Busy Busy Bee

Today was another busy but productive day.  I got up early (7:30 am) to go babysit for Eli and Talia while Shosh went to the doctor.  Talia was pretty fussy, but it was only for a couple of hours, so it was fine.  Eli was in such a goofy mood, it was the cutest thing!  My favorite moment was when I was trying to get Talia to stop crying, and I kept saying "What's the matter, Talia?", and after a while, I said it one time and Eli repeated, "whassa matter, Talia?"  I cracked up, lol, he is SO CUTE! :-)

Anyway, after Shosh got home, we hung out for a little bit, and then I came home.  I got home around 1:15 or so, ate lunch, and then relaxed for a little bit.  I decided that if I didn't hear back from Nora by 3:30, I was going to go ahead and finish Julia's montage - put it on DVD and everything.  Of course, I never heard back from her, so I went ahead and did it anyway, then sent her an email asking if she and Julia had had a chance to look at the final montage yet and also asking if I could come drop the DVD off tomorrow afternoon (I'm babysitting again tomorrow, and Joel and Shosh's house is about halfway out to where they live, so I'd rather go right after babysitting than have to double back later in the evening).  I said in the email that if I didn't hear back from her, I would assume that it's fine.  I haven't heard back yet...we'll see if I have anything from her in the morning.  If not, I'm totally just gonna go anyway, and if she's not home, I'll leave it in the mailbox :-P

Marcus got home before I finished the DVD.  It took FOREVER to burn for some reason, but it finally finished, and I was able to create the label for it and everything.  Marcus helped me out by creating an invoice for the project (we had a little argument because he wanted me to add in more stuff, and I told him no, because it wasn't what Nora and I had discussed, and he thinks I'm short-changing myself, but whatever), which I also printed out to take with me tomorrow.  Then we ate dinner and watched the Braves game.

After the game, I got a facebook event invitation for my 10-year high school reunion.  I am SO bummed out that I won't be able to go, because it's over Thanksgiving weekend, and we'll be in Florida this year (we've been in Maryland the last two years - we have a two years and two years arrangement, it's a little complicated).  The nostalgia junkie in me has been looking forward to this reunion pretty much since graduation...and now I can't go :-(  Although I have already gotten a couple of facebook comments from friends who also can't go, so that makes me feel a LITTLE better, that some of the people I'd want to see if I went aren't going to be there anyway.

Then Marcus and I played cards for a while.  It's been a long time since we've done that, it was really nice (and fun!).  I kicked his butt at gin rummy and crazy eights, and then he kicked my butt at casino (even though I skunked him the first round) - pretty much on par for us, haha ;-)

I think I'm going to head to bed early (as in, as soon as I finish writing this), because I'm exhausted and I have another long and busy day tomorrow.

You are getting sleeeeepyyyyy

Well, actually, *I* am getting sleepy.  So this will be a short post.

I had kind of a slow start this morning, but once I got moving, I was fairly productive.  I managed to pretty much finish up Julia's montage, and posted it to youtube around 12:30 pm.  Then I pretty much just vegged for the rest of the afternoon.

When Marcus got home, we went to the gym, then came back and cooked dinner (yummy pasta again!) for our friends Cat and Drew, who came over around 7:30.  They brought a delicious apple and blueberry pie for dessert, and we mostly ate and talked, and also played a quick game of Blokus (which they also brought).  After they left, we cleaned up and started to get ready for bed.

Then I got an email from Nora (Julia's mom) about the montage.  She liked it, but was wondering where the video clip was that I was supposed to add in.  I did add it in, but apparently it got lost somewhere in the upload to youtube.  So I had to go back and re-add it back in, and re-upload it to youtube.  Thankfully, it worked this time, so I sent her the new link, and we shall see what she says in the morning.

And now I am going to bed, because I have to get up early tomorrow (7:30) to go babysit Eli and Talia.  Goodnight all!

Manic Monday

Days like today are why the term "manic Monday" came about.  I'm heading to bed early (as soon as I finish writing this, in fact) in hopes of recovering and catching up a little bit on sleep!

I woke up at 6 am this morning, and while I was attempting to fall back asleep, was startled awake again by a loud noise from somewhere outside (it sounded like a gunshot, but maybe that's just my imagination, since I haven't heard about any shootings...).  After that, it took me a LONG time to fall back asleep, and when I finally did, I had a very unsettling dream about my car, in which it ended up having even more problems than those that were already there.  Needless to say, I did NOT want to get up when my alarm went off at 8!  But I had to, because I had a lot on the docket for today.

First order of business - took my car in to get the tire fixed.  Luckily, they were able to plug the hole and didn't have to replace the tire, so I didn't have to pay anything!  It also only took them about 20 minutes or so, which was nice.  I brought my computer with me and worked on Julia's montage while they were fixing my car.

When I got home, I worked on the montage for a couple of hours longer.  I got a lot done, and I'm HOPING to be able to finish it (or at least get really, really close to finishing it) tomorrow.  We'll see how that goes, haha.

Then I just hung out for a while.  Walked down and got the mail, of which there was a TON - I guess we forgot to get it on Saturday, haha.  When Marcus got home, we took out the trash, then ate dinner.  We were both feeling lazy, so we just kind of grabbed whatever out of the pantry.  I had a tuna pack and he had a bowl of cereal!  Then we watched Jeopardy together, then I watched Secret Life (can't wait for next week's season finale!), and we watched the new episode of Millionaire Matchmaker together.  It was a rare episode where I actually liked both of the millionaires, haha, so that was fun.  We also paid rent for next month and Marcus emailed his mom about houses and such.

So, it was a very busy and productive day, which leaves me feeling tired, but accomplished (which is a rare treat for me these days).  Tomorrow should be another fun one, not much during the day other than finishing the montage, but after Marcus gets home it will be super busy!

What happened to the weekend?!?

I can't believe the weekend is already over, it went by SO fast!  And this week is going to be insanely busy...at least I have our Chattanooga trip to look forward to at the end of it.

I got up early (for a weekend) this morning, around 9:30.  Marcus had gotten up to head out to the APO section event, and I couldn't fall back asleep, so I just decided to get up since I had a lot to do today.  I spent the morning doing laundry, then headed out around 2:15 to go to Eli's birthday party.  I had to take side streets because of my spare tire, which went fine, although the tire seems to be running low.  But I'm taking the car in tomorrow morning, so as long as I can make it to the dealership okay, it should be fine.

