Wow

So things have been pretty crazy since March. I really have been too busy to even consider posting. Today I don't feel much like working, so I am taking the time to give an update.

I still don't have a kitchen. In fact my kitchen is the very same state it has been for several months. However, I have decided on floor tile and backsplash tile, cabinets, sink and a range hood. I am still trying to find a faucet I like. Maybe one day something will actually be installed!

We did have a recent event that would give us some push to finish the kitchen. We checked out a super cheap 1 bedroom condo in Madison in our ideal location. It is so cheap that we could afford the montly payment before selling our current house. One problem though, the house is in no way ready to go on the market and wouldn't be without a significant amount of work. I am not comfortable with purchasing the condo when the house is not ready. I think this caused a light to go on in Duane's brain and (fingers crossed) he will be more amenable to working on the house.

We are going on a trip this month to: Prague, Salzburg, Switzerland, Nice and Amsterdam (3 weeks away!). We are going to increase our search for a new dog when we get back. Brisco's moods have been up and down a lot lately. He recently had a visit from one of his doggie friends and he was so happy to see her!

random thoughts

I haven't posted in forever. Yesterday was my birthday and I am OLD. Found out that my little sister is pregnant again on Saturday. I still think it isn't something that she really wants (she got accepted to the Physical Therapy program at the UW which is really tough to get into and is now deferring for a year) but I will help her as much as she lets me.

The weather is depressing and my kitchen is still a room with no floor or anything else.

I did have a great visit to see friends in DC last month.

I WILL get back to my crafts. I have onesies to make for a friend and some great ideas for toddler t-shirts that I need to work on.

I have been getting a fair amount of appreciation and validation at work which is nice.

I remembered that I can do and teach myself just about anything which is not something that everyone can say about themselves.

I need to increase my resolve to go to the gym. I have been dinking around with losing weight for too many months.

Home from vacation

Well it was a wonderful month of being on vacation and we have over 900 pictures to sort through. I would highly recommend New Zealand as a place to visit, it is an amazing country. I hope to have pictures of the trip up soon.

I realized when we got back that the state of our house is pretty depressing. The basement is still a mess from the flooding and of course the kitchen is a work in progress. A depressing house is depressing to come home to. There will be hard work ahead to get everything in order.

The animals all survived. Mr. Kitty was pretty po'd. He had to stay home by himself and got a whole day of us being home by himself. He even slept with us, which he never does. Boots is the one that usually sleeps with us, and I guess Mr. Kitty won't sleep with us if he is there.

It is going to take a little while to get my head back into work. I want to stay through my coworker's maternity leave, so I think that puts me around April for giving notice. Duane was already looking for new jobs for me last night.

Well hello....

from Fiji!! It is mother f'ing hot and humid here but very beautiful. Duane and I went snorkeling and swimming! We both got sunburns though. We fly out to New Zealand tomorrow and we are both looking forward to less hot, humid, and bugs! Lots of bugs here. It was definately a memorable experience.

I am so hoping that work will settle down once I get back. I switched us over to outsourcing our email (which was a pain), but I am hoping that will be the answer. I really want to quit working as a staff member. I miss science!!

Christmas for us was good, we mostly got money for our trip, but the time with family is always nice.

I am busy...blah...blah....blah

We are slowly working the kinks out at the new office. My phone still rings all day long, but at least it makes the days go faster.

Half of the New Zealand trip is planned, now I need to start thinking about what the heck I need to pack.

The kitchen is completely ripped out. We need to get out a layer of subfloor this weekend and go pick out tile for the new floor! It is exciting, but I am pretty sure it won't be done before we leave for our trip.

We have a ton of snow here, so it feels like winter! It doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet though.

Have you missed me?

Our internet connection at work was severed on November 4th in the evening (by mistake). My life has been hellish since then. Work has been a giant ball of stress and will be until we (successfully) move in to our new building. The move starts in 1 week.

I had to put Hershey to sleep Monday evening. He took a major slide over the weekend and was ready to go. I catch myself calling him to go outside and then I remember that he isn't there.

