You're invited

We've sent our invitations out. If you don't receive one soon, and you think you should, let us know. (You can comment here and we'll get it.) We forgot to put return addresses on the first (and by far the largest) batch of them, so we're a little afraid that some of them may just vanish into thin air.

Check your mailbox for one of these:



As always, you can get up-to-date wedding info here on our blog, and on our website.

Spam ruins everything

So I have been forced to turned on "word verification" on our blog. What this means is that, if you want to post a comment, you'll have to do something to prove you're a human being. It usually consists of reading some funky-looking text, like this:


And typing in exactly what it says. This is something that's very difficult for a computer to do automatically, but relatively easy for a person to do.

I didn't want to use this feature, because it's annoying. But today we got comment-spammed (about 50 comments were posted in a 30 second period; all of them linked to shifty sales websites), so my hand has been forced.

Where's the food?

Edgar has a question.... or at least his tail does!

The times, they are a-shifting

So Allie and I have entered the world of 21st century television. Our TiVo (our first DVR) arrived yesterday, along with one year of the TiVo service. We set it up and I added a few "Season Pass" recordings (i.e., shows that the TiVo should always record) last night. We played around with pausing/rewinding "Live TV." It's really neat. Sure beats the hell out of the digital box we had from our cable provider.

They say it changes the way you watch television, but I suspect it will still mostly consist of sitting, snacking, and absent-mindedly browsing the web. :)

Muuuuur

Yes, my life does consist of me sitting around taking pictures of my cats.

Visit us on the intarwebs!

So Allie and I bought a domain (read: website). Right now we're focusing on putting information about the wedding up, so it's not terribly pretty. Eventually there will be photos and stuff too! Check us out here:
allieandjon.com

Look at me!

Attention people of this world!


Allison Jones has a new email address!

please remove: shna60(at)juno(dot)com

please add: allisonjones(at)juno(dot)com

xoxox

~ Allie

What if...

(from Saturday Night Live)

[EDIT] Apparently NBC has very uncool-ly instructed YouTube to remove this video. However, through the magic of the internet, you can still see it here.

Pttthhhhh!

He must be dreaming about eating!

Countdown!

WOAH!

Less than 100 days [96 to be exact] to The Big Day™!!

Pretty exciting!

wrist rest

Needless to say, the cats are getting along great.

Our new baby

WE GOT A NEW KITTY!!!

He is so cute and funny and playful! My Aunt Julie who lives in Oklahoma found him about 2 weeks ago just sitting on top of her tractor all alone crying! She has quite a few inside cats already, so we offered to take him. He's about 2 months old now, and SO PLAYFUL. He and Lenny are getting along great, although I think he's going to wear Lenny out very quickly. We've decided to name him Edgar - named after a character on a tv show that we really like.

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes"

Tonight my heart is aching a bit for old friends.

You are all loved.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. ~Robert Browning

Well, 23 years ago today I burst forth into this world, pink and screaming, to the horror amazement of my parents. Soon to follow would be my (ever) late twin sister, equally loud I'm sure.

My mother groaned, my father wept,
into the dangerous world I leapt;
helpless, naked, piping loud,
like a fiend hid in a cloud.
~ William Blake



Its been a good 23 years, and I can't wait to see what the next 23 have in store!

Happy Birthday dear sister. <3


Also, thank you to everyone who wrote, called, texted, emailed, whatever. I felt very loved today. Thank you Jon, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Bill, Sue, Jenny, Cory, Jordan, Jamie, Ashley, Katie, Doug, Grant, Claudia, Jeff, Paulette, Sharon, Kim, Elin, Clare, Sharon, Sarah, Evan, and anyone else who sent me warm thoughts. You are all in my heart.

Laptop maintenance

Allie's laptop has been getting hot lately, so we took it apart to clean out the dust and (let's face it) cat hair. First of all, the documentation on HP's website (it's a Compaq) was really bad. We had to take out waaay too many parts to get to the CPU fan (which is something you usually need to do about once a year on a laptop). I know on most "business-class" laptops, there's just one panel to get to the fan/heatsink. Anyway, so we got it open and took out this little thing:

It's pretty much all cat hair. Except the quarter. I don't know how that got in there...

Oh, and my new job is going very well, thanks for asking.

P.S.: John Hodgman rules! I love PCs!

Photo-rama!

Finally! Jon got me a new gadget thingie - so now I can get my pictures off my camera! Thank you Jon!! I have too many good ones to post all at once, so I'll try to spread them out a bit.

Here is a cute picture of various family members. My Aunt Julie and cousins were up visiting from Oklahoma, and while they were here went to the zoo.



