Home

Showcase of a Shattered Mind (2008)

brighten j'lynn's day with an

rantings of days past... 2007 or 2006 or 2005 or 2004 or 2003

Orlando

wednesday - 18june2008 - 17:16
you may redirect your bookmarks to here

wednesday - 18june2008 - 07:55
i just got to use all seven letters on my opening move in scrabulous! i've never done that. very exciting to get 74 points right off the bat. i am pleased to say that the house is thoroughly cleaned. as in sanitized and straightened. the guest beds are all made up, the guest bath is fully loaded with towels, toiletries, and sunblocks. our room is presentable and our bathroom is ready for guest overflow use. i need to do a load or two of laundry but that doesn't really matter. we need to have company more often. seems to be the only time that we really, really clean everything. it's so nice to have an immaculate house. and, yes, i am fully aware that it will be a wreck again within five minutes of company arriving. but those five minutes will be glorious. i'm really just so proud of what we've done with this place. i was proud of our house in ga because of the work that we put into building it (built a yard by laying sod and creating landscaped "islands", built a bonus room over the garage from nothing but framing, built a bathroom off the bonus room from scratch by taking in some of the attic space). this place we won't be able to "build" in, but we've decorated everything from scratch which is something neither of us has really done before. i can now say that i fully understand why interior designers get paid big bucks; it is a lot of work. i think that everything has come together quite nicely though. now if i could just get the time and energy to paint the rest of the walls. the bad thing is that it's now down to the bigger areas. our bedroom/bathroom, the living/dining/kitchen, and the entrance/hallway. i'll probably tackle the laundry room next since it's the only small space left and we already have paint for it (leftover from house in ga). maybe i'll do that next month. it certainly won't be over the next few weeks as we are going to have two teenage girls here for two weeks after the rest of the family leaves. God help us!

tuesday - 17june2008 - 15:41
i'm finally feeling not totally like crap today. it was a rough weekend with me being sick and so much needing to get done. we went shopping and erranding after work friday. i started out feeling not so bad but by the time we got home at 23:00 i felt awful. i did give blood, which may have been a bad thing but it makes me feel better about myself and i needed that. i got hubby to give blood too. i was pleased to set a new personal record for bloodletting of four minutes flat. beat that, cousin! we then went out to town where we bought groceries, window treatments, a home theatre system, a bookcase to house it, and new dinnerware. very exciting (and expensive) purchases. when we got home, hubby immediately started playing with his new toy. there were speakers all over the floor while he got it all hooked up to see how it all would work. i started loading the new dishes (they're so pretty!) and flatware into the dishwasher but didn't make it too far until i collapsed. saturday, i layed on the couch and supervised while hubby assembed the bookcase, put up the window treatments, and hooked up the theater system (on the bookcase). we then had more errands that had to be run. while waiting for the elevator, a little blue fly landed on my foot and i shooed him away. when we got back home, i resumed my couch position and took some more meds to kick the cold. sunday, i woke up to find my ankle swollen to roughly three times it's natural size. yes, that stupid little blue fly! i spent the whole day coating it in hydrocortizone and downing antihistamines. it was swollen so badly i could hardly walk because i couldn't put any weight on that foot. i really don't understand why i'm having such severe bug reactions lately. it wouldn't have anything to do with my thyroid, right? it's so strange. as you'd guess, sunday turned out to be another watch the hubby work kind of day. yesterday, we had dental appointments in the morning and stopped to pick up the sheets which finally came in and get another bottle of antihistamines. the swelling was down to about twice normal size. last night i was able to get some stuff done - general straightening and preparing for company. today, i'm feeling mostly better, no more congestion and swelling is mostly gone (ankle still hurts though), but i'm exhausted. i guess it's just from my body having so much to fight the last few days. it's just worn down. nevertheless, i have to do some more cleaning tonight. i have to finish cleaning our bathroom and clean the floors throughout. if i could just get a bit of a nap first...

friday - 13june2008 - 09:00
i have never had a boomerang cold before but at 01:12 i woke up feeling worse than i had all week. it was a miserable night of coughing and sniffling and getting up to blow my nose and itchy eyes and congestion headache. how does that happen after feeling mostly fine the last two days? the crummy thing is that i'd like to give blood today but i don't think you're supposed to when you're sick. granted, i can probably mask it for the brief duration of blood-letting, but is that wrong? there's another blood drive going on monday but we've got dentist appointments so i know we're not going to have the time for it. we'll see. maybe, just maybe, i'll get feeling all better by this afternoon.

thursday - 12june2008 - 09:03
so my cousin has started training for a 13k run later this year. i wonder if this might be the encouragement i need to start a good routine up again so that we can be accountability buddies. i was talking with another friend about that last week too so maybe the three of us can keep each other going. it's sad because my husband is great about these things but i'm just never going to have the dedication he's got for exercise and he's never going to have the motivation that i need (you would really think that living at the beach and being in a bathing suit 70% of the time would be motivation enough to slim down but i guess i'm just not that easily motivated - i have the tendency to just wallow in depression instead). that's the only thing i don't like about living in orlando because i know if i were there, my cousin and my friend would make great exercise partners and we would really be able to help each other. well, at least i got myself to the gym yesterday. that's a start, right? could even happen again today since i am more rested after getting an extra hour of sleep this morning (no, i wasn't late for work; i switched schedules with a co-worker today so she could get off earlier to celebrate her half-century birthday).
15:07 - two days of lunch gymming in a row. go me! i did another fifty minutes on the treadmill. can't do a full hour because it takes a few minutes to get down and back up the elevator and my lunch hour is strictly an hour now. maybe if i can keep it up i'll be able to cut back to forty-five minutes on the treadmill and use the stairs to get down there and back up. that would be pretty ambitious though. it's been a while since i've done the stairs but those 18 flights killed me every time i did them.

wednesday - 11june2008 - 11:20
i'm not dead yet! i feel much better! indeed, i am feeling much less like the walking undead today.
17:05 - i was feeling well enough that i did some lunch-gymming today all by myself. go me. 50 minutes on the treadmill. but my most important accomplishment this afternoon was booking a cruise. yay for having a vacation on the books! we'll be cruising for ten days at the end of september. yes, this will be the "killer hurricane season" they've been predicting every year.

tuesday - 10june2008 - 09:41
after taking some nyquil as soon as work was over yesterday, i decided to finish off my paint projects. i am pleased to report that not only did i not pass out while painting, but everything looks great as well. that is it for painting right now. can i get a woooohoooo! and, once i get in there and clean the bathroom so that it can be reassembled, we'll have three rooms completed. YIPPEEE! as for me, i'm very close to calling it a day and going back to bed.

monday - 09june2008 - 09:45
i AM NOT getting sick, thankyouverymuch. it was a tiringly productive weekend. we did go out and have some fun friday night and had a little down time saturday, but mostly the weekend was about getting things done. copious quantities of family coming in t-minus-ten days. saturday we did some shopping. i don't know why the economy is in such poor shape these days, i think we've been spending more than we ever have. when we got back from errands and purchasing, we took a bit of time to check out the upcoming neighbor. there is a 53 acre planned community that is slowly coming in next door. yesterday was the first time that we really got the chance to go over there and get information about the overall plan and progress. we were really impressed and i will be thrilled when the get the next phase done, which should get started late this summer. that phase will be the "main street" area. it should be a great shopping/dining area within a five minute walk of home. after we were through with that, we walked down to the waterford-like plaza a mile away and grabbed some dinner and then walked back home along the beach. when we got back home, we could not actually get home because they had a wedding set up in such a way that they completely blocked off the beach access to the building. i was ticked. i have no problem with people getting married in my back yard but it is unacceptable for them to block public walkways. while i quietly fumed, we took a seat on a beach lounger and watched a wedding. i love weddings. when the ceremony was finally over, the entire wedding moved down to the water's edge where they all lined up with the new mr & mrs to throw pebbles into the surf. that was our chance to use the walkway and head home. i was happy to get back to my air conditioning since it was insanely hot out running errands all day. it's bearable at home because there's usually a gulf-breeze, but if you're not directly on the beach, it's awful. i provided minimal assistance to the hubby as he finished installing the cabinet hardware in the kitchen and bathrooms and we got to bed at a decent hour. yesterday, we lounged around a bit in the morning and then got into full swing just afternoon. i masked and painted the stripe in the bathroom. it was appalling that it took ALL AFTERNOON to get that one little stripe painted but i am very pleased and proud at how it came out. a little touchup around the ceiling in there and the bathroom will be ready to be reassembled. i'm looking forward to getting another room crossed off the list. while i was working on the bathroom, hubby added some shelves to a closet in our room and installed a new light fixture in the kitchen (the old one got fried a couple weeks ago when we had constant power flickers all day long). it looks better than the old one (which just looked like a big hospital light) but i still just don't really care for the look of the big fluorescent ceiling lights. i would have preferred a nice looking fixture or track lights or something but that would have required drilling new holes in the concrete ceiling which would have just been too much work. at least this light has some aesthetic design to it and some satin nickel elements that help it to match with everything else. anyhow, all of the projects kept it from being a very restful weekend and my body thinks that's its queue to get all lousy feeling. it'll be lots of oranges and cranberry juice for me today.