Anyway, the birthday party was fun!  There were lots of adorable little kids there, and I ate way more than I should have.  Eli seemed to enjoy himself - his favorite part was chowing down on grapes and watermelon!  This child is a watermelon addict, seriously, it's hilarious!  Especially since he calls it "waterlemon"...every other sentence out of his mouth is, "more waterlemon please!", lol :-)  It was really hot out, so I've been super tired since I got home - too much sun, I think.

When we got home (Marcus came a little later to the party, straight from the APO event), we cooled off for about 15 minutes, then headed back out to go grocery shopping (Marcus drove).  We decided to stop at Menchie's and get some frozen yogurt on our way home, which was a nice treat.  Then Marcus headed over to David's house for a True Blood viewing party, and I stayed home and watched Food Network.

I have a really busy week planned, and it just keeps getting busier!  So far, this is what I've got on the schedule:
Monday - certify unemployment, take my car in, work on Julia's montage, pay rent, watch Secret Life
Tuesday - finish Julia's montage and post it to youtube for final review, gym, Cat and Drew coming over for dinner
Wednesday - babysit Eli and Talia, finalize Julia's montage and burn it to DVD
Thursday - babysit Eli and Talia, deliver montage DVD to Nora, gym, pack for weekend trip
Friday - leave for Chattanooga!

I'll try to keep up with the blog posting, too!

Oy, too much stress!

So much for a relaxing weekend.  Today started off innocently enough.  I got up around 11:30.  Marcus left at 12:30 to go shop with A and some others for the APO section event tomorrow, and I left around the same time to go over to Marsha's.  We hung out at her house for a while, had some yummy waffles, and then decided to go check out a flea market.  It was about 45 minutes away (not too bad), and we ended up spending a couple of hours walking around there.  We got some yummy Italian ices and saw lots of cool stuff!  We got back to her house around 5:30, at which point I looked at my car and saw that I had a flat tire.  So I called AAA, and the guy came out 15 minutes later!  This is the first time I've ever had a AAA person make it out in less than an hour, haha, which was awesome!  He put my spare tire on, and then Marcus showed up.  I had called him to let him know what was going on, because we had a dinner reservation at 7, and when I originally called AAA, they had said the guy would come anytime "between now and 7:17", so Marcus had decided to head over so we could go to dinner straight from Marsha's.  Luckily, we were able to leave her house around 6:30, so we were on time for our reservation!

This week is Restaurant Week for Midtown Atlanta, which means a whole bunch of restaurants have special 3-course menus for $25 or $35 per person.  We had looked through the menus and picked one to go to, it was a restaurant called Steel.  Our dinner was DELICIOUS!  Their regular menu is a bit out of our typical price range, and the $25 3-course menu was a steal of a deal given their normal prices.  We were so full after dinner that we almost couldn't walk back to the car!

Anyway, we headed back to Marsha's after dinner to get my car, which I drove home with no issues.  I'm a little concerned about the spare tire, because I'm supposed to drive to Dunwoody and back tomorrow for Eli's birthday party, and the car place is closed on Sundays, so I can't take it in to get the regular tire fixed until Monday morning, so that's a LOT of driving on the spare.  The AAA guy assured me that it would be fine, that I "could drive on it for a week if I needed to", but that I shouldn't drive over 50 MPH on it.  So I'm now planning to take surface streets tomorrow rather than the highway (which is fine, since they've been doing massive weekend construction on 285 anyway), but I'm still a little concerned about the spare tire holding out :-/

In other exciting (to me, anyway) news, several extended cousins from my mom's generation had a family reunion in Maine a couple of weeks ago.  They are trying to get the WHOLE family back in touch, and to get many more people (including me!) to come to the next reunion in a couple of years!  So they created a facebook group for the family, and I of course went crazy adding people to it, lol.  I'm so excited, I've always wanted to have a family reunion!  And this is on a way bigger scale than I even imagined!

So, now I am exhausted and heading to bed.  Hoping my family in DC and NY (and everywhere in between) holds out okay with the hurricane!

TGIF!

I'm exhausted and so ready for the weekend!

Today ended up being much busier and more stressful than originally planned.  I went over to Barnes & Noble this morning to try to find a good birthday present for Eli.  I texted Shosh while I was there to ask whether he already had a few books, but eventually headed home for lunch.  She finally texted me back after I got home, telling me that he doesn't have any of the books I mentioned, so after lunch, I headed back to Barnes & Noble and bought his present!

When I got home the second time, I had an email from Nora about Julia's photo montage.  There was this video clip that they wanted to include, and we had communicated about my needing to pick it up from them.  So at 3:30, I headed out to their house.  I had plans with Rebeca at 7, but figured I had plenty of time, since I was just going to transfer this one video clip (which literally should take about 2 minutes).  Well, long story short, I got stuck at their house for 2 and a half hours and was super late getting back for Rebeca.  We were in touch the whole time, so it's not like she was here waiting for me, but I was super stressed out and pissed about the whole thing.  I vented a lot already about this to Marcus and to Gabbie and now to Rebeca as well, so I'm not gonna write out the whole story again, but suffice it to say I am VERY glad I have the weekend to recover before I have to finish up the montage starting on Monday.

Anyway, Rebeca finally did get to come over, and we ate dinner (leftover pasta from last night) and watched a movie (40-Year-Old Virgin, which she had never seen!).  It was the relaxing ending I needed to a stressful day.  This weekend is actually looking pretty busy, but hopefully I'll get to sleep in and relax in addition to running all over Atlanta.

Oops!

Just realized I completely forgot to post last night.  I'm SO good at this blogging every day thing :-P

I let myself sleep in pretty late yesterday.  I didn't get up until around 11.  I then proceeded to have a pretty lazy day overall, watched the Braves game (which was an afternoon game) and job searched a little bit.  When Marcus got home, we made pasta for dinner - it's our favorite recipe that we've tried so far from the cookbooks we've gotten over the past year or so.  I'll post the recipe below so you can try it if you want!  It's YUMMY!

Anyway, after dinner, we decided to watch a movie (yay, Netflix!).  We browsed around for a while, and ended up watching Wet Hot American Summer, which I had never seen and had been wanting to see for a while.  It was clever, I really enjoyed the sarcastic jabs at...well, pretty much everything, lol.  Definitely entertaining.

