House Progress

We had our mortgage appointment last Friday and it was pretty painless. I had already done some calculations to estimate our payment and I was frighteningly close. Even the mortgage specialist was impressed. Anyway, I signed a bunch of things, gave them $365, and it was sent on its merry way to be approved. Hopefully. I’m still spooked because of last Wednesday so I’m semi-holding my breath until we get the letter. The deadline for financing is the 30th so we’re hoping to get the letter for me to sign sometime this week (they even put a rush on it.) Then I can sign it, run it over to the bank, and have it faxed to the realtors so the SOLD sign can get hung. I’m waiting for that photo op! Anyway, while we were there I opened a savings account since I think they’d frown upon me borrowing tens of thousands of dollars without even having an account there. They never said it was a requirement but I figure it will be easier for direct withdrawals for the payments. We’re still trying to work out how we’ll get the money into that account but we’ve got until 7/1 to figure that out.

This past weekend we went to Lowe’s to pick out appliances and the other things we plan to buy there. We won’t actually make any purchases until we are solid as concrete on the financing. It would suck to go drop more than a grand on appliances and then have the financing not work out. Anyway, we found the things we wanted and managed to come pretty close to our original budget. We’re not completely sure about carpet yet since it ended up being a lot more expensive than we anticipated. We’re going to try and check out a few flooring/carpet outlet stores to compare pricing before making our decision.

I worked out a preliminary timeline for installations and moving. If things go as expected (which they never do) we should be moving the big stuff the weekend of June 16th. We should be completely moved in during that next week and plan to have a house-warming shin-dig on the 30th. If things go as expected. I think it’s possible. If we get the painting and kitchen floor done in the first week we should have no problem getting everything else to fall in place. The outdoor things might wait for a bit, but that’s ok according to Adam.

Sadness

It’s been a rough couple of days. Not for us – we’re fine – but for those around us.

Sunday evening Adam got a call from his sister telling him one of their mutual friends had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Paul had been a groomsman in Katie and Chris’ wedding and was supposed to have been an usher in ours. What’s even worse is he and his wife, Stephanie, just had a baby. I’m talking less than a month ago. I didn’t know them too well as I had only met them twice but he seemed like a great guy. It’s tragic when these things happen to good people.

Then yesterday at bell practice I found out one of the ladies in the group was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Not a good situation in any case, but worse in this case as it has apparently already spread to her lymph nodes, lungs, and perhaps liver. I stand right next to her and she’s already had a rough time lately because her father died unexpectedly right before Christmas. Once again, so sad that these things happen to the nicest people.

As things tend to happen in threes, please stay safe everyone.

We will definitely get a "No Soliciting" sign...

So I was just caught by a proselytizer. I’m not sure which religion he was affiliated with. He was too old to be a Mormon on his mission. In any case, he wanted to share some magazines with me that tell that there’s an end in site to the cruelty in the world. He read some stuff out of Timothy and offered me a free bible. I declined. *sigh* I should have ignored the doorbell.

The Appliance Adventure Part 1

Well it didn’t go exactly as planned yesterday at Lowe’s. Does it ever? I was approved for a line of credit at an interest rate I’m not crazy about. I mean, my credit card’s interest rate is lower that it is. *sigh* In any case, Adam and I walked through multiple scenarios to solve this quandary. We eventually decided to go ahead and use the Lowe’s line of credit because it has a “6 months no interest” deal. We’ll still make payments during those six months and if there’s a balance at the end of the term (which I’m almost positive there will be) we can decide what we want to do then. We have decided to take his parents’ old washer and dryer since they’re planning on getting new ones. We’ll wait to get a snow blower and doors for the fireplace until we actually need them in the fall. We should still be able to get everything we want/need at Lowe’s and that’s a good thing. Keep it simple, I say.

Also not going as planned is the financing part of the deal. But don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing. I got a call from the mortgage specialist this morning. She was concerned that we might be cutting it too close. We have to have the financing secured by the 30th and our appointment was for the 24th. So we just bumped the appointment up to tomorrow. Hopefully this will give them time for the appraisal and all the other things they charge us $1,700 to do. With the way things went yesterday I’m kind of nervous about tomorrow but I figure they pre-approved me for $150,000 less than a month ago and I’m only asking for $142,000 now. I don’t know why they wouldn’t give it to me…but you never know. I do have excellent credit and Lowe’s still gave me a shitty interest rate, you know. Maybe I need the Walmart version of Lowe’s and I’d be fine. I think it might have something to do with the fact that we still technically rent and we'd have had better luck if we'd waited until we could put down that we own the home... Oh well, live and learn.

Anyway… Perhaps we’ll step out on the town Saturday night and actually look around Lowe’s. Yesterday we headed straight to customer service to see what kind of deal we could get so we didn’t even look at anything. And I suppose I won’t have an excuse to not start packing stuff for much longer. Ugh.

I’m totally behind on my movie reviews and I’m even behind on my unofficial book reviews. I don’t even know what I do with my time. I have started to DVR Dawson’s Creek reruns though so that takes up some time. This house/wedding/being an adult thing is totally time consuming…

House Update...

So it looks as though a potential crisis was averted. The sellers had an HVAC person in yesterday morning to clean and inspect the furnace. There were no cracks – it was just condensation/water something or other. So the furnace is fine and we’re good to go. We have an appointment with the mortgage specialist on Tuesday afternoon to finalize the financing. I plan to stop by our apartment building’s management office this afternoon to see if they have a form for the 60 day notice or if I have to free-hand that.

The next big hurdle is all the stuff we need to buy before we move in. Mainly it’s the appliances but there are other things we want to take care of as well (hello pink room!) The bank made it very clear that we can only get the mortgage for the amount of our offer. I figure our other options include a signature loan or some kind of in-store credit line or card. I did some hunting around for rates and terms and right now it looks as though getting a “Project Card” from Lowe’s might be our best bet. Lowe’s will most likely carry everything on our list so we can buy everything from the same place. Their Project card is relatively new and seems to work like a line of credit. You apply for the card and then you can use it for whatever you need at Lowe’s within a 6-month time period. After the six months is up you start paying it back. The interest rate is fixed at (as low as) 7.99% for a period of 4 to 10 years with no prepayment penalties. Seeing as how the lowest personal loan rate I can find is 8.99%, this seems like a good choice. That said, it’s not guaranteed that I’ll get the lowest rate (although I don’t see why not since my credit is excellent) and we wouldn’t know what our repayment term would be until the application was approved. Even so, we plan to stop up at Lowe’s tonight and see if we can talk to someone about it and perhaps submit an application to see what we qualify for.

If anyone has other ideas that I might have forgotten, let me know. I believe in doing research and getting all the facts before making a decision. :)

Bridesmaid Dress Success

Here's the wedding blog entry with a picture of Catherine in her dress.

There's always something...

The house inspection yesterday went well, generally. There were a few minor things the inspector recommended we get taken care of before we move in: grading around the house, a couple of electrical things (reverse polarity in one outlet, a faulty GFI in a bathroom, random live wires in the attic), power washing the deck and siding. The only major potential problem is the furnace. I wasn’t down in the basement with them when he was looking around but he says there’s a potential crack leading to potential leaking. He recommended we get an inspector in to take a look at it. We wrote up an amendment to our offer last night asking the seller to have the furnace cleaned and inspected. The seller has agreed to get that done.

Our next step will depend on what they find. If it turns out the house inspector was right and there’s a crack, we’ll have to do a notice of defect. If the seller refuses to fix it, our offer is dead and we have to move on. Hopefully if a new furnace is needed the seller will realize they’d have to fix it no matter what in order to sell the place so they agree to take care of it so we can forge on with the house-buying process. If it turns out there is no crack, we’re golden. We have the one-year home warranty already included in our offer so it if goes south after we’ve closed on the house, we can get it fixed/replaced for $60.

But for now, we wait. Again.

We are Homeowners!

Success!

I debated posting this considering it gives the address... but I figured the only people who really read this are friends and if some crazy stalker person REALLY wants to come get me, they'd figure out where I am no matter if I post this or not, right?

Today's "Get Fuzzy"

This is the only comic strip in today's paper that made me laugh... (click on it to see it normal sized)

Gah! I've been tagged!

5 Things You Don’t Know About Me

1) I currently wear a size 7 shoe but in high school I wore an 8 1/2 or 9. How is it that my feet have shrunk so much? Why can't the rest of me shrink? *sigh*

2) Speaking of feet, I hate feet. Your feet, my feet, any feet. Not because they smell or anything, but just because they creep me out. I don't like mine being touched and refuse to get near Adam's (although I did actually rub them with some lotion stuff last week because he was sore but I wore latex gloves so I'm not sure that counts.)

3) I don't like oranges either. Just the smell of them grosses me out. Unfortunately the two guinea pigs like them and we're supposed to give them some on a regular basis to make sure they get enough vitamin C. So I suffer for the furry dudes.

4) I do like the movie Spice World however, and am not ashamed to admit it. For such a lame musical group, the Spice Girls do have some surprising comedic talent...

5) I still keep pictures of my dog, Mandy, on the desk by my computer. Such a cute face, but such a dumb animal. I'm hoping eventually I can get a dog again, but we'll see how things turn out.

I'd tag some people if I knew anyone with a blog who hasn't already been tagged. Oh well. :)

At the Risk of Jinxing it...

I've decided to post this blog entry anyway!

I was wandering aimlessly around the misses section of Kohl's looking for something to wear to Lori's wedding when Adam called me. I got some weird looks given the ring tone I have set for him [that would be George Michael's "I Want Your Sex." How's that for too much information? ;)] Anyway, he was calling to tell me that Jim called him to let him know that our offer was accepted. They also agreed to pay our closing costs and required escrows as well as a year of the home warranty program. Sweet deal.