Also, a few friends of ours got married the other weekend. Here is a photo of a few of us ladies lookin' fine!

one fine day

I'm sorry we haven't been posting much lately. I left my camera cord in Washington DC back in January, and since then we've been using Jon's computer to get the pictures off of my camera card. However, about two weeks ago Jon's computer FREAKED OUT and is pretty much dead. So I have about three weeks of awesome pictures on my camera, just begging to be posted, but with no way to retrieve them.

Jon started his new job today! Woo hoo! Go Jon!

We went to our friend's wedding this weekend, though, which was quite fun. I'll be putting up pictures eventually!

In our own wedding news, we've been doing a good deal of planning, including picking the final bridesmaid dresses. So, here you go!

dun dun dun dun

The biggest news is....

I GOT A WEDDING DRESS!

It was the one I wanted, it fit very well, and was reasonably priced!!




And YES, I look as good as the lady in the picture.

They call me the Working Man

"GULLIBLE WHITE GEEK WITH EXPENDABLE INCOME" is right... At least the part about income.

I finally got a "real" job! I'll be working as a consultant with CITES Departmental Services. It's gonna be awesome! This page pretty much describes my job.

I start June 12. I'm going to miss working at MIE, but it will be real nice to have actual benefits.

Go me!

GULLIBLE WHITE GEEK WITH EXPENDABLE INCOME

Not much to post lately, I guess.

Work is busy, but good.
This week is going to rule, tv wise! Season finales of: 24, House, Lost
I get to hang out with my sister tomorrow.
I get to go to Ikea this weekend!

Woo hoo!

Happy Mother's Day!

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!

Happy Mother's Day to all those Mommies out there - those that were, those that are, and those that will be.

I learned today that the idea of Mother's Day in the US orginated back in 1870 as a call for peace and disarmament. Click here to learn more.


*****************************
Much love to our own mothers
*****************************

Being so cool.

A few random pics from the last week or so...


The awesome dinner I made for Jon the other day! We had vegi-chicken kabobs, big green salads, and baked potatoes with all the fixins. Mmmm...




Me and my CCHCC peeps at the bar across the street from our office. It was one of our co-workers last day in the office since she graduated college and is moving on!




And finally, a photo from the BEST afternoon of my life. There are people in this world who amuse me so!




Check out this video for more info!

Which ones are the animals?

A few friends and I went to the zoo the other weekend.
Enjoy!

Devlin gets eaten by a Lion!



Look at those strange creatures!




And finally... what is more mature than turtles doin' it!

Fun times

So a couple funny pictures...

Apparently, if your hot dog is tarnished, you can purhcase something at this gas station that will help rectify that problem.

Also, Allie and I went out to our favorite Mexican restaurant and I tried to feed this bird that landed near our table.
Upon closer inspection, the bird was actually painted on the wall. But that didn't keep me from trying.

It has been a rediculously long time since either Jon or I have posted - 2 weeks! I do love you blog, I promise. Work and life and everything has just been crazy. So, until something cool happens, I will leave you with a cool picture of four little eggs. This birdie built a nest in the wreath on the front of Jon's parent's door. You have to be really careful when you open the door to make sure you don't knock any of the eggs out!

Here's to your eventual hatching and flying away, little birdies!

Pixelated imagery

So now that I've had my phone for a couple weeks, I decided to do something with the pictures I've taken with it. Some of them weren't any good, so here are the best three.

Lenny loves to sit in our dining room chairs and play through the bars in the back. He thinks he's such a tough kitty... take a look:

This one's my favorite. It's from the Home and Garden show at the Assembly Hall a while back. There was a booth about (I'm guessing) sidewalks and keeping them even. They had this little sculpture on their table:


Heehee.

It is worthwhile to live/ and fight courageously/ for sacred ideals - Norbert Capek

This week was really, really tough. One of my friends and co-workers Bill Mueller passed away on Monday. He was only 51 and passed away from diabetes related complications. He worked at CCHCC for the last nine years fighting for health care justice for all. He was a kind soul with a mad sense of humor. We are truly a family at CCHCC - a strange little over-worked family, and loosing such an important person is a huge blow. I have spent a lot of time this week at the office, hugging and crying, spending time with fellow CCHCC folks, trying to cope with this. His funeral was today, and hopefully this will be the begining steps to closure.

After the funeral in the morning, I needed to focus on something else and get my mind on something new. Luckily, in the afternoon Jon and I had a meeting with a caterer to talk about food at our wedding reception, and it was a great meeting. The lady was really nice and the food will be wonderful - no meat! We're pretty sure we'll be going with them. My Mom is helping us out with some wedding $$, so we are going to be able to afford this lovely food.

Then after the meeting with the caterer, Jon and I went to a local park to go fly a kite. Jon's Mom bought us a kite several years ago, and we keep it in the trunk of the car for spontaneous windy days. Today was crazy windy - almost too windy - but we tried anyway.


