Seattle Teaser

Seattle was amazing. Wayne and I chose Seattle because I have a super close friend that lives there who offered us a place to stay. We were trying to be economical since I was still unemployed at the time we booked the tickets (and technically still am unemployed). I think it worked out very nicely because we were able to spend money on entertainment that we might have limited if we were paying for 4 nights of lodging! I'll write a blog detailing my trip but for now, check out my favorite pic.

I took it from a sailboat in the Puget Sound. If you thought about it, it was somewhat scary because we were in the ocean ocean. Yeah. We saw dolphins, sea lions and huge jumping salmon. We were unbelievably lucky. But the scary part came from being so close to the water that you could touch it while sitting in the boat and from the boat's owner talking about tipping the boat over. He wasn't talking about it like a joke, he was giving us serious instructions about high side (which we're old pro's at because of white water rafting) and about how to climb back onto the boat once in the water. I'm sure a good boat owner would provide these types of instructions just as a doctor would let you know before removing a tooth that you could get an infection and die, but ignorance is bliss. I was having too much fun to think about the possibilities but I did ask if the sea lions would eat me. He said they're mean bastards. Uhh. So I pushed the whole thing out of my mind and took pictures instead.

Stay tuned. More to come....

I Should Be Sleeping!

I get like this. I'm an overly excited individual which isn't shocking to anyone that actually knows me. So, it's not shocking that I've taken an Advil PM just now. I'm too excited to sleep! Seattle is tomorrow! Super early I might add. I have to get up around 4:30am in order to shower and get ready in time! But, what is exciting is that I'm taking tons of new jeans!

So, on my To-Do list was to sort through all my clothes, books and shoes and make a goodwill pile. Well, Howdy. I made about 7 goodwill piles just out of my clothes and shoes! I haven't gone through my books yet. But what's more exciting, is that while going through my clothes, I rediscovered a ton of cute jeans that were sitting there wasting away with no one to love them. But here I am! And I have love waiting! They are so cute! They fit perfectly and make me feel unbelievably hot and skinny! I have another ~5 pair that are still slightly too tight but I am anxiously awaiting to wear. All of the jeans that were hanging out in my jean drawer were just waiting to be worn. Waiting until I was skinny enough again and today, we rejoiced; the jeans and I.

I'll have to post some pictures when I get back but for now, just know that I did the happy dance more than I think I've ever done in a single day. I may have winked at myself in the mirror while wearing said hot pants. And it's quite possible I told myself that I was "one hot mama" while trying on Seattle outfits with new jeans. Hot Damn, I'm still excited about the find!

Weird Mental Flaw

I guess I've forgotten about this weird little mental quirk thing that I have but it's recently resurfaced so I thought I'd bring it up.

Basically, there's a lot of change in my future. A new job. That doesn't really capture the amount of change associated with this one. I guess I should say, my first client. A move. My car tires need to be changed but that also doesn't capture the change either. I've started weighing the amount of money required to change out all my rims and tires so that they're not so LOW LOW LOW profile (the lowest profile that exists = major problem) with just getting a new car. After all, the next car I'll need is a mommy car. (No news here, just my obsessive future planning.) I decided not to get a new one yet, but that was part of the changes that was leading to my mental disorder.

My mental issue is: I don't like to give up things or get rid of things or leave things and I think I get an unusual attachment to items.

I've been watching this new series on A&E about Hoarders and I am very thankful that I don't have that disorder (I absolutely HATE clutter) but maybe I have a semi-pre-hoarding disorder. The mental issues that come with it but not the physical reaction to it? Or maybe I'm just normal and other people get this sometimes too.

I hate leaving old homes, even though they've always been apartments. I haven't started my overly positive feelings about this apartment yet, but I know it'll happen. I end up taking pictures of every room so that I can remember it in the future - like it matters in 10 years? And once I move from here, I'll think of it lovingly like a dead relative or something. No matter how great it was or not. I'll think - "Oh, if we still lived there blah blah blah." Or "How wonderful was it to live there."

I HATE getting rid of cars. I've owned 3 now. My first car was VERY difficult to let go even though it had more than 200,000 miles on it. My sweet trusty Honda Accord. I wanted to keep it along with my new 4runner. Thankfully my parents said Hell No! Otherwise, you might have driven by my house and there would be a Honda used as a planter in the front yard. Even though I've had TONS of problems with the wheels on my Scion tC, I started thinking about getting rid of it and began my overly positive thinking about it and how wonderful it really is. Even thinking about changing the tires from 18" to 17" makes me pout. I feel like I'm going to look at it later and think -"Remember when I had 18" wheels? That was nice." Seriously? This is a mental problem!!!

My oddest attachment was to the calculator I used throughout High School. Yeah, how odd is that? I carried it around like a good luck charm when I got to college. Even though it had broke by that time and was just unusable junk. Even though I feel like I'm throwing a part of myself away, I do eventually part with things.

Although most of you won't understand this, I have a very strong attachment to my piercings. Although when my mom reads this, she'll freak out but I've even thought about getting some dermal anchors. No mom, I'm not getting any more so settle down! The problem is, I'm 30 now. Aren't I growing out of the piercing stage? But I've been trying to gradually retire some and have successfully retired 4 now. I generally end up panicking and trying to put the jewelry back in a partially closed hole. I asked Wayne to take out my nape and as soon as it was out I told him to put it back in. He wouldn't and thus a successfully retired nape. The 2 hardest ones to retire will be my vertical labret and my stretched lobes. Although saying this freaks out my parents and even Wayne, I really want to stretch them larger. It's a totally different post but it's constantly a struggle for me to NOT be who I want. Everyone is against me on this from family and friends to my career. For example, I want a full sleeve. Could I still be a successful engineer? A career that promotes the nerds with pocket protectors and works around their fear of human contact. It's conservative. I'm not. So, years of conforming to what everyone else thinks I should look like really suppresses me. Maybe that's part of my attachment to my piercings. Each piercing I retire is another win for everyone BUT me. Each one I retire is another step toward conservatism or at least the appearance of it. Thinking about that right now makes me want to rebel and get another 10 piercings. I'm totally off subject now.

Does anyone else have this odd attachment to certain items? I just threw away some 1000 thread count sheets that had ripped. I didn't feel an attachment to them but it did kind of kill me because I wanted to use them to make something. I hated wasting all the good fabric. Another example; my couch. It's seen better days but it's structurally awesome and it IS Italian leather and high quality. My parents have the same couch and told me I could have it since they're getting new furniture. That means I need to get rid of my worn couch. It's kind of killing me to get rid of it. I am afraid no one will love it because of it's exterior flaws but I know it's still worth loving. Which is why I wouldn't have gotten rid of it without a push from my parents and a brand new free couch. Sigh. Mental issues, people. Mental issues. Who's with me?

Super Woman Taking on the World One Disk Bulge at a Time!

The same day as my last post, Wayne and I decided it was time to jump back on the workout wagon and we went to lift. It was 'legs' day so I was thinking that'd be ok and wouldn't hurt my already aching back. In reality, it DID hurt my already aching back. The pain began to increase and increase until the next morning when I couldn't move. Wayne had to help me stand and sit, help me roll over and I had to tell him seriously not to make any funny faces or to joke around in the slightest. Every laugh, sneeze, cough and even some things I said would spike my back pain to unbelievable levels. After having Wayne stand me up (I cried), slowly walk me to the car and sit me in it (I cried) and going to see a chiropractor, I was all better.

Just kidding.

I wasn't all better!!! I had a bulged disk and a slipped disk. I guess that meant I needed an adjustment but the inflammation and pain was too severe to really do anything. He iced me, put some muscle stimulators on me and let me lay on a tracking table and $100 later, I was told to go home and ice it. Thanks doc. He should have at least thrown me some pain meds or muscle relaxants, in my opinion. So, after walking like a granny to the car and laying down in the back seat (I BARELY got out of it) I was home icing. Here it is, 1 week later and I'm ALMOST back to my "normal" back pain level. I can move on my own but still find myself supporting my back with one hand and cocked to the side to alleviate some pain from said bulge.

So, I'm just laying around eating Bon-Bons and watching trash TV.

Just kidding.

No time, people! I've successfully (yet to be determined) set up my new engineering company (hehe. It still sounds cool/stressful to me), purchased liability insurance and begun, in true engineering style, to compare available housing rentals to apartment complexes in Westy. This weekend should be jam packed with apartment hunting. But that's not all I can handle. I've also been weighing my options as far as my car tires are concerned. They're low profile and suck hugely. Do I get smaller rims and normal tires or new low profile ($200 a piece) high performance tires?

And that's not all!

I'm getting my car emissioned today. We're driving to L-town to help my parents move some furniture later on tonight, I'm putting some items on Craigs List, continuing my apartment search, finishing reading the contracts for my new job, still haven't missed a beat with babysitting, shopping for a bunch of necessities that we've put on the back burner, actually purchasing some rims/tires for my car and lets not forget the photo project! All with a busted-ass back and a Seattle vacation coming up. Phew. I cannot handle another anything!

Oh Wait, I can!

I just started my period! Hurray for me! Just what I needed to add to an already aching back - more back pain! Yea! So, I'm starting to feel like super woman. I CAN take on the world! It's currently on my shoulders.

Havoc Wrecker

I've been talking about my stress levels lately from juggling 3 job opportunities that really just became 1 job opportunity but hopefully things get back to normal soon. I think they will. I'll be accepting a job today and we'll be moving closer to Boulder in 1 month. Moving = stress. The move is already causing me an elevated blood pressure due to the fact that I have no idea what our future holds. Before anyone says, "No one does" generally you have a good idea because you have a permanent position somewhere. My new job is only a 3 monther. I guess there's potential for an extended contract or a permanent job in 2010, but I'm not holding my breath especially because of the type of work I've been FORCED into.

My new company will only hire me as an independent contractor which kind of means they're not my "new company" but rather my "new client." What does that mean? Well, it means I'm going to be applying for my own LLC, probably today. It means no paid vacation, sick time, health insurance, life insurance or retirement plan. But what it does mean is money that would make your eyes bulge out and drop to the ground. Well, maybe not that much, but it seems very unreal and I want to take as much advantage of the money as I can because I'm not expecting anything more than 3 months of work. Honestly, I feel skeptical that I'll have a full 480 hours of work. I just feel really nervous about the whole thing because I didn't CHOOSE this route. However, I keep trying to tell myself that With Risk Comes Reward. I've been given information about liability insurance, a friend has given me some ideas about business write offs, I've been researching individual insurance and soon I'll see if there are ways around the retirement thing.

Side Note about the retirement thing: If you work for a company that offers a 401k, you can put away $15,500 per year in tax free money plus another $5K in an individual retirement account but if you don't have this option available to you, you're only allowed the $5,000. This is obviously a huge drawback to someone who's first priority is to retire. Yes, I'm 30 but I have my eye on the ball.

Also, with being your own company, you have different taxes and you have to pay into the government quarterly. I truly think I need to talk to a tax guy or a financial advisor in order to make the most of my 3 months of pay. Should I invest my "taxes" to get a little interest? But then after thinking about all the damn hassle, I wonder if any of this is worth it for 3 months? Blah. But, good news is that after only 2 months, I'll have made as much as I would in 8 months of unemployment, so it's really a good deal financially for me. Another positive is that I'll have dipped my toes into the water of my own business and have learned the majority of unknowns that would have held me back from this option during my career. Many engineers are self employed so getting into this now is very valuable information that will help me during my career. And, honestly, I'm not a risk taker by nature so this would have been an option that I found too risky at any other point in my life to actually venture into it by choice, so being forced (with my personality) is a good thing. However, with that comes stress. The stress and worry that would have held me back and kept me in the safe zone. I really love the safe zone.

Wow. I just had a thought. I've been trying to figure out what my dream meant and it just may be about the my job situation.

Diversion: Dream
I was at the beach in Mexico standing at this tiki hut bar when these Mexican guys came up and touched the vacationer that was standing next to me at the tiki hut. I interpreted this in my dream as an adult game of TAG. I thought it looked fun and I also assumed that I was on "base" so I couldn't be tagged. I stopped touching the tiki bar and tagged one of the Mexican guys and then leaned back onto the bar with my umbrella drink. There's some fuzziness about how the next events transpired but a group of Mexican guys start after me and I realize they want to really hurt or kill me. They were closing in so I grabbed the only thing around me to protect myself which was a fire poker. It had a burning ember on the end and when trapped, I was forced to protect myself and I burned the guy's eyes out. The rest of the guys chased me to the tiki bar, which I was still assuming was my safe zone.

Hmm. I wonder. I always do have crazy dreams but I always think that they're trying to communicate something to me.

Anyway, now my goal is to find housing. We're trying to decide between another year of apartment living or renting a house. We really love the convenience of having a full gym within 200 ft of us and we've been enjoying the hot tub lately but there's potential to enjoy a pool as well (our current one is 3 1/2 ft all the way around = sucks). The housing upside is more room, 2 car garage and a yard to enjoy. Also, this will ease us into the expense of owning a home because we'll probably buy a new washer and dryer as well as potentially some lawn care items aka a lawn mower AND we won't live under stompy. I guess we'll see what calls to us.

As far as the title (yeah, long way to go for this explanation, aye?) the fires in California are wrecking havoc on everyone here in Colorado! And boy do I feel it! I'm allergic to smoke, so the smoke in the air that's just hanging out in Colorado is causing me MAJOR sneeze attacks and the other day I almost rubbed my eye raw. Yes. Raw. Also, little Adaleigh has been coughing and sneezing and her nose is stuffed up. I don't think she has a cold. I think it's the smoke. Wayne has also been having congestion problems, which is to be expected, since he works 10hr days in the middle of Denver swimming in the fire smoke.

Well, that's all of my randomness for today. Fire, 401K, housing dilemma, LLC, dream interpretation and job status update. Phew. That's a lot of randomness!

Fun Side of Vegas

Vegas wasn't all bad. We also had some fun while we were out there. Most of these pictures are from the lingerie shower which was the best part of Vegas hands down. Also, I haven't developed my film yet (disposable camera) so I may be putting some additional ones up later but these capture most of our trip.

If you haven't been to this place, you MUST check it out next time you're in Vegas.
It's in the Excalibur and forewarning, they act like Dicks! They really do. They told us to sit down and shut up when we got there and when we tried to pull the table out from the wall they yelled at us for touching their furniture. But once you know they're going to act like that, it becomes funny. Why is that? Anyway, here I am; pre-hat.

As a somewhat lengthy side note: I really broke out of my comfort zone, clothing-wise while in Vegas. I don't "bare" my shoulders as above. No way. In fact, I'm generally anti anything that shows my body, especially my arms/shoulders. But knowing it was going to be 105 F the first day we got there, I didn't want to look like an Eskimo, so I bought a few halter tops/tube tops to take with me. That's not the only thing different about my attire... it was girly. It's taken me THIS many years to become feminine and now I don't know how to pull it off. So, my friends helped accessorize me as well as gave me tons of compliments to help me feel confident in clothes that I felt frankly, a little slutty. And, later on you'll see me in a dress. Two nights I wore dresses that my friends loaned me. It's crazy because I'm definitely a jeans girl but I consider it all growth and hopefully I can hold onto some of that new found confidence and buy myself some clothing that keeps me in this new style. What I would really love is if I could wear casual dresses as part of my normal attire. Gasp. Yes.

The first hat of the night. It truly was hilarious, as you see Kim laughing her ass off in the background.

This is probably the best picture I've taken in YEARS. Hell, maybe ever. I was concerned about getting hat head, so my hat was off for this one.

My hat is supposed to say: Taken more loads in da rear than Fed Ex. There's an error on it but people got the gist and thought it was funny regardless.

More dirty hats and lots of smiles.

The older ladies that accompanied us had lots of fun as well, which was nice. They could have been proper and uptight about the whole thing but they thought it was funny. I had to explain to my friend's Aunt what a GILF was and looking back I should have said it gentler but that's just not me. Gentle. Maybe I will become more so if I wear more dresses. Hmm.

Check out our waiter. Yeah, not shy and definitely crude. He's the author of all of our hats.

Front of a hat:

Back of the hat:

And now for the customary bachelorette party shot. At this point, all the lingerie had been opened and "tried on" as you can see.

The mother in law also took one, which surprised me. I like that she was fun about the whole thing because she seemed more Mom-ish than Party Mom.

And she tried to take the shot but it didn't happen the way it was supposed to. She ended up sipping the remaining shot like it was a fine scotch. I wish I had a picture of that because that was the mom-style I expected from her. Great effort though.

Apparently there was confusion all around when the bill came. haha.

I'm not sure if this was the next morning or just a morning while there but I was convinced to not shower and boy, did I look like hell. I'm not a roll and go kind of a girl. I'm also not a pony tail in public kind of girl. But I was breaking all my other barriers, so why stop? Uh, this is why.

Here is the congratulations hug after the ceremony. I'm wearing my friend's dress!!!

Here's the 3 of us at the reception dinner. I can't remember what the restaurant is called but it was buffet style and I majorly overate. I really don't know why. I felt like I could actually throw up and then I didn't have room for dessert. Bummer. In fact I felt so HUGE that I didn't want to even take this picture. And I was wearing a dress with spandex or something in it, so it was tight and was going to give with my growing stomach so I was chugging water to aid in digestion hoping I didn't look like hell in that dress for the remainder of the night.
Here's a few of us posing after dinner. I think it's funny that my dress matches the wall behind us.
This was the night I felt most comfortable because I resisted the dresses and wore jeans. I felt unbelievably happy in that outfit. Breaking out of your comfort zone really increases your anxiety so without it, I was finally able to cut loose in Vegas. I'm giving a kissy face.
And here, I'm obviously having some fun posing at the bar. This "bar" was in the middle of the mall but it had closed at this point.

There's no pictures of us gambling but we played some tables, I got scolded a few times for not knowing the proper etiquette at the craps tables and we played some slots. Gambling's fun. I'd love to take a little bit of money for that next time but I think I ended up spending $40, so that's not bad. I'm glad I didn't count my chickens before they hatched and went crazy because it's starting to seem like I'll remain unemployed. I wanted to congratulate myself with a cool purchase of something but thankfully it didn't pop up.

Hope you enjoyed my fun time in Vegas.

Mental Exhaustion

Do you know how sometimes you're just SO tired of thinking that you can't even gather up enough energy to explain the situation? That's how I'm feeling right now. I've been caught up in a lot of mentally taxing things lately and I feel like throwing a tantrum. I bet I'd feel a lot better if I just could.

The latest has been the 3 potential job opportunities that fell in my lap all at once. When I say at once, I mean I scheduled 2 interviews one day with a 3rd potential the following day. They were scheduled 1 week apart. At the end of the 1st interview, I told them that I had another interview scheduled for the following week and that I was going to pursue all opportunities before making a decision. They sounded fine with the plan. The following day, I received an offer for that job. Great, right? Wrong. They lost all control and professionalism when they started hassling me. The recruiter was a freaking idiot and told them I had accepted the job. Basically she was telling me that I had to fill out some paperwork in order to get a background check and then the next minute she makes a comment, "Ok, so we'll send that paperwork over to you and get you on the payroll." It didn't dawn on me that she must have begun talking about some different "paperwork" until after we hung up. I had to call her back and ask how a background check puts me on the payroll. So after setting her straight, she tells me that she already told the hiring manager that I had accepted. Whatever idiot, set them straight!

So, then the hiring manager calls me and leaves me a message. The message was confusing and I didn't know what the point of it was. He just said that I probably already heard from the recruiter that they'd like to extend an offer to me. He also said he was aware I had another interview that I was going to pursue. Then he left his number. I gathered he just meant for me to call him once I'd determined which position was right for me. Fine, everything's still good.

2nd interview - went well but it's not clear yet if this is to be a long term contract or merely 1 month of work. He's to get back to me my the end of the week. However, that leaves 3 days for the 1st job to badger me and they did. I received multiple phone calls, emails asking which offer I was going to accept, what my decision was going to be based on, what salary was the other offering me? I shouldn't have to explain to a recruiter that you don't walk out of an interview with an offer. Generally, it takes some time to discuss the candidate and put together an offer. But, that's what I found myself doing. I also found myself carefully wording an email describing the standard soft and hard criteria most people base their acceptance criteria on when choosing between two jobs. Although the words and tone suggested that they were merely inquiring for sake of increasing my offer, the feeling I got was that they were trying to determine if they should pull it. They wrote me back letting me know they would be willing to increase my offer and to talk to them once I heard what my other position offered. So, I think I must have had a wrong feeling about the intention of their email.

Friday - I was supposed to hear about the second job. I didn't. This is STANDARD from pretty much EVERY job interview I've had. The company is always too busy to get back to you timely and never contact you when they say they will. The candidate is always twiddling their thumbs waiting for a response and showing that they're patient. And hey, it hadn't even been 48 hours since my interview so I feel that it's within reason to expect a FEW days to discuss and decide on a candidate before extending an offer. However, 1st interview place is chompin' at the bit. I'm starting to get aggravated. I'm starting to think I don't want this position if they're going to treat me like this. It's not like I sprung this on them.