But if you recall there's still the matter of the other offer out there. We had good timing in the real estate world. The seller's agent was going to try and have the paperwork to the other buyer by 7pm tonight. From that time of delivery they have 48 hours to release the contingency. Not business days. Hours. Tee hee. That means by 7pm on Sunday they have to have made a decision. We are a little bit evil, but it's a little fun too.

In any case, barring a rare occurance (although having a reasonable offer flat out rejected was supposedly rare too...) we should be the official future owners of the house. We'll know on Sunday, maybe Monday morning.

To stave off the jinxing gods I'm going to refrain from posting the address/listing details until we know for sure it's ours. Cross your fingers, pray, or do whatever else you do to send good luck in someone's direction!

The Great Critter Cover-Up

There was a note in our door earlier this week from our apartment complex management. They’re going to be doing apartment inspections next week, looking for leaky faucets, general disrepair, etc. They say they’ll be starting Tuesday morning and hopefully be done by Thursday or Friday. Now, we never asked permission to have our furry friends. I don’t think they’re contraband like cats and dogs are. I know that fish are allowed and hamsters are kind of like fish. Without the whole water thing.

In any case, we figured we should probably hide the crew when the manager wanders around our apartment. With three 10 gallon aquariums and two wire cages full of critters, that’s easier said than done. We decided it would probably be best to clean out the closet in the second bedroom and stow them in there during the day. We had also considered the garage (it’s still a bit too cold for that) and Adam’s parents’ house (I would miss them too much.) Wednesday night we took everything out of the closet, trashed about ¼, took about 1/3 to Goodwill, and put the rest back into the closet in an organized way. This should leave us with enough space to put the cages and all other pet-related articles out of eyesight. Hopefully we remember to remove their toys and they don’t squeak. I’m not sure what would happen if they found them and we weren’t allowed to have them. I suppose we could take them out to Greenville, but it might be a moot point anyway if a house works out soon.

Anyway, the great cover-up of 2007 starts Tuesday night. :)

Questionable Easter Greeting?

During lunch today when I ran to get my mail from my PO Box, I heard the DJ on the radio say “Happy Good Friday.” Is it just me or does that seem kind of inappropriate? Perhaps this is a strange comment, seeing as it’s coming from me and all, but it just seems wrong. Even though I don’t buy in to most of what it all stands for I still try to respect other peoples’ beliefs. It’s like saying “Happy anniversary of your mother’s death! Let’s go grab a beer!” While it’s true that lots of people are either not Christian or are not very good Christians, the serious ones are still out there and I can’t help but think they’d be offended by that kind of remark. Good Friday is not the day to celebrate. Easter Sunday, yes, go crazy. Good Friday, not so much.

Speaking of Easter, the handbells play at the 11:30am mass on Sunday. I plan on getting there plenty early since I’m told the crowd will be large. At least I know I won’t have to fight for a seat. Adam works 8-5 at Wal-mart and we’re supposed to go over to his parents’ house for dinner at 6. Rumor is we’re having spaghetti. I like it that they’re not very traditional when it comes to holiday fare. I mean we had Taco Bell the first time I went over there for Easter and lasagna for Thanksgiving the year before last.

And now, perhaps in a statement similar to that about which I opened this blog complaining:

The best thing about Easter is…

**Le sigh**

Ok, so on whatever day that was that we were supposed to hear back from the lawyer/bank/realtor, we did. They countered at $149,000 which was, well, basically the original listing price. (Ok, so they knocked off $900. How generous.) We thought they were being pretty ridiculous seeing as how the house wasn’t even done so we decided to reject the counter and just move on. In all honesty I’m glad it didn’t work out. Even though I wouldn’t have been doing the work, it was a big thing to take on and I would have been annoyed by the lack of grass.

In any case, last night we had two appointments. One was to look at the house over on Byrd that I had gone to the open house for a few weekends ago. The second was for another house over by the park that we had originally booted from the list because its taxes were relatively high. In general Adam liked the house on Byrd and saw much of the same potential that I had. Then we went down into the basement and discovered a puddle of water and crack in the wall. That wasn’t there when I looked at the place two weeks ago! Oh well. It was in a really random place and we figure the neighbor’s directing their downspout right at the yard and there’s a slope under the deck, leading to seepage.

Adam used Jill (our friendly GPS) to find the second house although I thought that was kind of unnecessary since it’s one block from where I lived that one summer in college. (Aah, memories…) We pulled into the driveway and Adam commented that it looked nice. After taking a look around he decided to call his parents in for some additional opinions and his dad’s eagle eyes for potential faults. We had some fun with the safety lock on the patio door (as in, we couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t lock, Jim, the realtor, tried to use some silicone stuff from the basement, and then Adam found the instructions printed on the door, locked it, and then pranked his dad when they arrived) while we waited. After his parents arrived they did the tour and spent some quality time in the basement. Adam and his dad proceeded to try and break the garage door. All in all, it’s a nice place with lots of good qualities. The only things Adam disliked were the fact that the master bedroom is painted pink (ok, ROSE) and there’s this awkward divider mini wall thing in the kitchen area. Other than that, no complaints. Good sized rooms, two bathrooms, nice fireplace, great back yard including a deck complete with a grill bump-out, room in the basement for a workshop area and plenty of space on the breaker thingamajig (whatever that means…)

So, I think by this time you can guess what we did. We invited the realtor to our apartment for some wine and had him write up the offer while he was there. Heh. We just didn’t feel like driving up to Appleton and since their systems are all web-based we could do it this way. He faxed it over this morning and the seller’s realtor said she’d be talking with them this afternoon. I’m getting to be a pro at the offer paperwork. Don’t even need to read most of it anymore. Just check some numbers and dates and we’re good.

There’s just one potential problem. Doesn’t there always seem to be a problem?

Ours is a secondary offer as there’s an offer already on the place with a contingency that the buyer sells their current home. There’s a 48 hours bump clause in the contract wording and it’s likely things might work out. If the seller accepts our offer (or counters, although I think our offer was reasonable…and then we accept it) the other people have 48 hours to remove the contingency from their offer or we get the house. Jim says it’s very unusual that people remove the selling contingency but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens. In any case, we won’t know for sure about anything until next week.

We’re hoping that perhaps, for us, the third time is the charm.

House Update. Again.

Jim, the realtor, says we might hear something back tomorrow morning from the lawyers/bank about the house we put an offer on last week. There's another offer out there but apparently they have a contingency that they sell their current property whereas we don't. We'll see what happens.

Some Easter Humor

Book Review: The Great Gatsby

I was introduced to The Great Gatsby in my 8th grade English class. During one quarter we had a choice of three books to read: the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, or John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. For some inexplicable reason I chose Siddhartha, a choice I regret to this day. That book was so boring I could barely get through it. Not quite a horrible as Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it nevertheless lies on the same level in my mind. I consider that book as my freshman hazing in college since I was required not only to read it but I also had to write numerous essays about it before classes even started as part of the freshmen honors seminar in which I was enrolled. Yay for the University Honors system. What a joke.

In any case, having realized my mistake too late I went back and read The Great Gatsby after the fact and liked it so much I read most of his other novels along with some short stories and the collection of letters he wrote his daughter (which is not surprisingly entitled Letters to His Daughter.) I suppose I should note that I did NOT go back and read Steinbeck’s contribution to the list. I think The Pearl put me off from Steinbeck forever just as The Old Man and the Sea made me very wary of Hemingway (yay for required reading!)

Man, I keep getting distracted! This is supposed to be a book review. So I re-read The Great Gatsby again this past week during my lunch hour. It’s very easy reading but I think it’s easier for me since I always picture a 1970’s Robert Redford as I read. (Yum.) Yes, I even own the movie. On video cassette. Granted the movie isn’t that great and I can’t stand Mia Farrow, but it’s still worth a watch every once in a while. It follows the book very closely to the point that Nick’s narrations are pretty much word for word at times. Anyway, this book is always touted as a glimpse into the sordid life of the rich 1920’s flappers crowd. Could be, but it’s still an entertaining way to pass a couple hours.

Howie

Mr. Howie the Russian Hamster loves his big log. We had previously given him TP rolls and those were fun and all, but he adores this huge toy.





Here's a late happy one-year living with us to Howie! He joined our household 1-6-06 and has been the most resilient of the bunch.

The Search Continues

Alrighty. So the house Adam found on Tuesday had accepted an offer that very morning so that wasn’t going to work out in our favor. Fortunately there was another new construction house in the same subdivision. Right across the street in fact. So we made arrangements to take a look at that one Tuesday night. His parents came along again. The house itself is quite nice. There’s just one problem. It’s not finished. As in it’s not done. The company who built it (Creative Custom Homes) went into bankruptcy and out of business. The house is built and I’d say it’s about 95% done. There are just some things left in limbo. There are no gutters or downspouts. Some hardware is missing in a bathroom and on the patio door. The fireplace is still in a cardboard box. It’s dusty and a mess inside. All kinds of miscellaneous odds and ends have been left throughout the house and yard. The yard is really just a big pile of dirt and rocks with some beer cans and a tarp thrown in.