friday - 06june2008 - 08:16
is anyone else as ready for the weekend as i am? i don't know if it's the fatigue or the headaches that have both been plaguing me all week but i am ready for a couple of days of rest. relatively speaking. since we'll be going out and having fun tonight and i have to stripe that bathroom to cross it off my list. is it four yet?

thursday - 05june2008 - 08:08
i really am not sure what the deal is but i have been exhausted all week again. it's very frustrating. last week we were actually able to lunch-gym a couple of days. this week i just can't bring myself to do anything more than fail at taking a nap. i've had a hard time getting up in the mornings again - hubby kicked me out of bed this morning when i thought i had another snooze but i was actually late for work. of course, that was after i was wide awake at 05:41 and tried to convince myself to get up and go to the gym instead of trying to go back to sleep. oh well. maybe next week will be better again. however, we did just see our first sea turtle. i'm actually a bit surprised that we haven't seen any before. seems like turtles would be pretty common around here. not sure why it seems that way but it does. anyhow, YAY for another creature sighting!

wednesday - 04june2008 - 09:19
i've actually been busier this week, off the phones, than i was on them. not complaining though because i will take busy over answering phones any day! i'm still having to make a good bit of customer contact but that will change over time as the people answering the phones learn the type of information to gather before escalating issues to me. i'm so excited to be phoneless. i swore i would never be on the phones. i BEGGED not to be on the phones. my job is once again tolerable. around the home, we did a bunch of shopping over the weekend. bought the futon mattress, ordered the sheets (remember that thing about nothing being easy in this place? the sheets i wanted that i have seen countless times in the store are no longer being carried in the store. we bought the one set they had, went to the other store to get another set and were denied. so i've returned the one we bought and ordered both sets online), and bought a storage box for the balcony which is very helpful. sunday, i painted the bathroom. it looks fabulous. i'm letting it dry a few days and this weekend i'll tape it up and add the stripe i want and it should be complete and ready to reassemble. we also bought some cabinet hardware which hubby has started installing. it's amazing how a little knob and drawer pull can make the plain, ugly, white cabinets look so much nicer.

monday - 02june2008 - 07:53
HAPPY one day late BIRTHDAY, NEPHEW!!! and if that's not reason enough to celebrate, today is my first day of being off the phones again!!! yay for no phones!!!!

friday - 30may2008 - 07:45
the bunk room looks great. there's a minor paint correction i want to make. i say minor but since it involves painting back over the red on a small piece of wall, it won't be fun. my wonderful hubby found a great way to overcome the shoe-molding so the bed and other furnishing is in place now. we have both climbed up to the top bunk and it seems stable. this weekend we'll need to get sheets and a futon mattress. other than wall decor, the room will be done. woohooo! i need to get the guest bath painted this weekend too. the shame about that is that it is not spaced out long enough to have forgotten how not fun painting was the other night. in other news, i took some antihistamines last night and went to bed a little after 20:00. other than a bit of tossing and turning around midnight, i slept straight through this morning (and still would have liked several more snoozes before dragging my tired rear out of bed). while i did need the sleep, the antihistamines did not produce their desired results. see, last week i had a bite right below my left knee. it was a very different bite reaction (i won't detail it because it was gross but it was very painful instead of itchy, very hot to the touch, and the pain spread into my knee joints) than i've ever had so i figured it must have been a spider or something that i don't normally get bit by. at the same time, i was overcoming a multitude of mosquito bites on both legs and arms. there was one on my right leg that was remarkably swollen but i see that a lot with mosquito bites. anyhoo, the strange bite on my knee seemed to be healing after a few days so i had no further need for concern. well, after our paint marathon the other night, i noticed that i am biteful again. once again, i have a remarkably swollen mosquito bite on my right calf that is the full size of the calf but it has a really strange looking center. and once again, i have that really strange bite reaction on the side of my left knee. i don't remember getting bit by anything this week but i guess i must have. i've been slathering both sites with antihistamine cream and took two doses of oral antihistamine last night. the one on my right calf is still itchy as all getout, the one on my left knee is still painful and ugly. it is the ones around my knee that concern me. hubby wants me to go to the dr because he thinks it's some sort of infection in my knee causing these reactions, not bug bites. at two, i'm marking it up to coincidence but if i get another one, i'll be getting it checked out.
14:51 - my cousin will find this especially interesting in light of her facebook gift to me today... we just had our first manatee sighting! at first, she was just a very large dark figure in the water, not all sleek and angular like the shark i saw. i guessed it might be a manatee because i didn't know of anything else with such a... ahem... rotund body shape but it seems like a strange time of year/day to see a manatee swimming along the beach. hubby broke out the binoculars and i watched her until she came up for a breath - confirmed manatee sighting! i saw her cute little ugly face take a deep breath and then her body arched over the water until her rounded tail waved goodbye. how exciting. that's one i never even expected to see. unfortunately, even though hubby did bring my camera to me, there was just no way to get a good pic of her. it's really tough to focus through the moving water that far out. maybe she'll come around again and be more photogenic next time.

"Barbara Manatee! You are the one for me! Sent from up above, you are the one I love."

thursday - 29may2008 - 12:19
what a night. on the bright side (and i do mean bright), we now have a red room (redrum?). the color is called rum runner - hee hee. i also like that hubby is the one who insisted on red so if he ends up not liking the way the room turns out, i'm not to blame. what i don't like is that red is an extremely crappy color to paint. i painted for 7.5 hours last night; and, folks, this is a tiny, tiny room. the only break i took was 19 minutes to cook and eat dinner. my feet, back, shoulder, neck, and hands were killing me by 00:30 when we finally were able to get a shower. we put three coats on and it probably could have used one or two more to get rid of some of the streakiness but we were out of paint and time and patience. we have very little paint left for touch-ups which makes me a bit uncomfortable since it is a kid's room and will get beat and banged up. such is life. i like the color a lot. i'm not sure if it's too overpowering in such a small room. i think that will be decided after everything is in there and decorated. there are two strange men back there as i type assembling the bed. the bed which we measured several times to verify that it was going to just barely fit but apparently we did not measure the shoe-molding so it does not fit. they are assembling it in the middle of the room and we'll have to figure out the best way to overcome the molding problem to get it in the right place. nothing in this new house has been easy. nothing.

wednesday - 28may2008 - 11:30
last night was supposed to be a productive paint night. furniture to be delivered in forty-eight hours. unfortunately, after a long shopping endeavor that ended in me fighting with the people who mixed the paint that it was not the color on the card and then telling me that it would look right after two or three coats and drying... we got home and immediately (yes, before even putting up the milk and eggs) painted five coats on a small strip of wall and it was PINK. i, for one, was livid. i knew that it was not the right color in the store but even hubby said it would be fine after a couple coats. i called the store to ask about returning it because i know that paint is not an easy thing to return. they said i would be able to but, unfortunately, it was too late last night to return or go somewhere else for paint. long story not-so-short, i'll be returning paint and buying new paint (from a better store) on my lunch break today. woohoo! and then we'll be painting all night to make sure the room is painted and dry-as-possible before the furniture is delivered tomorrow. whooohoooo!

tuesday - 27may2008 - 09:54
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to the one who denies me. we had a wonderfully relaxing long weekend at home. i cannot even tell you how nice it is to be back. sadly, it was also a very deadly weekend in our backyard. randal was out running last night when he ran up on the police pulling in the first guy mentioned. luckily, they already had him covered so my hubby did not have to see the body but he said it was a ghastly scene, just a ten minute walk down the beach. the second mentioned guy, found sunday, was an army paratrooper who went in to rescue another swimmer. that seems so tragic to me. here's a military kid in presumably great shape who did manage to save another man's life but lost his own in the process. i have not found anything that details how he managed to get the other guy to safety and still get himself pulled out to sea. we were out walking saturday night while the helicopters and boats were doing a grid search for them. very sad. one more reason i don't like to swim in the gulf/ocean. there's dead people out there. and we all know what happens to our bodies after death. yep, that's all out in that water. ick! i'll stick with my pool and hot tub, thankyouverymuch. anyhow, on the less gruesome side of things, we had a great weekend and got rested up. fortunately/unfortunately we did not get any painting done. we decided to wait for the bedding to come in so that we could really decide on color. since i was watching the tracking, i'm almost certain the bedding was there sunday since it was "in transit to store" from a town less than three hours away but i called the store sunday and yesterday and they insisted that the order number was not checked in. my guess is that it was there but they didn't bother to scan the shipment until this morning. so we'll be going to pick the bedding up this afternoon and buy paint. there will very likely be paint on the walls tonight but you can never tell these things for sure. although i would like for the walls to be dry when the furniture gets delivered and set up thursday. call me kooky like that. really, there was no excuse for me not masking and painting the bathroom over the weekend. it's emptied out and the paint is sitting there. i guess i just didn't want to ruin the quality time with my hubby who i have missed oh so much this past month.

