of half the line, because it also stretched off to the left, and both lines extended beyond the sight of the camera.

We had a little more time on our hands than we thought we would, since the lines everywhere had kind of prevented us from going into things we thought we might do, so we took the Underground to the Science Museum.

Here you can see Jason studying the map of the museum and figuring out what we wanted to see.

This museum might have been one of Jason's favorite things in London because he loves looking at things and learning how they work (or, more likely, he already knows how they work), and then explaining to me how they work. Here he is in front of a giant steam engine.

There were a few things in the museum that I knew about, too! This is the first model of DNA built by Watson and Crick. I had no idea that they had used standard lab equipment to build part of this. I kind of geeked out when I saw this, because without these guys, I wouldn't have learned half of what I did for my biology degree in undergrad!

I had to include this picture. It's a Jenessa-sized car. I can't imagine a car like this is street legal, but I kind of want one...

Also, this is the only picture I took on our trip that shows how truly light we packed and traveled. See the size of my backpack? Everything you see with me right there is all I had. Jason's backpack was the same size as mine. They had to be this size in order to fit into those delightful luggage sizer bins at the airport. Amazingly, the backpack was much lighter on our trip than it was during all of law school!

After we left the museum, we took the Underground back to Victoria Station and then got on the Gatwick Express back to the airport. In all the Underground and train stations we were in in London, we had to scan our ticket to get in and out of the platform area. 

We had done just fine with this until we were getting off the train at the airport. Jason pulled his ticket out of his pocket in preparation of scanning...and dropped it on the train tracks. And there was no way he could safely retrieve it. So...he had to beg (ok, ask politely) the security guard by the ticket scanners to let him through. Lucky for Jason, the guard just kind of rolled his eyes and said "this is why you let the woman hold the tickets...she didn't lose hers"! I thought it was hilarious. Jason did not find it quite as amusing.

And on that note, we were off to our last city...Dublin!