That said, the things that need to be finished up to make the house inhabitable are all pretty basic, minimal labor things that Adam and his dad would have no problem doing. The house is well arranged and has great potential. We went to dinner with his parents after looking at the house. We made a list of all the things we’d have to do before we could move in, assigned each item a cost, and deducted that from the listing price. We wrote up the offer last night and hope to hear from them today. The company’s assets are in receivership so if their attorney has already left town it might take a little longer to get a response. We’re hoping that they’re eager to get rid of as much as they can. I don’t think our offer was low-balling it too much but I don’t think we should pay the going rate (97%+ of list) for a house that’s not done. Our offer came in at about 91% of the listing price (which had been dropped from the original listing price by $9k, so about 88% of the original price.) We’ve asked them to finish up a few things that would be impractical for us to do (final grading, driveway fill) but Adam and his dad will be doing some significant work as well. We’ll also have to take care of grass and landscaping at some point. All we can do is see what they say. We're hoping we can get a great house at a steal of a price!

But for now we wait again.

House Update

Guess it wasn’t meant to be. We were waiting for a call this morning and finally got antsy enough that Adam called the realtor. Apparently the owner flat out refused our offer. Not even a counter. He was “insulted” by the offer we made. I guess I should add that the house recently dropped its listing price from $143,000 to $135,000, but I didn’t think our offer was inappropriate even given that fact. But whatever. Apparently the owner has taken this a little too personally, but I wish him luck in selling his house.

Perhaps this can be considered a blessing since this morning Adam called me and said he was having second thoughts about whether he even wanted the house anymore. He was being haunted by all the work we’d need to do, the weird pipes, etc. So now he doesn’t need to worry about any of that.

So, what’s our next move? In his struggles this morning, Adam came across some new construction that looks promising. It’s a little higher priced than the other house was but it’s also brand-spanking new, comes with a complete home warranty, and we don’t have to do any work or clean up after the previous owners. There are positives to both sides I suppose. Looking at our budget, we could still get by with the higher mortgage amount but it would be tight. We’re looking to start our financial combination a little sooner than we’d originally planned since it will give us a better idea about what areas are negotiable to give us some breathing room.

In any case, our realtor is going to try and get us into a house tonight. From the five pictures online it looks nice. We’ll see how we like it in person. We’ll see if we like it enough to blow $150,000 on it. If not, I think we just wait until when we originally planned to do this house thing.

And We Wait

I got a call from the realtor earlier this evening telling me the husband of the seller couple was in Milwaukee for work today but they were planning on meeting with their realtor tonight. I haven't heard anything back so I'm assuming I won't hear anything tonight. He said if not tonight, it will be first thing tomorrow. I'll update as soon as we know what's what.

House Update

Well it was certainly an interesting weekend. Much more exciting than I had anticipated.

We went to see the house Saturday evening along with Adam’s parents. The owners had opted to stay around while we walked through but they kept themselves and their children very inconspicuous out in the sunroom. Adam’s dad took his eagle eye throughout the house to look for problems. I marveled at the cabinet space, the huge closet in the master bedroom, and the very affectionate cats (who do not come with the house… lol) Our major concern turned out to be some funky plumbing pipes down in the basement and some unfinished wiring. The house looked pretty much as it had in the pictures and was generally satisfying. We left the house with a good feeling. The owners were very accommodating and seem like nice people. We went around the block to look at the other house we had scheduled. Apparently the owners hadn’t been told we were coming as they were there, cleaning or working on a truck or something. It didn’t really matter too much since the second we walked into the house we walked right back out.

We thanked Jim, our realtor, and headed back to the apartment for some discussion. Well, first Adam and his dad headed to their house to pick up some wood and tools since I had somehow managed to break the couch earlier in the afternoon. Anywho, after they returned we had dinner and then they fixed the couch. After that was taken care of we discussed our options and how they felt about things and what they suggested. We decided on what price we thought was fair and some contingencies we wanted to be sure to include. After his parents left we went to bed and fell asleep pretty early.

On Sunday Adam worked at 8am and I got up when he did to take a look at the open houses in the area. I made a list of about 11 and narrowed it down to 4 I actually wanted to go to. The first two were a few blocks from each other so I went to them back to back. Neither one was terrible but they each had some strange features. The third open house didn’t start until 12:30 so I went to Walmart to kill some time. I drove out to the third house a little early but was so creeped out by the neighborhood that I decided to not even go to the open house. The fourth house on the list was a few blocks from the third so I eliminated that one as well. Somewhere in all this open house-ing, Jim had called Adam, asking if we’d like to come in that evening to discuss making an offer on the house we had seen Saturday evening. We planned for a 6:30 meeting. We arrived pretty much decided on what we planned to do and Jim seemed to agree with our plans. He prepared the paperwork, we reviewed it, I signed some stuff, and he should have sent it to the sellers this morning. The deadline he set for acceptance/counter/rejection is today so hopefully we’ll hear something back soon. I think our offer was fair considering how much painting we’ll have to do and how much the house was assessed at compared to their asking price. I guess we’ll see if they agree with us. :) Then we’ll have to see if it passes inspection. That’s our biggest concern right now. The basement has some funky stuff going on we’re not sure is up to code. But it’s a waiting game for now.

The Hunt Continues... Quickly

I happened to find a local realtor listing for the house that we most wanted to check out this morning. It had a lot more pictures and almost all of them made me say "ooh!" I went up to Appleton to have lunch with Adam and I printed the pictures out so he could see them. He agreed that it looked great and called our realtor right then to see if he could get us in to look at it tonight. We've got a 5:30 appointment. Amazing. We've both agreed that unless we find something that's really horrible, this will probably be the house we put an offer on once we get his dad in to look it over. Some good news is that the price was recently reduced so perhaps the seller is more motivated to sell and will therefore be more open to negotiations regarding closing costs and price. Bad news is it's an awesome house for the price so we might have competition. We're hoping to jump first though! We also have an appointment to look at another (vacant) house a street over from the first but I drove by both houses on the way home and the first is definately a nicer place. Wish us luck! I'll let you know what happens.

140!!

I failed to mention this previously and kind of forgot about it until Adam emailed me the pictures. We went bowling two weekends before this last one (for his birthday.) He got a coupon for 2 free games up in Ashwaubenon and we hadn’t gone for awhile so we thought, “why not?” The first game I was on fire. I ended up with a 140. No, really. A 140. I have proof.




I got all 10 pins 4 frames in a row. Of course it just went downhill from there. About 4 frames into the second game Adam retreated to the bathroom for a while (this was near the start of the evil stomach thing we both picked up.) I waited for him to return, chatting with the family who arrived to play in the lane next to us. As the dad went to bowl his first frame, he shoes stuck and he did a face plant at the end of the lane. Many profanities, laughter, and the throwing of objects ensued. He was good natured about it, but determined he should bowl in his socks thereafter.

When Adam returned he decided not to bowl the rest of the game since his wrist was hurting him. I played the rest of my game (to a miserable 64 point end) and we called it a day.

But I bowled a 140!



Look! A 140!

Embiggining Myself

I ordered the CMA review books again. Since the test format completely changed since I last got them I figured it wouldn’t make sense to start studying from the books I have since they’re obsolete. I’m also considering getting the CD-rom set from Gleim since our IMA chapter gets a discount on them. The exam itself will cost me over $500 for all four parts. I’m not sure when I plan on registering or taking it, but I want to stay motivated to actually do it this time. Looking over the outline provided on the IMA website, I’m familiar with most of the subject matter. I just hope the details haven’t fallen out of my head over the past two years. I’m putting the MBA on the back burner for now and I’m going to focus on the certification instead. That way when I’m ready to go back for the MBA I won’t have to take the GRE/GMAT.

Spring has Sprung

I’d like to think that spring has arrived right on time in Wisconsin. On Wednesday (the first day of spring) we had three ginormous thunderstorms. We got caught in one on the way home from dinner, the second came while Adam was out in the garage fixing his radio and the third was in the middle of the night, prompting me to get my cell phone and set the alarm in case the power went out. I’ve been very impressed with this apartment and power. In my old apartment if the thunder was too loud the power would go out. As far as I know, the power hasn’t gone out (because of the weather) in this apartment at all. It’s wonderful knowing the alarm clock will wake you up when its supposed to. In any case, I’m sure I’m delusional and we’ll have at least one more big snow dump before we’re completely clear of winter. I’m just happy I can go outside in the morning and not have to scrape my car off. It’s nice.

TGIF

I’m hoping this weekend is boring and relaxing. I haven’t been sleeping too well all week and I’m just exhausted. Tonight all I plan to do is some grocery shopping on the way home from work and some stuff on the computer. After that’s done I just want to lay on the couch, catching up on my Rachael Rays and Conans. Although I still have The Departed sitting on the table to be watched. Tomorrow I’ll probably do some cleaning while Adam’s at work. The bathroom definitely needs it and the kitchen could probably use some attention as well. I’ve also started thinking that if we’re going to be moving sooner rather than later perhaps I should start going through all my stuff to see what I can toss (or donate) before we have to box it up. I’m going to try to be proactive but I’ll probably end up proactively procrastinating. Sunday I’ll check the paper in the morning to see if any of the places we’re interested in is having an open house so I can go check them out before the realtor gets us in. We have one in particular that we’re leaning toward and I want to see if our leaning is warranted. (I mean we already got a quote on homeowner’s insurance on it…) Other than that I don’t think we have any plans. We were going to try and see “Little Shop of Horrors” which one of the high schools is putting on but we couldn’t find tickets. We’ll probably end up watching a movie or two at home.

Whew!

We got our invitation to Lori’s wedding last night so we won’t have to show up uninvited. Yay!

