so the headache that started yesterday afternoon lasted all night and this morning. i took countless motrin and could not knock it out last night. i couldn’t even get up to reheat leftovers for dinner. this morning, i couldnt’ lift my head off the pillow so i had to call in sick. i took some more motrin and waited for it to dissipate enough to start working. after two and a half hours, it eased off enough to login to work. the wonderful part is that they are doing more concrete fixing today. i wonder how long it will be before they drill right into my skull again.
they are fixing some problem areas in the walkways today. this means that on and off all day we have been listening to the drilling, chiseling, and hammering of concrete. the concrete between floors and metal studs in the wall are all reverberating with horribly loud and annoying sounds. the furniture is vibrating and my head is throbbing (alright, this is probably partially blamed on the stair climbing but the noise and vibration of the floor, ceiling, and walls is the bigger villain, methinks). i’m really hoping that they finish fixing at least our floor and the ones above and below us today. i think i’ll jump off the balcony if i have to listen to this all day tomorrow too.
other than some fairly impressive waves (the gulf came all the way up to our beach access walkway) and a stronger-than-normal breeze, gustav didn’t touch us. we stayed under tropical storm watch all weekend but all we got was clouds – no rain, no lightening, no severe wind. it really made for a nice labor day weekend. my only regret is that we were going to get out and ‘yak saturday afternoon while the water was still nice and calm but the waves started earlier than we expected. friday and saturday nights we went out to our favorite hangout and hungout till 2 or 3 in the mornings. yesterday, i started the new month by getting back in the gym. i did all weights, no cardio but then we got changed and walked down to our favorite shopping plaza and walked around so that was sort of like light cardio, right? i think my plan right now is to try to do weights three times a week and cardio twice. today will be some sort of cardio day. we’ll see how things work out.
i don’t know where i come up with my dreams sometimes. it’s never really that they are that outlandish – usually they’re very realistic – but the contents can be astounding. last night i dreamt that three of my coworkers died within a week. one of them being my very dear friend who i have been so concerned about while he is fighting cancer. in my dream, i even lamented about how i had been so worried about him beating the cancer and he died from this stupidly unrelated cause (the cause was linked for all three but i’m not even going to get into it because it was so stupid). one of the other guys was the one who got new lungs two and a half years ago. i cried for days walking around the office, packing up their stuff for their widows to pick up. when i woke up, my pillow and face were drenched in tears. i spent the rest of the morning going in and out of the dream and it has left me emotionally drained this morning.
he has a habit of ruining surprises. i’ve all but given up on giving him gifts because anytime i get a gift idea for him, he goes out and gets it for himself before i have a chance to give the gift. it’s frustrating. and i’m not a good gift idea-er so it’s hard enough to come up with something that i think he’ll actually like. i’ve always done whatever i could to make a big deal about his birthday but this year he’s seemed really down about it (and we’ve been crazy busy) so i didn’t really do anything. so this morning he had a board meeting for the condo association and it was the perfect opportunity for me to slip out real quick and get a birthday cake (which he’ll probably gripe about anyhow because it’s not good for you) and card. i made it to the store and back before him. i walked in the door and shouted out to him to make sure he wasn’t already home and got no response. i opened the fridge to hide the cake and he walks in the door. jerk. i yelled at him and told him i wasn’t talking to him anymore. so much for surprises.
(the earbuds are in because he got a family singing call at the same time i was singing to him)
last night was a well-deserved rest night. we napped a bit after work and then moved out to the couch to hold it down and watch tv. it’s still stormy today, although i haven’t hear about any tornado warnings around us this morning so that’s a plus. my hubby is NOT getting sick. i still feel wiped out from the weekend (most likely the complete lack of sleep saturday night combined with a very full day sunday). i wish i could get motivated like my cousin. i’m so impressed by her training for a marathon. enough nattering for now?
busy day but it’s almost over. i was happy to talk with my dad and brother today to make sure that they were both fairing well with all the wetness down yonder. looks like fay is on her way here but, unfortunately, we’re not going to be here to welcome her. i’m actually a bit bummed because i think it’s going to be beautiful. weather on the gulf is really a whole different creature. alas, this is the weekend of the annual summer family gatherings up in al. DIL’s side tomorrow, MIL’s side sunday. i’m sure fay will be gone by the time we get back home sunday night.