Here is Jon fighting with the kite.


And finally up in the air!



And now my turn.


And finally, here is a picture of the extremely tall clouds that had just passed over Champaign. These clouds were insane! So big! And VERY beautiful. Just the ending I needed to a really difficult week.

These are a few of my favorite things

My leap into the 21st century

I've finally made that all-important leap into the modern era. Yesterday I purchased a mobile phone and plan. The phone I got is actually really cool: a Sony Ericsson W600i. Here's a picture.


It plays MP3s, and it has a 1.3 megapixel camera. Here's more info about it. I'm still getting used to it, but it's really cool so far.


Also, Allie and I are both taking a day off next week to meet with people about wedding stuff. Speicifically food for the reception, and the cake. I think the wedding plans are going very well!

Our American dooty.

Today we did some voting. Go primaries! There are a few interesting races locally, as well as a $65 million school funding referendum to be decided. The numbers aren't in yet, but we'll see soon enough, I'm sure.

Not a whole lot else going on. Jon and I are both crazy busy with work. We're going to take next Friday off, however, and spend some time together and some time doing a bit of wedding planning.

Bitches aint shit!

What another crazy week. I can't believe it is nearly Friday - and there is still so much work to do!

The best part of the week was definitely Tuesday evening, however, when Jon and I got to go to Decatur and see a Ben Folds concert with my sister! Ben Folds was rockin', as usual! We had to sit in the very back, because we got there a bit late after our yummy dinner at Taters, but Kirkland has awesome acoustics, so alls good.

I have a friend (Jim) who does rigging for concerts - speakers, lights, etc. He was doing the Ben Folds concert, and after the concert I saw him on stage getting ready to take stuff apart. Jim knew I was going to be at the concert and that I love Ben Folds, so he was able to snag a souvenir for me!! He was able to get the set list from the piano Ben Folds was playing! (Set list = handwritten piece of paper with a list of songs to play for the evening)

SO COOL!!!!!!!!!! This means Ben Folds and I are friends, yes?

I have made it back after a week in Chicago. I spent Monday - Friday attending Midwest Academy, a school for organizers. Basically they teach you how to take down The Man in a more systematic and organized way! It was a really interesting time, and I definately learned alot. Soon I plan to write a post more fully explaining what the heck I do at work, and what exactly an "organizer" is. Everyone always asks what I do, and I'll do my best to put it into words.

We didn't really have time to do much sight seeing in Chicago, as the training went from 9am to 9pm ever day. However, we did get to take a couple of walks and do a bit of shopping. Here are a few pics from the trip.


Here is me, Katie, and Claudia.




Here is a group shot of of some of the people who we went through the training with. There were about 30 of us total.

Happy Anniversary!

Oh yeah!

And Jon and I had our official 5 year anniversary on Friday! Half a decade!

I love you, Don!!

<3

we be jammin'

This weekend was MUCH needed. It feels like we've been either out of town or working every weekend for months. We got to sleep in a bit, play some Nintendo, and have some fun.

On Saturday Jon and I went bowling!! It had been the first time for both of us in several years. Our first game was something like: Jon: 70 - Allie: 88
The second game was a bit better, somewhere around: Jon: 90 - Allie - 105
It was a lot of fun, and we each got one strike! We also both managed to pull some muscles! Hopefully we'll get to go again soon!



Then today we got the oil changed in the car at Farm and Fleet. We got to wander around for a while when we were waiting for the car, and Jon got into a bit of mischief!!!



We also had a YUMMY lunch at Olive Garden. This cheese dip with bread stuff they have there is SO AMAZING!




I also got a few ideas for wedding decorations. I got these candle sticks from Crate and Barrel and these flowers from this local company called English Hedgerow. English Hedgerow is a restaurant, florist, craft/design shop, and cater all in one! They have wonderful vegi food, we hear, so we're going to talk to someone about catering our wedding!
Here are my ideas...





These are the pretty flower/grass decorative thingy! Lenny wants to EAT the grass so bad!





Here are the candles. The actual candles I got today from Meijer or whatever, and they're a bit too big. But this is just a quick example, and I was also just trying various colors.




And finally, what it could look like all together.



I will be out of town in Chicago for work all next week, so I don't know how much internet access I'll get. I'll do my best to write something, and definitely post when I get back!

Vonnegut in film

Hello out there in Blogland!

Allie and I just watched Slaughterhouse Five last night. It was really good, and very true to the novel. Funny and sad, and weird. I was just looking it up on IMDb this morning and I found out that there are plans to make a movie out of Cat's Cradle, another of Vonnegut's great novels. I'll have to read it again soon before then.

Exciting!