The House Hunt - House #1

Realtor’s Listing

Vitals:
Asking price - $144,900
3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 1,365 square feet, 1.5 story, 2.5 car garage (detached)

Pros:
Close to where we are now (therefore, close to the highway)
Very well maintained
Fenced-in yard
Large garage

Cons:
In the top end of our price range
Small
Seems over-priced
Ceilings in basement are too low for Adam
Awkward layout (the master bedroom is right off the kitchen)

Thoughts:
We pretty much eliminated this house from the running. It was too small, barely larger than our apartment is now. It’s on a pretty busy street, right across from the high school. The kitchen had strange cabinets with ugly hardware and the entire layout of the house was just weird. It had a nice living room with a fireplace tucked into the corner and the backyard and deck were nice. Overall, we think they were asking too much for what they have to offer. We gave the realtor our list of 5 others we want to look at so hopefully we’ll get in to look at those soon.

Mortgage or No Mortgage?

I think we can characterize our time with the mortgage specialist last night as successful. We discussed our options and ultimately we decided to go ahead and see whether I could be pre-approved for the high end of our price range ($150,000) on my own. Thanks to my excellent credit score, I was pre-approved for a loan for more than even the most expensive house on our current list. Even though the interest rate on the kind of mortgage we chose was a little higher than I’d like (6.375%), it’s reasonable considering it requires no down payment and the PMI is relatively low. My estimates (I had put together a pro forma budget to see if we could even afford to be buying a house right now) were pretty close to the actual numbers the bank quoted us so we should be good. Tonight we look at house #1, which is on the high end of our price range ($144,900.) There are a few others from the list the realtor gave us that we’re interested in as well so we’ll see how this process works out. We’re looking at perhaps a May or June closing date. We want to get it done before the wedding, but we also have to give 60 days notice at our apartment. It’s kind of strange, doing this house thing. I think maybe it will be a positive thing to get it done earlier than I’d planned since I was beginning to think my whole “life plan” was spiraling out of control. This might allow it to get back on track.

Last night we also got the chance to finally go out to celebrate Adam’s birthday. Only 10 days late… Sometimes that’s how life works. We went to Tumbleweed. I had never been there before but it was AYCE ribs Wednesday and that was what Adam was craving. I (unsurprisingly) stuck with the tame grilled chicken sandwich and was pleased to find it was not covered with anything spicy. We happened to get there at the tail end of happy hour so the bill didn’t kill me either. After that we went home (in a torrential downpour thunderstorm) and Adam tinkered with his car’s stereo system for a while. He recently installed a new stereo that has XM, AM, FM, and an iPod hookup all in one and he was getting annoyed by the oversensitive new XM radio antenna. When he was done with all that we caught up on our “Apprentice” and “What About Brian” shows before heading to bed. Tonight I had planned to try out a new recipe that Adam flagged in the Rachael Ray book but that will depend on how long the house thing takes tonight since our appointment isn’t until 5:30.

Book Review

His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis

This is the first book in my attempt to read a biography of each President. The book takes the reader through what little is known of Washington’s childhood and young adulthood, through his war involvement and reluctant presidency, up to his death. About half of the book is focused on his involvement in the wars against the French and Indians and the Revolutionary War against England. The rest of the book focuses on his presidency and his legacy. It is written in such a way that it was very easy to read. I didn’t get bogged down by lots of dates and statistics.

I found it interesting that Washington seemed to select which items remain to reveal his character and which items disappeared. For example, all the letters he wrote to his wife, Martha, were burned when he died, yet all the communication between him and his generals, advisors, etc. remain. Washington was an interesting person yet not the kind of person you’d expect to have been the first president of the country. The presidency has certainly changed from when Washington held the post to the modern day Bush presidency. I also found it interesting that there were constant struggles and backstabbing amongst his most trusted friends and members of his cabinet. Jefferson and Madison were at the same time his wisest advisors and his greatest threats.

The adventure that was the birth of this nation was a strange one. Washington resisted a leadership role after the war with England because he wanted to retire and enjoy his house at Mount Vernon. Fortunately he recognized the need for his role in another, much more important leadership role. He was a very private man and seems to have been very successful in separating the public George from the private George. The private George continues to be mostly a mystery while the public George will live on in history.

Next up: The Good Mother by Sue Miller. (Not a biography, but it’s what I’m reading now.)

Blog-World Catch-up

The network here at work appears to have crashed so since I can’t do much else right now (oh, how dependent we are on computers!) I figured I’d do some catch-up blogging.

In the world of weddings, we’re at the 150 day mark - not that I’m counting. This past weekend I fashioned a bouquet of fake hydrangeas for the bouquet toss at the reception. I think it looks kind of weird, but Adam says he’s going to get one or two more flowers to fill out one side and then hot glue them all onto the styrofoam holder thing tonight and it should be fine. One more thing done. Yay! I still haven’t gotten myself out to the hair salon to check on pricing and scheduling. I considered doing it on Saturday when I was up in Appleton anyway but I decided against that. I think it will be less busy sometime during the week. Unfortunately this week filled up pretty quickly so I’m not sure I’ll get around to it. I’m waiting for the bridesmaids dresses and my veil to come in so I can head back up to Kaukauna (hopefully with Catherine, the roommate) and see the whole package put together. This will also allow me to check whether my chosen undergarments, shoes, and jewelry work with the other elements of the ensemble. Fun, fun. The guest list continues to change so hopefully it will be finalized in the next month or so. I have to revise the invitations again because we changed our RSVP date (apparently there was some miscommunication between Adam’s mom and me) but after that’s done they should be good to go. I need to do some research on the addressing format though. The invitations we have don’t have an inner (unsealed) envelope so I don’t know if I should be putting “and guest” on the outside envelope or include some little slip of paper or something on the response card to indicate if they get to bring a guest. I don’t know what the standard practice is so I need to research that before I go ahead and print labels. I’ve got time to mess with that a little still.

In other news, Adam saw that a house about two blocks down the road plunked a “For Sale” sign on their lawn last week. He thought it looked like a nice house, we looked it up online and indeed it looks nice and is not a bad price. The open house this past weekend was from 11-12 and since I was up at church for the 11am mass for bells I couldn’t go and Adam was at work. So we got in touch with the realtor his parents used when they bought their house and asked if he could get us in to look at it. We’ve got an appointment to do just that on Thursday. We didn’t intend to start looking for or buy a house until after the wedding but Adam is getting antsy about interest rates and housing costs. And with our rent increasing in May, perhaps it’s a good time to start thinking about it. We have an appointment with a mortgage specialist on Wednesday so we’ll see what they determine about our credit-worthiness. Our major problem is going to be the down payment issue. This would have been a problem regardless of when we planned to buy a house. I was hoping to be able to scrape together perhaps 10% but at this point that’s unrealistic. We’ll see what our options are on Wednesday and go from there. I read an article yesterday that said 43% of first-time home buyers don’t put anything down. I also read about 80/20 piggyback loans. But I guess we’ll see what the experts tell us we can do. In addition to the house we saw right down the block, the realtor sent us 62 other houses in the area. Of that list we narrowed it down to 15 houses we might want to take a look at. Our criteria are pretty basic: at least 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 2 car garage, central air. Other than that it’s more a case to case determination. Of course, the clincher for me would be a great kitchen whereas Adam is more interested in the garage/basement/workshop space opportunities. I guess we’ll see where this takes us.

On a completely different topic, I attempted to make my yearly doctor appointment a few weeks back and learned that my usual doctor is on leave for an indeterminate length of time. Hmmm. So now I have to go to the other doctor, an OB/GYN, and they were already booking for the end of June, more than a month after my desired appointment. And she doesn’t book appointments earlier than 8am. *sigh* So now I’m stuck with a 9am appointment the last week of June with a complete stranger. Boo.

We made our hotel reservations for Lori’s wedding in May this past weekend. So we’d better be invited because we’re coming! Dad and Cheryl haven’t gotten an invitation yet either so I’m not going to worry about it quite yet.

I’ve got my monthly IMA meeting this evening. It’s our first annual Ethics Workshop. The IMA recently changed their CPE requirements for CMAs and they now need 2 hours of ethics training each year so our president figured we could help our chapter members out by providing this for them as part of our normal chapter year. Smart thinking. It looks as though we’ll have a larger crowd than usual. Some members of the Packerland (Green Bay area) chapter are coming as well as some ladies from the CBMN. It should be a good time but I think I’ll be kept busy for a while seeing as how the treasurer won’t be there tonight. At least it’s in a familiar venue so I won’t have to figure out where I am.

That about sums up what’s on my mind right now. I’ve got some Rotten Tomatoes reviews to catch up on as well as some recipes to post and a book review to write. The network is still down so perhaps I can get some of those done now as well. :)

A Petty Post

This is going to be a very petty and unnecessary blog posting but I’m still going to post it. It makes me feel good about myself. So there.

On Thursday morning at work I saw something in the bathroom. The person next to me was wearing sandals. She was also wearing those pantyhose with the reinforced toe. You know, the kind with the dark strip at the very end of your feet. Even I know you don’t wear reinforced toe pantyhose with open-toed shoes! And I’m remarkably fashion-unconscious.

Anywho, just had to say it made me feel good that I would never make that fashion faux pas. Could it be that there are those out there even more clueless than I am? Fear for the fashionable future if this is the case.

Flirty Frogs

We got a new shower curtain this past weekend. It's frog themed:



It looks innocent enough, right? I think it even came as a kid's shower curtain. But if you look at it closer...

There's a pimp frog:



There's an Elton John frog:



I know that must be a gay frog because the girls have eyelashes...



Obviously I've spent way too much time in the bathroom lately since I'm contemplating the illicit images in a children's shower curtain called "Flirty Frogs."