THEY KNEW THIS FROM DAY 1!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grr. Why am I messin' around with all this anyway? Well, because of job 3. This is the one I really wanted. It was with a prestigious pharmaceutical company, exact location I wanted, exact job duties I wanted and hey, my perfect salary to boot. Supposedly they had extended an offer to one candidate that had until Thur afternoon to decide if they would accept the offer. I'm thinking PERFECT! I'll know if I have an interview with them by Friday and potentially 2 other offers. But by Friday I hear they've put the position on hold until November.

OK, 1st choice is out and I'm down to 2. I don't hear anything from job #2 on Friday. Damn. So, now it's Monday Bloody Monday. I had decided at this point that if I didn't hear from Job #2 today with an offer that I would just go ahead and accept job #1 with those impatient bastards. But hello!?! What's in my inbox? A bite me. They have pulled my offer because they want someone who wants the job. I've never said I didn't want the job and at this point it hadn't even been 2 weeks from the date of my interview or offer. They agreed to sit tight while I interviewed, so why pull it like this? Why were they all freaking impatient anyway? Why so unprofessional?

On top of it all, I still don't know if job #2's contract is a puny month or a full year. So, I may have lost all that money job #1 was offering me for nothing. I still don't blame myself though. They acted like a bipolar ex boyfriend that found me looking at someone else. Offering me more money and then pulling it all the next day. What does that accomplish? Good luck suckers. You were obviously desperate for me because you couldn't find anyone as good so have fun scraping the bottom of the barrel, assholes.

Vegas is All About the Numbers

Apparently what happens in Vegas comes home with you.

I wish the "Vegas" story I had for you all today was that I danced on a table, kissed a midget and tripped on the strip showing my panties, but unfortunately my story is about a scarred friendship. The extent of the damage remains unknown.

My oldest friend (of 21 years now) and I have remained best friends even after her family moved 1850 miles away to Florida while we were in High School. I've considered her the female friend equivalent of my soul mate. She seems to help me through tough decisions, laying out options I hadn't thought of and generally putting a gentler approach to how I should handle a situation. She helps me look at both sides of a conflict and approaches so much of life in a non-judgemental fashion that I have always envied her unbiased nature. I wouldn't imagine in a million years that we would have a fight so serious it threatens our relationship and even more shocking that it would be about money.

First of all, anyone that knows me knows that I am very giving with my money however in this economy (and having survived without income for 8 months now) I'm trying to be smart. After looking at my bank account, I was hoping to be a little more restrictive while in Vegas, but it proves my point even more with the number of rounds I bought the girls and paying more than my fair share for dinners, but if this is about money, I'm going to give you some solid numbers. I'll simplify things and even throw out some free money while I'm at it.

Free Money:
My friend's wedding presents
My friend's baby shower gift
The presents I bought for her daughter for Christmas and her birthday

Those 4 things total about $500. I completely enjoy gift giving and it makes me happy, besides the fact that I don't have any children and haven't been married, so I'll assume my friend would have thrown a little somethin' my way had those events taken place. Would I have cared if she didn't buy me some fat present for any of those things? No, but she wanted to gamble with our 21 year friendship for the sake of $60, so I'll talk numbers. If we were to freeze time at the time of the money fight, this $500 should have also been reason not to bring up my contribution.

Flights:
Denver to Orlando: $208 (supposedly this was a Southwest half price deal, therefore I'll use it to determine what I paid for previous tickets) 2009
$416 For my friend's wedding ~2002
$416 Just to visit friend while in college ~1998

Denver to Vegas: $184 for my friend's baby shower 2008
$335 Wayne and I visited friend and her husband in 2007
$160 for this last weekend (which was just to see my friend) 2009

Total: $1719

I'd also like to mention that 2 of those tickets to see my friend were while unemployed, especially this last trip to Vegas was one I shouldn't have made financially. The only reason I did was because my friend said she'd pay for the room. I figured I'd let her since she was going out there for her cousin's wedding with or without me and also had another friend going that was splitting the room with her. I was going to sleep on the couch. Plus, she was going to get the room for $59 a night because her husband works for the hotel chain. She made it sound like if I could find a cheap ticket, I should come see her. So, for the sole purpose of seeing her, I was willing to spend $160 plus entertainment.

Now, let's talk about how much she's put down to see me. Zero. She has never come to see me. She has never put out for a flight to see me. Ever.

Heidi: $1700, Friend: $0

Her excuse is that she has a husband and now a 1 yr old. Neither stopped her from going to Vegas last weekend and my boyfriends have never stopped me from seeing her, so I don't see how her having a husband should have anything to do with it.

She was upset because I wasn't either paying my third of the room or hadn't bought them dinner. I honestly never remember us making some "deal" that I would buy them dinner one night but it's chump change compared the amount I've already contributed to our relationship and at this point, should not have been brought up either way. During the argument her friend tried to calm me down by saying, "Is $60 worth throwing away a lifelong friendship?" Well, no, obviously to me, the one who has already spent $1700 in trips JUST to see her, it's not. But I'm not the one that gambled with our friendship for $60. It would seem to me that if anyone should be called out for their lack of financial contribution, it should be her.

And so, I am still brewing about this. The one thing I believe is apparent that I do, is contribute financially to our friendship and now, the other thing that is apparent is that it is not reciprocated nor appreciated. In poker terms, I've picked up my remaining chips, although down FAR more than my opponent. I stand by the table thinking about the awful hand I just had as well as the long streak of good fortune and wondering if these cards have just gone cold or if I should continue to throw more chips in.

Running Ragged

Wow. I have been running my ass off lately.

Last week there was a lot of time put into my photo project, cleaning and getting the guest room ready for my Grandma to stay, planning weight conscious meals to make while she was here, grocery shopping and then at the last minute I decided to make her a 200 pic photo album, complete with descriptions and dates next to each picture and my mom said for her birthday she'd like a multi-pic frame with pictures of Kudra. So, basically I had 3 photo projects to complete and I still had my mind on losing weight and getting ready for Vegas. Wow. I should have started as much as I could earlier but I also had a full Saturday which included driving 1 hr away for a friend's baby shower and then back for babysitting.

The hurrying just continued right up until white water rafting. Wayne and I had to plan out what items we were going to take (which honestly I hate that the camping group told us to fend for ourselves instead of everyone making one meal for everyone else) and Wayne, being the grill master that he is, wanted to make special things rather than easy things. So, while I was babysitting on Thur night, Wayne went grocery shopping. Then Friday Wayne got off work early to start food prep. Yep, marinating shrimp, slicing meat, peppers and mushrooms for kabobs, getting ingredients ready for Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches and putting a butter/herb mixture on the corn on the cob... We got up to the camp site late. Whatever, no biggie, we got the tent set up easily and that was all I was really worried about.

So, relaxing this week? Nope. I'm going to a wedding while in Vegas and I wanted to get a dress before I got there. My dear friend, Kim, is bringing me a boat load of dresses that she thinks might work for my body type (humongous boobs) but I'm afraid none of them will look well and I'll have to skip the wedding... by myself. Boo. So, dragging my awesome boyfriend along, we go dress shopping until 9pm two nights this week. No luck. I find out I have babysitting tonight and it was conflicting with an interview. Quickly reschedule the interview to yesterday but Oh Wait... how/when am I going to drive 1hr away to drop off Kudra at my parents house? (Wayne is going on a guys only wake boarding trip this weekend while I'm in Vegas). I was going to get off babysitting and run 45 minutes away to some mall to meet my parents to give them a key to our apartment so that they can just pick up Kudra.

Tuesday night in bed I was stressin' about studying for my interview and feeling unprepared. My neck muscles started to spasm and I was so cranky from feeling overwhelmed and mentally exhausted! Wednesday, get up and study my ass off about all the affects different conditions have on peak shape, fronting, tailing, baseline drift, baseline noise, attenuation, Signal-to-noise ratio, etc, etc. None of which they asked me. Damn. That was a waste of a day that I could have used to grocery shop!

After the interview, Wayne went dress shopping with me until 9pm again. On the way home, I realize he hadn't eaten dinner and we obviously didn't cook anything. So I suggest we stop for a footlong from Subway. That way he'll have something to eat for dinner and for lunch the next day. I caved and got one too. I'm on NO CARBS people! That wasn't good. I only have 2 more pounds to lose in one day before Vegas, so last night caving was inappropriate. Oh well. So, I'm finally going to sleep last night and I get a text asking me to babysit longer than planned. Ok, scrap the mall meet-up. *Sigh* Honestly I think I was too worked up to sleep well last night. I kept waking up at random hours to think about the interview, that I had no dress, which clothes I'm taking to Vegas, which shoes should I take?, should I grocery shop for Wayne tomorrow?, what's still on my to-do list? Remember to check in at 4:10!!!! My toes are painted... Yes, just a random slew of things running over and over again through my mind.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR VEGAS!

Check out the adorable girl I get to babysit tonight.
And here's my new favorite picture of us from a previous babysitting experience.

On top of all that, I have another interview when I get back from Vegas. I know, I know, it's good. But part of me is starting to feel sad about working. There's the photo project and all the books I wanted to read and my working out... I guess you make sacrifices for money. I just hope the intensity of my happiness isn't sacrificed as well...

Camping & White Water Rafting

This past weekend, Wayne and I went camping and White Water Rafting with a couple friends. When we pulled into the camping site, we checked in and there were multiple hummingbird feeders. I didn't fully capture the mosquito effect that the swarm of hummingbirds created around the feeder because they were too damn quick. But there's 4 in this picture. I seriously thought they were going to fly into the car. I was not injured in the process of taking this picture.
Here's a picture of our friends cooking their first meal. They had kabobs.

Brandon and Wayne with headlamps. I think Wayne was getting ready to throw a "gang" sign. He was trying to throw a "C" for "Centennial" and a "GV" for "Greenwood Village." Both are towns that we represent, yo.

Brandon and Wayne still with headlamps. They came in handy for the late night game of lawn golf. Wayne and I.
Here's the group in the morning eating breakfast burritos. They were yummy but I should have stuck to our reduced sugar oatmeal instead.

This might still be the first night but it's hard to tell since everyone basically wore the same clothes all weekend. We were sitting around the picnic bench playing games. Our friends think they're funny so they played one joke on me and a different joke on Wayne. This picture was probably mid-Wayne joke.

And final Wayne joke. I wasn't in on the joke, so when he turned to me to say something I told him he had stuff all over his face and the joke was over. They would have gone on and on painting his face up with soot. I'm glad I noticed though so we could all laugh before Wayne had a fully dirty face. He was a good sport as usual.

We cleaned his face up a little later on and took a self pic.

And another one.

These girls are ALWAYS fully equipped with jello shots. It was Erin's birthday so she got all the cherry ones. Here she is with one and teasing Wayne about being shorter than her. She is quite tall for a girl but it looks like barely taller than Wayne.

A group pic the second night. From left to right; Brandon, Wayne, myself, Erin, Allison (Erin's sister), and Shannon.

No pics of white water rafting since my camera isn't water proof but I've been told I'd get copies so hopefully I'll post a few of those later. It was fun, but I did learn a little about water height and "Big Water" vs. "Technical Rafting." The water was at 700 [I forget the unit - cfs or maybe it's measured in meters? Yep - I don't remember the unit] which made for technical rafting. That just meant there were more rocks to dodge so there was more paddling involved, which was fun. However, the first 5 miles or so were only Class II which is like a lazy river. If you fell out, you might have rolled your ankle because the water was so low. We're at the end of the season though, so next year we'll go when the water is super high and fast, around 3200 [whatever the unit is]. As you can see, 3200 vs 700 is a huge difference in water velocity. Next year, we'll go in June when it's Big Water season and probably multiply the danger and fun by 5!

Photo Project 2009 - Edit Edition

I asked for a photo editing book for Christmas last year and was so happy to get one. It explains (with pictures!) how to do everything in Photoshop Elements 2 & 4 as well as Photoshop 7 & Photoshop CS. I have Photoshop Elements 6... but I figured most of the icons and functions would be the same and the reason I wanted this editing book is because it showed you step by step instructions with screen shots! Perfect for the photoshop illiterate. Honestly though, I didn't know I'd be using it this this extent. I wanted it originally so that I could learn to layer for making my own birth announcements or Christmas cards, etc. But, it all started with this photo. Wayne said it's his very favorite picture of us. I asked him if he'd like it to be one of our 8 x 10's and he said no because his teeth are yellow in comparison to mine. I must admit, I'm constantly complemented on my teeth and have been forever. I consider them one of my best physical attributes. So, it's not really that Wayne's teeth are yellow as much as it is that mine are so white. At first I started trying to paint them white and you can imagine they looked ridiculous! There's far too many shades and shadows and highlights in every part of a photo that you need something more sophisticated than a paint brush. Well, I flipped open my handy dandy photo how-to and BAM... white as mine. Check it out.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Next up was this cool artistic looking picture of Wayne. But there's a branch awkwardly ruining the moment.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I wanted to blow this next picture up to a 5 x 7 but your eye is drawn to the white bra strap instead of Adaleigh.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

There were some other cool editing techniques that I learned that aren't shown and are more subtle but really make a big difference. For instance, whitening the whites of your eyes, applying a Gaussian blur to skin to make it more even, brightening the iris's and of course, fixing red eye. I even figured out how to fix animal's eyes which glow yellow/green with the flash versus red for people.

But the coolest edit I did all day was the set below.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's interesting how looking so intensely at someones pupils and facial imperfections make you have a warmer regard for them. I don't know how to describe it, but it's almost as if you're touching them, helping them. The picture above I kept saying, "Here you go little buddy" as I was "fixing" his hair.

Anyway, for my first attempt at editing, I'm pleased with what I've learned. I hope to continue learning more techniques to save pictures and make them worthy of larger print sizes. And this is why it took me 4 days to finish Part 1 of my photo project. Today, however, I feel so happy to walk through my home and see so many new pictures up everywhere. Pictures have a way of making your dwelling feel more like a home.

Photo Project 2009

My grandma is coming out for a visit next week so it's a great reason to start a long overdue photo project. This project is a WHOPPER! Basically I have 2,400 pictures from the past 3 years that I need to edit (HUGE project), print and organize into multiple photo albums and picture frames. But the first step is just to determine which photos I want to print, in which size and get them edited, printed and hung up.

I have a cool frame that holds 3 landscape or portrait, depending on which way you hang it. I had a cool idea of where it would go, which direction and what the subject would be; Kudra. So, I spend all day editing my favorite pictures of Kudra. I also learned how to edit landscape pictures into portrait pictures which is SO cool because who ever has enough portraits? Note to self: Take portrait pics. I only need 3 of the following for my frame, but I thought I'd give Wayne some choices.

A very odd place for Kudra to chill... under the table. Crazy Dog!
My all time favorite of Kudra. She's on a damn window sill, off the ground and this seems more characteristic of a cat than a dog! She's so funny. I also love that the pic has such sharp contrast and even that Kudra blends into the shadow so that the viewer is recognizing her standing on the window sill rather than details of her appearance.
Kudra in the mountains during our annual Changing Aspens trip.

Typical Kudra doing her trademark "beg." I think it's cute and my family and friends think this is adorable so, she gets many requests for her "trick."

Slightly blurry but kind of artistic shot of Kudra on our patio.

Kudra posing. She looks like a queen dog, all proper and pretty.

A cute picture of Kudra getting settled to lay down. Her ears go forward and she makes that face. TOO CUTE!

Excited about my accomplishments I show Wayne all the edited pictures and ask him which are his favorites and if he liked my fabulous frame location and he vetoes everything! He chose a different location for the frame which was my second choice but he isn't particularly thrilled about ANY of the Kudra pics I picked out and edited. ARG! He said I came closest with the blurry Kudra next to our patio wall thing with the green trees over her head.

So, today's project; Kudra photo shoot.

"You're The Problem With Our Society"

Over the weekend, I went a friend's BBQ and early on, almost immediately after we arrived, the topic of unemployment came up. I was the only one there unemployed and it seems that I am the only one struggling through the world alone. I know the unemployment rates paint a different picture, but if I ask my friends if they know anyone besides me that is unemployed they will recall their company having layoffs but personally? No.

I recently began researching the requirements for unemployment extensions (once your initial 26 weeks runs out) and found out that basically you can reapply for an additional 20 weeks. Once those 20 weeks run out, if the past 3 months unemployment rates average above 6%, then you can reapply again for 13 more weeks. That comes out to 59 weeks. Well, I sent an email to my friend regarding this information saying that I think Wayne and I will be alright.

At the BBQ though, my friend laughs and says, "I have a bone to pick with you about that email you sent me. You're the problem with our society," chuckling the whole time to make it seem like a joke or that she wasn't too concerned about it. Then she turned around and began doing other things so I didn't get a chance to explain to her that I wasn't the problem with our society. Embarrassed at this accusation, I turned to the nearest person who overhead her remark and tried to explain.

I'm not the problem with our society! I get unemployment because I was laid off through NO FAULT OF MY OWN. I didn't want to be laid off. In fact, I was with a company that I saw a real long term future with. When I heard there was going to be lay offs, I scrambled, getting contact information for all the other US offices, looking for open projects, contacting my supervisor asking for "stretch assignments." I reminded my supervisor that I was studying to get my professional license... I did everything I could to prove my value and find ways to embed myself deeper into the company. I was on committees, volunteering where I could as well as pursing additional licensures for the company's sake, not because of my desire to do so. I currently search for job openings but there just AREN'T any for my skill set, in this location or even in the entire U.S. I look. I interview. I come up empty handed. I've tried going to networking seminars. I get daily updates from job searches and sure, they send me info for network or system engineers, for a nuclear engineer, for engineers with 15 years experience... yeah, not me. None of the job postings are for me. And when recruiters call, they tell me how very selective their client is because they can be. How many times have I heard that they were closing the particular job posting to repost for a higher position instead? More than once, people. Companies know that they can get the best of the best. So, even with a posting requiring 5 yrs experience, they're interviewing those with 10 or 15 years as well, because hell, those senior people are willing to accept massive cuts in wages because they have a house going into foreclosure. So, why would they hire me when they can get more for their money?

Finally, I would just like to say that because the housing market fucked America over and now I'm paid a piddly amount to keep myself partially afloat so that I don't contribute to the economic decline, yeah, not my fault. All my dreams are on hold. We don't have the money for a wedding, for a house or for kids. I am an example of the innocent ones who were taken down for nothing. So, as much as my friend made a flippant comment through chuckles and was probably not intending to hurt me, I am.

I will wholeheartedly enjoy my time off work however. I write often about how extremely happy I am. It's not abusing the system because you're happy. There's nothing that says in order to be considered a true victim of the economy, you need to be depressed.

And THAT my folks, is why I've been charged with this crime against society. Because I'm happy.

*edit: My friend and I have discussed the issue and she wasn't necessarily meaning I was the problem with society, but was rather throwing a comment out there in frustration for the people that do take advantage of the system. However, I still hope this blog explains to anyone that doesn't know me and thinks that I am one of those types of people. I'm not.

I Know This Much Is True - Book Review

I just finished reading this book by Wally Lamb.

I have to say, I didn't know it was an Oprah Book Club selection until finding this picture for my blog. Hmm.

I must begin by saying I'm not a literary snob or a review expert. I'm not overly sophisticated in my analysis. This is just my thoughts on the book. I'd enjoy hearing any one's opinion or insight. Maybe I missed some symbolism or genius reference that will turn my review around but...

I wasn't impressed.

I don't know if I was expecting too much of my first Wally Lamb read. He is consistently on the #1 Best Seller list with multiple novels and as mentioned above, even Oprah loved it. I HAVE to be missing something but I just wasn't impressed. I keep saying it that way because it's not a bad or hard read. It is an interesting novel. I would recommend it as a light read with the disclaimer; it's not gripping. I'd expect a little more out of an author/novel that's gotten so much praise and attention. It was some 900 pages and the most motivating factor to me finishing it was the fact that I had already invested 300 pages worth of time and was now paying overdue library fees since it was on hold. I finished it up quickly and felt frustrated that, "That was it?"

Maybe it was done on purpose, but the ending seemed like an afterthought. Like Wally's wife came into his writing room and said, "Hey, I booked us tickets to Italy for tomorrow... that is, if you're finished writing the novel." And then Wally said, "Hot Damn. Blah, blah, blah, The End." It just seemed like we ran 99% of a marathon in a nice even trot and could have finished strong at the same speed but we decided to sprint with what little energy remained and ended up having a heart attack before the finish line. What the hell use is that? Yeah. Well, that's my same reaction to the ending.

Also, I guess I didn't like the fact that it wasn't challenging in any way. Because I'm not a literary genius, I'll occasionally have to pull out a dictionary to check out the meaning of some word or look up some reference that went over my head, but how many times was I challenged by this novel? None. I'll chalk it up to a 900 page light read and make no more judgements on that.

Let's recap: Not gripping, below my reading level, stupid warp-speed, 2 page ending after 900 pages of lead up.