We went to bed on the early side, around 11:30.  That pretty much sums up the day, so I'll go ahead and post the recipe to finish this off!

Lemon-Pepper Pasta and Asparagus (from the Betty Crocker Easy Vegetarian cookbook)
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked farfalle (bowtie) pasta
1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 lb. asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 can (15-16 oz.) navy beans, drained and rinsed
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
1. Cook and drain pasta as directed on package.
2. Meanwhile, in 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add bell pepper, asparagus, lemon peel, salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are crisp-tender.
3. Stir in lemon juice and beans.  Cook until beans are hot.  Add pasta; toss with vegetable mixture.  Sprinkle with pepper.

You can do variations, too.  For example, we usually use yellow bell pepper instead of red, and we don't freshly grind the black pepper.  It also says you can try using lime peel and juice instead of lemon - I'm sure this would be delicious, although we haven't tried it.  We also never realized that step 3 probably means you're supposed to cook the lemon juice and beans separately and then add the pasta to it and THEN add the whole thing to the vegetables.  We just cook it all (except for the pasta, which we add at the end) in the skillet.

Also, for those of you who are health-conscious like me, the cookbook actually tells you the nutrition information!  Information is for one serving; remember there are four servings in the recipe (so eat 1/4 of what it makes).

Nutrition Info: Calories 400 (Calories from Fat 130), Total Fat 15g (Saturated Fat 2g), Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 410mg, Total Carbohydrates 52g (Dietary Fiber 9g), Protein 14g

So tired...

I'm having a hard time with writing in here every day.  Some days I just don't feel like writing, but I've been making myself do it anyway, because if I skip one day, I'll end up never keeping up with it.

So today I had a hard time getting up again.  I may let myself sleep in tomorrow, just because I'm so exhausted.  I got up normal time, and headed over to Joel and Shosh's house to babysit.  It was a little bit of a rough day, Talia was really fussy, but eventually she actually fell asleep for a real nap, which was nice.  Eli was pretty good, except for when he dumped his Cheerios all over the floor and refused to clean them up :-P  But he also went down for a nap with no trouble!

I got home around 3 and pretty much just hung out for the rest of the day until Marcus came home.  Then we went to the gym and ate dinner before watching the Braves game.  And now I'm watching a random Coldplay concert on OnDemand!  They are so amazing in concert...I'd love to actually see them live someday.  I <3 Coldplay.  At least back when they were Coldplay and not U2 redux :-P

I actually had a non-Coldplay song stuck in my head for a good chunk of the day, thanks to just catching the end of the song on the radio this morning.  The song is called "Stolen" and is by Dashboard Confessional.  It's like, the definition of emo, lol, but I LOVE it!  The line "you are the best one of the best ones" really resonates with me for some reason.  Anyway, part of the reason I'm watching the Coldplay concert is to try to get that song out of my head, lol, and I think it's actually working!

That's about it for today.  I'm so tired I can't think straight, let alone write straight.

Weird...

Today was a weird day.  Very productive, but weird.  My routine is so thrown off!

I got up normal time this morning, got ready, and headed over to Joel and Shosh's house.  Shosh had asked me if I could come with her and the kids to a group meeting and watch Eli out in the hall while she was in the meeting with Talia.  I gladly agreed, so that's what I was doing this morning.  The meeting was at this church that had lots of long hallways (which Eli greatly enjoyed running through and exploring!).  He was pretty good for the most part, but was really tired by the end, and had a mini-meltdown when he got sick of waiting for Mommy to come out of the meeting room :-(  Once she did come out, though, he was fine again!  We had lots of fun playing with his picnic basket - taking all the foods out and naming them, then putting them back in.  The cutest thing was, one of the foods in the basket is a triangular cheese slice (which is supposed to be part of a sandwich, but he has all the pieces separated), and at first, he only called it "triangle".  I told him it was a cheese triangle, and from then on, he called it "cheese triangle"!  It was really cute, lol.

Anyway, I got home around 2 and ate lunch (late lunch for me), then called the car insurance company.  Basically what had happened was that when I changed my name with them, they made me add Marcus onto my insurance, but not his car (he still had his own separate insurance).  So we figured out that it's cheaper to just have one combined policy.  I went on the website and got a quote for how much it would cost to add his car onto my policy, and he got a quote for how much it would cost to create a new policy from scratch including both of us and both our cars.  His quote was significantly lower than mine, so I called them today to see if I could talk them into just adding him onto my policy for the lower price that he had found.  After about 20 minutes on the phone (most of it on hold while they looked stuff up), the customer service lady confirmed that I could get the lower price, so I went ahead and did that!  One more thing checked off the list!

When Marcus got home, we both were kind of out of it.  He had gone into work early this morning, so both of our routines were a little off.  We kind of threw random stuff together for dinner, and then watched the Braves game.

OH - I also got an email from the bank about that check that I mentioned yesterday.  Apparently the car company got the check and tried to process it, so I got an email from the bank saying that my account had "insufficient funds" (duh, cuz I closed it, it has NO funds :-P) and that I could be charged an overdraft fee.  So I got on the bank website and ended up chatting online with a "representative".  Luckily, she assured me that since the account has been completely closed, I will not be charged a fee.  So at least I'm not getting fees from both ends!

I am babysitting for Eli and Talia again tomorrow (this time is a normal day, Shosh is working), so I'm heading to bed to try to get a sufficient amount of sleep to deal with an almost 2 year old and a 3 month old.  Goodnight, all!

Oh, Monday...

I had a really hard time getting up this morning.  I kept falling back asleep!  I finally got up around 8:45, and tried to be productive this morning.  I called my car finance company, because I had originally sent a check for this month's payment, but then I closed the checking account I sent it from because it was like 5 days later and I completely forgot that it hadn't gone through yet.  As soon as I had realized this, I paid it "again" online (and it's not due until the 29th, so I'm still fine as far as paying on time).  But I wanted to let them know so that they wouldn't try to process the check when they got it.  Well, apparently there's nothing they can do about it, so I will have a lovely fee to pay ($20-30) for the check not going through.  You'd think they would be able to put a note on my account or something, but nooooo, apparently they can't do that.  LAME.

Anyway, I was annoyed after that, so I decided to go grocery shopping (since we didn't get a chance to go this weekend) before lunch so I could listen to music in the car and try to improve my mood.  It worked pretty well, it was a successful (and cheap!) grocery shopping trip, so now we have food in the house again, yay!