Stupid stomach. Quit rejecting everything I put into you. *sigh*

The Tricky World of Credit

Our joint credit card billing cycle ended on Wednesday and I took a look at the online statement on Thursday. I discovered that the credit limit has been increased to $6,500. That’s a jump of $2,000! I can’t even imagine spending that much money using a credit card. Maybe it’s because it’s so engrained in me to pay off the full balance each month and paying $6,500 at one time just seems ridiculous.

I’m definitely not going to complain about this increase. We generally try to keep the monthly bills to around $500 (although we haven’t been doing so well lately with various wedding things, vet bills, etc.) Even so, our debt to credit ratio will rock even more now.

We put pretty much everything on the one card except for normal bills (rent, electric, cable, etc.) and we’ve earned over 13,000 WorldPoints since we opened the account. I don’t know what we’re going to do with them yet but we originally opened the account to rack up points for something honeymoon related. We’ll see what’s out there in the next few months I suppose. We know we’ll be earning a decent amount of additional points when we start making finals payments for the honeymoon and reception. Yay for spending lots of money! :)

My personal credit card also earns me points and I redeem them for $50 checks every 5,000 points. It’s a easy way to make some free money since I pay off the balance every month and never pay interest or fees. You just have to know how to work the system.

I checked my credit score again last night to see how things are going and it's in the high 700s still. My goal is to get it over the 800 mark but I don't know what I can do to bump it up. I only have 3 credit cards and one loan (my car). I have never been late or defaulted on anything. Right now I'm at 24% credit line usage. I have a spotless credit history of almost 10 years. The most recent line of credit is the MBNA (well, BofA now) card we opened almost a year ago now. I don't know what I can do to increase my score since pretty much all the things people tell you to do I'm already doing. *Sigh*

Wedding Stuff

Tonight we are meeting with the people over at the reception hall to do some menu tasting. We’ve pretty much figured out what we want, but there are a couple dishes we’re unsure about and since we get to eat free food, why not? Apparently there has been some turmoil over there recently in the form of management and ownership changes so we also want to make sure nothing in our contract and agreement has changed. I’m not really too worried about it, but I’d rather know now than when I pay the bill.

In other wedding news, I finally went and looked for comfortable underwear. But I’m not sure I’ve found it yet. I did buy some things and actually spent some time walking around the house in them on Sunday but I’m not sure they are things I can wear for 9+ hours. I also pranced in my shoes for a bit. Adam tried to help stretch the toes out by using a blow dryer but other than making my toes toasty warm for a little while, I don’t think it really did much. I like the shoes and they are surprisingly comfortable. It’s just the toe area that is causing me problems. Apparently I have fat toes. In any case, Adam has suggested getting one of those shoe-shaping wedge things and putting it in upside-down. It’s worth a shot.

I also got my final apparel item – the tiara. I was having a hard time finding anything purple at the stores in the area so I finally broke down and looked on eBay. I found one I thought would work and had Adam buy it for me (I don’t have an eBay account and have no desire to get one.) It arrived on Tuesday and with a little tinkering and the right hair-do I think it will be fine. Whew. It’s good to know I won’t be a complete mess walking down the aisle. Ha.

So, with my look taken care of there’s not a whole lot to do for now. We met with Adam’s parents last weekend about the rehearsal dinner and RSVP plans. I should be putting finishing touches on all the various invitation parts in the next few weeks and then getting them to his mom to print. It’s going to be so much fun doing all that envelope licking and stamp pressing. The invitations are pretty basic, but there are a lot of parts. The wedding invitation, the reception card, the response card, the rehearsal invitation, and the breakfast invitation will all be sent out in the same envelope. Hopefully this won’t confuse people and we’re making the RSVP date the same for all three things so that should help.

I’m crossing my fingers that our relatives and friends are nice enough to respond promptly because I can’t do the fun stuff until I get a headcount. Fun stuff like wedding favors, gift bags, and seating charts. I’m not sure if we’ve decided if we’re doing assigned seating but I know it was discussed. One of the main reasons we decided to have a buffet-style dinner was to get people up and mingling. Therefore I’m not sure it’s really necessary to force the two sides to mix via a seating chart. One of the many things to think about still.

Another thing I’m having a problem with is the whole “something old, new, borrowed, blue” dealy. Of course I’ve got the new thing taken care of. Pretty much everything on my body will be new. It’s everything else I’m at a loss for. Anyone have any ideas? Also, how is that whole “penny in the shoe” thing supposed to work when I’m wearing strappy sandals?

We’ve got lots of meetings in our future still: photographer, DJ, Father Mike, organist and vocalist. But nothing we can really do right now. We’re a little more than five months out and I’m getting antsy. The only thing on my list I need to get taken care of is picking a hair salon. And check on the La Quinta rooms. Apparently there are some communication problems somewhere. Shocking…

Anyway, just a (not so) little update about what’s going on in wedding-planning-ville.

Blondes in the Snow

It seems kind of boring to blog about the weather but what else is there really to talk about in March in Wisconsin. Everything is dependent on the weather. Last week the school districts in the area freaked out a little and cancelled classes on Thursday and Friday because there was supposedly a really bad storm coming. In my opinion, what we got was no reason to cancel school. I think they overreacted just a little.

In any case, this post is really about an episode of "The Girls Next Door." For those of you completely disconnected from the world of E!, this show is about Hugh Hefner's three girlfriends and the goings-on at the Playboy mansion (and I'm hopelessly addicted.) The third season premiered this past Sunday. I of course DVRd it and watched it yesterday. The show was Christmas themed. They decided to hire someone to pump snow into the backyard so they could go sledding. Because that's so cool. Perhaps I was less exciting about this because I get to wake up to this every day:



This is what I get for living where I do. One of the girls remarked how it was so awesome to have a yard full of snow when it was like 70 degrees out. *sigh* It's 12. With a windchill of 3.

Big Cheeks

This is Gus about 2 seconds after I put him into his newly cleaned cage. I know hamsters have the cheek pouches that they store stuff in, but you'd think we starve the poor guy! He's storing up for a famine or something! You'll notice the new pretzel shaped chew sticks we got. (That's what the orange thing on his wheel is.) It's even funnier watching Gus and Barry shove those into their mouths than the straight sticks. I should really record that sometime. It's creepy.

Oscar Update

Let's see how I'm doing (the ones I've seen are linked to my RT review of them)

Apocolypto
Babel
Black Dahlia, The
Blood Diamond
Borat
Cars
Children of Men
Click
Curse of the Golden Flower
Departed, The
Devil Wears Prada, The
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Good German, The
Good Shepard, The
Half Nelson
Happy Feet
Illusionist, The
Last King of Scotland, The
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
Marie Antoinette
Monster House
Notes on a Scandal
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Prestige, The
Pursuit of Happyness, The
Queen, The
Superman Returns
United 93
Venus
Volver

Another Weekend Recap Post

This was a weekend full of snow and movies. Friday night Adam worked so I was on my own for entertainment. I watched The Black Dahlia and caught up on some of my Conan O’Briens that were sitting on the DVR. (Have I mentioned how much I love the DVR? It’s awesome!)

On Saturday we awoke to snow and more snow. Adam worked pretty early in the morning (7am) and tells me there were white-out conditions on the highway on the way to work. By the time I was ready to leave (around 9, after watching Superman Returns, which was much longer than I expected) the plows had been out and the roads weren’t that bad. I ran some errands despite the bad weather. I went up to Simon’s for cheese (because, well, it’s a cheese factory) and even managed to find some parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Score. Then I headed back to Appleton to stop at Marlene’s and pick up my garters. I had originally planned to get those at Bridal Staircase but when I was up there last Wednesday picking out a veil I looked at their selection and all they had were these feathery or furry things. Ugh. I need simple. So I got the two I needed at Marlene’s instead. After barely avoiding being plowed into by a plow (ha ha) I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up some cardstock for invitation inserts, stopped at Blockbuster to return and rent (more on that later) and went to Walmart for some fake flowers and ribbon with which to craft my tossing bouquet. I haven’t yet attempted to be creative with them but I’m sure it will be lots of fun when I get around to it. (Soooo sarcastic!) Anyway, after returning home to a plowed parking lot (yay!) I settled in for some movie-watching. I watched The Devil Wears Prada and finished up all my backlogged Conans. Adam got home after 4 and we got dressed for the evening (it was “date night” – Adam’s idea.) I wore a dress. And heels. With 4 inches of snow outside. Anyway, we went to dinner at Fratellos in Appleton. Adam ordered wine (which we don’t really drink) and it was actually pretty good. I had a chicken stir fry that was great although I only managed to eat about 1/3 of it. We had their tiramisu for dessert and I must say it really rivals the Good Company version. After dinner we headed downtown to the PAC for “Sweet Charity.” We arrived just before the doors opened so we had to huddle outside (with some very rude smokers who kept stalking us when we tried to move away from them) until the ladies inside decided to let us in. We hung out on the third level on the couch and chatted with one of the ushers until the doors to the theater opened. We had box seats again so there were no elbow/butt issues. The show itself was ok. I wasn’t really impressed with Molly Ringwald, who was the headliner and the presumably the draw for the performance. Her singing wasn’t stellar and she totally couldn’t dance. And there’s a lot of dancing in the show. Oh well. After the show we managed to get out of the parking ramp amazingly fast due to Adam’s brilliant planning ahead by parking facing out rather than having to back out to leave. We got home where I quickly took off my clothes. Man, dressing up in uncomfortable. I’ve determined I’m going to have to really choose my underwear wisely for the wedding. There’s no way I’m going to wear pokey, binding crap all day long. And don’t even get me started on pantyhose.