I'm going to give 'ol Wally another try though. I have The Hour I First Believed. It's a little shorter, but we'll see if late fees have to motivate me on this one.

Vacation Time!

I just love airline deals, don't you?

Yes, I'm unemployed. No, I really shouldn't be frivolously spending money on vacations. But what the hell? I am anyway.

I just booked a trip to Vegas in August. Only $160 including taxes and fees. I could have spent as little as $139 but I decided $21 was worth an additional night there with my fabulous girlfriends.

I also just booked a trip to Seattle in September for Wayne and I. Only $320 for 2...count 'em, TWO round trip, non stop tickets from here to Seattle. Bam! Hot Damn! I'm excited. We will also be staying with my fabulous girlfriend. Hospitality makes my world go 'round!

I also have a pending invite from my lovely friend who lives in Hawaii to visit and pull up a couch. Maybe that trip is right around the corner? Who knows.

Although* unemployed, I'm LOVING life!

*Although = Because I'm

Family Weekend

Phew! What a weekend! Actually Thursday through Sunday were pretty jam packed. Some of Wayne's family came into town from Nebraska and South Dakota so we were on the go with family every day. Thursday was a casual hang out night with the family and early to bed, as Friday was a day in the sun at the kids water park, Pirate's Cove. Wayne was supposed to go but cleaning and preparation for a feast were at hand! Friday afternoon/evening was a birthday celebration. Wayne wanted to make sure and live up to his Grill Master title by preparing the corn and burgers. Plus, in usual man style, he was concerned about the appearance of his garage. Haha. While Wayne was attending to man-cleaning, I was attending to woman-cleaning - bathrooms and kitchen! I've decided everyone should have a party every 3 months to keep the house in tip-top shape! I was scrubbin' like I've never scrubbed before. Doors and walls... phew. That was my work out for the day.

Aren't babies unbelievably adorable? The bow lets everyone know that although bald, I am a pretty little girl.
My dad got in on the baby action. Here he is holding her.

My mom was a pro (of course). All mom's just know...

But I have to say, the cutest of all.....

...was little baby Adaleigh hanging out with Uncle Wayne. She's even cheering! I cannot wait to be a mother. I can't wait for my Wayne to be a daddy. No news here though, folks. We're all just patiently awaiting a job pour moi so all our future plans can continue on...

Here's the beautiful people that made such a beautiful baby!

Cecelia was interested in checking out the baby too.

Here's my mom and dad. All of Wayne's family loved my dad's stories. He's quite the story teller! Wayne recalls at one point all of his brothers were gathered around my dad like children anxiously awaiting the next detail of the story. ha. Too bad I didn't snap that picture. It's a pretty accurate representation.

Here's 2 of Wayne's brothers. Joe and John. I love the fact that this exact picture was probably taken when they were 12. Some things never change. :)

It was a fantastic party for Wayne, complete with both our families. Cooking for 12 wasn't too bad, especially since my mom made cookies, macaroni salad and fruit salad! Wayne grilled and we bought cold stone ice cream cake - therefore NO Cooking for ME!

Saturday, we all drove up Pike's Peak. It was beautiful. We took a picture.

We were very grateful to get up there early because as we were leaving those ominous clouds (see above) came rolling in and you couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of your face! We wouldn't have snapped THIS pic with MILES in view.

Here's the cutest picture of the day; Wayne and his niece, Shannon. I LOVE her white hair. It's amazingly gorgeous and I hope it's in the family genes! Wayne's giving us his REAL smile here which was basically plastered on his face the whole time his family was in town.

Here's our self pic. I was thinking about this picture as I edited it, about how opposite Wayne and I are. He's in white and I'm in black... much like our personalities. I enjoy all of Wayne's qualities so much and hope I can learn from them. Although, he says the same about some of mine. He's so patient and never gets angry. He's sweet and gentle. He seems very much an angel. I am very feisty and controlling my temper doesn't come as second nature. I am rebellious and quick to judge. I'm not as easy to love, let's say.... but Wayne and I are perfect together.

If you're ever having difficulty putting life into perspective, go to the mountains.

A trick I learned in college was to breathe in the mountains and take in it's beauty. You'll see that you're a speck in the universe and even such things as devastating as divorce or death can make sense there. There everything will be ok.

Wayne's 31st Bday

For Wayne's 31st bday we went to TGI Fridays because Wayne LOVES their Jack Daniel's BBQ Ribs. He's dreamed of them I'm sure. I also mentioned in his card that I would see Bruno (or other ridiculously stupid movie of his choosing) with him without mentioning ONCE that I thought this genre of movie was ridiculous and retard... and stupid and how much I hate it and...

As promised, more pics of Wayne and I... or more pics in general as well. Wayne is trying out his arm for the coveted self pic. Apparently he's not concerned with my height.
Here's one that captures my whole head and how sweet it is. The picture, not my head that is.

Also, I feel that I must note that Wayne's blonde mustache hair doesn't show up in pictures and it makes us both feel weird when I post pics. His "stache" continues the whole line of his lip as a normal mustache would... ok... now that that's out of the way...

What'd he get? I'm unemployed so we shouldn't be spending too much on bdays and such. But, I did manage to get him a few things; 2 CD's, nice earbuds, ipod shuffle, 2 weight lifting books, gift certificate to get some video games. Also, from my parents he got a generous $50 for a personalized gift only he could pick, which will more than likely be a new cap. Pretty good for a cheap bday aye? Honestly, saying nothing through Bruno might be the death of me. I'll keep you filled in on that one.

Us

A blogger that I always follow is very good at taking pictures to document different moments. Even though I've never met her, I feel like I know her because I have seen so many pictures of her over time, from wedding pictures, to shared anniversary moments and even daily workouts. It keeps me interested in her life and thoughts because I feel like she's a friend. I have to say, I felt sad that I couldn't post the same type of pictures of Wayne and I throughout the years because Wayne and I have close to ZERO pictures together. I was inspired by her so I decided to change our photo habit and it began last night.

Wayne and I grilling on our patio last night. Dinner was delicious. I will be posting tons more pictures now! Stay Tuned...

Wayne: The Bird Whisperer

We had a horrendous downpour on July 3rd. Although it was really cool to watch (and I even got drenched in it) the rain washed a birds nest out of a tree and the babies were left on the ground, unable to fly yet. I found the birds while taking Kudra on a walk because I seriously almost stepped on one of them and walked about 2 inches from another. They both gave me heart attacks. They made no sound and didn't move a muscle. Thankfully, Kudra doesn't have a killer bone in her body and just sniffed them. However, having been in this apartment complex for 2 years now, I know there are lots of other breeds that do not share Kudra's demeanor. They have the killer instinct and I was afraid for the babies.

I went home and told Wayne he had to check out the situation. We came back with a camera and Wayne bravely took a few close up pictures while being attacked by adult birds.

I took this picture. Yes, this is AS close as I felt comfortable to get. This is zoomed in all the way, so you get an idea of how far away I am. haha.
Wayne on the other hand was almost touching the bird with our little camera lens in this one. He is VERY close. When the flash went off the bird started squawking and so began the bird attacks.

Here's the other one in the grass.

These birds are Robins. I know because I was being attacked by Mom and Dad.

Wayne also felt that we needed to do something to help the baby birds, so he decided he was going to get a strainer and tennis racket to put the nest back in the trees and put the baby birds in it for safety.

Sorry about the jerkiness of this video but I was being dive-bombed by several birds and I'm not as brave as my countrified man.

I don't know if we ended up helping the birds or not but we got the nest in the tree and the birds in it.

Summer Grilling!

Wayne and I have embarked on a completely new way of living since I became unemployed. We began cooking EVERYTHING. I've posted previously that we've increased our health by eating TONS of vegetables and eliminating 80% or more of our daily intake in preservatives. So, with all of our new cooking skills, we were dying to get a grill. But, because of my current unemployed status, we couldn't justify buying a grill. Thankfully, Wayne's sister saw this one sitting on a curb for FREE.
In the above picture, it's still missing the side table piece, but we got it on now and it's quite useful. We did have to buy the propane tank and some grilling utensils as well as a new grate but those are all relatively cheap compared to the cost of a new grill.

Here's a picture of our outdoor dining area. We've eaten out here plenty of times already this summer. It's so nice. It makes us feel like we're still enjoying the activities that people with yards/patios enjoy.

This was our first grilled meal. I have to say Wayne did a fantastic job for our first getting-to-know-your grill meal. Not to mention that Wayne and I hadn't grilled too much (if at all) before.

You can obviously see from the picture but I'll go ahead and explain anyway. We ate grilled corn, eggplant and steak. Also, we attempted to toast our bread with the grill. I think we still are working on that one. Bread seems to go from completely non-toasted to burnt in 2.3 seconds. Here's Wayne with his meal. And to top everything off - that white thing on the table is our ipod stereo remote. We were also jamming on some good music coming through the windows right there to the left of the table.

Since this grilling attempt, we've grilled almost EVERY-SINGLE-NIGHT since. Can you believe it? Obsessive much? Yep. But, Wayne's becoming QUITE the grill master and everyone comments on the food he grills for them. They're always asking for recipes and techniques. Practice makes perfect and I'm guessing by the end of summer, Wayne will be the most perfect griller ever. :) Lucky me.

Last Week, This Week, & The Future

Up until last week, I've been incredibly productive and active during my entire day. I watched almost NO TV, worked out at least once, if not twice a day. I fit in time to enter sweepstakes (which provided me hope that Wayne and I would be able to go on a vacation for once in our lives), ran errands, and fit in time to read a few chapters of a novel, walk Kudra, etc.

This week I've been stressed about the upcoming start of my studying. I've felt regretful for sending in the $130 application fees to take the FE and PE exams to become a professional engineer. Generally when I get ready to make a long term change in my life, I indulge in the activity that I'll be giving up. For example, when I go on a diet, I make sure that I have last minute Mexican dinners and ice cream. I believe that this week's activities were unconscious, but exactly the same thing. I didn't go grocery shopping or plan meals, I laid around on the couch all day, every day and watched TV, I slept in every day, I ran no errands, did not read a single page in my books, did not work out and was extremely lazy. I feel guilty about this kind of behavior because I'm truly a go-getter that doesn't like feeling unproductive but I've recently identified the behavior and reasoning behind it. I'm procrastinating and feeling stressed, scared and having great doubts in my intellectual abilities.

Next week, regardless of my feelings, I begin a new routine. A routine I've already planned out.
5:35 AM: I will get up on time and make Wayne breakfast, pack his lunch and see him off.

6:00 AM: I will check our finances and update my financial spreadsheets (I really do do this everyday).

6:20 AM: I will continue to enter my sweeps. This really gives me hope for a future I cannot monetarily provide us at this time. We all know how powerful hope is.

9:30 AM: Will finish sweeps entries for the day and take Kudra for her morning walk.

10:00 AM: Go work out.

11:00 AM: Shower and get ready to study. This time I'll probably send a few emails, read a few blogs and do other nonsense. I may even fit in some time to read my novels or other things that are fun to me.

12:00 PM: Eat lunch. Begin studying.

4:30 PM: Stop studying when Wayne comes home. This will give me ~4hrs a day, 5 days a week.

Remainder of the evening will be "us" time as usual. We'll work out (second time for me), shower, fix dinner and watch some DVD (lately we've been on a LOST marathon with DVD's from Netflix.)

The pass rate for the FE for people that have been out of school for 3-5yrs is 40%. I've been out of school for 10! So... I'm assuming the pass rate for me is like 10% so I really need to study my ass off for even a SLIGHT chance of passing. This is the cause of all my anxiety and stress. It's like telling an ugly, fat girl that she's got 3 months to become an overly skinny, beautiful model. How? Why this example? Well, because I've never been confident about my intelligence. I've always thought I'm stupid compared to others in my field. I always think the quality that gets me through is extreme determination and serious hard work. I have to study twice as long as my peers to understand the same concepts. That, combined with the pass rate... Uh. I might as well try for President of The United States while I'm at it.

Hopefully once I begin studying, I'll get back in the groove. I used to enjoy learning TONS and thought I could be in college forever, always learning. But, that was until I began enjoying other relaxing activities. Hopefully, once I begin to RELEARN the entire 4 years of college in 3 months, I'll begin to feel more confident. Hopefully I'll start to feel that passing is possible. Hopefully 4 hours a day will get me a passing grade.

Veggie-o-holic

Wednesdays are my grocery days and generally I keep my Wednesday's free from any plans besides all things grocery. This is basically what it looks like when I get home from shopping; a colorful arrangement of veggies. I used to load up equally on fruit but since I've reduced my carbs again, I only buy what I can reasonably expect Wayne to eat.
You may notice that I have spring mix lettuce in my sink. I buy it in bulk (like you would mushrooms) so I wash it. It caught Wayne off-guard when he came home to a bunch of lettuce on our counter drying on a towel. It stores better if dry which is basically an all day event. I need one of those spinner things. I also bought bean sprouts in bulk to mix into my salad.
I found out online that you can make your own vegetable/fruit wash with cold water and 1/2 cup of vinegar, so it makes me feel good to have everything clean before it goes into the fridge and to clean them in the greenest way I know.
Of course you have to buy flat leaf parsley and cilantro fresh because it really makes a difference in your cooking! Speaking of cilantro, I hear that you either love or hate cilantro and that it tastes like soap to some people because of their taste buds or genes or something. Both of my parents hate it but I can't get enough of it, which is good because it's fantastic for your health. I put it into my ice water for a refreshing smell to my water. I think the smell itself makes the water taste more refreshing too. You should try it.

So, the amount of food prep I do when I get home from the farmer's market is why it takes me SO long to complete my weekly grocery adventures. I wash everything in the vinegar water, rinse everything and dry everything. I also split up all the family packs of meat I bought into 1lb segments and Ziploc them. Sometimes I even chop up some cilantro and parsley so it's ready to go when I begin cooking and I get my celery chopped into sticks to eat with hummus.

Then, of course, I'm excited to begin baking. Yes, I said baking, not cooking. I'd rather bake any day but I can't resist my own concoctions, so Wayne's banned me from baking. I guess I have time to work out now.

May Wins

You may recall that I'm embracing the white trash in me and have become a "sweeper." That is, one that applies to sweepstakes with a fury. I just started this sweeping business this month and I'd like to say that I've won $85 in prizes so far. Not a bad start.

$20 cash card
$40 gift certificate to Carino's
$25 in movie tickets
$85 in May Wins

:)

Restraining The Inner Bitch

I have to admit that I'm a fighter, not a lover. In general, if someone pisses me off, I leash out and make them regret doing whatever they did that I find unacceptable. I'm not proud of this personality trait though and I'd like to change.

So, my first challenge begins today.

We have new upstairs neighbors who naturally walk like a herd of rhinos. No joke. I'm not talkin' about a squeak-squeak. I'm talkin' about a BOM-BOM. Ok, well I'll just chalk it up to an annoyance that I'll deal with by turning on my radio. Yep. That was until this morning. At 4:20am my neighbors apparently awoke. And also apparently have a LOT of walking to do while getting ready. Honestly, I don't understand this because if I run through my morning routine, the majority of getting ready requires me to stand in 2 locations - one to shower, apply makeup and dry/fix my hair. The other is my closet to get dressed. Now, there may be a few steps between the 2 but I don't understand how you get enough speed going to throw your heel through the floor. So, I laid there trying to fall back asleep until 5:30am when I was going to get up. Interrupting my sleep - now, that brings out the inner bitch in me. Not just because I was awaken, but because I don't know these people or give 2 shits if they hate me. My natural response is to make their lives a living hell.

But, that's just me. I live with my very opposite boyfriend who is all caring and kind and patient... and a heavy sleeper. The vibe I got from these neighbors is much like the one I got from our last neighbors (who were quiet). I didn't like 'em. My sweet opposite boyfriend had a neighborly relationship with them and he currently thinks our new neighbors seem nice. Opposites definitely attract, folks. To the degree that I'm a raving bitch, Wayne is such a sweet, patient man. The neighbors BEFORE these and the last set of neighbors (1st set of 3 neighbors which have resided over us) actually became Wayne's FRIENDS. They would invite him over for drinks and snacks while their family and friends came over and sit and bond with Wayne. I, on the other hand, couldn't even tell you what they looked like.

So, for the sake of Wayne and in honor of his kindness, I'm restraining the inner bitch. Apparently, one of the heavy footed rhinos is either unemployed or a stay at home mom because the pounding continues in a fairly steady stream ALL DAY, while I sit here and type. How many times have I ALMOST hit the wall in a mimic pattern to her stomping? Oh yeah people, many many times already and it's 8am. I have my work cut out for me. At a more respectable hour, I'll also have to resist the urge to bump hip hop at ungodly levels.

**Edit: It is now 10:30am and I'm very happy to say that I've just heard a baby crying upstairs. This makes me feel happy to have not been a crappy neighbor myself and banged on the walls back at them. I think this justifies the reason they're walking around all the time and why they get up so freaking early and even why I got a bad vibe from them; they're exhausted and tired. Hopefully I can remember this time and how there's possible explanations to people's behaviors that are potentially outside of their control before I become a rude person myself. I believe I'm going down the correct path for positive self improvement. ;)

Hormone CIty

Wow. It's crazy the onslaught of hormones that rushed me this week. I don't normally have too large of mood swings during these times of the month so this week really shocked me. I can't tell you how many times I've cried this week. It's been ridiculous, really. Once was because Wayne didn't tell me that any of the sunglasses I tried on looked good on me. Then today, I cried because I didn't want to go to the pool. And just now, because this book pissed me off.

The book , Maybe Baby is split into 3 sections; No, Maybe and Yes; the choices that different authors have made with regards to having children. I was expecting the 'No' section to be uninspiring and potentially persuasive towards the points about why NOT to have children but the next 2 sections surprised me. The 'Maybe' section didn't seem to be individuals distraught with decision and their inner compare and contrast, but rather them wanting children and then deciding against it because of major mental illness or a disease they didn't want to pass onto their offspring. That's not a maybe to be. There's no inner struggle. There's a change in decision but that doesn't constitute a maybe. Then, the 'Yes' section... to be fair, I haven't finished it. In fact, I've decided to take a break from it after crying. So far, it's been a MAJOR disappointment. It's not about the overwhelming joy and fulfillment that children bring but rather the disappointment, feelings of failure and loss of self that these women feel since having children.

Now, currently I'm starting to question my feelings. Do I want to have children just to feel like a failure, ruin my relationship with Wayne and completely lose myself? Ouch. That's steep. I'm not sure I do want to give up all that for the sake of children.

Hence, the break from the baby book while my hormones even out. I'll pick it up next week and hopefully it'll read differently to me.

Oh Grocery Bag, How I Love You

Check out my lovely new grocery bags. I had been holding out because I wanted them to be durable, vibrant, large and easily compatible. I saw some at green fest that I loved because they stuffed into themselves making them super small. There I was in line at King Soopers and these babies were calling to me.

They are made right here in Highlands Ranch, CO so you can ALSO be comforted by the fact that you're buying local products! You HAVE to check them out. I was on their website and saw that they have reusable, clear produce bags too that I MUST get. They have a whole shopping system which includes 4 of the bags below as well as 3 produce bags and a padded clasp so you can clip it to your grocery cart without taking up the cart space. Awesome. I love it. And they have a cute paisley design online!

My bags are a bright purple with brown stripes. Check out the color:

I took this one to show the size. Their website says that these 4 bags should hold the same amount of food as 12 standard plastic grocery bags. I believe it because they puppies seem strong. Here's one on my washing machine.
Also, I wanted to show the width of the strap. You can carry them on your shoulder even and the weight was so well distributed that I didn't sacrifice a few fingers while carrying them.
They fold up into themselves for easy storage, like a sock.

And here they all are, stuffed into themselves like above and inside their little zippered carrying case.

They sit right by my purse and keys so I won't forget to grab them on my way out of the door again. I'm going to carry these babies everywhere. This is the easiest way to reduce the amount of plastic bags in the dumps! Check out the website because these are TOO cool.
http://www.3bbags.com/

Swept Up In Sweepstakes

When I think of women sitting at home and entering into sweepstakes for hours, I think of a lady in her pajamas, smoking a cigarette and every now and then peering out her plastic trailer window.

But then that woman became ME! Gasp. Yep. I've discovered sweepstakes. I've only won a deodorant so far, but dammit, I'm giving it my all.

So far, I've entered to win:

• Vacations: including Aruba, Scotland, Disney World
• Cruises to the Bahamas
• ATV's, motorcycles, dirt bikes, Porsche's, Ferrari's, electric cars, tC, hybrids
• Homes
• Gas for life
• Cash and down payments on a new home
• Purses, diamonds, designer clothing, jewelry
• Red carpet events, a guest spot on different shows

Geez, the list goes on and on. Good thing I had a lunch date today or I would be swept up in sweepstakes.

Color Me Green!