friday - 23may2008 - 07:00
yay, i get to see my hubby again today and he's taking me home! i've missed him so much this month. this week he's been at a conference at disney. it's been very sad for me to know that he's so close but not with me. i've gotten to do some extra visiting with my cousin, which has been very nice. and i finally got to see katie for the first time in the four weeks i've been here. but i'm ready for my hubby to take me home. it's really just time to go home. and i really hope he'll stay with me for a while.

thursday - 22may2008 - 09:18
i've got to say, as much as i enjoy visiting with friends and family and miss having people around to socialize with on a daily basis, i am so excited that we are going home tomorrow. i cannot wait to take a walk around my backyard! and sleep in my great, big, latex foam bed. it's going to be a wonderful three-day weekend.

sunday - 18may2008 - 13:27
we decided to give my sissy and bro-n-law a day off so we asked my dad and his wife to get us and the chilluns into disney yesterday. we packed up the kids and left the house right before 10:00, met up with my dad, and were in the park by 11:00. we did the muppets at mgm (it will forever be mgm, i don't care what they say) with the grandparents and that was enough for them so we parted ways back at the park exit and we five headed over to animal kingdom, which has become my favorite park. we immediately headed over to expedition everest to get our fast passes and were pleased to discover that the girl child is tall enough to ride. we did the asian jungle trail, ate lunch, watched the bug show (which was some welcome a/c and misting effects on such a bloody hot day), and then went to ride everest. the kids had a blast on it. next was the african safari and a parade before we left to go back to mgm. at mgm, we got our fast passes to tower of terror. while waiting for our time, we watched about half of the beauty and the beast stage show. when it was time for terror, the younger nephew was disinclined to do any dropping so hubby took him for a nap on the great movie ride while i took the oldest and youngest to the tower. though the girl child squeezed my hand ferociously throughout the line and during the ride, she proclaimed afterward that it was not even scary. we grabbed five fast passes for rockin' rollercoaster before going to meet up with the other boys. we walked around a bit, did the backlot tour, and made our way back for our scheduled aerosmith limo ride. the was the first time for both younger children and they were both a bit dubious about wanting to ride something that went upside down. when it was all over, they both loved it. they didn't even notice the upside down loop. *sob* my chilluns is all grown up *sob*. we had a snack outside the coaster and decided on the animation class to kill time before the big fantasmic show. we were only able to do the first little movie before making our way to the show to ensure we got seats so we figured we'd go back and do the actual drawing class after the show. fantasmic was fun and we headed back to draw as planned when a cast member stopped us and told us to go try out the not-yet-opened toy story ride. we did as told and i am so glad because it was the perfect end to the day. it is like the buzz lightyear ride/game at mk but much more fun, imho. of course, it does help that i totally whooped the kids and randal. both times through (since it's not "open" yet, there was no line at all). the second time, i heard randal proudly proclaiming his score of 147,500 from his car, which was a significant increase over my first score (132,200) when i beat them all. however, he was not happy to hear that my score the second time around was 158,700. yep, i creamed them. i may have even gloated... just a smidgen, of course. throughout the day we took iphone pix of the kids in front of their various conquests and emailed them to the parents and gparents so that they knew could be jealous of what a fantastic time we were having. after toy story, we left the park and went in search of a quick, light dinner (yes, at 22:30 - the parents would kill us). we successfully made it home, ordered showers, allowed each child a two-minute visitation with the dog, and had them in bed by 23:30. it was a long, tiring day but worth it. i think the kids had a great time too. and they were absolutely wonderful the whole day, no attitude or sniping at each other. which i found impressive because as hot as it was, it could have been ugly; i can't be the only person who's temper increases with the temperature. in the meantime, my sissy didn't get home until after 01:00. they had a nice day sans les enfants. and they used the blue man tickets we got them for Christmas. naturally, today is going to be a very lazy day for all of us.

friday - 16may2008 - 08:44
my most fabulous husband surprised me with a trip to the beach last night for our anniversary (apparently him coming home early wasn't enough). we dined, we walked, we reminisced, we enjoyed each other. it was very nice. although, while cocoa is "our beach", it made me more homesick. i can't wait to get back to my home with my stuff and my backyard. i miss my backyard tremendously. i'm looking forward to us having some good quality us time over the long weekend. of course, unfortunately, some of that "us" time is going to include paint brushes and rollers.

thursday - 15may2008 - 12:11
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, HUSBAND!!!! he gave me the most fabulous gift, too. he called last night and said he was at the airport on his way home to me! that's a whole forty-eight hours sooner than i expected him!! i was so excited, i completely drove past the mall i was headed to and had to u-turn several miles later when i realized that i wasn't paying any attention to where i was going. when i asked if something was going wrong with work he said no, he just told the customer that he wanted to be with his wife on our anniversary. what a wondereful boy i've got! after getting this terrific news, i finished my shopping and headed over to my cousin's for friendly poker and guitar hero night. i then less-than-patiently waited around for my hubby to call requesting his airport pickup. he called just after midnight and he was in my arms by 00:30. it is so, so nice to have my hubby back. he snuggles so much better than a pillow.

tuesday - 13may2008 - 11:01
the only thing more aggravating than having to work is not being able to. yesterday was one of those days. on the bright side, i wasn't on the phones (have i mentioned how much i abhor the phones?!) because my phone software was playing dead all day. unfortunately, instead of enjoying the respite from the phones, i was stressed and frustrated all day trying to troubleshoot my computer and software. after working almost all night on it, i finally uninstalled and reinstalled just about every program i use for work and finally got my phones working again. whoo. hoo. clearly, no fun visiting last night. sunday was nice though. i went to church with my sissy's family to see the kids do their special mom's day celebration. i spent the afternoon with jenny and did end up ordering my dress. i was then invited to my cousin's for dinner and spent the night having quality time with her. a good, busy day to distract me from thoughts of extreme sadness. and tonight i'm getting together with jenny and some of her friends for a free dinner. yummy!

sunday - 11may2008 - 08:41
happy mother's day - even if you don't want to be a mother anymore.

saturday - 10may2008 - 23:58
mental note: do not plan to visit dad and brudder in the same day. i was already sleepy when i left my dad's this afternoon so the hour and fifteen minute drive across central florida to see my brother was a bad call. it was an exhausting day, although i did have great visits with both family members. last night i had dinner with an old friend i haven't seen in a couple years. funny thing about her is that we met playing softball for one season when we were nine years old, we never went to the same schools, and yet we're still friends all these years later. isn't that nice? tomorrow i'll be spending most of the day with jenny and hopefully purchase my moh dress.

wednesday - 07may2008 - 10:48
why do i always put things off until it's too late? we finally found a comforter set for the bunk room that we can agree on and we both like very much. i gave it a few days to look back a few times and make sure that i still liked it. this morning, i went to buy it and they only have twin and king sizes now. aaargh! any chance that i'll look back in the next few days and the full size will be back again? yeh, i doubt it. stupid, stupid, stupid me. such is life, right? on a brighter note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNY! i'm looking forward to celebrating with her and her friends/family tonight.

monday - 05may2008 - 12:53
i miss my hubby so much already. i got up at 0400 to take him to the airport this morning. that was painful, especially after not being able to sleep much last night. i want him back and am very bummed that he's going to be gone for two weeks straight. the weekend was spent mostly spending all the time i could with him. my dad and his wife came over saturday for grilling and swimming but that was the only visiting that went on outside my sissy's family. yesterday we went to church with them and then made a day of shopping and movie. one of my bro-n-law's relatives told him that iron man would be good for the kids so we went to see that yesterday. the previews were bad enough but it was probably twenty minutes into the not-kid-friendly movie when they left the theatre. my hubby and i stayed to watch it while they exchanged their ticket for a more appropriate movie. it was a good movie... for adults. i am appalled that his relative thought it was one for the kids. he also checked a movie review website for kids (i don't recall which one) that made it sound like it wasn't bad. i really couldn't believe all of the little kids that were watching it with parents that didn't seem to care what they were being exposed to. my parents never restricted what we watched. i watched cujo when i was four, child's play when i was eight. i remember seeing s3xu@l situations in movies before i was in gradeschool. and i think it was all extremely inappropriate for me to have been exposed to so early. i remember twisting my teddy bear up and stabbing it with a pencil before bed every night to make sure that chucky was not in there. not a positive behavior for a kid. i'm not saying that iron man was that bad but it did have several moments that were not suitable for chilluns. /tangent. have i mentioned i miss my hubby?