yesterday was a very headachy day. to the point that i had to stop working for a couple hours and lay down so that it would stop the babooming. luckily, it did get more bearable after that. in the afternoon, we dug out our snorkel gear and headed down to the beach to play around a bit. not that we expected there to be anything much to see but we’ve got to get ready for our carribean snorkeling in a month. it was fun and the fins made swimming through the water so much more effortless. i’m all for effortless. anyhow, we had a good time and found some nice, whole shells. we also went to the pool and swam some laps. i think we managed ten – not great but something. this morning, i’m completely down about work. i wish i had more options. it’s such a shame that i’ve gotten so spoiled so young (been working from home pretty much since i was nineteen, don’t know if i could go back to a true desk job). at least i’m not getting dumped on (outside of work) too.
my cousin left yesterday but we had a great weekend. sunday’s fun swimming and ‘yakking in the gulf in the morning. hubby and i paddled about a mile and a half which doesn’t sound like much but i was very proud of myself and my arms were exhausted by the time we got back. not to mention that my hands have blisters all over them from gripping the paddle. after a morning of watery fun, we grabbed some lunch and rested a bit before heading to our favorite shopping plaza to walk around in the way too hot sun. after our lap around there, we came back to the air conditioning for a little more relaxing before dinner. my cousin and i played a partial game of scrabble. i was smashing her until she managed a 92 point play and then we went back and forth for a bit. we never finished the game because hunger got the best of us. they were wanting seafood. apparently most people feel that it’s unnatural to be at the beach and not eat seafood. guess i’m just a weirdo. since we don’t go out to eat much, we couldn’t really reccommend a seafood place off the bat. we did mention a place that we keep hearing is great but we’ve not been. that’s where we went. i’m very pleased that my cousin, who is totally a foodie, could not stop raving about the food. we now have a seafood place to take people to. it was actually a nice place too. looks like such a hole-in-the-wall from the road. after dinner, we came back for more beach fun. my cousin swam by herself while me and the boys hung out on the beach. when it got dark, the crabbing commenced. hubby and my cousin were hunting the water crabs while cousin-n-law and i hunted beach crabs. i’m sure she’ll have pix up at some point on her blog. after crabbing, there was pre-bedtime wii fun. we really had a great time all weekend. i’m so glad they came to visit! after they left yesterday morning, things got way busy around here. work exploded, it was messy. last night was a bunch of being lazy. who knows what’s on tap for tonight.
we’ve been having a great time with my cousin and cousin-n-law! yesterday, they entertained themselves about town while we worked and then we all went out kayaking when we got off. apparently, i tried to kill my cousin. i’m such a failure. such is life. after the harrowing experience, we relaxed with dinner, wine, and olympics. we went to bed earlier last night than i have all week. good thing the swimming and gymnastics are wrapping up. this morning, i woke up to news about a potential hurricane heading our way. makes sense. as my cousin was packing to come up here, she assured me that her visit would bring a hurricane our way. she’s good to her word, most of the time. i’m also fully expecting her to flood my house. after a yummy breakfast – i love having a good breakfast on the weekends – we headed to seaside, where the truman show was filmed. it was a very pretty town. we walked around for a couple of hours, consumed some tasty gelatos, and then started back toward home. we stopped along the way at a similarly planned community (actually, quite similar since it was developed by the same persons who developed seaside fourteen years earlier), rosemary beach. some friends of ours recently moved there and have been trying to talk us into following so we went into the realty office and were able to go into a few condos and a house there. i doubt we’ll be moving that way but it was fun to look. the architecture in these towns was amazing but i really wasn’t all that keen on the insides. i’ve always been that way. i like the exterior look of historic homes but i really need a modern interior. it’s just how i roll. we made a lap around that town and then headed home. my cousin was jonesing to get back on the proverbial horse. luckily the water was far calmer today (yellow flag as opposed to double red) and her and i had a very nice paddle in the ‘yaks. we then went out and swam around a bit while my hubby paddled some. there was an extraordinarily large (no joking, this was the biggest i’ve ever seen!) school of fish out there that we played around with and my cousin managed to get a nice fish pedicure out of them. it was wonderful water time. there was some talk of trying to get together with mrs who but plans fell through so we went from the gulf to the pool/hot tub. we then came back up for olympics and dinner. there will likely be rockband (hubby is really pushing the rockband) and/or scrabble in our future tonight.
and they were awake inexplicably early for vacationers. if i didn’t have to work, there’s no way i’d be up that early. weirdos. they made a quick attempt at getting online but it didn’t work right away so they gave up and headed down to the beach. as well they should. early morning and evening-night are the best times for enjoying the beach, imo. i really wish that i had been able to get today off so that i could enjoy spending time with my cousin and cousin-in-law instead of sitting here working and making them play by themselves (yeh, i know that they are absolutely miserable having to spend time alone together on the beach at the gulf of mexico!). is it five yet???