I know it's irresponsible to avoid information about things if the only reason to avoid is insanity, but that's what I do. I know myself well enough by now to know that once I have enough information about a worthy cause, I'll throw myself into it and not feel satisfied until I change the world. I'm an extreme case of perfectionism and I'm trying to keep it from killing me. So, I know wholeheartedly that I avoided the green movement as long as I could because I would end up feeling anxious about all the things I wasn't doing to save the earth. Well, it's happened. Slowly, enough information has seeped in and now it's stuck in my head, as another obsession.

So, bare with me, as I'm a new green freak. I'm a baby in the world of green. If you have more tips for me, I'd LOVE to hear them!

First of all, I have some limitations to work around.
1. I'm unemployed.
2. I live in an apartment.

Why do I call these limitations? Well, I'd love to invest the money in switching out all the light bulbs, but A) it's hard to invest in ANYTHING when you're hoarding your money and B) it's not my permanent place of residence. I'll be moving out of here in ~5 months especially because they're charging me more than everyone else.

Recycle: I've always known to recycle but apartment complexes, in general, do not RECYCLE! So, recently I took it upon myself to make the effort and find self-recycle locations. I haven't gone all out extreme on the recycling yet, for example I'm not recycling glass, tin or plastics, I'm just recycling aluminum and paper for now. Why? Well, just because I want to visit the recycle locations first to make sure I see what they accept and how I have to take it to them. After that, we'll be increasing our recycling.

Light Bulbs: I've also known we could save money (after the initial investment) by changing out all of our light bulbs, but as I said above, that's not something we can reasonably do at this time. Think about switching to LED Christmas Lights! Yep, they're expensive, but the fact that they'll live forever and save you TONS of money year after year will make up for the upfront cost. Think about all the energy you're saving!

Ghost Loads: Wayne and I try to keep things unplugged unless using them. It does provide a minor inconvenience when we plug our ipod into the speaker (which is supposed to charge it) and pull it off the next morning to find the ipod dead. Oops, didn't plug in the speaker therefore no charge on the ipod. Or flipping the switch for a lamp and it not coming on. You start looking at the bulb wondering if it's burned out, wondering if the lamp is broken... Oh yeah, I forgot, it's unplugged!

Weather Proofing: Our apartment windows aren't fantastic so we put up the plastic that you shrink wrap on the inside to decrease the heat transfer to the outside.

Programmable Thermostat: We installed one, and will probably leave it here after we move. This helps us drop the temperature during the day when we're gone. Although I'm home 24-7, I still let it run it's course as if I'm gone. I just bundle up.

Hot Water Heater: We have (recently) turned our hot water heater down. They say you should set it at 120 and insulate it with a fitted water heater blanket and insulate the first 6-10 feet of pipe. Again, not my place, so we haven't invested in insulation.

Dishwasher: The apartment complex did not install an energy star dishwasher, so there's nothing we can do about this inefficiency. However, we do skip the dry cycle and only wash with the "light wash" setting. I do need to stop pre-rinsing the dishes though. I've just become accustomed to apartment dishwashers sucking it up big time and it's a reflex to pre-rinse.

Aerator: We don't currently have one but I plan on looking into one for the bathroom. They reduce the water we waste potentially by 4 gallons per minute!

Water Purifier: Done. We have one installed on our kitchen sink. We never buy bottled water. I'm very against bottled water, as those plastic bottles are KILLING our earth and there are so many easy, convenient alternatives.

Cleaning Products: I have to say, this is my newest green task; making our own cleaning products. I wasn't thinking about the toxic chemicals we were putting down the drains and how they're negatively affecting our environment until just recently. Here are some recipes that I'm going to try and will report back about.

From Oprah:

Window Cleaner

• 3 Tbsp. vinegar
• 1/3 tsp. pure liquid vegetable soap (like castile soap)
• 2 cups water

Pour each ingredient into a recycled spray bottle, and you'll be cleaning green in no time!

Gorgeously Green All-Purpose Spray

• 32-ounce plastic spray bottle
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon pure castile soap (peppermint is a favorite)
• 3/4 cup hydrogen peroxide
• 20 drops tea tree oil
• 20 drops of lavender or lemongrass essential oil

Simply fill a large 32-ounce plastic spray bottle with the water. Add the vinegar, castile soap, hydrogen peroxide, tea tree oil and lavender or lemongrass essential oil. Lavender is lovely for the bathroom spray and lemongrass for the kitchen, so make two separate bottles at the same time. In the hot summer months, add about 10 drops of citronella essential oil to the spray, as it is an excellent insect repellent.

This spray is suitable for acrylic, ceramic tile, wood, marble and granite.

Veggie Cleaner Spray

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 20 drops grapefruit seed extract *

Combine all ingredients in a large container. Then, transfer to a spray bottle with a pump. Spray mixture on produce, and rinse thoroughly after 5 to 10 minutes.

*Grapefruit seed extract is available at your local health food store.

Grocery Shopping: I have to say, of all the easiest things I have not done yet, is invest in a canvas bag for grocery shopping. However, I keep my plastic bags (Ouch! Horrible on the environment and I'll never ask for plastic again) and reuse/recycle them as well as the paper bags I get from Sunflower Farmers Markets.

Coffee/Water Bottles: Wayne and I use our own coffee mugs. No Styrofoam here! We also use stainless steel or nalgene bottles for our water consumption.

Junk Mail: Wow. This is the coolest thing I've done that's environmentally friendly; Stopping Junk Mail. Not only does it make me happy to open up the mailbox and see ONE netflix or ONE bill without all the crap, but it makes me very happy to not have to sort through it all, tear off all the labels with my name and address on them and shred them, and I don't have to recycle all the waste! Check out the link provided with step by step instructions to eliminate junk mail. Here's the ones I did:

1. DMA - reduces 75% of junk mail
2. I contact customer service for EVERY SINGLE magazine that I get and tell them to remove my name AND address from their mailing lists.
3. Opt Out: of credit card offers and preapprovals.

I haven't stopped the phone books because I'm at an apartment complex and every door gets a few multiple times a year. But please do that one too!

If you don't have time, pay someone to contact everyone for you!

Shut Down Your Computer: Guilty, guilty, guilty! I'm guilty as charged. I WILL be turning off my computer after this blog. I will make a concerted effort to check email through my ipod and keep my computer turned off throughout the day and night. For all you still working, think about shutting your work computer down at the end of your work day!

Ok, I'm done with my green rant. Please leave more ideas that you've heard of and links to green articles we should read! Enjoy.

P.S. I'm even thinking about our wedding theme being "Green." Invitations on recycled paper, local vendors, used/vintage wedding gown, green registry, environmental offsets.

Purging the Preservatives

I haven't been saving any money on groceries. This was one of my strategies for saving money while I'm unemployed. I would take the time to plan things around coupon mom and only buy things that were on sale, etc. However, sometime around the beginning of the year, Wayne and I discovered Sunflower Farmers Market. Fresh produce and meat for CHEAP! So, we do the majority of our shopping there.

Unknowingly, there's been a shift in our eating habits. I was realizing recently that I eat almost NO processed foods. I say "I" rather than "we" because Wayne eats some processed food at work (store bought muffins, candy, chips, pop and what I call Wayne Dogs, which is sausage on a stick that was dipped in pancake batter and fried). Realizing that I don't eat any processed food makes me want to make the full shift and find things to substitute for all of Wayne's work snacks, but that's another blog.

Basically, I hardly buy ANYTHING at regular grocery stores anymore; the things in the middle of the store; the things that you can use coupons on. When I do want something from the middle, it's generally some random sauce (has anyone heard of Ponzu sauce? I can't find it anywhere) or a can of crushed tomatoes. (Yes, I know I can crush my own tomatoes and I probably should considering the quote I pasted at the bottom of this post). Anyway, I was looking at my grocery bill totals for Wayne and I for the last 4 months: $427, $501, $537, $511).

I'm disturbed that we're still spending this much for groceries, but on the other hand, I don't feel so bad because we've begun eating SOOOO much healthier and I feel proud of the way we eat now.

How much processed food are you all eating out there and do you care/not care about preservatives in processed foods? Any other healthy eating hints you have for me?

Next Food Project: Ween Wayne off of soda.

Keep in mind that polycarbonate plastic bottles and food containers are just one potential source of the BPA in our bodies. BPA is also used in the resin that lines the inside of metal food and soda cans. Most people are probably exposed to more BPA from eating canned food or drinking canned soda than from drinking out of a polycarbonate bottle. BPA leaches out of the can liner into the food or drink, especially when the food is acidic such as tomato-based products or sodas.

Maybe Baby

It's happened. I turned 30 and I am obsessed with having a baby. I've never been pregnant, but as a serial monogamist, I can't say I've always been 100% responsible. So, why haven't I had even one scare? One oops? I'm not saying that I wished I'd messed up but the fact that I've never been pregnant makes me wonder if I CAN!

So, between Wayne and I, there is one of us that is 5 million percent positive that wants babies and Wayne...

It's not that he doesn't want kids. He just doesn't feel the urge that I do. He doesn't have the drive or feeling that I do. The ticking has not begun for his baby clock. Also, he looks at it as a very huge decision that he should consider fully and carefully to ensure he makes the right one. After all, it is a lifelong commitment and for many years, those little people are depending on you. So, Wayne's researching the topic a little bit. He's brought home a book from the library, "Maybe Baby" by various writers. The front cover says, "28 writers tell the truth about skepticism, infertility, baby lust, childlessness, ambivalence, and how they made the biggest decision of their lives."

The book is divided into 3 sections; No, Maybe and Yes. I'm currently reading the "No" section. I just want to see what's helping Wayne come to a decision. Some of the writers so far have been angry at other women for questioning their decision, voicing their opinion about how they'll inevitably change their mind or alienating them as if something were wrong with them to reach such a conclusion. Here's one point that a few of the "No" people share and it struck a chord with me.

They [parents] tell pregnant women and couples and one another that those who have chosen not to breed can never know what real love is, what selflessness really
means. They like to say that having a child taught them about authenticity. This is a total crock. Many of the most shut-down, narcissistic, selfish frauds on earth have children. Many of the most evolved - the richest in spirit, and the most giving - choose not to. For parents to imply a deeper realm of living is pure arrogance.

l guess the reason this made me stop and think for a second, is that I believed those comments various parents have told me. A few of my friends have chosen not to have children and I, too, have thought (and said) that they'll change their mind, that they'll regret the decision one day and wondered about what emotional piece was missing that they didn't want to nurture a baby. After reading the opinions from the "No" section and hearing their anger regarding the "Yes's" acting as if they KNEW the right decision, the only decision, for everyone and that it shouldn't be a choice, etc... I feel scolded and a little ashamed for commenting to my "No" friends. I would never tell a gay friend that they'll change their mind or ask them to try being straight, so why should I project the same thoughts or conclusions onto my "No" friends? I will definitely not make that mistake again. Although, the whys surrounding their No's are still interesting to me and I'd still ask them to explain them (if they chose) I won't be to arrogant as to assume I know what's right for them.

But, the topic of parents feeling a greater love and growing more selfless, is still on mind. I don't know which to believe. On one hand, I can understand how it WOULD make you develop a higher level of all good characteristics and force you to overcome the bad ones that pop up for the good of raising a child. Of course, assuming you have strength to do so and the best interest of the child in mind. I have no doubt that there are people out there that should not reproduce but when I think about my FRIENDS.... These are people whom I value. People that have fantastic characteristics, strength, kindness. When I think of them, I wonder how it could possibly be true that they'll never know true love or selflessness. It couldn't be true. I think of one friend in particular. She's fantastic and giving, kind, funny and beautiful. I think it's a loss to society that she's not going to reproduce. We could use more people that share her traits. When I think of her, it just can't be true that she'll never develop this higher level of character. I feel ok to think that having children is ONE way of reaching this state and that everyone can develop the same level of love and giving.

What do you think? Are any of you "No's" out there? Would any of you like to give your reason why you're a No, Yes or Maybe?

Homemade Bday Card

Most of you, even my real life friends, don't know that I love making homemade cards. Normally I don't have time but crafts make me very happy and I had decided that I would do one for my best friend's daughter who is turning 1 today!

Here's how it turned out.

It ended up being very easy. I just stiched a candle onto white card stock and glued it onto decorative accent paper and then onto the card paper. It looked a little too plain to me, so I added some pink ribbon and voila. The card is about the size of a pencil, so it's cute and small.

Hope you liked it and Happy Birthday little girl!

Portobella Mushrooms Stuffed with Spinach and Feta Cheese

It's so nice that Wayne likes to cook. Here's was an idea I had randomly while at King Soopers. I was happy to relax tonight while Wayne tried this recipe out.

Portobella Stuffed Mushrooms with Feta Cheese and Spinach.
Sure is colorful. You know you're doing a body good when it's getting in some greens and reds.
All in all, I'd say it's a pretty darn healthy meal. I found that I enjoyed the middle more because that's where the majority of the cheese was located. When I reheat the 2 leftover caps, I'll distribute the cheese more evenly. Otherwise, the flavor of the mushroom overwhelms everything. I'm curious what you guys think of similar recipes and if you have a favorite I should try next.

Snow Pictures

I keep going outside to take pictures of the weather since it keeps snowing so beautifully. Tons of full fluffy snowflakes fill the sky today and I think I've captured it in some pictures for you. Here's the view from our patio. See, it's really coming down!

And, I love this picture because of the contrast and of course my muse, standing on the patio watching it snow. It's so dry on the patio but you can see it's almost a white out on the outside.
So, we decided to go out and play in it.

But it's cold out here! The camera caught Kudra shaking off the snow. Check out how far her head is twisted! Too funny.

Wayne does not approve of this picture of us but he thinks that I have a piddly audience of 1 (thanks mom) so he said no one will see it anyway. Hmpf. It is now posted for the whole world to see. Wayne has a lovely fake smile going on. Probably due to the fact that he was cold and was trying to walk inside before I took this picture.

And yes, I am becoming a little shutterbug. I like this close up of Wayne.

Hoppy Belated Easter!

Hoppy? *snicker*

What a lovely Easter. I love the weather out today. It's gloomy and rainy. Something quite rare in Colorado, which is probably why I enjoy it so much. Here's Wayne being animated while on the phone.

My parents came down to see us. My mom and I tag teamed on the meal. Good thing because half the time I was mincing garlic and looking up how to make rice on the internet. Yes, people, rice. I haven't ever bought rice that wasn't precooked like Uncle Ben or without a box for instructions. I bought this rice in bulk and ended up making 10 times too much. The recipe called for 2 cups of cooked rice and I made a total rookie mistake and measured out 2 cups of UNCOOKED rice. So, I'll be eating rice now for a week. It was pretty cool though with the craters and stuff! I'll always remember how to make rice now. I'm building up my cooking arsenal. Someday my kids will think I'm a chef! Anyway, a very nontraditional meal today; Stuffed Peppers Biggest Loser style (from the Biggest Loser Family cookbook). Very healthy. For dessert, a WW pie. It's my FAVORITE dessert of all time (well... let's not get carried away. It's my favorite LOW FAT dessert of all time.)

I got to view pictures of my niece and my dad taught us how to sharpen knives with the rod thing. Wayne showed them a few videos of himself being a daredevil at his job and we talked about their home projects. Very nice, relaxing day. My parents also gave us some Easter presents :) We each got gift cards in plastic eggs with candy. My candy was low fat, of course. Here's Wayne's view at work:

And here's a close-up of Invesco Field which is the football stadium.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter as well!

Work Stole My Soul

So, I've been trying to determine what it is about not working that makes me so happy. I've finally defined it internally and I wanted to share.

I'm ME! So often I complained about how I couldn't be me at work and how it suffocated me. I HATED the way I dressed, I HATED what we talked about and at the sake of generalizing, I'm going to say that engineers and I don't get along. That's pretty rough since I'm an engineer. Maybe it's just the engineering environment that I HATED.

Since I have a lot of hours to spend alone during the day, I've started to remember ME. I have one of those personalities that will not be satisfied unless I achieve my full potential and drive myself beyond the breaking point. A goal of mine is to be a director or VP of a large pharmaceutical company someday. Well, I'm not going to get there sitting still, so I push and push and with most change, there's discomfort and pain. Such has become my work life. But this is only one aspect of my personality. It just took over until now.

Now, I crank the music and dance in my apartment, I read novels and non fiction, I do crafts from tatting to card making, I think about creative things I want to do (most recently I've been thinking about getting into a furniture making class and sewing), I write, I think of ways to become a better person and I dream of non traditional paths to fulfill my crazy drive once this slow ride stops. Often I think about starting my own dog rescue or become a Shiba Inu breeder but the practical side says to get a law degree or my PE license. My exciting side says to find a job in another country and experience a different culture. While driving home after lunch today with two girlfriends, Dr. Dre/Eminem came on and I cranked it. The windows were down and the interstate wasn't crowded and I realized that I feel free. Free. Finally a word that describes this joy.

Puke, Puke, Puke

For whatever reason, I decided that I feel wasteful sleeping in as much as I have been (9 or 10am) so after making Wayne breakfast and lunch for work (as I do every weekday and have always done) I wouldn't go BACK to sleep. Instead, I'd stay up and be productive.

Well, my list mainly consisted of things that were relatively "fun" projects. I was going to begin making some cards, cook the 4lb pork shoulder in the crockpot, try and finish my tatting project, read the book that my friend bought me, workout, organize some pictures into my photo album, read the newspaper, etc. Fun Stuff.

Here's how I thought the day would go:
1. Coffee and Newspaper
2. Plan the crockpot meal
3. Get ingredients for crockpot meal at the store
4. Make crockpot meal
5. Workout
6. Fun Stuff
Projected Mood: Relaxed, Accomplished, Happy, Productive

Here's how today went:
1. Make Wayne's lunch and breakfast
2. Clean up Kudra's puke in the spare bedroom (2-3 areas)
3. Read paper, drank coffee
4. Planned out crockpot recipe
5. As I'm running out the door to the store, I notice another pile of puke under the kitchen table. Fabulous. Clean up puke.
6. Go to store.
7. Begin the stressful art of cutting meat off bone (didn't realize it had a honkin' bone in it) and realize the meat just lost 2lbs! Voila. My meal plan needed to be reviewed and modified.
8. Midway through cutting up the meat, Kudra pukes. Yea. On the kitchen rug.
9. Wash hands, clean up floor puke, throw rug in washing machine.
10. Wash hands, wash again, cut up rest of meat. Kudra pukes on other rug.
11. Quickly change washing machine setting to Large and throw second rug in.
12. Clean up Puke.
13. Notice I have a job hunting phone call scheduled in 5minutes, so hurriedly begin measuring 15 ingredients and squeezing lemons for 1/3 cup of lemon juice. Finish up very last ingredient and begin mixing. Phone rings. Kudra pukes.
14. Mix up ingredients and pour into crockpot. Lady on the phone is unhappy because she hears me cooking. I begin to "secretly" clean up the floor puke and wash my hands without tipping off phone lady that I'm not just sitting there staring at a blank wall and listening to her.
15. After 1hr on the phone and hearing that:

• I must spend at least 6hours A DAY for a successful job search
• Customize every single little resume I send out AND attach a custom cover letter
• Begin networking my ass off
• Keep an accurate spreadsheet of all jobs applied for, which resume and cover letter I sent, date sent and follow up on ALL every Wednesday.

Actual Mood: Overwhelmed, Rushed, Unproductive, Anxious, Worried

Therefore, I wrote this blog instead of job searching, which WAS NOT on my list of "fun." Procrastination is my best friend.

Today To Do

Cook

1. 1lb Bacon - done
2. 8 buttermilk biscuits - done
3. hard boiled eggs - done

Clean

1. vacuum - done
2. dust
3. clean kitchen - done a day late
4. sweep - done

Misc (but still quite important)

1. Work out - done
2. apply to at least 3 jobs that I would actually take - done
3. plan this week's meals - done a day late
4. Post a blog or two with pics from last week's blizzard and meat experiment

No Dice

I didn't get my "dream job." I'm pretty shocked actually because they acted like they loved me, pulled me along for 3 months and plus I worked there previously and knew everyone already. Not only that, but everyone there likes me. I think it's obvious that I would have worked well with everyone and dynamics shouldn't be taken lightly.

Ugh.

On top of all that, Wayne is a construction worker and for him to continue being employed in this economy is a miracle in itself so I need to hit the job market hard and find something. I can't imagine what it would be like if both Wayne and I were unemployed. I can't believe how much things change. It was JUST Christmas time and Wayne and I were making tons of money and had no financial concern in the world and then BAM - if Wayne loses his job, we'll be facing poverty.

Addiction and Responsibility

I'm currently in the final 25% or so of the book A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I know the controversy surrounding this "memoir" which is one of the reasons I wanted to read it. Plus, before Oprah got all pissed off, she raved about the book, so it's at least a good read, right?

Anyway, I'm not sure how the book will end but I wanted to talk about one thing I agree 100% with.