friday - 02may2008 - 14:37
last night was another late night jam session on rock band. maybe one of these days we'll be good enough to play with the kids! so, of course, i'm dead tired again today. and it's just been a very tiring work day anyhow. we found out yesterday that my boy is actually going to be leaving me for two weeks instead of one and then he's got a conference at disney the week after that so, basically, that boils down to me being here for may. i feel a little like the baby in the basket on the doorstep. i really hope that my sissy and bro-n-law honestly don't mind and aren't just saying that. i know that it's one of those situations where, really, what else are you gonna say? you can't really say "no, go find a hotel." oh well. in any case, though i don't like being gone from my new home so long, i will get to do lots of visiting that i have been desperately missing. i should also be able to do plenty of weddinging with jenny, which i've felt bad about not being able to do. i already called and rescheduled our furniture delivery for the end of the month (making sure to give myself plenty of time to get home and get the room painted before it comes) and i need to call and reschedule our dental appointments. i guess going to the dentist with my hubby on our anniversary was a better plan than him being two thousand miles away on our anniversary. that'll teach me to sarcastically complain. so who wants to take me out for my anniversary?

monday - 28april2008 - 10:12
how dare my sissy and bro-n-law keep me up until 0100 playing rock band! didn't they know i had to work today? sheesh. so we had a good visiting weekend. spent a nice afternoon with my dad saturday, relaxed saturday night, spent time with my brother and sis-n-law yesterday, and had dinner with my jenny last night. i also managed to make plans for the week last night like jenny and i are going to look for bridesmaid dresses wednesday night and i managed to invite myself to a free movie with my cousin for tonight. it's been forever since i had a girls-only night with my cousin. i feel a little guilty having two girls-nights this week when my hubby is going to be gone all next week but it's also nice to have friends around. i think him and bro-n-law are talking about a golfing man-date wednesday anyhow. oh, and you'll be shocked to know that my body has been vehemently disapproving of my run on saturday. my poor quads.

saturday - 26april2008 - 11:48
after getting in to orlando late last night and staying up even later to watch some dog whispering (yep, my sissy has inexplicably converted to dog-person), i actually got out of bed early-for-me today and went running! no, you didn't misread that. i did two laps around the neighborhood (2.17 miles each lap) in exactly one hour. i know that's not great, but it's fantastic for me. i jogged every cul-de-sac once so i'm guessing that i jogged about a third of the total distance. that's really good for me. now that i'm showered, we're going to head out to visit my dad for the afternoon and maybe make it back for grown-up movie night.

friday - 25april2008 - 11:08
last night, whilst we sat on the balcony eating dinner, we noticed two four-packs of sting rays swimming right along the shoreline. i so enjoy watching the rays. they are delightfully playful. as we watched the two groups diverge in opposite directions, i commented how it was strange that i always see them in four-packs. then we noticed that a little further out, there were two groups of 12-15 each. rays everywhere, i tell ya! it was a great dinner-show. this morning, there is another four-pack again and another very large group again. have i mentioned how much i love our backyard?

wednesday - 23april2008 - 11:17
i had the most wonderful conversation with my brother last night. not only did he call me (returning my call from earlier in the day when i left a happy anniversary vm) but he also talked non-stop for twenty minutes. not many of you know my brother but he is not a talker. at all. generally, when i call him (he never calls me) i struggle to carry a conversation and give up after about two minutes because he is king of the monosyllabic responses. calling my sis-n-law is much more fruitful if i want to know what's going on in their life. not last night though. he talked and talked about all kinds of subjects (including the topic that he has not broached with me at all in close to two years and i was so relieved to know that he understands it's not me). anyhow, never, i mean NEVER, have i had a phone conversation like that with him. and not since before i left home have we had any conversation like that. it was so nice to actually talk with him. he sounded great and was thankful that i reminded him of his anniversary. i was all kinds of happy after hanging up with him and told my hubby all about it as we walked on the beach. also last night it was decided that my boy has to fly north week after next so i'll most likely be in o-town for two weeks since it's cheaper for him to fly in and out of there. although being home to paint that room before the furniture is delivered would certainly be a plus, spending time with my friends and family is much more fun.

tuesday - 22april2008 - 10:57
HAPPY 2^nd ANNIVERSARY, BRUDDER & SIS-N-LAW!!! funny for it to only be their second anniversary when they've been together thirteen years. kinda like how it seems strange that our fourth anniversary is coming up when we've been together almost nine years. and to celebrate our very special 4^th anniversary... you guessed it... dental cleanings for the happy couple! whew! do we know how to live it up or what? unfortunately, someone's work schedule has been a planning nightmare lately and i had to schedule something. i figured that week was the safest because we have furniture being delivered on the 13^th so we have to be here, right? so, of course, the only day that they had back-to-back appointments open was our anniversary. i'm not looking forward to this dental visit either. the only dentist in our relative area that is on our insurance AND taking new patients does not sound like someone i want to go to. yep, i know, that sounds horribly prejudiced. the thing is, with a doctor i wouldn't mind but i have had TERRIBLE experiences with foreign dentists. i'm not one to fear the chair but i'm just not looking forward to this. in other news, we broke out our wii last night and our miis got to play a little. we each did our little fitness test gigs to find out our mii's ages. no i will not say what my mii scored but it was an improvement over my previous mii's performance at my cousin's house. stupid wii baseball. after obtaining our respective ages, we each tried a little golf as we had not wii-golfed before. i actually liked it. i got the hang of it and even managed to birdie a hole. unfortunately, it looks like my poor boy is going to have to wait until almost july before getting his jam on with rock band. however, he will get to do some rehearsals ps2-style with my nephews this weekend. that's right, we've confirmed our reservations and we're headed to orlando. really, we are. and i've heard that the broken man-child has been working on his one-armed drumming à la rick allen from def leppard (hmmm, think he's ever heard of them?). anyhow, anyone wanna get together next week?

monday - 21april2008 - 16:43
i've begun posting my resume so we'll see what happens. it's going to be such a shame to leave a group i love so much. not to mention that i am so close to getting three weeks of vacation. yes, i am pretty bummed about the whole thing, thankyouverymuch. not much else going on today. still avoiding masking which is also a shame since i would like to paint. probably going to go for a nice long sunset walk with my hubby in a bit. and how about that mii creating?

sunday - 20april2008 - 10:31
i saw my first SHARK today! i was very excited when i looked down from my balcony and saw the large, dark, angular sea creature swimming in that very defining zigzag pattern. i wish my hubby had seen it too but he was down at the pool swimming (i had just gotten out of bed). unfortunately, i was so enthralled with watching it for the short time i was able to that i did not run back in to find my camera and shoot it. you can, however, take my word that it was SO COOL! happily, my ~~wii~~ hubby did come home to me late yesterday afternoon. we mostly relaxed last night and not much on the schedule for today. i think we're going to walk to some stores to see if we can find my boy a new kite. the wind broke his last time he was flying. i should do some masking and painting but i've been cooped up all week so i'm ready to get out a little. the paint will still be there tomorrow, right? and maybe we'll get around to building our mii's sometime too.

thursday - 17april2008 - 08:21
it has been a simply gorgeous week here at the beach. all of the windows/doors have been open since sunday... in mid-april... in florida!!! it is absolutely fabulous! and the water is crystal clear. i've been enjoying all of this on my own as my hubby left me tuesday morning. he had a business gig for a couple of days and then went last night to visit his folks for a couple of days (yay! our wii is coming home!). so i expect he'll be home saturday sometime. which i guess means that we won't be going to orlando this weekend. and bossman still hasn't given hubby a clear date for his next big trip which is supposed to be in the next couple of weeks but heaven knows when so we can't very well schedule a visit to orlando. in other news, i'm very dismayed by the fact that not only can i not sleep at night (nothing new there) but i have lost my ability to nap. i can not tell you the last time i tried to take a nap and actually fell asleep. i'm exhausted, ya'll. i guess that's why the bathroom is not painted yet and i really, really want it painted.
09:17 - sometimes, i really just don't know why i bother and it's all i can do to muster up the restraint to not quit.