Sunday morning brought more snow. Adam worked at 8 and I spent most of the day laying in bed watching movies. I watched Trust the Man, Marie Antoinette, and The Illusionist. I also put some stuff in the crock pot for dinner in the morning and had to suffer with the yummy smells all day long. I managed to miss when the plows showed up and my car was plowed in. By the time Adam came home we had to shovel the snow out from around it. Probably wasn’t really worth the effort since it snowed another 3 or 4 inches overnight, but whatever. Winter in Wisconsin is just a continuous practice in futility anyway. So we had dinner (which Adam didn’t like, boo) and watched some TV before bed. Not the Oscars though. Mostly "Dirty Jobs" and "Law & Order: SVU".

This morning my car was buried in snow again and it was still snowing when I left for work. I expect to have to uncover my car (assuming I can find it) after work again. My arms hurt. Someone should come up with a product that you can just point at your car, press a button, and it blows all the snow off for you. That would be awesome. I could really use something like that during a week like this where it’s supposed to snow everyday. Sometimes I wish I could telecommute.

Anyway, aside from the snow, this week looks to be rather boring. Nothing is really going on and the only think I have to worry about is tonight’s hand bell practice. We’re considering going downtown tomorrow night for The Bar’s happy hour and chicken wing special but that’s nothing definite yet. Work this week will be interesting. I’m filling in for someone who’s in Mexico on vacation and I get to be in charge of the physical inventory. Considering I’ve only been given the grand plant tour once, it should be interesting to see how lost I get on Wednesday while trying to supervise everyone else’s progress. *sigh*

Indecision

I made kind of a strange and unexpected decision over the weekend. I don’t know what prompted it, but out of nowhere I suggested to Adam that perhaps we should reconsider going to my cousin Lori’s wedding. We had gotten the magnet thing back at Christmas and I’d even indicated that we probably wouldn’t be coming when I sent my save-the-date to them. But the more I thought about it, the weaker my reasons for not going became. Originally I had written it off because I’d be using so much of my vacation for my own wedding and honeymoon and I didn’t want to spend any more money than I had to. But when I really thought about it, I still had some days left over and since we’d plan on driving, the costs would be minimal (hotel which we can get cheap on Priceline, gas, meals.)

So I mentioned this to Adam over the weekend. He gave me one of those “you’re doing the crazy changing your mind thing again” looks but soon got on board. We debated the merits of driving versus flying but I think we both agreed that it made more sense to drive. So we both took off Friday and Monday and plan to join the family in PA. Assuming we’re still invited. I figure since I got a magnet with a date that means I’m invited to the wedding. I guess we’ll wait and see.

I also figured this plan has some upshots: One, it would allow Adam to meet members of my family he’ll most likely never meet any other way. I know for sure that my grandfather won’t come to our wedding and my grandmother is questionable. Who knows about everyone else. Secondly, I thought maybe if I go to this wedding it will offer more incentive for the family to come to mine. Luckily most of them live in PA so they won’t be traveling to Lori’s wedding so they can’t use that as an excuse not to come to WI. And WI is so nice in August don’tcha know? On a slightly selfish note, I think it’s about time that some family members show up to one of my life events. I got gypped on both of my graduations so maybe this occasion will get people out to celebrate with me.

Book Reviews

I get totally behind on book reviews even when I’m not reading competitively. *sigh* Anywho, here are a few I’ve read (ok, re-read) lately:

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
I think I saw the movie and then went out and bought the book. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the movie but if I remember correctly, the movie and book were drastically different. Perhaps I should re-view the movie just to make sure. Or not. It wasn’t that great of a movie. Anyway, the whole book (as well as a few others Ms. Highsmith has written) concerns a young sociopath named Tom Ripley. Admittedly he’s had a rough life, what with both of his parents dying and him being raised by a not so pleasant aunt. By 25, he’s grown weary of his life. When he bumps into the father of Dickie Greenleaf, a young man he met once, he takes the opportunity presented to go to Italy to try and convince Dickie to come back home. He thoroughly enjoys his time in Europe, but when he’s appeared to have overstayed his welcome, he takes drastic measures to keep his new, more attractive lifestyle. He kills Dickie and transforms himself into him. Things begin to collapse around him when the police question him (as Dickie) about Tom. His own fears almost get the better of him but he manages to work it all out.

There are apparently two or three other books in the “Tom Ripley” series but I haven’t read them. Nor do I think I plan to. He’s just too psycho for me.


And Both Were Young by Madeline L’Engle
The inside front cover of this book says “To Martha from Dad. Christmas 1994.” Perhaps this should tell you how many times I’ve read this book. It’s a cute book about a girl who doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. She’s been traumatized by a car accident that left her mother dead and her knee stiff (which restricts her athletic ability, thereby making her a social outcast at her school.) She yearns to travel with her father while he works on a drawing project but Eunice, a woman “lusting after” her father convinces him to put Flip into a girls school in Switzerland. While there she meets Paul, a troubled young man with an unclear past. No, really. He lost his memory somehow and doesn’t know who he is. They help each other out along with Paul’s aunt, Colette, the art teacher at Flip’s school. It ends with an exciting ski tournament and lots of smiling faces.

Interestingly, the foreword to this book tells how Ms L’Engle was able to revise the book after the original publication to be more accurate to her manuscripts. Apparently when it was first published a lot of her writing was thought to be inappropriate - references to men, women, their relationships, that kind of thing. Personally, if what I read was the “naughty” version of this book, I can only imagine what the “clean” version was. Oh, how times have changed!


The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
I’m not even sure why I own this book. It’s a pain in the butt to read and the story isn’t really that thrilling. It’s just a classic I guess. I think everyone probably knows the story of Hester Prynne. She commits adultery which is discovered when she ends up with a child. She is publicly humiliated and forced to wear a big red “A” on her chest. She refuses to name her partner in crime even when her husband, who had been presumed dead, shows up trying to blackmail her. She is shunned from society and spends most of her time at home with her daughter, Pearl. In the meantime, her husband takes a new name and enters into society as a doctor in the town where Hester lives. He is immediately dispatched to help the ailing minister, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. He suspects the Reverend is hiding something and when he discovers what it is, he resolves to get his revenge by slowly killing him. In the end all is revealed and everyone (well, almost) can finally move on with their lives.

This book is full of antiquated prose and lengthy descriptions of all kinds of things. It’s not quite as bad as, say, Victor Hugo or Jules Verne, but it’s sometimes frustrating. I find myself skipping over the boring sections. Perhaps not the best way to fully appreciate the book, but I get the gist of things.


Up next: a biography of George Washington.

Awww

He's like the guinea pig version of Helen of Troy!

...who likes to cuddle...




And here's some (tripped out, blurry) Einstein for good measure:

The Endless Struggle

Lately I’ve been debating with myself whether I want to go back to school or not. I’ve researched the MBA program at UWO and it seems do-able. I know most of the professors and have even had most of them before. The classes themselves don’t seem overly difficult and I wouldn’t have to worry about a thesis. My main concern is the cost. The tuition reimbursement plan at work is very limited and the majority of the courses required wouldn’t qualify. I don’t know what kind of financial aid I’d be able to get governmentally without actually filling out the FAFSA. Each business graduate credit is running about $460. A full-time (9 credit) semester is over $4,000. Between paying for the wedding and trying to put together a reasonable down-payment for a house, I’m not sure it’s smart to go spending that kind of money. I’m also concerned about the time the classes are offered. They are all night-time classes (since I’d choose to attend classroom versions in Oshkosh rather than do online classes or weekend classes up in GB or Point.) This is good, but they run Monday through Thursday. Mondays I have hand bells and once a month on Tuesday is IMA. No matter how I swing it I’ll end up missing meetings and practices if I choose to enroll.

The process of enrolling isn’t too painful. I’d have to find my way to Brookfield to pay $250 and take the GMAT. I’d have to dig out an official transcript. I’d have to update my resume (which I should probably do anyway.) I don’t doubt that I’d be accepted. The problems would come after that.

I don’t know that having “MBA” behind my name would make me any more valuable to my employer. I don’t need it for what I’m doing right now. In actuality I’d probably be better off spending my time and money getting a certification. I don’t know what I want to do. I think I’m more comfortable with the spread out pressure of classes as opposed to the focused pressure of the CPA or CMA examination. Although considering the people I know who have passed those exams I would likely have no problem passing them myself. I just lack the motivation to study like crazy. It doesn’t help that right now I feel like none of these options would increase my earning and power potential at work.

The pros and cons aren’t really helping me make a decision. Adam has indicated at times that he’d like to go back to school and get a bachelor’s degree. I think if we had to choose between him and me, I’d tell him to go. Sometimes I wish I had an endless flow of money. If I could pay for it without worrying about the financial consequences I think the decision would be a lot easier. I can’t rationalize that I’m making an investment because I really doubt my salary will increase by $10,000 if I get the additional degree.

Argh, I’m talking myself in circles.

Countdown: Six Months to go!

We’re at the six month mark. Not much has really changed since the last wedding devoted entry. I still haven’t gotten up to Kaukauna to get my veil and I still haven’t picked which hair place I want to go to. Or which nail place I want to go to. I’ve never gotten my nails done before so I’m thinking maybe I should start doing that before August, just to make it easier on the poor person who has to do them the day before the wedding. My nails have always been a pain. They are brittle, break into layers, and are generally ugly. And don’t even get me started on my feet. Perhaps I should reconsider the open-toed shoe choice if it means I have to let someone near my feet to make them presentable.

Anyway, I’ve got some things I need to get done to finish the clothing and accessories part of my job. Other than that we’re still kind of in a holding pattern until invitations go out. There are some small things I can still do, but mostly it’s revamping the invitation, investigating postage, and waiting. It’s kind of nice. We plan to meet with the DJ and do some menu tasting at the reception hall soon. I suppose we should also confirm music choices since we kind of left it open with the organist. There’s plenty of time for that though.

