Today is October 30th

Today is October 30th, but (for reasons that I do not understand) trick-or-treating is going on tonight. Not tomorrow. No, we wouldn't want to actually hold Halloween festivities on Halloween. Is this just some weird Midwest tradition that I do not understand? I also had someone tell me that trick-or-treating is usually done the Sunday before Halloween. That information is inconsistent with the fact that trick-or-treating is taking place on this fine Tuesday, but it still brings up 2 questions: 1) Why Sunday? It's still a school night (the only logical reason I can come up with for the change) and 2.) Why not just have it on Halloween?!?!?!? If anyone has the answer to this please let me know.

Black Mold

In recent news: we may have black mold living in our walls. We had our (downstairs) neighbors Ken & Jen up Sunday night for pizza and a movie. They told us that there is a bit of a mold "situation" brewing between our two apartments, and they think it may be black mold. Apparently there is evidence that our wonderful apartment complex just painted over some water damage from a leak rather than repairing it properly, so this time we have a city inspector coming out to verify that it is in fact black mold and to force the complex to fix it properly. The unfortunate side of this is that if it is "toxic" mold and they do have to do some serious work to fix it, it is very likely that we will have to move. The mold inspector just called Ken today to make an appointment, so I will update more when we know more about the situation.

Graduation Day!

Here Brett & I are at the Awards Ceremony.


Hooray! I graduated! Now I am one of the world's newest Chiropractic Technologists!


Brett & I at my super-yummy graduation dinner at Biaggi's

Now for the fun part. I start my new job as a C.T. on November 5th. More updates on that adventure to come.

Fall Colors

Voila!

Here it is. The quilt that has consumed most of my time and a good portion of my sanity for the last couple of weeks. It's finally finished, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. Aside from needing some pressing, which I will wait to bother with until just before the baby shower, I think that Abri's jungle-themed-but-still-slightly-girly quilt was a success.

P.S. The edges actually are square, it's just the angle of the camera that makes them look slightly askew.

My Handiwork

Unable to find any Chargers gear here in town, (although Raiders can be found everywhere, what's up with that?) and because I was not about to be shown up by my friends in their team gear on football night, I opted to make my own shirt. As it turns out, there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to print-it-yourself iron on transfers (don't let the iron get too hot, don't leave the iron on too long, and don't remove the backing too soon- in case you were wondering.) Although the picture didn't transfer completely, my error actually yielded somewhat of a vintage look, so I will pretend that is what I was going for. :-)

File Under: "Things that make you go Hmmmm"

So I went to Subway today, got the usual 6" Veggie Delite on wheat bread, paid with a credit card, and saw this on the receipt:

Someone please tell me why on earth I would return anything to Subway ever, let alone up to 30 days later? This is one of those things that makes you wonder what person had to attempt to return/exchange something after the 30 day time period that prompted them to have to put that limitation on the receipt in the first place. My guess is that it's probably the same idiot who got the "do not use while bathing" warning put on hair dryers.

Now I'm a Pro

This morning I took a free sewing class from a place called Neal's Vacuum and Sewing Center. A very nice lady named Edith (who reminds me very much of my Grandma) taught me just about everything I could ever want to know about my sewing machine (and then some). What impressed me the most was the fact that she managed to incorporate every single feature of my sewing machine into one project, which I completed during the class:



It's an eyeglass/rotary cutter holder. I opted to keep my rotary cutter in it. The best part of it all is that sewing is not half as hard as I thought it would be. Now I'm definitely well on my way to pro status. :-)

Not much to report...

I haven't blogged in a while. Not much going on here in Davenpit (no, that's not a typo). Right now I am busy with finals and end of term projects, not to mention preparing for graduation. Good progress is being made on Abri's quilt, hopefully I will have time to actually complete it this weekend, and of course I will share pictures of the finished project when I do. I will graduate on October 19th. We have lots of family coming in and I'm sure I will have lots to blog about by then, but for now I will leave you with this funny:

A Quilt for Abri

Today I embarked on my latest adventure: sewing a baby quilt for Abri, the soon-to-be-born daughter of our friends Corey & Renee. I have never really sewn anything before, so the adventurous part comes in learning how the heck I am going to do this. Once I figure out what I am doing, I should have it together in no time at all. I will keep you updated with more pictures as I get more done. But for now, the picture shows the fabrics that I will be using. Abri is going to have a jungle themed room and I thought this fabric was just perfect, and it actually came in a bundle so all of the fabrics coordinate really well. That soft green fabric is a flannel that I will be using for the back of the quilt.

Chargers/Bears Game/Post-Boards Party/Nates Birthday

Last Sunday we had a multi-purpose party. First, the Chargers vs. Bears game was on, and since all of our friends here are Bears fans, we like to make a big deal about getting together when the two teams play. It makes for an even more fun night when the Chargers win (which they did last Sunday)!

Here is our resident Charger fan by our sign we made for our front door:



Despite many threats to the contrary, our sign managed to survive the evening without any acts of vandalism by our friends.

We also got together to celebrate the fact that everyone was done with Part I boards, which is the first of five tests they will have to take to get their license to practice as a Chiropractor. Here is the group: (I could only get some of them to stop watching the game :-) )

From left to right there's April, Brett, Amber, Nate, Renee & Cory, Derek, and Kyle & Amanda who refused to look at the camera).

And last but not least it was our friend Nate's birthday. Happy Birthday, Nate!



(Don't mind the makeshift birthday candle :-) )

Antique Tractor Show

This past weekend just for fun we decided to head down to an antique tractor show not far from our house. It was a pretty fun event with lots of farmers and some live country music. At one point the tractor show actually turned in to a tractor parade. Here are some of the sights from the tractor show:







Brett found something he liked. :-)

Swing Game

We went with friends to our local baseball stadium to watch the Quad Cities Swing play a game. The Swing is a local minor league baseball team, and so long as you aren't looking for a whole lot of exciting baseball action, going to one of the games makes for a pretty fun night out. Also, if you stick around on Friday nights there is a pretty good fireworks show that follows the game.

One of my favorite things about John O'Donell Stadium is the fact that it sits right on the Mississippi River, and you have a pretty view while you are watching the game. In fact, it's so close to the river that home-runs are often hit right into the river.

The Bix

In July Brett and I took part in the Annual Bix 7 race in Davenport. Each year 26 lucky Palmer students don a vertebra outfit and participate in the race as a way to raise community awareness about Chiropractic and about the Palmer Clinics. Here we are as T1 and T2:




And here's the whole group (somewhat disarticulated):

Rock Island House

Welcome to part II of my blog mini-series Things you Never Knew You Wanted to Know About Davenport.

I know, it took me long enough to finally get around to it. If you would like to check out part I again, go here.




This picture is of a home along the Mississippi River. It is called Quarters One and is part of the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, IL (which is a part of the Quad Cities). This house is the second largest home owned by the U.S. Government. The only one larger is the White House.