sunday - 13april2008 - 11:47
we had a sleepover with the three chilluns friday night which went well. saturday late morning/early afternoon, b&j came back and we all went down to the pool for a while and then went to lunner and then they left for the long trip home. we rested for a few hours and then went to our favorite hangout to listen to some music until the wee hours of the morning. we got home a little after 0300 and crashed. i really enjoyed the band that was playing last night. they were a birmingham band called within reason. they had a good sound to them and the covers they did were actually current, which was cool. there are several bands we've seen there multiple times that we enjoy but most of the covers are the usual covers. it was refreshing to hear something different for a cover band. they also gave out free sample cds and i can definitely appreciate their sound. anyhow, i just got up a little bit ago and made some brunch while my hubby hung some decor in our bathroom. now we're getting ready to head out to town for some shopping and returns.

friday - 11april2008 - 15:02
wow, been a while, eh? alright, some bits of randomness then, shall we?

we did make our tv purchases. we ended up choosing a 50" plasma for the living room which would not fit in the car. of course, we did not do enough up front research to know that we also could not lay it down in the car and, therefore, would have been better off with a smaller lcd for ease of transport. luckily, my hubby is a social person and when he went back into the store to re-measure the display model to see if it would fit in the car out of the box he met a man buying the same tv who happened to live a couple miles from us and had a truck but no straps. well, it just so happens that we never are without straps in our vehicle. so a deal was struck for this very kind gentleman to follow us home with our tv. we also got a 26" lcd for our bedroom. we don't much watch tv in our bedroom but i prefer to have a tv in there when my boy is out of town because i watch tv until i can't keep my eyes open when i'm alone and being in bed is more conducive to that sleep behavior than having to get up from the couch and walk to bed by which time i'm awake again. insomnia sucks, ya'll.
i love my tvs. they are so shiny and pretty and clear. the living room requires a sound system though as the tv's sound is insufficient and very directional.
we had company part of last weekend. our great friends b&t and family came to visit again. they are doing vacation two beaches over this week so they came down a couple days early to stay with us. they enjoyed the entertainment system upgrades since their last visit. next time we'll even have beds for the chilluns to sleep on. we went to play and have dinner at their rental wednesday night. tonight, we are giving them their anniversary gift by letting them drop the chilluns off for the night and then tomorrow they are headed home.
we spent ten or eleven hours glued to the couch last sunday watching the lotr trilogy on our pretty, new tv. the rest was much needed but that is a long flippin' trilogy.
i got a call from my sissy last saturday letting me know that the man-child went and got himself broken at the very end of spring break. they were at the beach (apparently our beach is too far, how rude!) and the boys had just gotten a skim board and poor man-child wiped out and broke both bones in his arm and had to have surgery to pin him back together. they were on the way back from the ~~beach~~ hospital when she called and he was in the back of the van half asleep and drooling from the pain meds. my poor nephew. it's been a rough and painful week for him with no guitar hero. i just want to hug him and squeeze him and take away his pain.
we're trying really hard to get down to orlando before the end of the month because it's been like forever since we visited and i miss my friends and family and need to hug my little man-child ferociously. unfortunately, one of us has been working rediculously crazy hours lately and has to go out of town on a moments' notice so it's really hard to schedule a non-work trip.
we got a wii! well, my mil got it for us because we have had no luck finding any. we got close the other day when we saw a man purchasing one in a store and he informed us there was another one back there but by the time we made it to the electronics department, it was gone. so next time we go to al, we'll have a wii. in case we find one before then, in which case we'll have a wii for sale!

thursday - 27march2008 - 21:23
the alarm woke me up from a horrible work-related dream this morning. i woke up sobbing to myself about how i was trying and just couldn't make it work. not a great way to start the day and left me tired the rest of the day (no, i couldn't really tell you how that's different from any other day that i wake up breathing). the day itself wasn't terrible and i managed to do just a little bit of cleaning during lunch and after work. not near what i had planned to have done this week but, considering how crummy i was feeling at the beginning of the week, i'll take it. i have no idea yet when to expect my hubby to be home tomorrow so there's a chance i might be able to get more cleaning out of the way before he gets home. not only do i not like to "waste" my weekend on cleaning but it's really just not a realistic goal. weekends are spent having fun or holding down the couch. that's the reality of it and i'm fine with that. i imagine since the resurrection bunny ruined our shopping trip last weekend, we'll be going out to make another effort at blowing copious amounts of money this weekend. gotta support the economy right? afterall, i need to spend my hard-earned money bailing out all of the irresponsible idiots in the country who got us into this mess.

wednesday - 26march2008 - 17:19
it's been a lonely and lousy-feeling week. i spent much of monday being sick. i've just felt icky since then. on the bright side, the week's over half over so my hubby will be back home soon. now if i could just work up the energy to clean this place up a bit.

sunday - 23march2008 - 19:53
last night turned out to be somewhat of a bust again. we decided to just try walking to some of the closer places but were disappointed to find most of them closed. on the way back we ended up stopping at the place two doors down that we don't enjoy eating at but never tried the nightlife before. it wasn't great but it is close so i'm sure we'll go back again sometime. i had thought about trying to find a church service to go to this morning but as i crawled into bed sometime in the 3 o'clock hour, i knew that wasn't happening. surprisingly, my husband's goal was to buy some tvs today. in the mid-afternoon, we made our way to town towards that end. we discovered, however, that everything is closed on easter. who'd've thunk? the mall was closed. well except for sears (big surprise) which we did go ahead and look through but there is no way in hades that i will ever give that store another penny of my money! (sears SUCKS!!!) walmart was closed. so odd. but luckily the walmart near the beach was open so we were able to get food for me since my husband is taking the car and taking off for the week, leaving me alone and stranded.

saturday - 22march2008 - 23:29
what a frikkin week. after a very long week, we went to our favorite night spot last night but the band wasn't our gig and the night ended with a very nasty scene. we went back to the dance floor for "sweet home alabama" - you know, with it being the national anthom and all... and there was this blond frikkin %(&#@)%* using her straw to spit her drink all over me and this chick next to me. and we're looking at each other like wtf?! but i'm willing to shrug it off because apparently this chick has had too much and is easily amused. whatever, i'm having a good time. and then i'm dancing with my wonderful alabaman hubby and suddenly this chick poors her drink all over my #$)%&#%@ head! see you next tuesday!!! i really wish that i had jumped up on the #(%&#@!! rail and punched her in the #(%&(#% face! instead, i stood there in shock until the song was over. i was cold, wet, and angry and i just wanted to go home. we came home, showered all the nastiness off, and went to bed. today, i tried to be positive. i slept in, went to the gym for a really long, great workout, came back to make breakfast (so what if it's the afternoon!), layed around, went to the pool, and now we're getting ready to go hang out again. maybe that'll make this week a better week. other than my hubby's abandoning me again this week.

friday - 21march2008 - 17:13
at least my chronic fatigue is explainable. turns out that my thyroid is getting worse even though my replacement dosage was doubled last time i saw my endo. it has now been doubled again so here's hopin'. also, i'm anemic even though my iron, b12, and folate are fine. dr isn't really sure what is causing it but she'll do further testing when i go back to retest my thyroid after being on the higher dosage for a couple months. she said between these two levels, she's not surprised at all that i struggle to drag myself around. oh, and my 6006s are fine, thankyouferaskin.

friday - 14march2008 - 12:07
i had my first medical 6006-squeezing this morning. no worries; just early screening because of family history. i was pleased when the tech said that since it was just a baseline, i shouldn't need to have it done again for five years unless necessary. it really isn't pleasant - not that i've ever heard any woman claim that it was. 6006s should really never be squeezed so hard or in such akward positions. i really felt like i deserved a nice dinner and movie for all that. after work today, we'll be heading to al. happily, the quarantine was just lifted this week so we'll be able to visit gma h. i'm looking forward to seeing her. poor woman probably thinks she was abandonned after two months of quarantine (not just her but the whole facility was locked down to keep the flu out). from what we've heard, she has been recovering from her surgery remarkably well. i still am amazed at what a strong body she has at 97 years old. mine would never make it that long. this will actually be our first time back since gma m passed away. it makes me very sad to think we won't be playing dominos with her tomorrow. visits to wedowee will just never be the same.

thursday - 13march2008 - 22:13
since i haven't got much a way to post pix, i figured i'd at least try to post my videos. i've never youtubed before but it seemed like the simplest way to post. the compression really ruins the video quality but oh well. the greatest thing about the first video is the very cute "oh crap" moment kenny has when he forgets where he's at and can't think of the words. in the second video, if you're paying attention, you can hear my hubby excitedly singing along in the first chorus. i sing this song to him a lot when we're in al because he has a tendency to go john deereing up there.

heck, i'll even throw in a link to the pix.