I spent the rest of the day job searching and such, until Marcus got home.  He actually came home a little early because the air conditioning at his office was broken, so his boss let everyone go home early.  So, when he got home, we booked our next "vacation" - I had bought a weekend getaway type thing on Living Social a while back, and we finally decided to use it!  So we're going to Chattanooga for a couple of days over Labor Day weekend.  We're going to go to the aquarium and to Ruby Falls, and we're staying at the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel!  It should be fun, I'm excited to get away for a couple of days.

After we had sorted all of that out, we went to the gym, which was nice, since I didn't go at all last week when I was sick.  Marcus went out to get us Chipotle for dinner (yum!), and I watched Secret Life and the new episode of Millionaire Matchmaker while he watched True Blood on the computer.  And now we are watching the Braves game, and hoping it'll be a short-ish game so that we can get to bed early tonight!  Marcus has to go into work a little early tomorrow, and I am going with Shosh to a meeting tomorrow morning so that I can watch Eli for her while she and Talia are in the meeting.

It's crazy how the fall always turns out so busy, no matter how calm we try to keep it.  There's always so much travel going on, and with the holidays thrown in, it just gets crazy so quickly!  So far we already have two trips planned in September and one in October, plus the holidays...it's really kind of ridiculous.  Hopefully we'll still manage to get enough sleep somehow!

Time flies when you're having fun

Today was another busy day with my parents.  We did get to sleep in, which was nice.  We got up around 11, and headed over to pick them up at their hotel around 12 in order to get to Marcus's aunt and uncle's house for brunch at 12:30.  Brunch was great, lots of good food and conversation, and it's always nice to see family.  We hung out there until a little after 4 pm, then headed over to Joel and Shosh's house.  Shosh was working, but Joel was home with the little ones, so my mom got to meet Talia and see Eli (her birthday buddy)!  They were both adorable as always, and my mom got to hold Talia for a while.  Talia LOVED my mom!  She was smiling and giggling the whole time!

Unfortunately, we were only able to stay there for about 20 minutes before we had to head out to Marcus's cousins' house for dinner.  We had to make a pit stop back at his aunt and uncle's house first to retrieve our wedding video, which Marcus had brought along and then proceeded to leave there accidentally :-P  Anyway, we made it up to his cousins' house, where we hung out for a while and had a nice dinner.  We left early, around 7:30, and got caught in a downpour on our way back to my parents' hotel.  But we made it, and Marcus and I went in and hung out in the lobby with them for a while.  Around 9 pm, we left the hotel and headed home.  My parents are leaving early tomorrow morning, so we won't see them again before they go.

It's been a crazy weekend, fun and busy, and it absolutely FLEW by.  I'm so not ready for the weekend to be over, but I guess I don't really have a choice.  We have a lot of stuff to get done this week, so I'm really not looking forward to dealing with various institutions (my car financing company, car insurance company, etc.).  I also need to go grocery shopping tomorrow, since we didn't have time to do that this weekend.  I think I really just need another weekend starting tomorrow - can we make that happen? ;)

The parents are coming!

My parents are here visiting this weekend, so we have been super busy.  They got here around 11 this morning, and we unloaded the stuff they brought down for us out of the car.  Then we headed off to the bank, where we were able to get everything done that we needed to in short order.  So we set off to downtown Decatur for lunch at Raging Burrito.  Over lunch, we had a nice talk about the options that Marcus and I have when our lease is up in January.  We are starting to think more seriously about trying to buy a house, so my parents gave us some really helpful tips and advice.  We also briefly discussed car insurance options.

After lunch, we went to Whole Foods to get my mom her peach salsa.  Usually they get a case of 12 jars, but the store only had 11 jars in stock.  Luckily, when we explained this to the person at checkout, he was able to give us the case discount even though we only had 11 jars instead of 12.

Then we came back to the apartment and loaded all the stuff my parents are taking back with them to store at their house into the car.  After that, we were all tired, so my parents went to check into their hotel and relax for a few hours.  Marcus and I also spent that time resting.

My parents came back over around 5, and we headed out to the Braves game!  We took MARTA so we wouldn't have to deal with traffic and parking.  It was my mom's first time on MARTA, and she kept making comparisons to the NY and DC public transportation systems.  We got to the game a little early, so we first walked all the way around to the other side of the stadium to get food for my mom at the gluten free concession stand.  We passed a Chik-Fil-A on the way, where Marcus got food.  Then we went back up to our section (413), and my dad and I got food.  We decided to sit in a shady spot and eat our food before going to our seats, since it was really hot and sunny outside.  This was a good choice, as the sun went behind some clouds by the time we made it to our seats.

The game was great, the Braves kicked some Diamondback butt, and Marcus made friends with an 18-month-old boy who was sitting next to us with his grandpa.  He was really cute, his grandpa was showing him how to do the chop, and he also enjoyed clapping along with the crowd and pointing up at every airplane, bird, and bug that flew by overhead.

After the game, we had a little adventure walking back to MARTA, as we came out an exit on the wrong side of the stadium!  So we had to walk all the way around, and ended up getting caught in the mass exodus of people.  Luckily, the vast majority of them had driven to the game, so they all disappeared into the parking lots by the time we were halfway to the MARTA station.   We ended up getting home around 11, and my parents headed back to their hotel to sleep.  Marcus and I are heading to sleep soon too, as we have another busy day planned tomorrow!

Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody, Everywhere...

I really didn't do much today.  Cliff left just after lunch, and I pretty much just hung around the house until Marcus got home.  Then I was really tired, because I woke up at 7:30 again this morning (not intentionally), so we got in bed and rested until dinner.  I ate a tuna pack for dinner while Marcus went out to get a sandwich from Jersey Mike's.  Then we started cleaning.

In the past 3 hours, I have cleaned the bathroom, bedroom, and most of the living room (still have to clean the tv, but I'm trying to wait until the Braves game is over, since we're watching it, lol), a deeper cleaning than I've done in several years.  I literally took everything off of the shelves and stuff to dust!  Meanwhile, Marcus cleaned the kitchen (I figured this was a safe task to give him, since it's really hard to screw up wiping down counters and stovetops), and he is still going to vacuum and mop the floors.  Then our apartment will finally be in mom-ready condition!