First, a short background on me. I have not completely come to terms with myself being or not being an alcoholic. I generally say I have issues with drinking or that alcohol doesn't like me. It's hard to spit out the words, "I'm an alcoholic." Mainly because I'm not going to surrender to a self diagnosis when I'm not 100% sure what ALL the qualifications of an alcoholic truly are, especially when there are several different types of drinkers. I, myself, am a binge drinker. If this is a disease, then I'm in remission. I've set up rules for myself around when and how much I'm allowed to drink. That does mean that I have hopes to casually drink on occasion. Which occasions? Well, when I think of certain events that are substantial "dream" events, some contain alcohol. I see myself visiting some beach in the future with...? You guessed it. An umbrella drink in a coconut. Another dream is when I finally own my own home, I hope to have a BBQ on in our backyard with lots of friends over and yes, a beer. An ice cold beer. In these two dreams, the drinks seem like the cherry on top.

Anyway, in the book, James struggles with the counselors at the rehab facility trying to teach him that he's powerless to the disease and that it's not his fault. That, he was hardwired to this from birth, an unfortunate gene he inherited. He thinks that's all bullshit and so do I. First of all, I'm not one to EVER think I'm "powerless." Secondly, I fully agree with James in the fact that I chose this. I choose the number of drinks I have or the "pre-planning" of bringing a 12 pack home rather than a 6 pack. The decision to even GET a 6/12 pack is also mine. I'm not sure why it's important to push your responsibilities off of yourself in order to get "help" but it seems counter productive to me. It seems like an excuse... an excuse to NOT get better because in the end, when your drunk in a ditch, people will say, "She had a disease." No. I take full responsibility for my drinking. People may need help to stop or alcohol may affect different people in different ways, but you always have the choice.

Any opinions?

Self Cleaning Oven

*Cough cough*

Well, it's currently 53 degrees in Denver right now, which means this was NOT the day to experiment with the self cleaning feature on my oven.

The smell! The smell of death! *cough cough*

I just feel that I'm getting black lung poisoning right this very minute...

*cough cough*

Meat Experiments

Sounds kind of gross. But what I'm thinking involves 2 experiments because I'm only RECENTLY learning to actually cook more than chicken.

1. Buy wild caught King Crab Legs (on sale? for $9.99/lb at Albertons). The experiment is actually cooking them because they seem tricky. I may have to call my friend (expert chef) to ask her for the secret to cooking fantastic crab legs.
   
2. Buy farm raised and wild caught salmon, cook at the same time and in the same manner and determine if the wild caught salmon is noticeably different in taste. Supposedly, it's a stronger taste. I am going to determine for myself if this is myth or fact. The price different between all seafood farm vs. wild is pretty huge. I'm going to determine if it's worth it.

I'll keep you posted on my findings.

Merry Maids

While I was hauling in 3-12 packs of Mountain Dew from my car (King Soopers Promo Deal 3-12 packs of Pepsi product plus 1 bag of Lays Potato Chips for $8!) I noticed some Merry Maids gathering up their equipment to go clean someones apartment. Someones APARTMENT??? Come on lazy people! So, I decided to do a little research about the largest size of apartment here so see if I could possibly justify it.

While researching, I noticed that due to the economy, my apartment SHOULD be renting for $1015 but apparently I am locked into my year lease for $1370/month meaning that I'm getting screwed out of $355/month. Ouch. That's $4,260 extra dollars a year that I'm paying for this little place over my neighbor.

Anyway, my apartment is almost 1200 sq.ft and I clean the whole thing in approximately 1 hr (if I get everything) but usually more like 30 minutes. The largest apartment here is 1330 sq ft (and disturbingly only $45/mo more than we're paying for 144 sq ft LESS). After you litter the apartment with furniture, how many square feet are you really cleaning? Anyway, it's just lazy in my opinion for a place this small.

Now...on the other hand, Wayne and I were daydreaming about winning the HGTV Dream Home in Sonoma, CA. It's 3700 sq. ft, fully furnished that comes with all Ethan Allen furnishing, a matching doggy dream house, and a new car. I'm off topic. Anyway, Wayne and I decided that we would allow someone to come in and clean for us. :)

P.S. We didn't win.

Prescription Game

Who's playing the prescription game?

I am, I am.

I hope it continues too because it's pretty lovely. First I transferred an Rx for Wayne to Walgreens and got a $25 gift card. Since his Rx only cost $7, Walgreens just gave us $18.

Next I transferred an Rx for Wayne to Safeway and got a $30 Safeway card. If I recall, it was a brand name drug so we had to pay $30... ok, so we got it for free.

I was wondering if King Soopers was going to get in on the fun and I noticed that yes, indeed they are. In the Sunday paper (3/15) there's a coupon for a $20 King Soopers gift certificate for purchasing a transferred Rx. So, I guess I'll transfer the Rx from Walgreens back to Kings for a profit of $13.

Now, I need to look into Walmart, Target, Rite Aid... any others? For gift card offers on transferred Rx's. Honestly, I'll do this on every Rx we have until we can start over (usually they only allow one transfer-gift card redemption per 6 months). Not bad. If you know how to use the economic crisis for all it's worth, there's free money to be had!

Dream Job Interview Deux

I had submitted my fantastic cover letter and resume to the Director of the department in Jan before I was ever laid off.

I had a phone interview a week later. It went well and I was told they would be calling back to schedule a face to face interview.

2-3 weeks later, I interviewed for my dream job with 3 people in mid Feb. It should have been 4, but there was an audit going on so the 4th person couldn't make it.

I thought I NAILED the interviews. I was positive that I'd get an offer, especially because I'd asked questions regarding my competition and it seemed that :

1. They were highly selective about who to bring in for face to face interviews and it sounded like there were only a handful that made the cut.
2. They hadn't opened the position to the masses (aka Monster or similar).
3. I'd worked there previously and knew most of the people and was getting the inside word that I'd had a great interview.

So, when HR called at the end of Feb/beg of Mar, I was shocked to hear that they were going to open up the posting to additional candidates by posting on Monster and they had already selected 3 weeks worth of candidates to bring in for interviews. I assumed I wouldn't be getting the job and mentally moved on.

Today: I recognized the number on my phone as the HR lady. I just knew it was going to be bad news about them offering someone else the position, so I didn't answer it. When I listened to the message however, they wanted me to come in to interview with the 4th interviewer that I missed a month ago. Also, apparently to meet with my would-be boss because she has a few things she'd like to go over with me. That doesn't sound like an interview, so it makes me wonder. Is it up to me and another candidate? Am I a front runner? How in the heck didn't they find someone better for the position than me? With all the unemployed people out there, I can't believe that no one is a better fit. But... I interview Thursday. Wish me luck. :)

MAC, I Love Thee!

I have known of this MAC for quite some time. My girlfriends rant and rave over it. Yet, I was not tempted, mainly for the same reason I use to not get:

1. Tivo/DVR/DVP
2. HD cable (we bought a fat daddy $1600 HDTV but refrained from the actual HD cable)
3. iphone
4. Wii
5. Portable Navigation System
6. A HOUSE

Mainly because ignorance is bliss and I'm afraid that once I get a taste, the lesser alternative will no longer be acceptable to me. But for some unknown reason (Katie believes it's because of my thyroid and since I was previously diagnosed with hypo active thyroid, I tend to agree) I have hyper pigmentation in a sort of mask form on my face that is commonly known as a "pregnancy mask." I've never been pregnant and since I'm 30 and getting old, I begin to doubt that I actually CAN one day when the time is right. That's another blog. Back to my mask... Since the mask is a section of brown spots, I thought I needed a yellow based concealer. I bought one - it didn't work. "Well, maybe I need a more intense yellow based concealer?" I thought.

My friend and I were making a stop at ULTA, so we decided to experiment. We tried and tried and the brown spots would turn a horrible diseased looking grey... which ended up making me even MORE horrified than before (I honestly didn't know that was possible). We scrapped that and I went back to my normal makeup routine, visible brown spots and all.

While walking through Dillards or wherever MAC is sold, we happen to walk through the perfume/makeup area. We had a thousand eyes of "makeup artists" staring at us from all directions, representing their prestigious makeup lines. Halfheartedly, I stopped to see if MAC had a yellow based concealer. They don't but of course they want me to take a seat while they slap some paint on me in hopes of selling me something. (Can you tell I was skeptical of their skills and the fear of pushing a sale onto me? I have a hard time even saying no to door-to-door magazine salesmen.) But after what seemed like quite a stint of time in the chair, it was revealed to me - a face WITHOUT brown spots! Gasp! It wasn't until the next morning that I personally realized that with the right tools, I could be a makeup artist TOO!

Ahhh. And so, I'm here to proclaim my love to MAC. I bought a $15 concealer that makes me super happy. I can go into public again! And who knew it wasn't super expensive??? Not I.

5 Phases of Loss

I got out of bed tonight to look up the 5 phases of grieving.

1-Numbness
2-Denial and Isolation
3-Anger
4-Depression
5-Acceptance

I would have continued to lay there as the other nights but I was afraid I'd wake Wayne. We lay in our usual position; me as his body pillow. His mouth is probably 2 inches away from my ear and I listen to him snore. I stare at the shadows on the ceiling and the blur of the ceiling fan and cry, silently. My tears feel hot and they move in a pulsing stream toward my ears and eventually end up on my pillow.

It's so weird. I can't believe he hates me this much. All I did was put pictures of my niece on my myspace. Looking at the situation now, a picture didn't cause this. How could a picture cause him to hate me unless he wanted to. This was an excuse. I predicted this though. Before she was born I wrote about being afraid our family dynamics would change. I knew our family would be strained. I didn't know it'd break. I gave him what I thought to be an easy out. All I needed was to hear that he loved me and that he acknowledged me as his sister. No phone call, no email, no text... even his wife wouldn't come close to saying I was anything meaningful to him. She purposefully avoided any type of statement that would provide hope.

And now I cry. I cry at night while Wayne holds me and sleeps. I believe I've moved onto Stage 4. The definition of this phase: As acknowledgement and acceptance of the loss and the reality of life after the loss grow, sadness and depression become more present.

I'm certainly not depressed in general but depressed as it relates to this situation -yes. I've begun to "remember" him in past tense. Hope of our future is relatively non-existent. I feel confused about how to act to his daughter. I asked if they have a single picture of me. His wife couldn't answer. As usual with his new family, no answer is answer enough. His daughter, my niece will never know me. The most she'll know will be from a picture at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I am so sad when I think of all the things I loved about him that are gone or that I'll never see again. He was so funny. He was goofy. He was always making people laugh. He was artistic. He was very musical. He was daring, adventurous. He was sensitive. He was happy.

I can't wait to hit stage 5. I'm tired of crying over him. I'm tired of holding onto that last sliver of hope because thinking about it even now makes me regress through loss and I'm quickly back to anger. I'm tired of asking my mom for pictures of my niece and crying. I'm tired of asking if they're doing fine. I'm tired of thinking of ways to help them or wondering what I'll do when I get married. I already feel guilty for thinking of not inviting him.

He will never ever understand the suffering he's caused me. I honestly cannot explain how enormously sad I am to lose my brother. It's been two long years and I'm tired of hurting. And it hurts that much more to know he's not.

Update and Things

First off, my interview:

I was talked out of wearing the red because it wasn't conservative enough for an interview. I exchanged it for a boring off white one instead. The interview itself went fantastic. I was feeling quite confident at the end of them all and quite honestly feeling like they HAVE to give me an offer. The interview was last Wednesday and here, a week later, I've calmed my confidence down and will believe I'm in the top 2. My final interview contained a lot of technical questions about my utilities designs from previous work and I stumbled over most of them. Once I got home I realized it's because those weren't process design parameters. They were mechanical. Looking back, I'm willing to bet he's not a chemical engineer but was questioning me from a mechanical background. Duh. If I could have just said that instead of guessing or raising an eye brow and asking him to explain his question... yeah. That was the only part of the interview that didn't go too smoothly. I should hear something either way by month's end but considering how quickly they called to set up a face to face after telling me they would, I'm not holding my breath. If I get the position, I'll have to describe the job because it sounds quite major with huge responsibilities.

Super Saver: Yep I'm down with savings folks. But wouldn't you know it? I ordered the damn Sunday paper and the first one I get has NO COUPONS! What? How is this possible? What the hell good is a SUNDAY paper with NO COUPONS!?! So, I'm still hanging out on the starting line hoping to save something someday...

Recycle: Phew. It feels like such a relief that I have finally bought a trash can to collect aluminum cans in. My apartment complex does not recycle so I've found some recycling centers around and I'm beginning to save cans, newspapers and other recyclables that I've yet to narrow down. I can't believe how much better I feel today because I'm recycling.

Valentine's Day: For any of you that don't already know about Restaurant.com, you need to check out the website. Basically, I bought a $25 gift certificate for $5 (although the closer we came to Valentine's Day, the cheaper they got! Yeah, cheaper than $5! Crazy. Anyway, Wayne and I went to Mt. Fuji Sushi and Hibachi for Valentine's dinner. We got a love boat for 2 and I must say I this is the best sushi/sashimi I've ever had. Even the octopus was fab, not chewy and delich. We also ordered Seafood Dynamite as an appetizer which unfortunately had onions in it and I barely choked them down. I shudder now thinking of the crunch. The menu said nothing of onions! I should have sent it back. Anyway, besides the onions it was also grand. The funniest thing about this Valentine's Day is that Wayne and I bought each other the SAME Valentine's Day card. Hilarious.

Junior Super Saver

My dear friend Katie (Expert Super Saver) recently taught me how to be a junior super saver and today, I'm beginning my transformation! I hope to be a Expert shortly, as she's passed on her mastery to me.

I purchased the Sunday paper and at a slammin' deal of $0.64/wk.

The grocery store fliers come out in Wednesday's papers and I'm not going to be getting weekly papers, so I've bookmarked all the weekly ads to Safeway, King Soopers, Walgreens and Sunflower Market.

I'll be comparing the prices of sales items between the stores and including my discounts due to coupons, rebates and such - or rather, I'm going to pay someone to do it for me.

I've signed up for e-coupons to be added directly to my king soopers and safeway cards.

This doesn't save me money but it helps me remain "green" even though apartment complexes do not find it valuable; I've found the recycling centers closest to me and I'll begin recycling newspapers, white paper, plastics, cans and glass.

As long as my "dream job" is dragging their feet getting me in for an interview, I have nothing but time to become a super saver. Seriously, if you all could hear my friend Katie speak, you'd all be motivated to save, save, save. I plan on itemizing my savings (because I freaking love finances and evaluating my success) and letting you all know HOW much I saved and spent. Prepare to be amazed.

What could YOU do with an extra $1000? $5000?

Kudra is Perfection

This gives me a glimpse into my future as a mother. I think that Kudra is absolute perfection. She can do no wrong and I find everything that she does adorable. Kudra is almost 9yrs old.

Here's my little hedgehog:
*snicker* I just love that pic! She's so funny. I think she's confused about why I'm around all day every day because yesterday she just followed me around while I cleaned. She was totally being a lost puppy dog. So I gave her extra attention and took her on a long slow walk where she could sniff every blade of grass excessively. I know she enjoyed it. Today, I was sitting at the table calling different vet offices to price Heartworm meds and she crawled under the table to lay at my feet.

I'm in jail!

I have no idea how she finds places like this comfortable with her head laying on a piece of wood, but here she looks like she could care less. (Note To Self: Straighten up the rug.)

My cute little senior citizen, Kudra:

Side Note: Does anyone know how to take the spots off of dogs eyes? It's different from red eye because red eye fills the spot in with a dark color and if you do that to animals, they look like devil dogs. So, I left it. It's like you need a button in photoshop for dog eyes.

Unemployed - Week 1

Wow. I have to say Day 1 sucked. I thought of my friend Kim, who is a stay at home Mom and wondered how in the hell she does it. Day 1 was boring. I watched TV including all the trash TV I love; Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, Divorce Court, Judge someone new I never knew existed, Oprah, Doctors, and so forth.

Anyway...So yeah, Day 1 sucked although I found all the shows I watched entertaining. Maybe it was just lacking productivity for me. Since then however, I haven't even turned on the TV during the day. I've studied for my interview, applied for unemployment, checked out our finances, went shopping, etc.

Today, I feel like this unemployment business ROCKS! I just got back from a long walk with Kudra, I'm drinking a hot cup of tea, finding places for all my work stuff (3 boxes worth!), and next on the list is cleaning and organizing my filing cabinet. This all may sound shitty to you, and I must admit I am procrastinating for a few minutes here, but I'll be SO happy when all that is completed. Wayne should be home in another hour, so I won't complete all this today but there's still the weekend and oh yeah, next week! haha. We'll see if I still love unemployment after I get all my chores done. Maybe week 3 will start to suck but I don't think so. I'll just pick up some of my grandma crafts that I've been dying to get old to have time for. First there's my love of card making, then I would like to reteach myself how to tat and make some more bookmarks for whoever, I need to teach myself photoshop (with the book I got for Christmas), and hell, I may even find the library and get a good novel. I haven't read in forever but it used to be a real passion of mine. Also, there's the cross-stitching that's been siting in my closet for 12 years. Yep. So many fun crafts, so little time.

AND to throw a wrench the picture I've created, I'm doing it all while listening to old Cypress Hill, Jedi Mind Tricks, Korn, Tool, Marilyn Manson, System of a Down, etc. Loud.

Interview

I had my phone interview today for the position I'm dying for and it went well. They're going to be calling me back to set up a face to face interview shortly. The thank you card for the interview has already been writen out and sent off so hopefully she'll get it tomorrow or Thursday and be impressed there as well. Tomorrow I'll be shopping for a new interview outfit. Today has been a super great day.

Unemployed

I was finally laid off last Thursday. They paid me out for the day and cut me my last check for 80 hrs. One thing I did in order to prepare for this was to reduce my 401k from 20% contribution back down to 6% (which is what the company matches). I am so much more happy for this decision after finding out that they put your vacation into your final 80 hrs and figure out your 401k contribution from the combined gross. Who knew? I guess I didn't know that they would contribute to my retirement from my vacation check but then again I also thought they cut everything as separate checks. *shrug* I can't imagine the puniness of my final check after taxes and an additional 20% for 401k. This was the smartest preplanned action to date.

I filed for unemployment today. Since Friday was technically my last day, today is technically my first eligible day to file. I need to look into what kind of penalty your severance and vacation payout causes you. I don't completely know how long I'll be waiting for my first check. If my vacation and severance penalizes me, I could be waiting months and months. But, again, I haven't really looked into it to that detail yet. I'm sure I will today.

I do have an interview though for my dream job next Tuesday. Wahoo. I'm trying not to get too excited for it though because I don't really want huge disappointment if I don't get it. There's so many people looking these days that I can't imagine that I'm the best applicant they've got. I'm sure this whole thing is a long shot. That's all. I've been an at home worthless bum Thur-today so I'm hoping to jump out of bed at a predetermined time tomorrow and start the day off right. I'm hoping to really become active in something soon.

Hello Again From Limbo Land

Current Employment Situation
Well hello. It is I, Limbo Queen writing from Limbo Land. I'm still employed and currently at "work." Since I have nothing better to do, I'm studying for my FE (never wanted to take it previously so yes, I'm like a thousands years behind). It's crazy how much you forget and how much they expect you to retain.

If I make it through today, I guess I'll expect that they won't lay me off until next Monday since I have a short week this week and have Friday off.


Future Employment Situation
I have applied for a job that I'm not going to get into detail about yet but it's my DREAM job. Yes, I said it. My full-on DREAM job. So, we'll see if I get it. So far I sent my cover letter and resume to the hiring manager (actually VP!) without knowing if A) It was an open position still, as it was posted in Oct and B) if it was open to external candidates. I have recently found out that it is indeed open and have gotten an acknowledgment that my cover letter and resume has been received and is in the correct hands but I am waiting to find out if I'm eligible to apply. I guess these are all things most people know before applying but I was too anxious and excited about my DREAM possibilities. At this point, I'm trying to remain calm and not get too optimistic about it because I still have to land an interview AND dazzle them. I still have to convince them that I'm the bestest best that they'll come across or that is out there (which, during a time when unemployment is at a national historic high, that's a little more difficult these days). I'll definitely keep you all informed.

Other
I had a pretty stressful, angry, depressing and overall emotionally draining weekend. It involved the ongoing fight with my brother. I wish I could express in words what's going on or how I feel but I can't write it. I don't want to write it down in words. I'm sure there's something psychological about this but I have no idea what it is. Maybe someday I'll be prepared to let go but until then, my motto is "Fake it Until You Make It." This has already been going on for 2 years and I'm still not there so it makes me feel like I won't be there for another decade or so. I would love some good news right now. It would be nice to have a little balance in my life.

Anxiety Overload

So, today's the day that I was expecting to be laid off. There was finally a meeting regarding it and once I saw that meeting was going to be held today, I figured I'd at least be employed until after the meeting. The meeting ended and here I am, feel more nervous and vulnerable than ever.