We ripped out the base cabinets in the kitchen and I am SO excited about having a new kitchen.

We still haven't planned half our trip to New Zealand in January, but I (think) all the animals have people to stay with.

I am going to Chicago tonight to see a friend and go to some craft shows tomorrow. I am not going to think about work or anything else stressful!

Oh Halloween....

I raced home on Friday to put candy out for trick or treaters. I don't answer the door because the dogs and cats are a pain to deal with and I was working on Duane's costume. We don't have many kids in our neighborhood but sometimes they come over from other areas. We didn't get that this year so I was left with candy. Luckily I can stay away from it and I can take it to work for other people to eat.

I stayed up late hunched over the sewing machine, but I did finish Duane's costume. Sewing fake fur to a sweatshirt and sweatpants is a bitch. I was up relatively early on Saturday to drop Duane off to go golfing and I had a hair appointment at 12:45. My costume was an interpretation of Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl and I was still on the search for most of the costume on Saturday (I did finally find some kiss ass clothes).

Unfortunately my hair appointment was traumatic. My usual stylist was not working on Saturday so I had someone else. It is this lady that always has a bad attitude (don't know if she is the manager or what). She waxed my eyebrows and gave me 1st degree burns right below my eyebrows. I didn't know what she had done, just that it hurt a little more than usual. She proceeded to style my hair (keeping me away from the mirror) even though I think someone else was scheduled to do it. I came in because I wanted a shampoo and style (they massage your head during the shampoo and it is very relaxing). She bullied me into not having it washed (she said the style would hold better) and I hadn't washed it before I came. The style turned out exactly the way I wanted, but since my hair wasn't washed it didn't hold up very well throughout the day. They mysteriously took $10 off my bill and I left. When I got in the car I saw the 2 bright red stripes below my eyebrows and it hurt like hell. I can be sensitive to the waxing (it usually stays red for 30-45 minutes) but I had no idea how bad it was.

I continued shopping for my costume and then got home around 4. I spent 2 hours with ice and a cold washcloth on my eyebrows, but the damage was done. It will heal, but it looks pretty stupid. I tried to let it not ruin my night so I got ready for the party. My outfit was pretty sexy (let's just say I did not bend over much) so I was a little embarassed. I ran with it though and I got some compliments. The party was strangely lame. This friend of Duane's usually throws cool parties (good music, lots of people to talk to) but this was not one of them. I drank too quickly (didn't have much to eat with the trauma and being nervous for the party) and was pretty drunk. We played some Rockband (hard to sing when the words are all blurry). Duane fell asleep (he had been golfing all afternoon and drinking all evening before I picked him up for the party). He did win scariest costume though! I know there are some pictures out there (hopefully not too horrifying). I will post one if I can get someone to send me one. I zonked out on the couch and Duane woke me up at 7 to go home.

Today was supposed to be a stressful day at work (new software going live) but there has been a delay. They are saying it should be ready tomorrow, so tomorrow can be the stressful day I guess.

The house is a complete disaster area (bits of fake fur everywhere) and I am way behind on laundry. Calgon take me away........

p.s. I am going to say something to my regular stylist about the traumatic appointment. I am seeing her this Thursday.

Here I am, rock me like a hurricane...

The weird things that pop into your head while thinking about blogging.

We traveled to Minneapolis last Friday. We got into town around 7:30 and hit up the Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery. It was kinda snobby in there. The beer I had was good, but not excellent. Duane had 2 beers, and liked 1 a lot. We moved onto the next place, Stub and Herb's, which was near campus. It was formerly a total college bar but has been renovated up a notch. The atmosphere was a lot nicer. We met up with this guy that Duane was trading beer with. He was wear a hoodie with beagles all over it and his handle on the beer trading site is regalbeagle. Was he a little weird you ask? Yes, just slightly off. We had good beer there, even having a pint of the special beer we were picking up the next day. This did involve talking to the beagle guy for way longer than we wanted to though. Duane also gyyped the waitress (by mistake) and got me to steal a pint glass.