My parents are arriving at 10 am tomorrow.  Hopefully I won't wake up at 7:30 coughing again :-P

We also found out tonight that our friends Mike and Heather are pregnant (well, Heather is, haha)!  I'm happy and excited for them, but why does it seem like EVERYONE is getting pregnant these days?  I would so love to jump on that bandwagon, but unfortunately, there's a lot of things that have to happen first, not the least of which is that I need to find a job.  I do feel my biological clock ticking, though, and given my medical history, I worry that when we do start trying, it will take us a while to get pregnant...which makes me want to start trying RIGHT NOW, even though we can't yet.  This is one of those rare times when I really wish I was normal.  *SIGH*

A Day Full of Clifford

I'm feeling a LOT better today, although I still had a few coughing fits.  I'm optimistic that I'll be fully recovered by Saturday...but we'll see.

I didn't really do much this morning.  Cliff and I just kind of hung out and stared at our computers.  Then we went to have lunch with Marcus at Jason's Deli, which was fun and yummy!  After we dropped Marcus back at work, we came back home and hung out some more.  We watched one of my home videos and talked a little until Marcus got home.  Then the boys went to the gym (I really wanted to go, but I didn't think it would be a good idea since I'm still coughing so much) while I hung out here, and when they got back, we ate dinner and watched the Braves game.  We also played two rousing games of Betrayal at the House on the Hill (one of our favorite games), in which the bad guys won both times.

Tomorrow we have to clean the apartment in preparation for my parents' arrival.  It's what I've heard referred to as the "mom clean" - pretty accurate, if you know my mom!

On the road to recovery!

I'm writing a little earlier than usual tonight, because I've noticed that I tend to be more in the mood to write a few hours earlier than I've been posting, so I thought it might help me write a longer (and better) post.

I had a rough night last night, had a HUGE coughing fit just when I was trying to go to sleep, so I ended up not falling asleep until probably an hour after I intended to.  Luckily, though, once I fell asleep, I slept through the night (yay!) and didn't have another coughing fit until after I woke up around 7:30 this morning!  I felt really gross this morning, just really stuffy and coughing a TON.  But I did get dressed and stuff for the first time since Saturday.

Around 12:30, Cliff dragged me out of the house to get lunch at Panera.  I'm SO glad he did!  We ended up sitting there until almost 4 pm talking, and I felt SO. MUCH. BETTER.  I only had one little mini coughing fit the entire time we were out!  And we had a great 3.5 hour conversation about everything from religion to books to science to paranormal activity, it was amazing :-)  Then, of course, as soon as we got home, I started coughing again :-P  I swear I must be allergic to the apartment or something!  But anyway, even though I'm still coughing, my throat isn't sore anymore, and I haven't had any fever for two days now.  My headache is also gone, I think because I've finally been draining.  So hopefully I will actually be fully recovered by the weekend!

One good thing that's come out of this annoying sick-ness is that I've lost weight more quickly than usual.  Apparently I've dropped two pounds in the last week!  That's a lot for me.  The weird part is, it was really only the first day (Sunday) that I didn't eat much, every day after that I've eaten a normal amount of food!  AND I haven't been exercising since I've been sick.  So I guess coughing up a lung must be good exercise or something :-P  At any rate, I've surpassed the 9-pound weight loss mark.  We'll see if I gain any back before I start losing more, now that I'm feeling better, but anyway, being so close to 10 pounds is really exciting!  I feel like it's a huge accomplishment!  I can't see any difference when I look in the mirror, but I feel better about my body, and I'm inching closer to the "normal" range - my BMI is down to 25.1!  The very lower limit of "overweight" range!

So overall, it's been a pretty good day, despite the incessant coughing.  I'm hopeful that that'll follow the rest of my symptoms out the door sometime soon (tomorrow would be great!), but we'll see what happens.  I missed out on babysitting Eli and Talia TWICE this week...sadface :-(  I can't wait to get back to that.  I also feel like I've been really distanced from Marcus because I've been trying not to get him sick, so I've been more avoidant of physical contact of any kind than usual.  Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'm looking forward to getting back to normal.  He told me today that he's been having trouble falling asleep because he hasn't been able to hold me when we go to bed (awwww), and I have to admit that I miss it too.  So as soon as I can get rid of this annoying cough and lay whichever way I want, I will jump for some snuggle time!

Same Old, Same Old

Today was another day spent on the futon.  I didn't have a fever at all today, but my head finally started to drain last night, and I spent most of today coughing up a storm.  This morning, my cousin posted a picture on facebook of him and his brother when they were little, which made me all nostalgic, so I watched one of my home videos (in which he and his brother play a prominent role and look just like they did in that picture).  Other than that, I didn't do much today...I did take out the trash, which was exciting because it was the first time I left the apartment since Saturday.

Cliff came over around 9:30 and brought our mutual friend Chris J. with him to say hi.  We hung out for about an hour before Chris left to drive home, and Cliff is now sleeping on the futon while Marcus and I are about to go get ready for bed.

Not sure how I'll feel tomorrow...hopefully I'll continue this trend of one symptom getting better each day, and tomorrow's will be this ridiculous cough!  I'm so sick of coughing :-(

Another sick day...

Yup, still sick.  I think I'm starting to get better though, my fever didn't spike nearly as high tonight as it did last night, although it still did go up a little in the evening.

I spent the entire day sitting/laying on the futon in our living room today.  There was a marathon of Millionaire Matchmaker on, and I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I watched it for about 6 hours...but hey, I'm sick, so that's my excuse, right? ;-)

When Marcus got home, we decided to order in dinner from Mediterranean Grill, since Marcus loves their food, and I was actually craving their potatoes!  I ate while watching the new episode of Secret Life, and then joined Marcus in the living room to watch the end of the Braves game - very exciting finish!  I swear I have a 6th sense about these things...I had a "feeling" that Freddie Freeman was going to drive in at least A run somehow!  But he managed to drive in two, so we won!  Yay!

I felt much better overall today, for most of the day, I didn't even have a fever, in fact my temperature was below normal for a good chunk of the day (thanks to the thermometer I made Marcus pick up when he went grocery shopping yesterday, I was actually able to keep tabs on it for once).  I seem to hit a wall around 7-7:30 pm...that's when my fever spiked yesterday, and when it went up to its highest point today (which, today, was only a little over 100 - much better than yesterday's high of 102.4).  It somehow went down after that though, as I checked it again around 10 (to see if I should take some Advil before going to bed), and it was 99.7!  So I deemed Advil unnecessary, and I think it was the right choice - I'm starting to sweat a little now, which likely means it's dropping even more on its own.  GO IMMUNE SYSTEM, GO!