I know I need to make it as long as I can on overhead so that I can make it as far as possible on one income but I just hate the limbo and "surprise" axing. My parents just love this story:
I was in the grocery store with my mom and brother and we both got in trouble for something. My mom throws out the spanking threat, "You just wait until we get home and I tell your dad. You're going to get a spanking." I guess as a side note, I'll mention that we rarely got spankings and they were never with branches or belts or anything like that. Just your basic non-abusive kind. Nothing for me to really get that worked up about. But here's me whining over and over that I don't want a spanking. I would be an angel from there on out reminding my mom over and over that I'm being so good. I tried persuading her that I didn't need a spanking and that I've learned my lesson. On the car ride home, more of the same. When we got home, I'm at full-on freak-out mode and bawling. I can't remember if I ended up getting a spanking or not but my parents were so amused with my bawling fit that I remember them both laughing at me, as I was crying more than if I'd have just been spanked.

Moral of the story here, I don't deal well with the anxiety or anticipation of things. The anticipation of events and exaggerated catastrophe that's been built up in my mind really weighs on me and causes me heightened anxiety. And so, every quick, determined walk I hear outside my cubicle walls causes my heart to race and subside, race and subside.

And so I wait.

Layoff

I'm 98% sure I'm going to be laid off by the end of next week. It's true that you expand into your growing wages and as the larger source of income, between Wayne and myself, things are going to be super tight, a little scary and very disappointing.

It's hard to not take it personally. There's no way it's not. If they're cutting 50%, then you're in the bottom half. If they're cutting 10%... ouch. I don't know how many they're cutting, but however it ends up I'm below the yellow line. Actually it's more of a red line to me (as in negative finances).

I cried at work today, several times. I told 2 people and that's how I'd like it to remain. I'd like to walk out of there, calender in hand and no one knows until I'm just not there anymore. I've been laid off once before when the whole company went under. I have a chemical engineering degree and 8 years of experience and what do you want to bet I'll be working at Starbucks next month? It's such a blow to my pride and ego. I can't help but feel such guilt and karma for the pride I felt in my inflated salary. The mortgage preapproval that was twice what I ever imagined I'd ever have, the cockiness I felt only a few days ago when a coworker told me that he uses his floating holiday as SOON as he gets it in the new year because you never know when you'll go... I shrugged and said I'd hold onto mine until Christmas 09 like I did this year.

Ouch.

My largest dream was to get into a home this year. My largest goal was to save a ton of money. I just MADE those resolutions and already I'll have to remove that item from my list. I feel panic, anxiety, sadness, guilt, disappointment and embarrassment. I just hope my feelings pick up once I see what jobs are available. More than anything, I hope to walk out of there without crying. Avoiding all goodbye's should help.

Anyone in need of a chemical engineer? I have process and project engineering experience, experience in pharmaceuticals, oil and gas and power industries and have worked on conceptual, front end engineering, design, product development and have field experience. I was also a technical writer responding to FDA deficiencies and writing analytical development methods as well as worked extensively with change control. Sound qualified enough to make you a skinny no whip latte with a shot of hazelnut?

Hoarding Holly Miss Molly - The Living Room

The Living room

Well, I had this blog as well as the next blog written but apparently they didn't save to my drafts folder, so I'll start over. *sigh*

Here's some before pictures of her living room. You MAY notice the ~20 plants that are in her living room alone. Notice her "slipcover" aka fitted bed sheet piled in a ball on her couch. Notice fabric that's covering tables next to the couch and on the coffee table. You'll see their disheveled look but you may miss the fray at the bottoms. You'll also notice trash everywhere in sight. This is another consistency throughout her entire house. You wouldn't be surprised to find a taco bell wrapper in the bathroom or an empty Christmas tree box in her guest room...when she doesn't have a Christmas Tree! You can't tell from here but the blinds behind the hanging plant do not close nor does she tilt them shut. We got rid of approximately 10 plants but that includes the plants from her office as well. Most of them were partially or completely dead. I wouldn't throw away a perfectly good plant.

There's so much shit in this one that Kudra gets lost in the frame.

Here's a before of the fireplace ledge. Good thing you can't even tell there's a fireplace or a fireplace ledge there...

Here's the super short coffee table that she had to the left of the fireplace. You'll notice a stained glass pane in the background (behind an expired Colorado Calender) that is BROKEN and causing personal hazard because the broken pieces are SHARDS and parts of the shattered pieces are on the floor. (Shattered glass DID encounter my hands and make them bleed because they're hard to get fully until you're not thinking they're there.) In this TINY picture, I see 6 candles. I'm guessing that's what she uses to make herself feel clean and pretty because they are very nice candles. She actually has what I call "A Candle Room" which contains the majority of the candles. You or I would buy 1 of a scent that we like. She buys 20. They are housed in the guest room. I also see a stupid craft she did - lamp shade over corked bottle. Wahoo.

Here's a close up of some of her plants which reside on a piece of ripped drywall (no doubt taken from a demo site) on top of cans of dog food (of which, thankfully, she has no dog).

Here's the view from her "office" to her "living room." Quite nicely cramped "hallway/doorway."

Here's Wayne standing in the midst of Holly's shit.

Close up of her coffee table (complete with balled up fitted sheet, er, slip cover on her couch and lovely drapery of fabric on her broken/trash coffee table):

Here's mid-progress: Washing windows

And believe it or not, these blinds were recently broomed off before we washed ONE plastic slant blind with water & Lysol. Can you tell which one we washed? Yep, super nasty. I also washed her walls because of the nastiness I found on her blinds.

Here's mid progress. We'd already cleaned and decluttered the place by this point and were installing $330 worth of furniture for her place. We'd spent more on HER than anyone on our entire family (yes, including my parents). Knowing what I do now, I would have never donated so many hours to someone so disrespectful and unappreciative.

The dog bed, there, is mine. We took it away to display beautifully cleaned and waxed hardwood floors. We tried to throw away that cheap table since we bought her a larger cabinet thing to put there but she saw it in the trashcan and brought it back inside. Who knows where it now sits.

Here is the finished version. "Holly" sits on the chair that she couldn't get to before. Notice all the hardwood that's showing. In the left corner are glass shelves in which were COVERED in dirt/dust as well as all those nic nacs but we of course cleaned and windexed all the glass and took a wet rag to all her nic nacs. Lovely. Straight ahead you'll notice the entertainment center. We made it complete with several drawers, cabinet and shelving. To the right is the other little entertainment system/stereo stand that we made for her. She had asked me at this point if she should act surprised and I responded that her anxiety was good enough. Here she's pretending to be surprised.

You can't really see it well in this picture because I was trying to quickly grab some shots before all hell broke loose, but at the right is a fireplace. There is a box cluttering that area, which would have also been an impressive picture considering what we started with, but that box contained all the important papers we found. You'll also notice below, that the box on the right side of the entertainment stand is missing a handle. It should mirror image the other cabinet on the left side. We went back to install the handle that was missing the following day.

This picture is already starting to get cluttered. When she and her boyfriend arrived, they brought 12,000 bags of shit and threw them all over the place. So, you won't get the full picture of our work, but check out what you can. The blinds are super white, the ledge is decluttered of half of her ugly cactus's. To the left of the couch is another cabinet thing we bought and put together for her. Also notice the coffee table (old) but with a few decorative items that we also bought her. 2 brown and 1 green plate... the other items are hers that she's already thrown on there as well as the black "purse" in the middle of the couch.
Also, this is the only picture you'll see the other couch next to the back wall (far left side of picture). It also looked as organized and lovely but there's so many suitcases and plastic bags from Holly + Bf's arrival I thought it'd be worthless to even take the picture. Next to THAT couch that you can't see, we have set a very short little table with an awesome fabric covered box to catch her mail from the mail slot so it doesn't fall all over the floor. Another thing we purchased for her. We removed a broken, cheap-ass plastic handkerchief that she bitched about not having anymore. And when I was explaining the purpose for the fabric box and table in that location, she tried to argue with me that the mail didn't fall on the floor. Uh, I watched Wayne pick it all up, so her delusions run deep.

Another shot of the other cabinet thing we bought her.

A few more partially cluttered shots.

I'm still super pissed about this whole thing and I'm trying hard for our relationship to not be destroyed by this. When it was obvious I was pissed at her, she tried to lecture me on giving from the kindness of your heart and not for getting something in return (her appreciation). This one comment sits VERY heavy with me and will be the hardest thing to shake. It's hard to not spit back, "Undeserving Bitch."

Hoarding Holly Miss Molly - The Bathroom

Bathroom/Linen Closet

I spent approximately 7 hours on the bathroom and Wayne spent an additional 1 hr or so on the linen closet. A huge part of her problem shows up consistently in every area of her house in that she doesn't do anything with any type of organization or neatness. So, Wayne pulled out all of her linens and folded them nicely and was able to free up an entire shelf for me to put her excess bathroom supplies. He also arranged her smaller candles into 3 stackable containers and organized her larger candles so that they could be safely stacked as well. Sorry, no before pictures for this one. I had no idea I should have been photographing her closets in order to clean her bathroom.

I threw away probably 100 bottles of expired prescription drugs and 30-50 expired over the counter drugs. Some dating back to '94! I went through the mound of mail in her bathroom and removed her name and address from all the junk mail, sorted out anything important and threw away the rest. After making many trips to the dumpsters I decided I could probably use my own trash can and ended up filling an entire trash bag myself with JUST items from the bathroom. She had ~20 partially used deodorants, ~30+ lotions and 2 baskets of hair ties. Her medicine cabinet AND her vanity were busting at the seams as you can imagine since it took me 7 hrs to go through that TINY bathroom.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

No detail was spared (unlike her appreciation). The remaining pictures are obviously After shots.

As a final note, I'd like to mention that every single piece of paper on that bathroom floor was looked at, evaluated and either shredded (as junk) or put into a "important" box with all other paper items that we didn't know what to do with. The counter tops, sink, toilet, mirrors, even that shelf above that now holds her perfumes was cleaned. I evaluated every lotion, vitamin, face cream, etc to determine if it was A) Expired, B) Was empty enough to throw away and then I organized EVERYTHING for her so you could see it all and put extra-extra's in the closet. How many deodorants can you count in the closet pic at the top?

I would like to give you the 2 comments she had about this awesome transformation:

1) "Oh yeah. Well, I just cleaned the bathroom so it wasn't that bad."
Yep. That pissed me off because it's like she's discounting the 7 HOURS of effort that went into those 21 sq. ft. You can see by the pictures that it was nowhere near clean!

2) As she looked into the drawer and under sink cabinet, "Where'd you put the stuff that was in there."
This one pissed me off because most of the shit under the sink she had 50 of. She had at LEAST 3 full sized makeup bags. She doesn't wear makeup. Similarly, she has Guess Stilletos in her bedroom but does not wear heals nor dress up. She had seriously 8-10 boxes of pads/panty liners/tampons. I compacted them and put them nicely into the cabinet.

She never ONCE said that it looked nice or that she could tell a lot of (or any!) effort went into it.

But this doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg. You 'll have to see the transformation that happened in her livingroom. Check back for the next blog.

Hoarding Holly Miss Molly - Prelude

Key word here: Hoarding.

Holly* is a hoarder. She owns her own home and it is packed with shit. The first time I walked into her house I was shocked that there was no place to sit nor would I want to because the amount of items collected and crammed into every nook and cranny meant that her place had likely never been cleaned. Ironically, she's a nurse. I went to her house once when she had 6 house guests in which 4 were children and they were sleeping in sleeping bags on top of her shit! I was surprised that anyone would ever choose to visit her there, let alone sleep there. I walked around with great care as to not break something that I HAD to step on in order to move about the house or to not brush against a pile of papers or other junk and become smothered; sandwiched between floor shit and mountainous paper shit. You may or may not get the picture, but I hope you do because I do not have one the exemplifies that amount of items in her house. The hoarding has always affected her relationships with others. How could it not? But recently, things have started coming to a head with her family and boyfriend. Her boyfriend finally told her that she needed to stop the hoarding and clean her place or he was out. Smart man, in my opinion. He's got to know that if they were ever to move forward with their relationship, they'll eventually move in together and he'll have to live IN her shit. Give her 1" of empty space and she'll fill it up before you can say, "Dollar Store."

Yeah, you may have noticed that I refer to her items as "shit" because THEY ARE! Let me tell her some of her problems:

• She can't turn down a free sample of ANYTHING. That, alone, wouldn't be so bad but she also can't throw away a free sample of ANYTHING either! Her bathroom is FULL (and I mean FULLLLLL) of expired drugs, medicine, perfume samples, makeup samples, detergent samples. Her kitchen is FULL of different food samples that she obviously is not going to eat, yet she brings them home anyway. But don't get me wrong, I am in no way insinuating that food items are in her kitchen and medicine is in her bathroom. If someone collected the items in a room and asked you to guess which room the items came from it would be hard knowing. You'd wonder why the medicine was in the craft room, the can of oil was in the computer room and the planting soil was in the kitchen. Now I completely agree that we all do this a little, but the extent of items out of place in her house is abnormal.
  
• She thinks she's crafty so she's always making things that are also the equivalent of shit. Wine bottle, stuffed with Christmas lights and a lamp shade around the bottle. Yeah. It took zero talent and looked like shit. I believe she's also trying to be crafty by putting pieces of fabric over all her furniture. They're the wrong size, being pulled off by the weight of items to one side or the other and have frayed ends. This includes the make-shift "slipcover" that she put on her couch which is a fitted bed sheet that is FAR too large for her couch and is never all the way on. Usually, it's in a ball that adds to the rest of the items on her couch preventing you from actually using it as a seat.
  
• She has not been able to distinguish between old junk and antiques. She thinks that anything old is worth keeping. She has childish hair ties that I HOPE she's keeping because they're old rather than because she wears them. She's got large scruchie types (with way too much excess material = 80's), some that are banana clippy with excessive amounts of fabric on them as well and she has some that have cartoon characters on them (donald duck, pluto, pooh).
  
• She has an enormous plant collection including a full size cactus that is probably 3'-4' currently, a full-on rose bush and a plant that is probably used as some kind of ground cover. There were several dead or 75% dead plants and a gigantic amount of dead leaves all over her floor, in her heating register things, on her couches, etc. Instead of what I gave her for Christmas, I should have just given her a rake and called it good. Things probably wouldn't have turned out the way they did.
  

Ok, I'm done going over her problems. She's got more but now I'm interested in telling you what Wayne and I did for her as her Christmas present.

We

cleaned

her

livingroom.

GASP! Yes. That, and her bathroom and linen closet. We worked on it for 35 hours which is obviously 70 labor hours. That's a lot and we basically finished one room. Her bathroom is about the size of a small closet and I was FORCED to organize her linen closet in order to complete her bathroom.

*Name changed to protect the innocent.

Long Blog Info

Ok, so I've officially resized 63 pictures for a blog that I've been working on (not too actively however) and now I just have to try and narrow the picture count to like 20 if possible or I might have to break it up into a few "episodes." I'll be completing this over the holidays, as this has been on my mind and remained on my mind for quite some time now (since Thanksgiving to be exact). Here's a sneak peak:

Bathroom:
Office:

A completely blocked hallway:

A stuffed "craft room":

And the mack daddy, most used living space aka the Livingroom:

Wonder why I've taken pictures of this filthy, cluttered, fire hazard of a house? Those details will follow shortly along with additional pictures. Stay Tuned...

And So I'm Flinging Poop

Kudra is not the kind of dog that will poop in the morning without a walk so in order to minimize the poop time in the morning, I’ve become very routine with her and that’s seemed to work. She likes to eat before she goes and she enjoys 10-30 minutes digestion time. She really likes the scents of this certain path of grass so I continue to take her there. The shortest way to get to the grass path is a little grass alley.

Right next to the grass alley, there are garages. I’ve only seen ONE of them used and that one is used often. There is a man that comes out of the garage with 2 golden retrievers. What’s so special about Golden Retrievers? Well, they’re giant dogs so they leave giant poops. I’ve seen this man “pooping” this dogs, in which he does by letting them run off leash while he stands far from them and inside his garage. This has nothing to do with it being cold outside. My theory is that it has more to do with not wanting to pick up his dogs’ poops. He thinks that he can just act like he had no idea his dogs were pooping because he didn’t see them. The reason this doesn’t work is because if it’s obvious to ME that his dogs poop every morning, then it’s obvious to their owner what they’re doing every morning.

What do lazy, irresponsible dog owners love to see outside? Snow. And it did here a few days ago. What happens when the snow melts? All the poop mounds come out of hiding.

So, this morning while dodging land mines all the way down the grass alley, I concocted a plan. Basically, I’m flinging poop.

I picked up Kudra’s poop and put it in the dog poop trash bin and grabbed 3 more poop bags. (Yes, they SUPPLY poop bags as well as poop receptacles so there’s really no reason to leave it laying there.) I picked up 3 gigantic piles and doing so, I realized that I could have picked up at least another 4 large ones (maybe I’ll do that tomorrow) and lined the poop filled poop bags along the dude’s garage.

I feel kinda guilty ONLY because I’m placing judgment on him when I haven’t actually SEEN him commit the crime but there’s only a very small part of me that thinks it could possibly be anyone else.

Here’s my reasons:
1) He’s got giant dogs with giant poops.
2) He’s close in proximity.
3) I’ve SEEN his dogs pooping there. AND there’s been at least 2 times previous that he’s noticed me watching his dogs poop and acted surprised to be without a poop bag. (Not fooling anyone buddy.)
4) He typically does not have his dogs on leash (see my theory above).

I don’t really feel very anonymous however. Like maybe I’m the only dog owner that he sees in the morning so maybe he KNOWS that I’m the only one that would be upset to walk in a poop filled grass alley. I feel guilty and afraid that he’s going to aggressively confront me. Or worse yet, begin putting poop bags at my garage door and start an all out poop fight. I may have made my first apartment complex enemy but honestly, he should just get the damn picture and be responsible. There’s nothing worse than getting ready for work and putting on your fabulous shoes and then stepping in shit and smelling like shit.

If it wasn’t his dogs, he’ll be baffled as to why anyone would put poop at his garage door.

Funny Things I Overheard Today

I overheard a lady from Romania today talking on the phone. Here's her end of the convo:

“Oh, Ok.”

[Rapid Succession] “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“ Now stop talking.”



An IT guy installing something on a cube-neighbor’s computer:

[I.T.] "Ok, so I’ll install a shortcut for you. Quack, Quack. You’ll be needing it in the next few days."

[Cube Neighbor] “Hoorah.”

[I.T.] "Now you need to automate the Gooey."

[I.T.] "…Automate the Clicky clicky."

[I.T.] "Now Wax Off."

Uhhh.... ok.

-20F Bitches/Frozen Nose Hairs

Uh, yeah... no surprise to those of you that are currently IN Colorado, but it got down to -18F last night and was STILL -10F when I was walking Kudra this morning. Yep. I'm hard core. The moment I stepped outside my nose hairs froze and felt all weird.

Frontal Lobotomy

I have the longest blog in the universe in the making. It's all written, I just have to add the 50 pictures that I can't decide between AFTER resizing them all in photoshop and re-saving the smaller versions in my "for blog" folder. THIS is why I'm procrastinating.

I was watching something on discovery about this lady that had some kind of frontal lobe injury and now she has a VERY hard time making decisions. They showed her at the grocery store and her son brings up some Captain Crunch and asks if they can buy it. She looks in her hand and she's holding some other kids cereal for her son and tried and tried to decide which one she should get. Should she compare prices? Quantity? Health? Her son's desire for one vs. the other? The number of factors overwhelms her.
Anyway... I've been thinking that maybe I've received some kind of frontal lobe injury at some point in my life because I too have a hard time deciding on things! For instance, Christmas cards. I usually buy 3 different types of cards - all non-religious but so that I can pick the ones that would be most appealing to those that I'm sending them to. Of course there's 5000 different types of cards and I'd really like the time to sort through them all to make an appropriate decision. Wayne on the other hand wants to go NOW so I have to decide between 2 very similar cards. They both are a certain blue color with green glitter. But one is glittered gloves and one is a glittered tree. OMG. I...could....not....decide. Wayne's used to this though so he tries to help me out. He said, "This one. Now let's go." But that doesn't really HELP me because I want him to persuade me which one is the best decision. I don't want a rash choice. Then, my other bad trait steps in and I choose the one he didn't select and we're off.

Funny, now that I reread this blog, I've just described 3 character flaws; Procrastination, Indecision and Stubbornness.
But, hey, it makes me laugh.

The Lumber Baron Mansion Inn and Garden

My surprise "getaway" was an overnight stay at The Lumber Baron Bed and Breakfast. It's a mansion that was built back in the day (1800?) anyway, it's old. It's ~10,000 sqft! I try to imagine the guy that lived here with his family after having this giant mansion built. He's richer THEN than I will be in this lifetime. That's a lot of money. I guess he built it for $80K back then.


This picture doesn't really show the coloring like I was hoping but there's blues and purples and it's really cutely painted.


Here's the back of the house. And by the way, not surprisingly, the mansion is haunted. A major radio station here in Colorado just stayed there for Halloween and they brought paranormal investigators and stuff. The story is that 2 women were raped and murdered here in the 70's and the murders were never solved. Besides that I'm sure many more people died here naturally. The prominent spirits are women and children and there have been "sightings" as well as children playing and laughing.


