Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds @ Radio City

I love love love this DVD! It is definitely one of my best DVD purchases. The performance is absolutely beautiful and mesmerizing. Awesome sound. Great song selection.

Dave said in the DVD that "how can I get paid by having so much fun?! It is really not very professional." You can feel his joy by watching him play with Tim. My whole evening has been lightened up after I watched a couple of songs.

Even if you are not a Dave's fan, I recommend it to you.

Also, I envy everyone who was there, especially those close to the stage. If I had a lot of money, I would set up a home theatre and a big screen and put on this DVD. And I will hire some strangers to sit there and cheer between the songs. And then I will sit in the front row. :)

sweet guilt

A week ago I went grocery shopping and M & M was on sale, $0.99 for a medium size bag which contains 8 small bags. So I grabbed one on my way to check-out.

Then it started. At first I ate one small bag (7~8 candies) per day. Then one and a half. I gave the other half to my husband to ease my guilt. Then I ate two bags by myself.

Yesterday I bought more since that bag was finished. It is good (or bad) that all candies are on sale because of Halloween. Today I bought even more candies in case kids come to our apt for trick or treat.

I hope they would come.

floating rib

I went to see the doctor on Monday. It turned out that the pain that had been bothering me was caused by one of my floating ribs. That rib is not in the right position and possibly touching the upper rib which leads to some numb pain.

So if she was right, there is nothing to worry about.

I love Law & Order: CI

My plan was to do some serious work today, but I made a mistake by turning on the TV while eating my lunch. It turned out USAnetwork is having a Law & Order marathon today, from 6 am to tomorrow 4 am. What's worse is that most of them are Criminal Intent, which I am addicted to right now.

Another day is going to be wasted.

so far so good

The weather is awesome today, though a little bit windy. After getting out of the bed and taking the shower, I went to a small Thai restaurant to have lunch with my husband. This was my second time of having Thai food and I still didn't like it.

Then I stumbled around the mall as my husband went on his way of daily work. It is good that I started to enjoy time at the bookstore again. With a cup of coffee in my hand, I browsed some newly-released books and some on-sale ones. Two hours just flew by.

While I was sitting on the floor in the Christian book section, I heard some snoring. A guy around his sixties fell into sleep in the sofa while reading (or pretending to read) a book. I should have taken a look at the book title in case I need something to help my sleeping problem.

I ended up buying the book "No greater love", which is on sale, by Mother Teresa, and the audio book "Your best life now" by Joel Osteen. He has this charm of delivering some uplifting words. Although he has received critism of watering down the Bible messages, I still believe that he is a good person and he is doing a wonderful job as a televangelist. I look forward to listening to this book while driving the long hours.

While I have no problem to enjoy my life as a housewife, which made me think twice about taking the postdoc offer, I found that I tended to spend more money when I had more free time. So, it might be better for us that I get a job.

a few purchases today

1. Simpsons Season 2 & 3. They are $19.99 each at Walmart, $10 cheaper than Amazon price. So now I have Season 1, 2, 3, 5 (thanks, Brian!), 7, 8, & 9.

2. Two cds from Mercy Me. I loved their songs on the radio. After reading Trudi's posts, I decided to take them seriously. They have the potential to become my second favorite Christian band.

3. A pair of Bose earphones! Honestly I never thought I would own one because they are so expensive. Luckily my husband had some reward points from the credit card company and he said I could use them to buy whatever I wanted from the reward website. So it was like a free gift. Yay!

4. The dvd of "Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City Music Hall". I was torn between the cd and the dvd. The reasons why I went for the dvd were: a) I really want to watch Dave play "stay or leave" live; b) I can always borrow the cd from the library.