wednesday - 12march2008 - 21:38
what's a great way to pass the time after work on a wednesday afternoon? how about a free kenny chesney concert? worked for us. i hadn't seen kenny live before but i anticipated a great show. he's very energetic and with a wonderfully casual vibe so i was not disappointed. we didn't get there early enough to get up close but we did manage to get a nice view up on the top deck across the way from the stage. i was able to get pretty good pix and video considering the distance but we all know they won't be posted anytime soon. we really need to get a home computer so that i can do some work on this shabby little site of mine.

monday - 10march2008 - 13:24
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS-N-LAW!!! if i recall correctly, they should have had a great weekend at a music festival in ft lauderdale over the weekend. we, too, had a great weekend. our spring breaking on friday was a great success. it was the most fun i've had at our favorite little club yet. we managed to stay out until 0300 and never sat down the whole night. yep, that's right folks, i danced the night away. inexplicable, i know. alright, so it wasn't so much dancing as jumping and head-banging and shouting along with the music. it was an awesome time. i even got hit on (and my husband got congratulated - yay self-esteem boost!!!). there was, of course, a price to be paid for all of that being young and partying. saturday was very much a hold down the couch kind of day. although we did drag ourselves out long enough to sit in the hot tub a bit. we had actually planned on going back for a second night but we were just too wiped (alright, we're old but at least we can muster up the strength to play young once in a while!) sunday was slightly more productive with grocerying and hot tubbing. it was really just a great weekend!

friday - 07march2008 - 16:27
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COUSIN!!! i hope the big three-one is a fabulous one for you. as for me, it's been a week. on the bright side, we did become official floridians this week when we were mercifully granted our homestead exemption even though we didn't exactly meet all of the requirements (thank you mr property tax assessor guy!!!) - stupid fine print. just so you know, we did have all of the required pieces, just not by the required dates. on wednesday, i had a total melt-down that my poor hubby had to not only witness but also talk me down from quitting my job. gotta love those kind of days. today was his turn. he handled his melt-down much better by going for a run instead of ranting like a lunatic. the good news is that it's spring break so we're going to go out tonight and party with all the young little whipperschnappers. better go get a nap in, eh?

thursday - 28february2008 - 18:19
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISSY & BRO-N-LAW!!! your gift is that my hubby comes home tonight so i won't be calling you fifty times a day anymore. have i mentioned how awesome my bedroom looks? now if only i could decide on a walk color and get it all painted. sheesh, that's going to be a job and a half. i really wish we had had the time to get that done before the furniture came.

wednesday - 27february2008 - 21:16
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIRANDA!!! well, i was wrong about sleep last night. qu'elle surprise. in other news, i learned a valuable lesson today. climbing a ladder and operating power tools after giving blood can be a less-than-good idea. fortunately for me, i'm an excellent bleeder (filled the bag in under six minutes, thankyouverymuch) and never suffer ill-effects of the blood-letting. however, each time i got up on that ladder, dizziness did ensue. i'm not sure why. luckily, it was not debilitating and no harm befell me or my home. it just took much longer to finish my tasks as i kept having to climb back down to lay down a minute between drillings. all in all, my curtains look great.

tuesday - 26february2008 - 21:03
i just had a wonderfully cathartic conversation with my katie. it's good to have a friend like her who is capable of being a "shoulder" friend over the phone. those are rare. my hubby is gone most of this week. crummy for him because he's freezing his toes off and working around the clock - although the latter isn't really a change now, is it. crummy for me because i don't sleep well by myself but since i've been in a very down and lonely mood for the last week, we're probably better being apart a couple days. maybe when he gets home i'll be feeling better and stop snapping at him for no reason. i'm sure he'd appreciate that. on the bright side, a fabulous cold front has moved in and tonight and tomorrow night should be great open window nights. that should help me sleep.

wednesday - 20february2008 - 13:09
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD and BRIAN!!! aside from calling and assaulting dad with my singing, i'm done with this week. just make it go away, okay?

sunday - 17february2008 - 16:16
please say a prayer for gma h. we got a call this morning that she somehow fell out of her wheelchair and broke her femur. they took her into surgery this afternoon to put pins in, which worried us quite a bit since she is ninety-seven years old. they ended up putting screws in her hip and knee and a steel rod along her entire femur. she made it through the surgery fine (what a blessing!) and is in recovery. we are waiting to hear when she is awake again. i'm sure it'll be a difficult recovery at her age so all the prayers she can get will surely help. all of that aside, we have been having fun here with our friends. we spent most of the day yesterday on the beach. it was a beautiful day. one of those rare days when you can actually sit in the sun and not sweat to death. there was frisbee-throwing and football-throwing and hole-digging and castle-building and beach-running and sun-napping. we then went and swam around the pool for a while and warmed up in the hot tub before coming back up for dinner. before i had dinner done, the kids and jeremy were asleep on the couch. one of the girls' head kept falling on the table all through dinner. they were more than happy to go to bed at an early hour. us adults managed to stay awake until 21:00 before happily dragging ourselves to bed. speaking of bed, i am so far very pleased with my latex mattress. friday night, we only ended up with three hours of sleep so that wasn't the best to judge by, but last night was very comfortable. after a night and a half of sleeping on it, i have not had any shoulder aches or body parts falling asleep. see, i'm a side sleeper so i have a terrible time with my shoulders and hips hurting and having to flip to the other side every twenty minutes until that one starts hurting too. that's where a lot of my tossing and turning comes from. as an extension of that, my arms and hands and legs will fall asleep on me. that's a big part of the reason i was adamently against getting an inner-spring matress. the latex, like the visco foam, is supposed to virtually eliminate pressure points. so far, it seems to be doing the trick. it comes with a thirty-day trial period so i've got that long to decide whether it's going to work out. my next priority purchase is going to be curtains. until i have curtains, there's really no way to know for sure whether i'm sleeping well in the morning. enough of that, a rainy afternoon at the beach means we're all headed to dinner and the movies. i don't know why they don't want to watch a movie on our 20" tv.

friday - 15february2008 - 14:46
woohooo, i have a matress! tonight, i will sleep on a real bed again; i am psyched! they delivered it and set it up and then we dressed it. our room looks so purty and sophistimicated. tonight our first guests will be coming in for the weekend. we are looking forward to a fun beach-filled weekend with them.

thursday - 14february2008 - 18:31
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SANDRA & TONY!!! today was a happy day. our bedroom furniture came in and looks fabulous. we also got a dining room hutch that looks perfect with our dining room table. this place is really starting to look nice. as far as furnishing, it is far nicer than our old house. well, that and the location and the view. i'm just happy to have this place start feeling livable. and not a moment too soon with our first company coming in tomorrow night.

friday - 08february2008 - 09:22
i don't know about you, but it has been farookin gorgeous here the last few days. playing football on the beach has been not-too-hot. swimming in the pool has been not-too-cold. lovely, it is. and, our home is coming together nicely. stuff is actually jumping out of boxes and into cozy little put-up spaces. we haven't made any more progress on those other six chairs but, when we do, the dining area will be beeyooteefuwl! on a side note, it amuses me to look down on the coast guard and military helicopters and planes that fly by. most of the time, it doesn't seem like we're that high up.
11:08 - OMG! it must be snowing in hell this morning - our stove just arrived! anyone know how to do convection cooking?
14:29 - wth would you go into someone's home and slap pieces of wood down on their brand-frikkin-new dining room table?!! and then go sliding them all over the place?!! j@ck@$$!!!

thursday - 07february2008 - 09:37
we have furniture!!! yesterday was an expensive day. we purchased our mattress set and our bedroom furniture, which will both be delivered by next thursday. i am looking forward to having a bedroom that looks like a bedroom. and a new, comfy, non-springy bed to hopefully stop my tossing and turning for a while. we almost got a bunk bed but we were shot down at the credit card handover with the pronouncement "out of stock". dagnabit! it could never be that easy, eh? the only thing that we actually came home with was our dining room table. it's very purty. we got the table and two chairs put together (after we finally took down the christmas tree and put it away). those chairs were a beast; it might take us the rest of the week to get the other six assembled! we also attempted to buy the elbow for the dishwasher installation. unfortunately, the one little piece we need is the one piece they don't seem to sell so we had to buy the whole hose. of course, even that was too easy because we got home to realize we had dramatically underestimated the length. funny how we might actually get our stove (mythic purchase that it apparently is) and install it before the dishwasher that has been here all week. such is life. luckily, my husband is all the dishwasher i need. what i am looking forward to, aside from my matress, is my stove. tomorrow is supposed to be the day. i'm not holding my breath but i sure will be excited if it happens to show up. slowly - excruciatingly slowly - this place is starting to look and feel like home.