Here's Wayne walking into the backyard. Of course, it's fall so a lot of the plants and flowers are not in bloom, but imagine what this looks like in the summers for the outdoor weddings that they have here. I bet it's gorgeous.




They have a bunch of clear bulbs hanging as strings of lights. I bet they're really pretty at night.






I think this is a giant planter or something. I took a picture of it anyway.


Now, here's where we stayed. Notice my new purse on the bed. That armour holds a 64" TV for us.

Sorry this is blurry but I was using "Night" mode and apparently I don't know how to work it yet. This is an old bed with intricate detailing in the headboard and footboard. I love the detail that went into old furniture.

Here's an antique writing desk. It opens with a skeleton key. Also, here's where I would wake at night expecting to see a little kid staring at me. Spooky.

Here's a picture of our ceiling. They were all wallpapered.

Here's our bathroom.
Our window overlooks the backyard.

I didn't take any pictures of the downstairs, but first entertainment of the night was casino night where we each got a few thousand in chips to play with and the objective was to see who could finish the night with the most chips after 1 1/2 hrs. Wayne came in 3rd! The 3 big winners got to spin the wheel for a chance to win $5M (fake-read on) but Wayne was cheated out of that opportunity because a guy at our table didn't know how to add. That was obvious because Wayne had at least 3 times as many $100 chips as the other guy did. Anyway, after the 90 minutes of game play was up, we all went to the third floor for dinner and for the top winners to spin the wheel, when all of a sudden we saw that one of the million dollar chips was missing! Someone had stolen it! But who could it be?
This is where entertainment #2 began: A murder mystery (except ours was a theft mystery). All the dealers from downstairs at casino night were in costume and character, so they were dropping hints to the mystery that was about to unfold later in the evening (which I didn't get until the "police man" was going through every one's motives. Anyways, we didn't finger the culprit. Our table wanted to guess the policeman as a twist - but there wasn't an extra twist. The suspects were suspects and the policeman was trying to solve the case, as presented.
Anyway, they called people up into the skits to participate and I was called up as an Irish Dancer. If you haven't already checked out my new shoes... now's a good time to do so. I was jigging as best I could in 4" stilettos. Yep. I wasn't a great jigger. Oh yeah, and the "Irish" girl in the middle was supposed to be the "Big River Hurricane" which is why we're wearing ponchos. She was dancing in a baby pool (with no water). I'm on the left with a poncho and green irish hat.

Some of the guests left so we toured their room and it was crazy so I took pics. They also had a rockin' bed.
And the coolest thing about their room was their tiny shower in their bedroom (not their bathroom). I guess this is original to this room. The Baron thought he was being pretty creative apparently.

The shower is freaking TINY! As you can see from the picture below, it's only as wide as like 7 standard sized tiles! That's SMALL! No room for you to bend down, so don't drop the soap!

That suite also had this bathroom with a gigantic mirror over their jetted tub. Wayne and I tried to take a cute pic in this but apparently, the flash is covering our heads.

Here's Wayne in the hallway outside of the suite above and next to the entrance to the Honeymoon suite.

Finally, I'm random and like skeleton keys. This one went to the bureau aka TV cabinet in out room. We also got a skeleton key for our door. :)
Anyway, we had a wonderful time and it was nice to get away even if it was only 15minutes from home.

Bday Presents

I got some awesome shoes for my bday using a gift card from my mom and dad. They're all similar in a few aspects:
1) They've all got some amazing heels on them because I'm short and need these to fit into the world... or at least make me look skinnier (distribution of weight baby).
2) They're all black because I need WORK shoes. I so desperately need black heels, so I'm starting with the basics for now. Reds and off-whites, etc can come later.

Here's the first pair:
They look like boots but they're actually little boot shoes that are being called shoesies or bootsies or something like that. Anyway I got them on sale and they weren't supposed to be. Wahoo!

The second pair:

These ones are similar to the first but they're not shiny leather, they're more matte AND they have a square toe instead of the pointy toe and they're not stiletto. These are the most comfortable of the three, for sure.

The third pair:

Yep, we're back to good 'ol stilettos, but these are obviously not boots or bootsies. They have a platform and the front looks like a miniature man's shoe which makes them super cute. Wayne's sister said that these ones are slutty and I'm sure these are Wayne's favorite for the same reason. Yep, not concerned about the slut factor. I'm obviously not a stripper, therefore these are allowed in daily life and with work pants. :)

I got this baby at JC Penny this weekend during their super sale going on for more than 50% off. It's much larger than my Coach purse and so I'll have to figure out some things to throw in it. This morning it packed my lunch, my cosmetics bag, my new wallet, some mail that I needed to look over, a netflix movie I needed to mail and my Suze Orman book. Yep. Awesome.

I'm loving the animal print silk inside:

And check out the matching wallet I found! It's a PERFECT match and they're not even by the same brand! I rock.

I love birthdays... and purses and shoes! :)

Elevator Etiquette

I've never had a job before where I had to ride the elevator as much as I do now.
You're saying, "Take the stairs!"
I'm saying, "Hell No, I'm on the 11th floor!"

Anyway, I guess that's why I've never known that there was elevator etiquette. There is. One huge, huge thing that men do for etiquette purposes is to allow the woman a chance to enter AND exit the elevator first. I guess this is a tip off to the old "Women First" courtesy from the 20's or whatever. When I first started riding the elevator, I wouldn't have thought twice about a man rushing onto or off of the elevator in front of me, but now that I've been riding one for a year, I'm onto those rude assholes that stand directly in front of the door opening with their back to me in order to be the very, very first off. Where are they going? In fact, just to piss them off, I stay right on their heals all the way to the building doors and scoff as they also fail to even do the door-handoff move in lieu of actually HOLDING the door open for me. Obviously, I know this is coming because of my correct judgements of them due to their lack of elevator etiquette.

Another one that will sound obvious (but I thought was odd the first time a guy did this for me) is holding the elevator doors open. It almost makes me laugh just thinking about this one. Obviously, this will be done by a man that is familiar with elevator etiquette therefore he's already let you on the elevator first and has probably made a sweeping hand motion as to say, "You first, ma'lady" and THEN puts his hand on the side of the elevator doors to make sure they don't close on you. The reason this one is so humorous to me is that obviously the doors are not going to close on me because they JUST opened and I'm not 97 yrs old so I could probably jump in and out of the elevator 6 times before the door even THINK of closing. The second reason this is absolutely side splitting is that no man is going to have enough strength to hold the elevator doors open with his arm extended fully and completely perpendicular to his body. His weight nor strength is prepared for the doors to ACTUALLY close and therefore this is basically an empty gesture. Kind, but empty. And if you stall long enough or drop your cell phone or something on the way out, it's hilarious to watch them get caught off guard as they try to fully step into the door in order to save their gesture and etiquette.

Ahh. So funny. Well, that's enough etiquette class for today boys and girls. Next time we're going to go over how to blow your nose around others and remember to sneeze into your elbow!

NKOTB

NKOTB. Seriously, what’s this about? For all those NKOTB fans out there that are 25+, I’m not trying to be offensive in this post, I’m just completely baffled. I am 29 currently and loved the NKOTB when I was young. I had their TAPE (wow…that shows how long ago this was!) and I bought all the Teeny Bopper Magazines for pictures of Joey. I was into it.

But, here’s where I get confused. Why are there girls MY AGE that are buying tickets to the NKOTB concerts?

So, I’ve been trying to think about this rationally.
90210 came back. Do I watch it of have any desire to watch it? No. Do I care about Brandon or Kelly? No.

My favorite 80’s movie EVER came back: Lost Boys. Have I watched it? No. Is it on my Netflix even? No. And, I hear Corey Haim and Cory Feldman are in it. Uh, still a no go on that one.

Debby Gibson, slap bracelets, hypercolor, pegging my pants, side pony tails, florescent doubled up socks, stirrup pants, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and yes, even NKOTB are all funny and acceptable for tweens but you won’t see me sporting a concert shirt any time soon. I would be embarrassed to even wear one to bed…alone…in the dark.

Bigger Cube, Better View

You may recall the shoebox I worked in previously. Well, I've switched buildings as well as cubicles and I have to say there are a few downsides but one upside is the cube space. So, I took this first picture standing at my cube entry with the chair pulled all the way back.


Here's a view to the left. I don't have any full size drawings out so you can't completely tell how nice this is going to be for me, but it really will be. I have put some items on the shelf there to appear as if I'm going to organize something. I haven't yet. Those are for show. haha.

Then my view to the right. I'll be able to fit LOTS of work on this side. I wanted to take the pictures immediately before all the people started rolling in and wondering why I'm taking pictures of my cubicle. So, I grabbed the camera out of my puse and left the drawer open as you can see. I've also done nothing with the netflix, apple or lean pocket for lunch. They really should do something about the BLUE drawers. I don't know if they were going for fashion some decade ago or what. But they're not doing it for me.

Here's an up close and personal look at my space. I've already measured and it's 3' from desk top to cube top, so I'm going to find a perfect plant to chill out behind my computer to add more color and LIFE to my area. I have so much space now, I need to fill it!

Now for the awesome view at the cubical to my left. I didn't end up with the window cube but I'm ok with that because my coworker that moved into it has to live out of his packed boxes because it's slated for our project lead rather than a lowely worker bee like us. He gets to enjoy this for now though. I took some pictures. Here's looking straight out. Check out those Colorado Mountains. Beautiful.

Here's the view to the right. I moved to this building from the one furthest away in the middle -right of the view here. I was on the 6th floor in that building (with the shoebox) and now I'm on the 11th floor in this building.
I'd have liked to have taken a view to the left but the sun would have blinded me. Maybe next week I'll add another one because truly the view is encredible. Especially if you're standing up there taking it all in. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather live.

Stay Fat

I super hate Vicky. She is a total bitch. It started when she couldn't contain herself at Colleen's dad's +2lb gain. Colleen was either crying or almost crying about the possibility of her dad being sent home and the camera was getting a kick out of showing ugly Vicky with that dumb smirk on her face. Obviously lacking compassion, self control and kindness.
She showed her true colors again on this last week's episode by:

• Smirking again at Heba lying to Amy P.
• Smiling uncontrollably at her husband, Brady only losing like 2 lbs enabling a sabatage of their own team, sending Amy P home.
• Saying that seeing a video of her children wasn't worth walking on a balance beam that was ~2 ft above a pool.

Hello??? Supposedly she loves poker but has no poker face. In fact, her face is what makes me hate her. She's also supposedly doing this for her kids. Yeah, the same ones she doesn't want to see.

Yeah....

So, I'm hoping she stays fat.

Holy Vertigo Batman!

I've had Vertigo for the past 2 weeks. It's the craziest thing! When I'd lay down for bed, I'd feel like my body was spinning out of control. So much so that I honestly didn't know which way was up and I felt a little panic thinking I was going to fall off the bed.

I also felt it when:

• I was rinsing out my hair (tilting head back in the shower)
• I stood up
• Looking quickly up at the computer screen after having to look at the keyboard while typing in my password at work
• Randomly for no reason while walking down the hallways
• Sitting down

Yes, I continued to drive. I stopped working out though.
P.S. I'm almost totally over it now.

Nothing Better Than Gift Giving

Gifts are FUN. Giving is more fun than receiving.

My lovely friend KKL just had a birthday and her divorce finalized. Seemed like a perfect time for a gift! (I LOVE sending people gifts!)

So, check out the lovely green tissue paper. I thought it went nicely with the colors on the card. Yes, I do think about things like that.

And here's the gift all opened up. Notice the candle at top right has a dark brown label? Also notice the coffee mug has a dark brown/gold color as well? Yep.

Completely accidently, the starbucks gift card has beige tree leaves/branches and so does the candle label. haha. I'm such a dork.

The whole thing was packaged in a photo storage box. Perfect for storing post divorce memories.

Changing Aspens

Last weekend, Wayne and I went up to Golden Gate Park to take pictures of the changing Aspens but Wayne wanted stream & aspen pics so we ended up on a random pull-off on HW6. Here's a lovely stream & aspen pic.


We brought Kudra of course. She was loving it. Eating too much grass, but loving it. She was definately keeping her distance from the stream. She had no interest in lapping up some good clean mountain water, though I tried.

Wayne was feeling very peaceful up there as evident in this picture.

If I didn't know him better I'd think he was thinking deep thoughts. Rather, he was probably wondering what this was:

And here's a cute family shot... minus moi. It was a great day!

Random Ramblings

So, I'm bored at work today. We're destaffing this project this week/Monday so we've completed everything and are just awaiting a new project. So, I'm bored. I've been emailing and thinking of weirdness. Here's some random things I've been thinking about.

The Iraqi girl I work with is totally super rude. She is ALWAYS running into me. She would rather knock my shoulder with hers than move a millimeter. I asked if SOMEHOW this is related to her culture and I was told that it kinda is. That people are generally not courteous to each other so she's not used to being courteous to others here. So, that got me thinking... if I were to go to Iraq or some other country where they're generally rude to each other, should I become rude too? I'm thinking that if I weren't rude, I would look weak rather than nice... Something I'm randomly thinking about.

I'm contemplating Halloween costumes.

I just google mapped Denver to Abu Dhabi and it IS actually on the other side of the world.

I'm thinking I should start cleaning off my desk. I SHOULD organize crap and save it but I'm thinking the trash is looking mighty convenient.

Halloween

What in the hell should I be for Halloween? I totally cannot walk into a Halloween store and pick up some slutty costume like most of my cute little skinny friends... I just cannot. I even tried a few years back and even though being a big ho in a little red riding hood outfit is acceptable on Halloween, it would come across as public indecency if I were to attempt such an act. My extra large chest will not allow it... So what do I do? I have 3 weeks to figure something out so I can attend Halloween parties. Help!

Pumpkin-palooza

I told you all I was in a pumpkin frenzy and I was successful in recruiting Wayne into my obsession of all things pumpkin. So, Wayne made our pumpkin dinner which was super fantastic. This is an Argentinian dish called Carbonada Criolla which combines meat and fruit to make a colorful stew.

That's a large pumpkin! Weighing in at 14 lbs, fitting it in our refrigerator was a task in organization, for sure.
I wasn't sure how to eat the corn on the cob mini's in there but they were good.
You can see the apple slices in the stew which was a sweet surprise. Some of those are potatoes too though.

And Wayne smiling by his masterpiece. Meanwhile, I was cooking our dessert. Below are the pumpkin harvest bars for Wayne...And I made some dessert for me too. Here's my little individual dessert - fat free pumpkin spice pudding that does not come as an instant pudding.
And with a dollup of fat free whip cream, my dessert is complete.

So, that's it for today. We each have a few more pumpkin recipes picked out for tomorrow though. We're not pumpkin'd out yet!

Rain and Kudra

It was pooring cats and dogs last week and I knew it would be hard to capture a picture that looked cool but I attempted it anyway:
P.S. Check out my dream car in the background. It's the bad ass TT with it's stylin' rims and all.Kudra hates water so here she is deciding if it's worth it to get wet to pee:
Here she's hugging the garage trying to stay out of the rain but was getting ready to turn around and return to shelter. She's the cutest ever.

I Love Fall

So, I was getting a coffee at Starbucks and they had sampler bites of their pumpkin scones and I couldn't resist - biggest loser work edition or not! It's just a bite. So, now I'm in a pumpkin frenzy. I'm going through all my cookbooks to determine WHICH pumpkin items I'll make this week. Yum. Pictures to follow...

Biggest Loser Work Edition

Biggest Loser Work Edition... well not exactly, but there was a challenge extended today by a coworker and he backed it with money... so I guess you can call it a bet. A male coworker thinks that he can lose more weight than 3 of us girls can by the end of November. I don't know if he just got tired of hearing us talk about trying to lose weight or wanting to or if he just thought it'd give us all the motivation that we needed to be successful but either way I'm in it and I'm going for gold. Starting weigh-in is Monday and final weigh-in is December 1st. That's 8 weeks of dedication, exercise and sacrifice. My personal goal is 25 lbs because that would rock. It's definately a steep weight loss goal at ~3lbs/wk but I typically shoot a little high to keep my drive.

So, what's the plan? Exercise 5 days a week for 1 hr at a time and watch what I eat. Diet and exercise... that's a novel idea. I'll keep you guys informed on my progress! Wish me luck :)

Weekend To Do Part 2

I hit 2 out of 3 on my To Do:

1. Scanner: TRIED to set it up. It didn't work. Note the picture that I was going to scan in as an inspirational pic of what I'd like to look like again someday.

2. Workout - No go.

3. Potterybarn. We bought some cool vases:

They look great with the grey bedding in the guest bedroom.

Weekend To Do

My weekend to do list includes:

1. Set up scanner
2. Post Day 1 photo w/ entry on new blog; My Path Is Paved With...
3. Workout (A.M.)
4. Figure out something to buy at Pottery Barn with $150 in gift cards.

Arabic Chatter

Since I'm working on a project based out of the middle east (Abu Dhabi) we have quite a few Arabic speaking people on the project. I happen to sit by 2 refugees that came here from Iraq after working with Americans at their company and supposedly just their interaction with their coworkers caused them to be endangered by other Iraqis. Anyways, two of them sit by me. I enjoy people talking around me because I enjoy socializing but I've found that I am so annoyed by the Arabic chatter that I have to put my earphones in. Interestingly, if I can't join into the conversation, then I'm annoyed by talking. In my head I wonder why they aren't working. I wonder if that's how they feel about my conversations.

Dubai or Not Dubai

So, I have an opportunity to go to Abu Dhabi (40 minutes away from Dubai and about 1 1/2 blocks to the beach) to work for 4 months and I'm conflicted. I would go Dec-March with a break & paid ticket to return here for Christmas. It's the best time of the year to go there (77-96F) and is the fastest growing vacation spot in the world. I would get an "uplift" (aka raise) for the time I'm there and possibly extra per diem. Since I don't have a passport, my company would get me one (pay the fees) as well as a work visa.

The downsides? Being a 26 hour and $3000 flight away from everyone I know and love, especially Wayne. Also, the United Arab Emirates are 11 hours ahead of us so I'd be on opposite time schedules as anyone I'd like to talk to in the US. Also, when Wayne was gone for 4 months last winter (in Vegas) I found myself depressed and lonely. I'm afraid that once the inital excitement wears off I'll be super isolated and probably sad again for being away from Wayne for so long. Finally, the work... no one on my project wants to go because of the work. I'll have to answer questions regarding the design for the entire oil and gas facility (what myself and 30 other process engineers have been working on for the past year). That's a lot to know and surely above any one engineer's head.

So, why do I really want to go?

1. If you do the math alone, it would cost at least $10,000 for a couple (from the US) to vacation there for a week. This is probably a chance in a lifetime to go there on my company's dime and just foot ONE $3000 ticket for Wayne and vacation there toward the end of my assignment also without having to pay for room and board.
2. It would probably look really good on my resume and it would benefit my career as well as experience.
3. I'd get paid more.

Give me some advice guys! I'm on the line about this one and I need some help!

Here's some pics to help you all envision what I'd be seeing:

Tallest Building in the World:


Cool Looking Buildings:


Awesomeness:


Man-made Islands:

New Love Old Love

There's a lot to say about old love. Old love seem romantic, seems sweet. New love, people look as fragile, new. You never know if it's going to withstand the test of time, but Old Love has seen it all, conquered it all thus the romanticism. I couldn't fall asleep tonight and I just kept thinking that this is what my life will feel like in 50 years. I should be so lucky.



Wayne and I will be new love for many years in the scheme of things, so on our way to our 3rd yr anniversary, we'd definitely be considered "new." However one thing still seems to stick out as everlasting... he cuddles with me every night. Whether I'm mad at him or he's mad at me, he can't keep from being my suction cup. His legs around me and his arms around me. His head nuzzled into my chest or armpit or whatever lay closest to him. And it's too cute... my friends would reminisce about the early times when their husband/boyfriend cuddled with them to me and they would say, "It won't last more than a couple of months." I lied awake tonight thinking about how this cuddling has lasted multiple years, troubles, happiness and anger. I hope this says something about Wayne and I. I hope it's forshadowing of our future. It's constant and planned for during winter and fall months. I'll pull the comforter down and/or turn on the fan to combat the heat he generates. I call him my heater.



I can't wait for this love to develop into old love. Comfort. Unchanging. Neverending. It's taking all the excitement out of love, but leaving all the happiness. Taking all the risk and leaving only pleasure. I'm ok with that. I've said it so many times and I'll say it again, "I cannot wait to be old!"

Mutated Gerber

I wanted to show you all my lovely mutated gerber daisy that Wayne bought me. I just loved it... until I killed it. :(

"Fun" Committee

So, I was nominated to be on the "fun" committee and donate my time to come up with ways that our project group can forge friendships or at least familiarity with other coworkers on a more personal level. When I began this project 8 months ago, I was all about trying to form friendships and was shocked that not only did no one want friendships but the company wasn't interested in "team building" as ALL my previous companies had been. So, learning of the "Fun" Committee, I was excited; thinking this was my opportunity to change my environment and make everyone more friendly.