yay! my cousin is coming to see me tonight!!! i hope the weather is cooperative this weekend. it’s unfortunate that the water is not very pretty right now. the very impressive storms that have come through the last few days have really mucked things up. at some point today i need to make a shopping list so that we can go right after work to get some groceries for the weekend. i’m at a loss because my cousin and cousin-in-law are gourmet cooks and i am so not. makes me wonder what i’ve fed them every other time they’ve come to visit us. hmm. in other news, the olympics are keeping me up way too late this week. i am guessing that is contributing to my migraines. it’s strange because i’ve never been an olympic watcher. really, i probably watched more last weekend than i had in my whole life. but i’ve really been enjoying it this week. not sure if i’ll really be into anything after the swimming and gymnastics are done but we’ll see. i’ve tried to get into the volleyball but i apparently have too short an attention span for that. it would be better for my head if my olympic viewing is over this weekend and i can go back to a decent bedtime next week.
since it’s been a migrainy and stormy day complete with multiple power outages, what better time to get the pix downloaded and read to post, eh? so without further ado, my pride and joy – the favors!
step one – decorating the box
step two – decorating the other side of the box
step three – personalizing chop sticks
(no, i don’t know why blogger chose to turn the pic the wrong way)
step four – candy coating the contents
turns out fortune cookies and chow mein noodles are excellent when covered in chocolate
assembly complete – commence beaming pride!
who’d’ve thought i could create something so pretty?
pretty as punch
it was such a tasty spread
i should’ve taken a closeup of the picture frame
the guests seemed to have a good time
as did the bride
i am very glad that i was able to put together a shower for one of my best friends. although i’m just as happy that it’s over. party planning is hard, stressful work! i do need to give a huge thank you to my sister’s whole family who all chipped in to help with whatever they could (not to mention lending me their house). also, without my fabulous hubby, i never would have made it. he stuck in there with me until everything was done, even after the guests started showing up. he was beyond helpful!
we left that nursing home and went to another to see hubby’s ex-grandmother-in-law. she was perfectly fine when we last saw her a couple of months ago but it seems that she has started to lose her mind since then. she didn’t know me and assumed that hubby had just gotten remarried. she was very proud to meet me and was happy to call me one of her own. i’m glad that after a couple of years of visiting her, i still make a positive first impression. she didn’t know she was in a nursing home, thought she was in the hospital and getting ready to go home. after leaving, hubby and i talked about how heartbreaking it must be to lose your mind. we are hopeful that they don’t know that it’s happening. we went from there to hubby’s ex-in-laws and went to dinner and back to their house to see a slide show from their recent 50th anniversary party. we’ve always had nice visits with them but this one seemed much more relaxed and personable than before. i guess because we were always there primarily to visit granny a, they didn’t feel as relaxed. who knows. it was a pleasant evening but, as always, i left saddened by the fact that i have a better relationship with my husband’s ex-in-laws than with my own mother. his ex-MIL hugs me and tells me she loves me; mine told me two years ago that she didn’t want to see me or talk to me anymore. such is life, eh? we got back and spent some time with MIL and FIL before going to bed. unfortunately, i was not to get any sleep whatsoever saturday night. that’s when the storms rolled through from fay’s outer bands. generally, a storm doesn’t bother me but the wind was so strong and swirly-sounding i was certain that we were going to be carried away in a tornado. i can take a hurricane any day, i am terrified of a tornado. even after hubby got up in the morning and the weather had calmed down some, i wasn’t able to get a nap in. made for a very long day yesterday. we had our family-gathering at gma m’s house which was bought by a grandchild after her passing this year. it was the first time i had been back there and i was afraid that it was going to be awkward and sad but it wasn’t. the cousins have done a nice job of opening things up and utilizing the house more. it was a good turnout (all but two grandchildren+ showed up) and everyone had a good time. i felt a little bad for cousin’s wife because she was so worried about everything being perfect and everyone being comfortable and after twenty or thirty minutes there, the power went out. it stayed out the whole afternoon (despite the power company’s estimated fix-time that came and went with no power). luckily, it was a breezy afternoon so with the windows open, it was fairly comfortable and the food was being cooked via propane anyhow so no plans were disturbed. we got on the road late in the afternoon and made it home around 22:00 last night. we asked around and fay was a non-event around here (“how was the storm?” “storm? what storm?”). now can we all agree that it’s friday and get on with our three-day weekend?