We got to the hotel with no trouble (downtown Hyatt $50/night on Priceline) and checked in. It was a very nice and comfortable room, despite the wireless (not free) access sucking. At least they took it off the bill with no argument. The next morning we were up at 6am and to the brewery by 7 (yeah). It was a little chilly to be sitting in a chair for 5 hours, but it was an experience. It turned out later that they had plenty of beer and we could have gotten there at 3pm and bought what we wanted. I keep trying not to think about that part. After we got our beer ($300 worth), we went to another brewery for lunch. It was a cute place and they have good beer. Duane ordered a chipotle pizza for us to order despite the spicyness disclaimer on the menu. Holy Hell it was spicy!! It was almost too spicy to eat. Eating this pizza involved a CVS stop later in the evening for some Pepto. We went back to the hotel to shower and rest after lunch.

Our hotel was near the sculpture garden (think giant spoon with a cherry on it), so we walked over there. We then walked all around the downtown area. We were looking for somewhere to eat, but also just looking around. We ended up back at the hotel (after the emergency Pepto stop) and picked out a restaurant near the hotel (Nick and Eddie's). It was very nice (despite an anemic beer list) and the food was excellent.

We were up the next morning to travel to Janesville for some family time. We were slow getting out of town (looking for coffee and a LNT that was open). I had a breakfast sandwich from Sonic that was quite tasty but probably all my points for the day. We finally got out of MN and got stopped by a State Trooper! It was weird, we were in mixed traffic and not speeding excessively. He ended up giving us a warning, which made me think that they must have been looking for a car that looked like ours.

We did have a nice family visit even though we were pretty pooped.

This week has been decent so far (despite the internet going down this morning at work). We have still been busy, but work isn't bothering me as much. I did hear something this week that made me laugh. We were in the new office building looking around and I heard: if Carey becomes our IT person in the future she can have this office!! Oh lordy, these people can't guess that I want outta here?

We have a Halloween party on Saturday and our costumes are not ready yet. I have a feeling I will be working on that tomorrow night.

Tonight is Weight Watchers (missed last week). Duane drank a ton of beer over the weekend and still lost 5 lbs! I don't expect to see a loss.

Tuesday better than last

Well WW last week was not a loss, partly because I weighed in on Friday morning instead of Thursday evening (it makes a difference) and partly because I drank too much beer last week.

I have to weigh in on Friday again this week but I will not be wearing heavy jeans. I do work at the G Mansion Wednesday and Thursday though, so I will have to stay away from the food.

The weekend was good. Friday involved a movie, a good dinner, and too much beer. Saturday was corn maze and pumpkin carving day. The corn maze was oddly anticlimatic. The last time we went it was night time (much spookier and harder to navigate) and this time it was day time. Last time was with friends and this time was with some of Duane's coworkers. Pumpkin carving was fun though and we ended up with some yummy toasted seeds.

I watched My Own Worst Enemy last night and thought that it was much better than the first episode. Smoother and less cheesy. I am not missing 90210 (or Knight Rider which I have given up on). I am thinking about tossing a few other shows as well.

We are off to Minneapolis this weekend. Someone is watching the dogs so I really need to get to cleaning up the house. It seems like it is always a mess!

Hey twice in one week!

Well work yesterday was not better by any means. Today has been fine, mostly because it has been slow. Maybe I should do a countdown till our vacation.

TV

My Own Worst Enemy (Christian Slater show) - Not 100% awesome, but worth watching again. The spy version of CS was very creepy while the dad version was good lookin'. It has started off as a hardcore spy show more Alias like. Plot and dialog could use a little work.

Eleventh Hour - Liked the pregnant cheerleader from the movie Sugar&Spice as the hardass FBI chick. The science guy is a little better than so-so. They started off with a hot topic (cloning babies) and didn't distort the science of it too badly. I will watch it again next week.

90210 was not on this week and I didn't miss it. I will be taking it off the DVR list.

Tomorrow is weigh in. We shall see how it goes. It should be a loss, but probably not a huge one.