Recently I've had a true change in mind about "white collar engineers" vs. everyone else. Here's SOME of the reasons why (all pertaining to the "fun" committee.)

• We're having a project BBQ at a park. Someone on the committee suggests that we have organized field day events like we had when we were in elementary: sack races, three-legged races, carrying the egg on a spoon race, egg toss and bat race.

So, my opinion is that this shit is LAME! I mean, I'm not 10 anymore. I don't play with barbies and my little pony and I also don't egg toss. Now, in heightened stages of drunkenness, could I possibly find spinning around with my head on a bat and running amusing? Sure. But, liquor is not allowed at this function for several reasons: our client is invited and they're Arabic (aka everything is sinful and worthy of damnation in their religion) and secondly, the company doesn't want to be responsible for someone drinking and driving. Apparently, I'm the minority in this decision because all the other lame ass engineers find this "fun." After voicing my opinion, I was looked at by all of them like I spit on their mother and the only acknowledgement to my comment was, "Thank you for your opinion" as they continued discussing field games.

• Food: It's a freaking BBQ at the park and they want to cater the food. *sigh* How lame is that? I asked if they have BBQs and they said yes. So... I sat there thinking for awhile because it didn't make sense at all to me why we weren't BBQing our own food. Finally, I voiced my opinion (as I've been known to do) and asked why we couldn't BBQ our own brats and burgers. The "fun" committee finds this amusing to them as they all laugh and as to say DUH!, they respond "Who wants to BBQ????" as they chuckle. OH MY GOD! This blows me away! I'm so shocked. The men I work with all such pussies. There's not a man-bone in their entire bodies! So, in typical fashion, I insult them, "That's funny because if my dad were here right now, he would surely volunteer to BBQ but I guess that's because he's a manly man." I should have said "real" but that might have crossed the line.

• The "Fun" committee is in agreement to provide wrist bands to each co-worker and their families so that we can tell if someone random tries to eat our food. *sigh* I should be used to disagreeing at this point but I must say, I was still shocked! We're not a country club. Our food isn't going to be so spectacular that we can assume that so many random people will eat our food that there's none for us! Plus, how many people do that anyways? I feel like it's just another pretentious act and is unnecessary and ridiculous.

• Other ideas that I brought up for activities for us to do were poker and white water rafting. The "men" weren't having it! Shocker. They don't play poker and white water rafting sounds just too damn fun for any of them to involve themselves with.

So, this is the people that I get to work with. I've never felt so "cool" that I couldn't hang out with the freaky dorks until I joined this company. I feel like their nerdiness alienates ME and therefore I look down on all of them for being socially inept. Needless to say, I'm not going to the picnic and I really want no part of it. I'd rather continue to feel alone in my work environment.

Our Boss's Office

So, our boss went out of town recently and this is what happened to his office:

The above picture shows that we what you can do with $35 worth of tin foil. We were able to get the floor, his desk, his paperwork in files on the wall, his paperwork on his desk, his overhead cabinet, his computer, printer, telephone...

his chair..

close up of the telephone...

his guest chairs and awards on top of the wall cabinet and not pictured are the two book shelves and pictures on his wall, his calendar and even the sticky note hanging off this computer.

He was sad when we cleaned up his office for him later in the week. We had many helpers and it only took 1 hr. Fun times at the office.

Dream: 3-legged Marmot

First of all, any of you that know me know that my dreams are ALWAYS fucked up. This one is no exception:

I'm hiking in the mountains up a steep trail with my dad and up ahead we see these 3 animals coming down the trail towards us. They had the face and "hair" of a tree sloth:

and the body of a gorilla.

My dad tells me to slowly back up down the trail. We continue doing so until we get to the truck.

"What in the hell are those?" I ask.

"Three-Legged Marmots, " my dad answers.

"Three legged?" I think. I look them over again and notice that they are in fact missing their right hind leg In it's place is a fourth "hand" though attached directly to their bodies and they are holding hands with themselves with their front right hand while "standing" but while walking they walk just like gorillas but with 3 legs instead.

I felt a sense of danger although they didn't charge us. I had never seen them before but I assumed that since they continued walking toward us that they were being pushed into [our] contact by [our] invasion into their space.

My dad and I drive to our cabin in the mountains where we apparently live. My dad has to leave but will be back shortly. He takes the gun and leaves. We wait for hours and he doesn't return. My mom starts to get frantic as she's impatiently walking around this tiny monkey that I assume is my baby sibling. She's afraid that the marmots are encircling us. I have no idea why, but I need to get back to MY cabin where my boyfriend and Leslie (old time friend) is. I can see (in my head) that Leslie is impatiently walking around a baby as my mom was with the monkey and my boyfriend had left with the gun as my dad had.

I leave the cabin and my mom and monkey to drive to the other cabin - on my motorcycle (which I do not have in real life). I have to ride through a town like Longmont (my home town) to get there. (I was even dreaming of a specific part of Hover Rd and everything.) Anyways, the road was very busy but we were all driving relatively fast. All of a sudden, a family of squirrels dart into the street and I have to swerve to miss them. The traffic comes to a stop and I look to the car to my right to mkae a shocked face but they look like it's normal.

We begin driving again and we pick up speed and again a family of skunks run onto the road directly in front of me. I swerve again but more abruptly. Traffic comes to another stop and I turn to the right to look at the neighboring car thinking that surely they would find this odd. They look completely undazed.

We begin driving for a third time and pick up speed. I'm thinking of the odd animal presence along the road when I see ahead that there is a third incident happening as I roll up on them. This time it's babies and baby marmots crawling across the street like they're all from the same "family." I come to a complete stop and stare at the children that are crawling across the street as if they are marmot animals and I'm shocked. I'm so confused. All horror-like, the babies look at me and smile this twisted smile and begin to laugh at my shock.

The whole time the baby scene is going on my my mind, a Guns and Roses song plays one chorus over and over:

"Only poor boys take a chance
On this garden’s song and dance
See the flowers as they wrap around
But only smart boys do without.

So Long…. Bye Bye…"

Yeah, so that's it. It kinda freaked me out. I was wondering if my subconscience mind was trying to tell me that I'm going to die or something? I have no idea but it's freaky whatever it means. Go ahead, analyze away. Let me know what you come up with. I'm super curious - Anyone!?!

My Shoebox, Er...Workspace

I thought that you guys might find it amusing to check out my work space. We work in these shoeboxes called "cubicles" approximately 10-12 hours, 5-6 days a week. Here's a far away view of my friend Rebekah and her shoebox.

Now, my desk. Check out how orderly it is.


Notable Items:

• Coffee Cup fashioned in Red to the right of my computer.
• Green Nalgene bottle that's probably giving me cancer to the left of my computer.
• Box of Kleanex for when the egotistical superjerks of the project yell at me.
• Wet wipes because I haven't gotten used to wearing nylons with my dress shoes and some days it's cold enough that I MUST let remove my shoes and apply my heat to the feet heater under my desk. I'm sure you can imagine what sweaty feet vapor smells like. I have the wet wipes there to minimize the odor.
• My pink watch just laying there because I don't actually WEAR it at work, I just wear it to and from work.
• Next to my watch is my handy dandy book of conversions because no one wants another hubble screw-up.
• Ah yes, and my cheapy calculator because I'm not trusting enough to bring in my expensive one from college. In fact, I have a ~$15 drafting pencil and I'm paranoid every day that someone will snatch it off my desk.
• Then there's layer upon layer of work in front my computer on a little stand as well as drawing upon drawing on the desk that they call my "work space." Yeah. It's like those desks in the olden days that were the same size as your notebook.

My favorite part is my calander, the cool artistic print that Wayne bought me, a photo of my old 4-runner that I dearly miss and my postcard that says "Steal My Identity, Please." Who knows what it represents? Anyone? Anyone?

Aw. My Friends.

So, although I was feeling sad about my friends a few posts ago, this weekend everyone has called me. I guess it's easy to feel like you don't have friends when your feeling lonely but this weekend has turned it all around for me. One of my good friends told me she's having a baby! Another friend let me know that she's busy with family and a 3rd invited me to the zoo with her and her son. and a 4th is on vacation. I do feel blessed to have such awesome friends. Sometimes it's just hard to keep the social life I was accustomed to in college although college seems so far away. I guess I need to move onto more adult activities. Like play dates and kid activities. Maybe it feels awkward to me because I am the last to have kids or get married. But my friends are still there, but in a different capacity. It's time to grow up. I'm just the last in line.

And That's Strike Three (The Novel)

PREFACE:

First of all, let me preface this blog with a little background. First of all, the people that I work with are very super smart and introverted. I feel out of place personality wise and the closest to my personality is the project secretary. Surprise, surprise. The only non-engineer on the job. Also let me say that work is like college when it comes to friends. You end up being friends with those out of convienence rather than true connections. It ends up being more about who you're around than who you enjoy the most.

Anyways, that said... my work friend, the secretary, has truly shown her true colors and it's too much for me to ignore anymore for the sake of having a "work friend." In this case, it'll cause me more INconvienence to NOT be her friend than to forgive her and continue this little charade of ours but the discomfort is worth it. Let me know if you guys agree.

CHAPTER 1: The Ride

At this point in the project, I was working 60+ hours as well as trying to fit in the normal errands and giving Kudra adequate attention - all while Wayne's away. Most days I went to work in the dark and came home in the dark. The secretary has been telling me that she's going to fly out to see her 500 year old grandpa/boyfriend the following week and she was trying to figure out how she was going to get to the airport. Obviously understanding the passive hint, I said nothing since I DID NOT want to take her ass there at the height of rush hour AND my standard 12 hour days, not to mention I'd have to take off work even earlier to run home, take out Kudra and then head back to work before the drive to the airport.
She hinted a few more times the next few days and then 3 days before her trip she TELLS me (with a laugh and a smile, supposedly to make it go over easier) that I was going to take her to the airport AND pick her up that weekend. I sigh and ask what time. She tells me. I respond, "Well.... I have been working SOO much lately that I don't think I have time." She jokingly tells me to shut up and trys to re-plan my day for me: I would run home for lunch to take out Kudra and run back (she estimated would only take 30 minutes total) and then leave 30 minutes before her flight left (not accounting for rush hour OR the the standard 1 hour before departure stuff) and I'd supposedly get back to work 1 hour after leaving. Yeah fucking right. I wouldn't have known how bad rush hour was on the interstate to the airport until 1 month later, but it's basically horrible. You're stopped the entire time. Yeah it sucks. Anyways, lets just say that her estimates were off by 50%, I'd have to spend an additional 3 hours at work to make up for my time away. I get into work at 6am... so at 9pm, I'd be able to finally leave for home. Wow.
I was already dreading this shitty business but to add to it all: WE HAD A VALENTINES DAY BLIZZARD!!! Rock on. So... I call her up and say, "So, I saw that there's supposed to be a blizzard tomorrow morning and I feel really uncomfortable driving on interstates in my little tC (with low profile tires) during blizzards since I've been stuck in blizzards in my car before (blizzard '06-what, what?) and it's now something I'd rather avoid. But since I had told you I'd take you (aka rather you forced me against my will), I came up with some other solutions for you. 1) Could you ask HR if any other employees are arriving/leaving for the airport via shuttle? 2) Ask some other friends that have 4-wheel drive? 3) Look into the light rail since we have free passes? 4) Suck it up and pay $5/day in off-airport parking?" She said she would and I felt relieved.
The afternoon rolls around and the blizzard is starting to die down. It looks like I could take her (weather wise). However, the entire morning looked nasty and she should have been prepared with answers to all the above suggestions, so I think asking if she's looked into them sounds reasonable and I'm thinking she'd have at least 1 different option to get there, if not 4!
So... I ask her, "Hey did you find an alternate way to the airport?"
"No, I've been so busy I haven't even looked into it."
"Oh.... So, can you... look into it?"

Her facial expressions immediately change. She's immediately pissed as hell. So I try to explain, "I told you I'd take you, but I was hoping that if you had other options you could use one of them instead since it doesn't appear that I'll have anything less than a 12 hour day today. If they all fall through, I'm still on for taking you though..." Of course I couldn't really even blurt that out at one time because she was already walking away from me being incredibly rude. I follow her trying to get the final bit out but she's still walking away so I take the hint and shut up and go back to getting some coffee. She walks by me again 30 seconds later and I try to stop her to say that I'm getting the feeling that she's pissed at me for asking if she has other options and that I think her behavior is unfair. She's too busy walking away from me to hear it all or respond. (Alright, I'm thinking - fucking child - how old are we, honey??? but I'm also feeling bad for letting her down).

I go back to my desk and write her:

Dear Ms. Secretary,
I can tell that you're obviously upset with me but I think you're taking this wrong. I asked if you had other options because after last night's conversation about the blizzard, we came up with other solutions that I thought you were going to follow up on . I thought that was adequate time to find an alternate solution so I thought that same solution would work since I am so busy at work. I do not find anything inappropriate about me asking if you had researched any additional options or suggesting that you DO research one or two. I also tried to tell you as you were walking away that I pride myself in the ways I treat my friends and that I'd still take you if no other solutions presented themselves. I still see no reason for you to behave in this manner but if you'd like, I'll drop it and just pick you up if you still desire."

She sends me some one-liner B.S. answer like, "Thank you for your note, but I'll find another way." Sounds peachy and sweet but knowing her, it's all bitchy undertone.

Fast forward: She apparently did not want me to pick her up from the airport since I did not recieve any notification of the matter. Monday - awkward. She's glare at me through meeting windows if I walked by and walked down a different hallway to the bathroom in order to not walk by my desk. Monday's when I got pissed. I determined that she was SUCH a fucking child (although 32-33) that she was not someone I'd want to associate with. I felt like I was in HS again or something. I honestly haven't felt this much immaturity since then. Wednesday, she pretended like she must have been too busy to see me and pretended like she was never mad about the ride.

(Raises eyebrow and thinks... Ok, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I misread her.)


CHAPTER 2: The Aquaintance

The secretary had been complaining and almost in tears about the fact that her work friends from the last project she was on never invite her to their place or accept her invitations to do things with her although she's constantly extending the invitation or surprising them at lunches for an impromptu meet and greet. Basically, she was sad they didn't think of her as she did them. I finessed the email she drafted to them to a more objective tone rather than accusative/angry/drive-them-away tone that she constructed. She was happy and they responded to it saying that they were sorry they'd denied her suggestions for lunch/other activities but their children/husband/family kept them busy; that they never meant to give her the impression that they thought of her as an aquaintenance rather than a friend and they'd get together soon.
So, sometime later that week, I had been getting an odd vibe from her. She was supposed to order our team lunch for a meeting we had coming up and I wanted to ask her if she remembered to order me a salad rather than a sandwich. The sting went something like this:
Me: S'up yo. Did you order my fat ass a salad so I can become a skinny ass?
Her: (Blah blah blah - formal wording like I'm talking to HR - blah blah blah).
Me: Whoa nelly, you're talking to me like I'm not your friend.
Her: You're all just aquaintenances.
So, finding her email shitty especially when I was having fun with her, I responded:
"Ok sure. I'll treat you accordingly from now on."
She wrote me back telling me that instead of judging her I SHOULD have asked her what was wrong and if I could help...blah blah blah. Basically, an email about what I did wrong in my response rather than the appropriate response to her shittiness. It was seriously judgemental against ME for not being sweet and sensetive to her attitude. (This should have been in the preface, but the secretary is a young black woman who behaves in accordance with the stereotype of the young black woman - tons of attitude - not afraid to look at you like you're a dumbass even though you OWN the building - talk down to your own boss - and make it well known that she'll tell you what her ass wants to tell you. Period.

Telling me that I should have reacted sweetly to her shittiness - strike 2

CHAPTER 3: The Linebacker

Shortest chapter of them all. I called up the secretary to ask if she had remember to get up lunch for an all day meeting we were having. Here's how it went:

Me: Dialed Number (Ring...Ring)
Her: Hello?
Me: Hey! What's up!?!
Her: You walk like a line-backer.
Me: What???
Her: Nothin', what'd you call for, girl?
Me: Nothin' (click).

I was instantly pissed. What does a linebacker represent to you? A large man with beefy upper body who waddles in his hugeness? Yep. Me too. What a fucking bitch. I was instantly pissed and hanging up on her let her know this. She came running over to my desk... to tell me sorry??? Nope. She supposedly came over to ask me why I had initially called. Here's the convo:
Her: Why'd you call, girl?
Me: Nothing
Her: Why you' call?
Me: Nothing
Her: What'd you want?
Me: To know if you FUCKING BOUGHT US LUNCH!
Her: I did.

POSTFACE:
So, I haven't talked to her. I think she's a bitch from hell who is shooting herself in the own foot apparently since she actually WANTS friends. I've known she wasn't a true friend from the get-go but I ignored it since all the rest of the folks are super nerd introverts that I barely relate to.
Monday has come and gone and I've already planned out my conversation with her if she tries to appologize. It'll go something short and sweet like this, "Sure. No, I'm not mad at you. I do forgive you but it gave me the opportunity to evaluate our friendship and I think we're better off as acquantances rather than friends."

If you made it through the novel I'm excited to what you're opinion is????

Extra Learning Intra

Harness it through space, nature, music, power
but don't seek it through others. They're not consistent.
Careers, moves, travels, drive all take away in others
that which you desire.
Learn instead to find it elsewhere, somewhere you've never gone.
It doesn't feel right. It's forcing the yellow to be green.
The rhombus to be square. It goes against that ways I was made.
The things that make me me.
I can't be intra but extra has also been denied.
I feel a little like a shell with my light bound.
Supposedly there's another source of light but I haven't enjoyed it yet.
It's been 29 years.

A little loneliness never killed anyone

I'm sitting here on a Friday night... alone...again. I'm not sure why THIS night feels any different than all the other nights I've sat here alone. Maybe I feel more lonely because I was able to see Wayne last weekend. Maybe it also plays a factor that even Kudra is not here. It's times like these that I begin to reflect on my life, friendships, and goals that I have.

I'm thinking mainly about my friendships. Finding good friends seems harder than finding a good man. Maybe I expect too much from my friends. I desire a serious closeness that cannot be tested. Much like love. A bond that could take serious strain without breaking. But it also takes more than that to be deemed a true friend of mine. It takes fun, consistency, effort and true caring and support. It also takes endurance. Most of my BEST friends do not live in Colorado. Angel is in Seattle and Kim is in Vegas. Those that are here... I'm not sure any one of them have the longevity. I guess that remains to be seen. It is seriously hard to find those that do. It's a major testiment of character and bond. When you DO find those few that will remain friends 'til the grave, the friendship will push your boundries and force you to grow into a better person. I am willing to listen to criticisms from those that I know love me and try to make a change much easier than those that I feel aren't going to stick around for the benefit of said change. I am eager to find more friends that can fulfill these requirements and hopefully find ONE that lives in Colorado. Maybe, instead, I should focus on those that I feel have the potential. It takes effort on everyone's part. It's nice to talk through things, because I feel much better already. I feel that I do have 1-2 friendships in my life currently that could be developed into something extraordinary. I'll focus on those tomorrow. :)

My Hair Looked So Good, I Sprayed It With Vinegar

Yeah... so I woke up this morning and went about my normal Friday routine. I distinguish this from other weekdays because we get to wear jeans (not a company policy BTW). I swear, the fact that I get to wear jeans makes me overly excited and takes my happiness up by a factor of 10. Also for some reason, everything seems to work out better on Fridays. My skin appears better, my showers are faster, Kudra poops much quicker on her walk, my makeup goes on nicer and of course my hair rocks. Since this recent weight gain, I haven't put any effort into my appearance. I dry my hair just to dry it and don't worry about a slight spritz of hair spray. I don't even put on mascara anymore. I do the minimum necessary to get out the door and to work as quick as possible. BUT since Fridays ROCK I end up looking better and feeling better in a much quicker amount of time than normal which leaves me with extra time to fuck with my hair, I guess. Anyways, I decided to dig out my ancient hairspray and giver 'er a spritzer. Just a little something to keep it hot for another 20 seconds (since my hair is so bone straight, I would seriously need to tease it to keep any volume that occurs after drying). So, I find 2 bottles. I think, "Hmm. Weird. Whatever." So I start spraying away covering my hair and then I smell this strong smell that wasn't all too pleasant. "Damn, is this expired? Do hairsprays expire?"
Then I remember....
Last summer, Wayne went wake boarding with some friends and ended up getting super burned. I teased him and called him a baby until the bubbles started forming. Then I felt bad. We read about home remedies and one of those said to get a spray bottle, fill it with vinegar and spray on the burn to take the burning feeling away (combined with applying that green stuff in alternate sessions). Hmmm. Guess I didn't dump out that bottle...
I was contemplating if I had enough time to re-shower but fuck it. I went to work smelling like sour wine. Luckily, my hair kept it's hotness all the way 'til the end of work which ended up being 13 hours later. Rock on! I guess vinegar preserves more than just pickles. My new hair accessory. (haha)