I’ve been devoting a lot of my time lately to preparing the various invitations, program layout, and stashing additional money into the ING account so it can make us some money before we blow it all. It was my goal to stick with the $10k budget (excluding honeymoon and rings) and we’re pretty close (right now my estimates put us at $10,363.) It was also my goal to pay for everything in cash (well, on a credit card which I then pay off each month. Yay worldpoints!) and we’re doing well with that goal too. By my calculations, we should be able to pay for everything upfront when it’s due. No use starting off married life in debt. Right now I’ve got the money to pay off the cruise and photographer, two of the big chunks still outstanding, sitting earning interest. The other big chunk is the reception, which we won’t have an actual number for until a few weeks before the event. Other incidentals (like postage) and the rest of my stuff is the final piece of outstanding expenses. I obsess over every dollar and love looking at the budget. I’m so weird…

I’ve started putting together a new page for the website that will also be a part of the bag we give to out-of-towners. It’s kind of a guide to the area so they have things to do while they’re here. I plan to stop out at the Fox Valley Tourism place in Appleton and get their official brochures but I also wanted to highlight the things I think are interesting and worth checking out. Hopefully this will make everyone’s stay enjoyable and not boring. There are lots of things going on during the summer in the area so there should be some good stuff to do.

I also have been putting together a rough schedule for Thursday and Friday and designating responsibilities. There’s a lot to think about and I want to make sure everyone who needs to be in the loop is there. It’s going to be hard for me to delegate jobs to other people. But it’s just not realistic for me to be doing everything that needs to be done on Friday. Especially when wearing the big white dress. I guess I’ll have to have some faith in other peoples’ abilities. It’s going to be tough though. Just ask Adam. I’m a total control freak.

Valentine's Day Recap

Wednesday went pretty well. Kind of.

I made the dinner I had planned to make. I think the next time I make steak and pineapple kabobs I might not put a cup of pepper on them. But once you burned your taste buds off they were good. We popped open a bottle of champagne Adam brought back from California. It’s good that he’s got strong hands because otherwise we’d have a hole in our ceiling. The mini angel food cakes turned out kind of weird because I overfilled the pans. They ended up looking like big muffins. But they still tasted good. I filled the apartment with smoke while grilling the steak and had to open the patio door, letting the sub-zero wind in. I tried to do a candlelight dinner but really that’s just not practical. You can’t eat when you can’t see. So I ended up turning on 1/3 of the sun (a really bright lamp in the corner) so we could function. Overall, tasty food with not-so-perfect preparation or presentation.

I had ordered a totally cool gigantic fortune cookie from 1800flowers.com to be delivered to Adam at work. It never showed up. Adam talked with the FedEx delivery guy and found out it was sitting in California and had never been scheduled to be picked up. So after sitting on hold for 15 minutes I finally emailed their customer service department. I got an automatic response yesterday and nothing since. Adam got home last night and tried to call and he kept getting disconnected. He tried again this morning and after 30 minutes on hold he got through. Turns out they ran out of cookies. And it didn’t occur to them to let me know even though they had run out BEFORE I PLACED MY ORDER. They were going to just ship it when they got it. He told them to cancel the order and refund my money. I’m kind of disappointed because it was a totally awesome gift. They’re going to send a 20% off coupon but I’m wary to use their website again considering the service I received with this order. I’ll have to decide what I want to do. His birthday is coming up so I suppose I could try again then.

Adam had already given me chocolates on Monday and had let me know I wasn’t getting a card. But he did order lunch for me and have Erberts and Gerberts deliver it to my office. That was nice since I had forgotten to bring lunch with me.

So it was an alright Valentine’s Day. Not exactly the way I had planned, but that’s generally how life goes.

False Alarms

Right after lunch yesterday the fire alarms went off. We looked at the stacked signal ights at the end of the hall and the red light was flashing. We figured this meant we should get out of the building. So we grabbed our coats, passcards, and purses and headed out into the cold. We got halfway across the parking lot before some people back at the building yelled “Come back in!” Turns out we need a flashing red and flashing yellow together in order to evacuate. And there’s a poster that states that right on the end of the row. No one thought to look at it… Oops.

Apparently it was a false alarm anyway – some system fault or something. As one of my co-workers said, “If this was a test, we all failed.” Then another said, “If failing means I’m safe, I’m ok with that.” I think we all need a refresher course on the flashing light system though. I never know what I’m supposed to do. All I know is green = good.

Romantic Plans

I have big plans for tomorrow. Well, at least tomorrow evening. I’ll be cooking a Valentine’s Day feast. When this day falls mid-week it doesn’t really make sense to go out and cooking for yourself is generally cheaper, healthier, and more satisfying. Plus, at home we can eat in our pajamas. What beats that?

Anyway, the menu as it stands right now is this:

Pineapple and steak kabobs
Glazed baby carrots with tarragon (which will probably get magically swapped with dill since tarragon=ew)
Rolls
Strawberry angel food cake with whipped cream frosting
sparkling, bubbly drink of some kind (not sure what we’ve got sitting at home)

Adam works until 6ish so I should have plenty of time to get this all done before he comes home. But don’t worry – it’s not a secret. I ran this menu past him this weekend so I don’t mind if he reads this post before tomorrow. Of course when I asked him what he wanted he said something like, “you, dipped in chocolate” so he wasn’t really much help in the planning process. :)

I expect it will turn out to be a delicious meal and I plan to take pictures of it all. I’ve been slacking on my cooking website lately mostly because I’ve been slacking on my cooking. I lack motivation to cook things just for myself. Usually what I end up doing is making a big pot of pasta one day and then eating the leftovers for the next week. That’s not very picture-worthy. There are some good recipes in the latest issue of the Rachael Ray magazine though so perhaps I’ll try out a few of those. I’ve got plenty of food in the house to work with. I just seem to be falling back on microwave popcorn a lot lately. Adam recently changed his schedule at Walmart and will have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off so perhaps that will help too.

Adam gave me a big box of meltaways last night. He tells me he had to give them to me early because he bought them that afternoon and didn’t want to risk eating them all before tomorrow. It also came with a big meltaway heart that I’m embarrassed to admit I ate last night in one sitting. But I haven’t eaten any of the boxed chocolates yet. I’m trying to resist them, but they’re so good. Adam also informed me that since he couldn’t find one he liked, I will not be getting a Valentine’s Day card. Pfft. I’ve never been this “holiday”’s biggest cheerleader so it’s not a big deal to me. The fact that he has off from work and can spend the evening with me is good enough. Let’s just hope that we don’t annoy each other too much.

As for what I got him – that IS a secret I can’t reveal yet. :)

Busy Birthday Weekend

I think the birthday weekend was successful. As mentioned previously, after work we went to the bowling alley. It was an experience being required to score your own game. I’m so used to the electronic scoring I had to flex my brain muscles to do the calculations. I usually got frustrated and made Adam do it though. Heh. It wasn’t a particularly good day for either of us. I almost broke 100 in the first game. I even got a strike on my very first frame. It all went downhill from there. There was a girl and her parents bowling two lanes down from us. She was probably 8 or 9 and she was kicking my butt. When we were overrun by a family with (too many) children, we called it quits after two games rather than our normal three.

After a short discussion we went downtown to The Bar for the free beer and good food. We happened to arrive while it was still Happy Hour so not only did I drink for free but Adam got to enjoy the 2 for 1 deals and the free subs. We ordered food anyway and played a few games of darts while we waited and ate. Adam tried their suck and blow jello shot as well. When they dimmed the lights and cranked up the music (around 7) we packed up the rest of my food and headed to the martini bar. Well, we stopped at the tobacco store so Adam could get some cigars first. Then we went to the martini lounge. It was fairly empty and no one was smoking, which was nice. We hung at the bar for a little bit until the corner couches opened up. We grabbed them and remained there until we left. We then headed home for the night.

On Saturday, we woke up relatively early (I think Adam had taken over my side of the bed when I got up to go to the bathroom around 6:15 and we didn’t go back to sleep after that struggle.) We left around 9, making a Starbucks run on the way. We went first to our favorite West Allis Marshalls. Then we stopped at Sprecher to pick up some root beer and ask about volume discounts. We stopped for lunch at Culvers on the way down to Waunakee where we picked up Jess and headed to Madison to shop for a cell phone. We went to a mall and then to a Walmart. We stopped at our second Marshalls of the day in Madison. After some communication problems with Jill (the GPS) we found a US Cellular store where everything fell into place. We stopped for food on the way back to her apartment and then headed to our final Marshalls stop in Middleton. Then we started the long ride home. I’m not sure what we did when we got home. Probably sleep, but I really don’t remember.

Sunday morning Adam worked at 8 so we got up relatively early. While he was at work I did laundry, changed sheets, made beds, cleaned, cuddled with guinea pigs, watched the second Presidents DVD, and lots of other stuff. He got home around 5:30 and after an unplanned meltdown (mind) we watched some tv and ate dinner.

Today Adam got sent home from work again because he’s supposed to be grieving still. Apparently Cisco has a mandatory three day bereavement policy or something. Seems dumb to me but it’s a paid day off so I suppose he shouldn’t complain too much. I have a normal day. Actually I have a lot of normal days coming up. Nothing really out of the ordinary until probably May. *sigh*

Anyway, plans for this week so far are pretty minimal. Hopefully I can find some motivation somewhere and get up to Kaukauna. I’ve been saying this for about a month though so I don’t know if anything will change for this week. I’ve got handbells tonight and of course Wednesday is Valentine’s Day. Adam has the night off from Walmart and I’ll be making dinner.

