Whoopie Pies in Nebraska!?!

The biggest change for me in moving to the midwest has been the seemingly endless amounts of time you spend in the car getting from place to place. The closest supermarket to us is about 20 miles away, however seeing that it is a town of 12,000 people (and that by most standards out here is large) it leaves something to be desired. So, we usually do our grocery shopping in Lincoln (the big city at 250,000 people) which means about 45 minutes on the road each way. - I shouldn't complain about this. Hannah does this drive every day to go to work -.

I say all this because when you have plans in Lincoln, you schedule other errands around said activity. This is the situation we found ourselves in Wednesday night. The Student Audiology Association (SAA) at UNL was having a fundraising event at the dowtown Noodles & Co., which Hannah, being proud former member, wanted to go and support. I was going to meet her there after work. I was going to run errands beforehand.

I left home at about noon and started with a haircut. (remember it was almost 1pm till I got there). Then I went across the parking lot to Lowes and spent the next hour spending a couple hundred more dollars on remodeling supplies. A stop by the local western outfitter yielded a new pair of brown boots (gotta look good for the job interview next week!) The next step was the first of two grocery stores where we shop. And now we are finally at the whoopie pie in Nebraska story. Usually in the grocery store I try to steer clear of the bakery. However this time I really needed to kill some time. I only had two more stops before the errands would be complete and was not sure what I was going to do until I met Hannah for supper. I almost was done perusing and was on my way out when I noticed what looked like a whoopie pie...it was a whoopie pie...sort of.

A vanilla and strawberry whoopie pie

Yes, that is a vanilla whoopie pie with strawberry cream...more like icing really. As all our Lancaster County friends and family know, this is not normal whoopie pie. ...it doesn't taste normal either. The cakes were okay, but the cream was, for lack of a better word, synthetic. On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the best) these fell somewhere around 3. So I suppose we will have to learn to make our own whoopie pies.

In house news: We have picked paint colors for the living/dining room and the kitchen. Other then that progress remains steady. While we are getting quite a bit done, it, unfortunately, is not stuff that shows up well  in photos. Hopefully by the end of next week things will look noticeably different.

Peace,
Eric

Dang! Them Some Big Gophers!

This past week we took a break from the inside of our house. Taking advantage of the warm spring days we moved outside to start a project that we have been wanting to do since the day we moved in. We started installing a fence for the dog. You see, in Pennsylvania we had a fence. We enjoyed it. When the dog had to go out you just opened the door and out she trotted; awhile later you opened the door and back in she trotted. Call it lazy if you like but we are tired of going outside with her every time she wants to tinkle, poop, or just run in circles. I am sure she misses being free outside too. 

One of 44 holes we dug in the yard

What we used to dig the holes...you didn't think I was going

to do it by had did you?

Fence posts are in. Stretching the mesh this weekend.

We also hope this fence will corral our cat...at least a little bit. Some of you may have heard that Orbit was sick. As in probably not going to live through the night sick. Well...he feels better. This adventure started about a week ago. Right before we brought him home he was neutered. The incision got infected. We started him on antibiotics and he seemed to be improving...but it still looked nasty. Last Thursday I took him down to the clinic and Nora opened it up and drained out all the puss. (Nice mental picture?) He never seemed to snap out of the anesthesia so we ran him back down at 9 on Thursday night. Well, he was an anemic little kitty. Nora pumped him full of meds and he spent the weekend at the clinic. Lots of drugs and one blood transfusion later (thanks cousin Jackson!) he appears to be his frisky self again. Climbing on things jumping from high places, exploring 3' post holes. Yesterday while working in the garage he would climb on my back anytime I was on my hands and knees. Kind of endearingly cute...but not very conducive to getting work done. 

It's a beautiful day here in southeast NE. Sunny and 70's. Time to get outside!

Peace,

Eric