monday - 04february2008 - 20:16
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANDRA!!! the good news is that good things are happening finally. today, we were the happy recipients of a microwave and dishwasher - only thirty-eight days after we bought them! we got the microwave installed and it looks very pretty. we started on the dishwasher but we seem to be in need of an elbow so it will have to wait a few days for us to go out again. we are told that our stove and stacking kit for our w/d will arrive friday. keep your fingers crossed for us. it sure will be nice to have a complete kitchen again and not have to decide on dinner based on what will cook in a toaster oven (or now microwave). saturday we went on a furniture shopping expedition and i believe we found the mattress set and bed that we want. hubby will be calling to ~~haggle prices~~ make purchases tomorrow. (i am so not a negotiator) we also found a bed for the bunk room that we love but we're unsure that it will be a good fit in such a small room. it's so cool looking though. unfortunately, the dining room table that we hearted so much that my boy almost bought it without any prodding from me last year is gone. there is a similar one at a slightly higher price but we're not sure we like the two-tonedness of it. the only other one we've found that we like though is $500 higher for the same setup so we'll likely get over the two-tone dislike. we have also taken the time the last two days to remind ourselves why we moved here and that all of this is worthwhile. we've been playing frisbee and football on the beach and we've been utilizing the pool and hot tub. it's been wonderful. we also started back into the gym this weekend. life is starting to take on a semblance of normalcy. i'm ready for normal.

wednesday - 30january2008 - 21:28
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! have i mentioned how nice it is to be home? last night, we went to the gym for a while and then we took some wine to the hottub and soaked a bit. tonight, my hubby took me to a movie and yummy dinner. it was wonderful. i've also managed to tame the laundry which has been piling up for a month with no w/d and unpack several boxes. who knows, maybe one of these days we'll be moved in. here's hoping since i think we've got company coming in two weeks. and yes, SEARS, YOU STILL SUCK!!!

tuesday - 29january2008 - 13:43
after a very tiring, sad, and trying week, we are finally back home. it feels so good. we worked from granny's one last time yesterday. it felt odd to be there all day just the two of us. most of her stuff is gone already, all of the pictures are off the walls (there were tons of photos of her family on every wall). when we started to pack up our stuff, we both started crying - it was like watching them close the coffin all over again. visits to wedowee will never be the same. on the way home, we had more of the continuing appliance saga. i can tell you this much: i will never again set foot in a sears store. i wouldn't buy a pair of socks there. if i had ty pennington's home number, i'd be raving to him because i bet he could get a manager to call us back. anyhow, my blood pressure shoots through the moon when i get started on sears and our lack of kitchen so i'm not going to bother getting into it. it's enough to say that it does not look like we will have anything more than a refrigerator and toaster oven (that we were forced to go buy because of sears) in our kitchen in the foreseeable future. SEARS, YOU SUCK!!! we got home late last night and it felt like a weight was lifted. luckily, my birthday present from my hubby is the month of february (i know, pick the shortest month, why donchya). he has promised that, barring another emergency, we are staying home to get unpacked, settled, and relaxed for the whole month. that may be the best birthday gift i've ever gotten.

tuesday - 22january2008 - 12:39
we're in wedowee. gma moore has passed away. she's the younger gma, 83. she's the one whose house we installed dsl at so we could work from her house and visit more with her. she's the one we spend hours playing dominoes with. she's the one who has made our closet so colorful. she came to our wedding. we took her to disney and to the mountains years ago when she was well. randal was the first grandkid, born on his grandfather's birthday, and lived with them for a couple of years in high school. randal is taking it very hard. i'm taking it very hard. we were in target last night buying a toaster oven (remember, we had no way to cook dinner last night). i was three aisles down from randal and i heard his phone ring. i was able to hear him say "which grandmother?" and i dropped what was in my hand and ran to him. i'm such a girl. my husband finds out that his grandmother died and i'm the one bawling in the middle of target. we bought our toaster oven (already picked it out and had it in the cart so might as well), went home to pack, and we were on the road about an hour later. it was a long night and a sad one. we're over at her house now and it just doesn't feel right. it's hard to believe that she's not sitting in the kitchen griping about us having the door open letting cold air in. she had cooked some food sunday night for another funeral and it was still in the fridge so everybody is getting one last bite of granny's cooking. randal's cousin just took me aside and said that she just wanted me to know that granny thought the world of me and spoke very highly of me. i broke down. i have a memory of about six years ago when my mil said something about us needing to get married and granny said that the only granddaughter-in-law she would ever have would be the ex. i was so hurt. i guarantee you she wouldn't even remember saying it. it was one of those comments that you make without thinking, without meaning anything ugly, and without ever thinking about again. over the years and the games of dominos, i knew in my heart that she had grown to love me as much as i love her. granny has a gruff demeaner but she's a tender-hearted woman. to know that she truly had grown to love and respect me - god, i'll miss that woman! they say she went peacefully in her sleep. her blankets weren't messed up or anything. thank God for that. when randal spoke with her saturday, she said she was feeling the best she had in a while so i'm glad that she wasn't sick or in pain. today would have been her and paw's 64th anniversary. i'm glad she made it home to him for their anniversary. please pray for us and the whole family. granny's departure will be felt for a long time.

monday - 21january2008 - 15:23
i tell you, there's just nothing about this move that has been easy. today we're dealing with an appliance fiasco. you'll recall that we bought all new appliances back in december and sold the brand new ones that came in the condo. since we knew we were going to be out of town for the last couple of weeks, we set the delivery date for today, as well as the pickup for the others. that's over three weeks since we ordered. i got a call late saturday night letting me know that they would be delivered between 09:30 and 13:30. this morning, i got a computerized call letting me know that the range we ordered would not be delivered until the 28th. gee, thanks for the notice. especially since we're not going to be here again next week. after i was just about done fuming over that, the phone rang again. it was a person this time letting me know that only half of our appliances were there and did we want to have those delivered today or just wait until the 28th to have it all delivered. ticked does not cover it. we ordered these a month ago! it's not like we went in there this weekend and said deliver it tomorrow. luckily, the appliances that they are able to bring today are the fridge, washer, and dryer. since our old appliances are getting picked up in about an hour, we absolutely had to have a fridge to transfer our food to and we're about out of clean clothes too. i'm so pleased with my new appliances. they are so pretty. i did a load of laundry already - kid with a new toy, i am. i was very entertained with watching the washing machine go (front loader) and i was astounded by how quiet it is. for those who were priviledged enough to have experienced randal's old washer, you'll know why. that stupid thing shook and shimmied and you could hear it miles away. i'm still ticked that we don't have a stove, microwave, or dishwasher. but at least we got the important stuff. although i'm not sure how we're going to cook for the rest of this week. woohoo, no cooking!

saturday - 19january2008 - 10:12
it's been a great visit but i'm happy that we're heading home. maybe we'll be able to get moved in. my hubby came back late thursday night. there's a restaurant called huhot that has become my cousin's and my sister's families favorite restaurant. i decided to take advantage of that so i arranged for all of us to meet up for dinner friday night. and since we were all getting together, i invited my dad to join as well. it was a big gathering for our family and we had a great dinner. it's a very yummy and fun place. it turned out to be a surprise party when we were through eating and they came out singing and carrying a cake for me. i invited everyone and arranged everything and then they surprised me with an early birthday celebration. i was full of warm fuzzies.

wednesday - 16january2008 - 15:37
HAPPY 30^th BIRTHDAY, BRUDDER!!! i'll be calling him to sing at him (again - poor guy). luckily i was able to semi-celebrate this milestone birthday with him this year when i took a ~~cake~~ cookie to him and sang at him this weekend. i hope it's a fantabulous year for him!

monday - 14january2008 - 15:12
we packed a lot into this weekend. saturday morning, the men folks had a man-project going on. once they were to a point where i could steal my man, we went to my dad's for a visit and Christmas exchange. we had a great visit and dinner with them and then we left to meet up with jenny and some of her friends. they were at a little greek restaurant around the corner from her new place so we stopped there to meet up with them. we were there a few minutes when a guy came up behind me and put his arm around me and said, "i knew it was you when you walked through the door." folks, this was very, very exciting for me. i know that i'm a weirdo and all but i have been confounded over the fact that i grew up and went to school and worked in orlando and have NEVER run into anyone i know since i've left. this was a guy that i worked with almost TWELVE years ago! he remembered and recognized me from when i was fifteen years old. i was amazed and so pleased. it really made my weekend. i'm probably revealing my crazy here, but the part that really excited me was not so much running into someone from my past, but that someone that i knew for a matter of months over a decade ago would bother to remember me. i've alluded to it in past rants that a good portion of my thoughts are thinking about people in my past and wondering how they are and who they are now. perhaps it's kind of creepy but it's what i do. and i often wonder whether i've ever made a big enough impact on people's lives that maybe they would think of me once in a while. so for a guy to remember me by name after twelve years - well, it made me happy. and no, there is no chance that he only remembered me because of some romantic complication as he was several years older than me and batting for the other team so nothing like that existed between us. /tangent. so when we got to the restaurant, jenny and friends were finishing up and waiting for their checks so we weren't there long before heading back to her place. we got there and played scattergories for several hours and ended up getting back home around 0100. sunday morning, i slept in a bit while my man got up early to continue the man project started the day before. they finished early in the afternoon and we headed out to see my brother. we stopped along the way to get an oversized birthday cookie for him since i doubt i'll see him on his birthday wednesday. we got there and sang happy birthday to him and gave them their Christmas present and watched some football and chatted for a couple hours. we then headed to katie's for a couple hours before heading back. this morning, my hubby left me for a business trip. he'll be gone for four days. i'm taking advantage of being husbandless by making arrangements to help jenny with being a bride. it should be a good time.