I suck at bowling

... and here's the proof:




Oh yeah, and here's my The Bar flashy button:

The Big 2-5

(note: I wrote this at work this afternoon)

So far, so good on the birthday front. Adam decided not to go to Minnesota for the funeral. I suppose it makes me happy that he chose me. He says his parents understand and they don’t hate me, but I still feel guilty about it. In any case, he’s here and has off from work today and tomorrow.

This morning I awoke to a card on the table. It’s a card that talks when you open. It cracked me up, but it’s not really appropriate to write what it said to me on here. I left for work early so I could stop at Big Apple Bagels on the way to pick up some treats for the co-workers. It still doesn’t make sense to me that the person with the birthday brings the treat, but whatever. I’ll go along with it. They were a hit. As of now only ½ a bagel and one muffin remain. Not bad considering 3 or 4 people were off today. Much better than last year when no one was interested in my cheese and sausage plates and they ended up sitting in the fridge for a month. Heh. Guess I know which way to go for next time.

Adam sent me flowers like he did last year (although he keeps threatening me with a gorilla-gram) – the really fresh kind that ship overnight and actually bloom after you get them. Being the plant-killer that I am, I wasn’t too excited about being required to set them all up but I think they’ll be ok. We’ll see tomorrow if they bloom or keel over. He also came down and took me to Red Robin for lunch. I hadn’t been there for awhile and we discovered (after he had paid the bill) that you get a free burger on your birthday. Whoops. Another thing we’ll know for next time.

After I’m done at work tonight we plan to head up to The 10th Frame (a bowling alley) in Appleton. They have a special unlimited bowling deal after 5pm and they also have a coupon for a free meal for your birthday in the Valpak. We also haven’t gone bowling for a while either. After that it’s kind of up in the air. Depending on what time it is we might try and catch a movie. Most likely we’ll miss the 7-7:30 showtimes and end up renting one instead. We haven’t even discussed going to a bar. I’m not sure that’ll happen although this would be the first time I’d go to one on my birthday and get one of those flashing mugs to drink for free. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

This afternoon Adam is going to sell his Bowflex. He’s also going to go grocery shopping. This makes me a little nervous because he’s never done the shopping by himself. He’s also the worst impulse buyer I know. He has the list (with plenty of details) and I have no doubt he’ll do spectacularly. I just hope he doesn’t come home with 4 bags of stuff when what’s on the list should take 2. I suppose I should have confidence in his ability to resist temptation. I’ve been known to throw random items in the cart too.

Tomorrow is still up for discussion. He has the whole day off and the hand bells ringing at the 4:30 mass was cancelled because we didn’t have a practice this week. So we have the whole day. Right now it sounds as though we’ll head to Milwaukee, Chicago, or Madison. Or maybe all 3. We’d stop at 1 or more of the three Marshalls in the Miwaukee area. We’d stop in at the Sprecher Brewery to see how their gift bag development is coming. In Chicago we’d stop at the Kohl’s Children Museum to get some Kim and Scotts pretzels directly from the source. For Madison, we’d actually be stopping in Waunakee to visit with my friend Jessica. I haven’t contacted her yet so this is the most unconfirmed. So who knows what we’ll actually end up doing. Knowing me and my lazy indecision, we’ll probably end up sitting in bed all day watching movies.

Completely off topic, Adam went to the Neenah library for me yesterday and got volumes 1 and 2 of the History Channel’s Presidents DVDs (Volume 3 was checked out.) I watched the first one yesterday: Washington through Lincoln. I was falling asleep during Lincoln’s (not out of boredom – I was tired and it was getting late) but I found it interesting for the most part. I’m undecided about whether I want to own the set. I guess I’ll delay that decision until I watch the other 2 discs.

Update: We did indeed go bowling and I totally sucked. (The place we went has old school scoring so I'll scan the scorecard in later.) We also went to The Bar for dinner where I got my flashy button and free beer. We then stopped at the cigar store so Adam could pick up a few before heading to the martini bar for a little while. Right now he's in the shower. He hates the smell of smoke. Ironically, he was the only one in the whole place smoking...so it's his own damn fault.

Another Political Post

I found it interesting that Ted Haggard has announced he’s 100% heterosexual after completing some therapy. I personally believe that no one is 100% either way. Everyone has a little gay in them and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I find it preposterous that this guy brashly states he’s totally straight. I’M more straight than he is. He had sex with a man for goodness sake! That’s totally the opposite of straight. I don’t care if he had some kind of electroshock therapy or had some Men in Black-esque memory erasing deal. His past is still a part of him and that part of him is gay. There’s no way he’s 100% straight. You can’t just discount something you’re ashamed of.

The hypocrisy that runs rampant in so many religious/moral circles is depressing. I’d wager that a good percentage of the loudest pro-lifers have had an abortion themselves. The loudest opponents of gay marriage are closeted bi-or homosexuals in sham marriages. It’s like they believe they can make up for the choices they regret making by degrading others who make the same choice. People are ridiculous. Why can’t we all just get along?

Then there’s this thing with phallic symbols in Price’s half-time show. I admit, I didn’t watch it. There are stills posted online, but I’m not really seeing the problem. For one thing, It’s PRINCE. Have you seen his videos? Listened to the lyrics of his songs? Pretty much every song he ever put out (ha) is a thinly veiled reference to sex. And now some uptight parents are upset because he allegedly made his guitar look like a penis? Come on. Be glad he left “Pussy Control” off the play list and go back to watching your secret porn stash.

Why must we be so repressed? There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that women have breasts and people have sex. It’s not a big secret. I long for the freedom found in Europe where their soap commercials feature naked people lounging in bathtubs. We need to work with nature, not try to suppress it. And I’ll just mention that I’m still loving the abstinence-only sex ed idea. I’m sure it’s working out splendidly for repressed Republicans everywhere. Too bad it’s the smart people who won’t accidentally procreate because they know better. But perhaps that’s their plan… Hmmm… Conspiracy theory anyone?

A Difficult Decision

Adam's father is adopted. As an adult, he found out who his birth mother was and they met.

She died on Monday morning.

Now Adam has to decide if he will be going to her funeral. He has been asked to be a pallbearer. The funeral is Friday afternoon in Minnesota.

Friday is my birthday.

How does one choose between things like this? There's no obvious answer. No matter what you choose, someone will be hurt/disappointed/mad.

Now, he tells me he only met her twice so it's not like they were thisclose. But it's still a family thing. Both of his sister plan on making the 5+ hour drive on Friday morning. His parents have already booked hotel rooms for Friday night.

What would you do?

Weekend Fun

It was a busy weekend. Even though the temperatures steadily dropped to below 0, we still accomplished quite a bit.

On Friday, Adam came and picked me up and we went to his team’s quarter-end celebration at The Wave. I had met some of the people at the going away party for someone a while back but I met others as well. We had dinner at the bar, and played some bowling. It’s similar to the golf games with the ball thing you use to throw the ball. I totally sucked. I didn’t even get a strike or spare so I could put my initials there. I was PLR2 the whole time. *sigh*

Adam was supposed to work at Walmart on both Saturday and Sunday but on both days he was told to not come in because they were so slow. On Saturday we stopped by Hobby Lobby and got matting and a frame for the picture we’ll have at the cake table at the reception. It looks awesome. We also got a frame for the comic strip one of Adam’s co-workers did for me for my birthday. We headed to Simon’s for some cheese and I got some goods ideas for things for the out-of-towners’ bags. Then it was on to the casino. I had my $10 birthday credit to cash in and it had been awhile since we’d been there. I proceeded to lose the $10 (plus $5 of my own money) to Monopoly in about 3 minutes. Adam also didn’t do so well although he spread his around a little more. Oh well. He somehow ended up with $.01 in The Terminator slot machine so he cashed it out and I scanned and posted it because I thought it was funny. We stopped and paid a visit to his grandma and cousin before heading back home to chill. Or warm up as the case may be.

On Sunday we headed to the mall where I found the rest of the jewelry I needed. I also found a couple good shoe styles although I’m not set on anything yet. We stopped a few more places (Sam’s, Blockbuster, Walmart) and then headed home for the Big Game. I didn’t watch it. Not even for the commercials (although I’ve been told there was a very cute guinea pig one.) When it started I headed to the bedroom and watched The Little Mermaid and then finished up the rest of the Girls Next Door episodes from Season One.

On Monday I got ready to go to work and about 5 minutes before I was to be out the door my breakfast came back to say “hey.” I planned to just go in a little late, but I ended up staying home all day with various issues. I don’t know if it’s the weather, a cold, or something hormone related (I just switched from generic to brand-name BCPs again), but it sucked. I feel better today although the headache is lingering. In any case, I spent the day trying to keep warm in our artic bedroom. It was made additionally cold by the fact that the outdoor temperature was -15 with windchills ranging from -20 to -35. Brr. I love our heated mattress pad. Adam came home around 5 because Convergys decided to shut down for the day (yes, they decided to shut down at 5. Don’t ask…) Because Walmart told him not to come in and hand bells was canceled, we ran up to the pet store to get some bedding so I could clean out Mo and Einstein’s cages. We also got a new log for Howie and some new orange slice treats. We spoil our pets… Anyway, we came home, I cleaned, Adam watched wrestling, all was right with the world.

This morning went smoother than yesterday did. At least I made it to work so that’s a good sign. Not sure what else the week has in store. Things might get complicated with Adam’s Dad’s birth mother passing away yesterday. We’ll see what happens.

We won!

Bwahahahahaha