I also ate real food today.  Yesterday I fed myself the "sick diet" - toast with jelly for brunch, and soup for dinner.  Today I decided I needed some protein, so after eating an orange for breakfast, I ended up having peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and a sandwich from Med Grill (as I mentioned above) for dinner.

I plan to spend most of the day tomorrow laying on the futon again...but Cliff is coming to stay over tomorrow night for an interview he has Wednesday morning, so I'll have to give up my futon spot a little earlier in the day tomorrow than I did today.

Still Sick :(

Sorry I didn't post last night.  I really wasn't feeling well last night (my fever tends to spike in the evening), so I ended up showering at like 7:30 and getting in bed to watch the reunion show and season finale of Next Food Network Star.  I fell asleep soon after it was over, probably around 10:15-10:30.  I feel better this morning, but then again, I felt better yesterday morning too.  I think it's just because my temperature is lower in the mornings.

Since I was sick, I really didn't do much yesterday.  I did laundry, but that's about it.  Marcus was awesome and went grocery shopping for me, so I didn't have to leave the house at all.  I'm not planning on going anywhere today either.

So, sorry for the boring update.  Tonight's will probably be just as boring.  Hopefully I'll get better soon, and we'll be back to more interesting daily goings-on.

Sick :-(

I'm sick :-(  I was feeling okay when I woke up today, but over the course of the day, it got worse, and I know I had a fever for the better part of the afternoon and evening.  I'm really hoping it won't last too long, since I need to be better and ready to go when my parents arrive for their visit next weekend!

I intended to sleep in later than I did today, but I woke up around 10:15 and never went back to sleep.  We went over to Dunwoody Gables to look at the 2-bedroom apartment that we like, to see one with the fireplace.  I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about it, but we're going to wait until after next weekend to decide anything anyway, so that we can talk to my parents about it and see what they think before we decide.

Then we headed over to Joel and Shosh's house.  Eli was napping when we got there, so we hung out and played cards until he woke up.  Then we all headed over to the mall to get work clothes and shoes for Joel and to look in the Disney store for Eli.  We ended up going to an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the mall, too.  By the time we got done with all that, I really wasn't feeling well, so Marcus and I went home.  Since then I've been sitting on the couch, we have the Braves game on, but I'm not really watching.  I took some Advil, which seems to be kicking in a little bit now, so I'm feeling slightly better, but still not great.

I'm going to go to bed early (like, in a few minutes) and hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow...especially since I have to do laundry tomorrow and go grocery shopping (and Marcus has a meeting in the afternoon, so I can't just send him out grocery shopping, either).  He was also planning a date night for tomorrow night - it was originally supposed to be tonight, but he realized that all the coupons he has for the places he wants us to go aren't valid on Saturday nights :-P  So now it's supposed to be tomorrow night...but we'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Nostalgia

Today was an interesting day, as I predicted it would be.  I didn't really do much during the day, just job searched a little bit and fooled around on facebook and the interwebs.  Today was really about tonight.

Marcus left for his RPG around 6:30, at the same time I was tuning in to the Braves broadcast for Bobby Cox's number retirement ceremony.  The ceremony itself was pretty cool, they had a LOT of former players show up to honor Bobby, and the big three pitchers of the '90s (Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz) as well as Chipper Jones and John Schuerholz spoke and paid homage to Bobby.  But what really got me (unexpectedly) was the game afterwards.  The Braves jumped out to a huge lead early with a bunch of homers...and the energy in the ballpark...I haven't felt that kind of energy emanating from a televised game in a LONG time.  It reminded me of how it used to feel watching the Braves back in high school, when my life revolved around them.  I really miss that energy, I've kind of been lost and searching for it for a couple of years now, so it was nice to be reminded that it can still exist!

Anyway...that's really about all I've got for today.  I'm going to try to get to bed early tonight, I'm completely exhausted, haha, but in a good way, for once.  It's shaping up to be a fun weekend, so hopefully I'll have some more happy posts coming up!

Interesting Day

Today got off to a slow start.  I had a hard time getting up this morning, and once I did get up, I had a hard time getting myself going.  I finally made it out to the unemployment office around 10:45, where I sat and waited for almost an hour before finally getting to talk to someone.  I just had a question about a notice I had received in the mail, and the lady was able to explain it to me in about 30 seconds.  So I waited for an hour to talk to someone for 30 seconds.  LURVELY.

Then I went home and ate lunch, since by that time it was after 12.  I spent the rest of the day just hanging out here...did a little job searching, but not much.  Around 4, I got started baking cookies, and when Marcus got home, we headed over to Cat and Drew's house for dinner and games.  They had made gazpacho and hummus and pita for dinner, which was yummy.  We played Betrayal (one of our favorite games), and then just talked for the next few hours.  It was really nice, and we hope to do it again sometime soon!

Anyway, it's late and I'm really sleepy, so this will be a short blog.  Hopefully tomorrow's will be a little longer...but we'll see.  Something tells me I'll be exhausted tomorrow night in ways I can't even process right now, haha.  And Marcus has his RPG tomorrow night, too, so he'll be out until probably after I go to sleep.  *sigh*  My mind is such a weird place to be sometimes.

Tired, but in a good way

I am exhausted, but today was pretty satisfying.  I got up normal time (around 8) this morning, and had just enough time to post yesterday's blog (oops!) and check my email and stuff before heading over to Joel and Shosh's house to babysit.  Today I babysat for both Eli (almost 2) and Talia (3 months old).  It was the first time I watched them both by myself, and it was definitely an adventure!  It went really well, though, both kids were really well-behaved, and Eli was in a great mood!  Talia was happy too, when she wasn't hungry, or wet, or tired, lol.  But we had a few good cooing and smiling moments in between :-)  Favorite moment of the day: I was cleaning Eli up after lunch, and I started pretending to "eat" his toes (I leaned down close to his foot and made "nom nom nom" sounds).  He started giggling like crazy, and every time I stopped, he said, "again please!"  After we went back to the playroom, he came up to me every 20 minutes or so and said, "eat toes please!", while trying to hold his foot up toward my mouth while he was standing in front of me (which didn't work at all, haha, I don't know how he kept himself from falling over!).  It totally cracked me up...he is such a funny kid!