5. Full-body massage. My husband's birthday is coming up and he has been complaining about his back. So I made a full-body massage appointment for next Wednesday at a spa as his birthday gift. Of course, I will have one myself too as his gift to me for being such a good housewife.

tired of being on the road

In the past two months, I have had the following trips:

Ann Arbor, MI --> Cedar Rapids, IA: 480 miles
Cedar Rapids, IA <--> Chicago, IL: 250 miles x 2 = 500 miles
Cedar Rapids, IA --> Ann Arbor, MI: 480 miles
Ann Arbor, MI <--> Frankfort, MI: 250 miles x 2 = 500 miles
Ann Arbor, MI --> Cedar Rapids, IA: 480 miles
Cedar Rapids, IA <--> Chicago, IL: 250 miles x 2 = 500 miles
Cedar Rapids, IA --> Columbus, IN: 430 miles

I am going to have these trips in the next couple of days:

Columbus, IN --> Ann Arbor, MI: 320 miles
Ann Arbor, MI --> Cedar Rapids, IA: 480 miles

In summary, I would add a total of 4170 miles to my travel experience during a period of 2 months, excluding all the local rides. It is almost a round trip between San Francisco and Ann Arbor.

Hmmm, why didn't I do that? Maybe I should visit San Francisco sometime. Now it doesn't seem that far.

Texas Roadhouse

On Wednesday we went there for dinner as I had been pleading. I liked almost everything we ordered, including the steak, the ribs, salad, bread, wine, vegetables, etc.

As first-time visitors, we were lucky to sit at the Willie's Corner, which is heavily decorated with pictures of Willie Nelson, some record and guitar-shape lights.

This place is great for a family. The price is reasonable. Food is delicious. And you can enjoy "buy one get one free" between 4 to 6 pm from Monday to Thursday. I will make sure to catch that deal in my future visits.

another trip to Chicago (not as good though)

Yesterday morning I heard my husband talking on the phone downstairs. Apparently the other person was asking about me. Then he came up to ask me if I could accompany one of his friends to pick up her mom at the airport.

Sure. Why not? The airport is only 5~10 mins drive away. So he told his friend yes and she would come to pick me up around 12:30pm.

After he hung up the phone, he started to talk about what he could have for dinner because I wouldn't be home by then.

Wait! What?! Where am I going?

Chicago airport.

D'oh!!!

So that was the only thing I did yesterday. I went to the Chicago airport around 12:30 pm , waited there for one and half hours, and didn't get home until 10 pm.

Next time I need to ask a few more questions before saying yes to anybody. Oh well, I would probably say yes this time anyway because it would be nice if someone does that for me too.

kids are the best story-tellers. Here is why.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=20703343

A conversation between a mom and her 3 year old daughter:

"Mom, I wanna tell you a story, called the travel story of a sheep. Once upon a time, an old lady had a pig and a bear. But one day the bear fell off the bed, his brain got damaged, and then he died. The pig was hit in the head by other people, had brain damage, and then died. The end."

"But you said it was a story about a sheep. Where is the sheep?"

"The old lady saw the sheep and put it into the oven and ate it. So there was no sheep any more."

"You also said there would be travel. There was no travel at all."

"The sheep travelled once. But that was in the past."

abundant food

I am keeping myself from writing anything serious, because I need to be careful about what I say when I am not in a great mood. So I will talk about food.

I am surrounded by all kinds of food.

Within 5-min walking distance from our apt, there are Taco-bell, Pizzahut, Mcdonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Subway, Perkin's, a Chinese buffet, a mexican restaurant, a bakery and some bar. This is the advantage of living close enough to a highway but not so close that you would hear the cars all the time.

What makes me even happier is that a Ruby Tuesday is within 5 min drive, although I only went there once after I got here. Also, I have been begging my husband to take me to Texas Roadhouse. Coincidentally Trudi just talked about her experience there, which made me more craving for their steaks.

BW3, IHOP, Cici's Pizza, Dairy Queen, ..., are all around the corner. Also, I saw a super-Target for the first time of my life. A Target which sells food! How awesome is that!

congradulate Rachel and Matt!

also, the soon-to-be-married couple!

starlight

I was listening to Bob Dukto on my way to Iowa. He talked about how some stars are billions of light years away.

So when we look at those stars, they might not be there any more. We would think we are looking at them, but actually it is only the image that is left.

It is like you look at the video of your family or friends. No matter how real it looks like, they might not be around any more. It makes me wonder where they are and how they have been. And I miss them.