friday - 11january2008 - 07:18
i'm not dead yet... i feel much better... yesterday was a nightmare migraine day. i emailed my boss around lunchtime, took a handful of motrin, wrapped my head in a blanket and slept all afternoon. i woke up just in time for our after-hours conference call and managed to drag my computer into my lap to get dialed in. i took more motrin and made it through the call. i made it through dinner and guitar hero III and a tv show and took more motrin before bed. this morning, thankfully, the migraine is gone and the headache is mostly gone. that means it's going to be a great friday, right? it's just as well that yesterday was a bust since the plans we had for last night got blown off. wednesday was good though; we had a fun night with my cousin. we walked over there after dinner to poke some cards but ended up poking balls instead. i'm pleased to say that even though i'm about the sorriest billiard player around, i managed to win two games. we even wii'd a little before heading back home that night. i'm not sure what we'll be doing tonight. i was going to make calls last night to try to get some plans going for tonight and sunday but the migraine kept me from getting very far with that. i think i made one unsuccessful call and sank back into the couch to watch more ghiii. we'll come up with something. if nothing else, it's family pizza and movie night here.

tuesday - 8january2008 - 19:51
another long day. i actually had to go into the local office today. reminds me why i'm very lucky to not work in a corporate office. the bright side was that it was in the neighborhood of my sis-n-law's restaurant so i was able to drop in and surprise her first thing this morning. i think she was pleased to see us because she fed us really yummy eats. hopefully we'll get to see her and my brother later this week or weekend. work was work but at least i wasn't tethered for the day so there was that. after work, we went out to dinner with a couple coworkers. it was quite an agreeable time and the restaurant was fabulous. we went to seasons 52 which looked far too hoity-toity for my pallate but the food was exceptionally good. i even discovered that i don't hate asparagus (at least not when it's cooked right by someone other than myself) so that's a plus.

monday - 7january2008 - 11:59
i'm just worn out. after a very tiring week of attempting to get settled in the new place (no, we aren't even close), we drove all night friday to orlando. we got in after midnight and were up again at 0730 to get ready for a day at disney. let me tell you, disney with three kids is tiring enough but adding car fatigue and too little sleep on top of it... exhausting. it was a good day though. we did the magic kingdom and the chilluns experienced several firsts. both boys rode space mountain for the first time. this was an especially momentous feat for the younger boy who has not been very adventurous with big rides since he's been tall enough for them. he was behind me but i was told he even held his arms up! all three kids rode thunder mountain and enjoyed it. all three kids also did the haunted mansion, although two regretted that decision afterward. there was a new interactive monsters inc® show that yours truly got called upon to take part in. it was cute and highly embarrassing. i don't do well with being put on the spot. at least i remembered my name and sense of humor (yes, i have one!). when the sun set, the castle was lit up much, much prettier than i have ever seen it in my life. it truly was something to behold. at the end of the night, my bro-n-law complained about nobody asking him what ride he wanted to do. we humored him and went into the carousel of progress. while i appreciate the nostalgic value of this attraction, i'll admit that i have not been in it since i was a kid and really hadn't thought about it since either. i figured it was long gone and didn't care. if you've never been in it, it was walt disney's own vision, which he presented at the '64 new york world's fair. it has animatronic tableaus of the how the typical american family uses technology from the turn of the 20th century forward, complete with an annoyingly cheerful jingle-song between each. anyhow, you get the picture on why it's not the most popular attraction at disney anymore. so we're on the second scene (the 1920's) and the annoying song is sung and the seats start to spin us toward the third scene (the audience seating moves, not the stage) when a strange noise is made and we stop moving. the song finishes and scene two starts again! everyone in the theatre is amused by this and making commentaries throughout the scene. an agitated male voice keeps coming over the speakers advising that, for our own safety, everyone should stay in their seats PLEASE. and then the annoying music starts up but we move not at all. and then scene two plays again. and the mass-psychosis is already setting in as we all get silliar and silliar. a woman suddenly jumps up and runs back to the exit door. she looks back at us long enough to say that there's a way out before disappearing forever as the agitated voice comes on again reminding us that our safety hinges on us staying seated. we audibly wonder if she made it to freedom. and the annoying music starts again. and you can just hear all of our sanity congealing into a pile of mush on the floor. as scene two starts up again, there is talk of a riot. about halfway through the scene, just as the overloaded fuse is about to blow sending the house and then the neighborhood into darkness, the agitated voice pipes up to tell us that they are experiencing technical difficulties (really?) and will have to evacuate the theatres (freedom!!!) and please stay seated (huh? how are we evacuating while seated?). a teenage boy dressed in an embarrasing disney costume appears out of nowhere and leads us (in the dark because they chose that part of the scene to evacuate) all to the exit door and down a corridor to freedom. all told, we were in that theatre for more than thirty minutes with that song and scene playing all the while. it really could have only been worse to be stuck in "it's a small world afterall" hell. in all my giddyness, i admitted that was the most fun i had had all day. with a couple more stops for restrooms and popcorn, we left the park and made it home around midnight. yesterday we met up with my cousin who helped us on errands such as buying my sis' Christmas gift and finding dishes in ikea. we managed to have our gift exchange with my sis and her family last night. the kids all seemed very pleased with their gifts, my sis and bro-n-law were ecstatic with their blue man group tickets, and we received many wonderfully fun things. it was a fun weekend but oh so tiring. i need a nap.

thursday - 3january2008 - 12:52
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE!!! hope it's a good one for you! and now i'd like to take a minute or several to gripe. we just finished lunch. granted, it was just sammiches but i went to special efforts for them sammiches. i ask my wonderful hubby, "how was your sammich?" "it was fine," he replies. fine? fine! that sammich was made with fresh, hot, just-out-of-the-machine, homemade sweet bread! fine. it was freeken fabulous is what it was! that was no month-old, hard and stale merita loaf bread from the fridge. no, it was a gourmet sammich right here in your own flippin living room! men!!! and he wonders why i hate cooking. /tangent. so, yeh, happy birthday to you, katie.

wednesday - 2january2008 - 21:08
welcome to the year 2008! we celebrated by officially moving in to our new home. we rang in the new year in rare-for-us whippersnapper style and then spent our first night here. we went out to a club for dinner and dancing and live music and left there around 0200 to stop in at another party. it was 0400 before we got to bed. i really can't tell you the last time that i stayed up all night like that on purpose. and i felt it yesterday. i slept in until noon, moved to the couch and napped until 1730 when the hubby got a burst of energy and insisted that we attempt to unpack some. he accomplished much. i sat back on the couch to make my new years phone calls. i did get part of the kitchen unburried. today i got enough of it dug out to actually cook dinner. we've had multiple obstacles in the new abode, mostly network issues which tried to give us an extra vacation day. i think i've counted that i've moved ten times in the last nine years (pretty impressive when you consider that we lived two years in our first apartment and almost four years in our house) and this is by far the hardest move i've had. not only does it feel like it's just dragging on, what with us moving out of our house four months ago, but i just can't seem to fight the discombobulation. we moved all of our stuff in from storage over two weeks ago and yet there is still more in boxes than not. and the boxes are EVERYWHERE. i've never spent this long boxed up. i just can't seem to wrap my arms around it at all. but on the bright side, we spent a fortune this past weekend (enough that we both received calls from discover's fraud protection people asking if we were aware of all of the large purchases on our cards). when we get back from orlando in a couple of weeks, we'll have all new kitchen appliances delivered and a washer and dryer (which will be very much needed since we do not have a w/d at all right now). i'm very excited about my very pretty new appliances. next step is a bed for us. we've got it narrowed down to three. i'm hoping to have that when we get back home too. the air matress just isn't holding air like it used to. so much still to do. will it ever slow down??? anyhow, i hope that 2008 has good things in store for all of us!

back to normal