I left their house around 2:15 after Joel got home.  I came home and job searched a little, and basically just hung out until Marcus got home.  Then we went to the gym, and splurged on Chipotle for dinner!  After dinner, we came home and watched the rest of the Braves game (we missed the first 4 innings or so).  Then I showered and now I am typing this while Marcus showers, and then we'll probably go to bed early, because I am pooped!

I don't have much on the docket during the day tomorrow.  I have to run over to the unemployment office to ask about a letter I got from them last week, but that's about it.  I'll probably spend most of the day job searching and Amazon Turk-ing (yes, I just made that a verb).  Tomorrow night we are going over to have dinner and play games at Cat and Drew's house.  It's weird because they are friends of friends, and this will be the first time we have ever hung out with them just the four of us.  We don't really know why they've reached out to us all of a sudden, but they're nice, and it should be fun.  I'll give a full report tomorrow night! ;-)

Oops!

Sorry I didn't post last night!  I realized after I had already turned off my computer that I hadn't posted, but I figured I'd just do it this morning rather than spend all the time turning my computer back on.

Yesterday was fairly busy, especially in the morning.  The first thing I did after I got up and ready was head over to Turner Field to get tickets for a Braves game when my parents are here.  It was interesting...I had never been there on a non-event day before (I say non-event rather than non-game because I did go to FanFest there one winter), and it was kind of cool!  I got to park in the Delta Medallion lot (right in front of the stadium!), which was the only one open and basically empty.  When I walked in, I saw maybe 4 or 5 people walking around, but that's it.  They had only one ticket window open.  I went up and was able to get the tickets we wanted.  Success!  Then I had a little adventure finding my way back to the highway, lol, but I made it work.  Stupid one-way streets!  Just one reason why I hate driving in the city.

Anyway, when I got home, I spent the next few hours finishing (to the best of my ability at this point) my online application for several jobs in the DeKalb County School System.  This involved taking a test online, entering all of my education and work history ONE ENTRY AT A TIME, ordering transcripts from all colleges I've attended, and sending them a copy of my high school diploma.  Luckily for that last one, I had applied for another job with them last summer, and my mom had already scanned and emailed me a copy of the diploma, so she just resent the email, so I was able to print it and mail it to them right away, rather than my mom having to search my bedroom to find it like last year.

I finished that up right around lunch time, so I ate lunch and then went back to job searching.  The afternoon was definitely much slower than the morning.  When Marcus got home, I decided to make dinner for us - sweet potatoes, baked beans, and salad.  It was easy and yummy, which is the best kind of meal!  Then we watched the Braves game and went to bed.

Today I am babysitting for Eli again, so look for another post tonight.  Hopefully I won't forget this time!

ETA: I totally forgot to mention that while we were watching the game last night, I got to spend a couple of hours talking to my friend Michelle on facebook chat!  We hadn't talked in a while, and I miss her so much, so it was really nice to get to talk to her.  She's going to be in eastern Alabama for a ride (horses) in late September, about an hour and a half to two hours away, so we were trying to figure out if it would be possible for Marcus and I to make a day trip out there to see her.  It's hard because most of the time she's there is during Rosh Hashanah, but there's still a possibility that we could go out for one day after the holiday is over.  We'll see.  It would be great if it works out - it would be great to see her! - but logistically, it's a little tricky on her end.  So who knows.  Anyway, just couldn't forget to include this!

Just Another Manic Monday

I didn't sleep very well last night.  Just when I was going to sleep, I found a bug crawling in the bed (just a silverfish, but still, IT TOUCHED ME!), and after Marcus got rid of it for me, it took me a while to get rid of that creepy-crawly feeling and actually fall asleep.  So this morning, I had a hard time getting up.  I did manage to drag myself out of bed around 8:30 though.

It took me a while to get going even after I got up, and as a result, I didn't even get dressed or anything until around 10:30.  I didn't do much during the day - job searched some (and started working on applications for a few jobs, but I didn't find those until around 4:30, so had to save to return later when Marcus got home), did a few tasks on Amazon Turk, and that's about it.  I also emailed the leasing agent from the apartment complex we've been looking at, and she got back to me within a couple of hours, letting me know that there would be a unit for us to come look at on Saturday.  I also managed to actually walk down to get the mail today, which I hadn't done in a while.

After Marcus got home, it was a typical Monday evening.  We went to the gym, then ate dinner, and then I watched Secret Life while he was watching the Braves game.  And after my show was over, I came out and watched the rest of the game with him.  Also, because we went to the gym AND I ate a relatively small dinner for a gym day (usually I splurge on tacos or Chipotle or something on gym days, but today I just ate easy mac and salad), I hit a new low weight!  I've been trying to lose some weight, with the help of a great free online food log I found (that also lets you log your exercise and weight among other things).  My goal is to eventually get back down to 120...I haven't weighed 120 since high school, haha, but I don't have a specific timetable in mind, it's just an eventual goal.  For right now, my more immediate goal is to get my BMI back down into "normal" range (it's currently in "overweight" range), and I'm getting really close!  My BMI as of tonight is down to 25.3, and I think 25 is the upper edge of "normal" range!  I started tracking my food and exercise (and weight) about 2 months ago, and in that time, I've lost about 8 pounds!  It's a really slow process for me (slower than it should be based solely on my net calories, but that's not surprising, since one of the potential effects of PCOS is difficulty losing weight - it could be MUCH worse, though, I'm lucky that that's not one of the effects that's particularly bad in my case), but I'm clearly making progress, which is exciting.  I was SO excited when I had my first sub-140 weight a few weeks ago, and now I am down to 137.7!  Granted, it fluctuates, but a few weeks ago, it was bouncing between 140-142.5, and now it's been between 138.5-140.5 (until today!), with the 140s getting rarer all the time.  So I'm very pleased with that :-)

Also, the Braves won again tonight, so yay!  And we've been firming up more plans for my parents' upcoming visit, it's starting to shape into what will be a very busy weekend.  Mostly fun stuff though, so I'm actually getting excited about it.

I have a long list of stuff I need to do tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have another interesting entry to post tomorrow night!  Until then, goodnight all!

Sunday Funday

I ended up getting up right around 11 today - just like I predicted yesterday!  I called my mom to talk about plans for their visit, then Marcus and I watched the Braves game.  It was a crazy game, back and forth all the way, but we pulled it out in the end.  After the game ended, we went grocery shopping, and then went to Atlantic Station to get dinner.  Marcus had a coupon for Which Wich that was going to expire soon, so we went there.  As we were walking back to the car, we passed by a magician who was doing some card tricks!  We stopped to watch for a few minutes before continuing on home.  We hung out for a little while, then watched The Next Food Network Star.  I was really pleased with the results of this week, I think they got rid of the right person.  Next week is the finale!  I simultaneously love and hate finale season, haha.  I love it because I like seeing how it turns out, but I hate it because all the shows end, and then there's nothing to entertain me until the next season of shows starts up!  Luckily, I don't have to wait too long, as I know several shows will be starting back up in September, so only a month away.

Sorry so short tonight, I'm not really in much of a writing mood.  I don't really have much going on this week as of now, but we'll see how it goes.  Maybe something interesting will happen...maybe I'll even get a job!  Anyway, I should have a little more to say tomorrow, Mondays are always interesting at least.

Empty Weekends are Weird

As I think I mentioned yesterday, we have NOTHING on the calendar for this weekend.  This is such a rare occurrence that when it does happen, we don't know what to do with ourselves!

Marcus got home REALLY late last night from his RPG.  I was long since asleep when he got home, but he told me today that he didn't get home until around 3:30 am!  Even though I had gone to bed earlier, we both slept in really late today.  I got up around 12:30, and Marcus slept until 1:30 pm.  This set the tone for a really weird day.  I ate breakfast when I got up, so by the time I started getting hungry again, it was late enough that I decided to just skip lunch entirely and wait for dinner.

By the time we got ourselves together and got dressed and everything, it was around 3:30 pm.  I really wanted to get out and go somewhere.  I hadn't left the apartment since Thursday, so I was starting to get cabin fever!  We eventually decided to drive out to Dunwoody and drive through a neighborhood where there are several houses for sale that would be in our price range if we decide to buy a house anytime soon.  We had never been over there, although it's close to an area that we know fairly well, so we wanted to just drive through, see what the houses looked like in person (as opposed to pictures online), and try to get a sense of what the neighborhood is like.  It was definitely interesting...the subdivision is all these cookie cutter houses, with varying colors, and the houses are very close together.  It's a small subdivision, just one street, but the street sort of curves around so it's almost like two or three streets instead of one.  It's a cute little subdivision!  It's weird though, because these houses are fairly new (built around 2000), but on the other side of the main street from the subdivision, there are older ranch-style homes lining the street, and it doesn't look like the greatest part of town, if you know what I mean.  But the subdivision itself seems fairly nice...so who knows.  I figure if we start looking more seriously, that's something we could ask a realtor about.  We also have friends who live on that side of town, so they might know more about the different neighborhoods over there.

While we were out that way, we decided to stop by the apartment complex we've been looking at to try to get a business card for the leasing agent we had talked to the last time we were there.  I've been meaning to email her and follow up, but we didn't get her card, so didn't have her contact info.  Luckily, we were able to get one even though she wasn't working today, so now I can email her on Monday and try to move forward a little in the process of finding our next home.

After our little excursion, we got stuck in a downpour on the drive home.  About 5 minutes after we made it home, there was a pretty intense storm going on, with lightning and a lot of wind.  We waited it out for a little while, then Marcus decided he wanted to go out for dinner, so we went to Ruby Tuesday!  I hadn't been there in a while, since the one we used to go to closed, and we didn't know where there was another one nearby.  But when I went to lunch with Marsha the other day, we walked right past one in downtown Decatur, and I texted Marcus to let him know there was one there.  So we got to go there, and it was good.  They have a new thing on the menu - Veggie Trio + Salad Bar.  Basically, you get the salad bar and three sides of your choice, and it only costs $1 more than the salad bar by itself!  Since I always used to get the salad bar and a baked potato, I was all over this one - I got to get the salad bar and a baked potato PLUS two more sides!  I picked broccoli and sugar snap peas.  And it also came with a garlic cheese biscuit.  YUM :-)

After dinner, we came back home.  Marcus went out to run an errand for a friend, so I am sitting here watching the Braves game and playing Facebook Scrabble.  I'm hoping to get to bed at a decent hour tonight (by which I mean around midnight) so that we can get a little bit of an earlier start tomorrow.  I'd like to be up by 11 am tomorrow so that we'll have plenty of time to run errands and such, but we'll see.  I'm not going to force it - if we need sleep, we need sleep!  And our weekends get busy again starting next weekend, so this is an unusual chance to actually sleep in and relax both days of a weekend.  I'm definitely taking full advantage of that!

TGIF!

Today was a pretty slow day, but it's Friday, so yay! 

I got up on time (around 8) today, paid some bills and Drano-d the shower.  Then I surfed the web for a while, job searching, apartment hunting, and looking up random things about various GA schools.  I read a couple of chapters of my book, then took a break to eat lunch.  After lunch, I tried to find something productive to do, but the book was just calling to me, so I finally gave in and finished the book!  I had been trying to read it slowly, since I don't know when the next book in the series will be released, and I managed to make it last about two and a half months - not too bad.  It helped that it was a 994-page behemoth of a novel, haha.  Anyway, it was an amazing book, I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes fantasy or just likes an interesting, well-written story.  The series is called The Kingkiller Chronicles, written by Patrick Rothfuss, and it will be a three book series.  The first book came out a couple of years ago, it's called The Name of the Wind.  The second book came out earlier this year, it's called The Wise Man's Fear, and it's the one I just finished reading today.  For my reviews and summaries of both books, check out my livejournal and look for the "Book List" entries.

After I finished reading, I was going to clean the bathroom and then go down to get the mail, but Marcus called me around 3 to tell me his boss let them out early.  He got home around 3:30 and picked up the mail on his way in, so I didn't end up leaving the apartment at all today.  We got some snuggle time in, then had a quick Skype session with his aunt and uncle to make plans for when my parents come to town before he left for his RPG around 6.  I reheated some leftovers for dinner (black bean quesadillas - a new recipe we tried from one of the many cookbooks we've picked up recently), and then turned on the Braves game at 7.  It's in the bottom of the 9th now, looking like we're gonna pull this one out!  I still haven't cleaned the bathroom...definitely gotta do that when the game is over :-P

This is looking to be a quiet weekend, which is nice.  We actually have NOTHING on the calendar all weekend!  The only thing I know for sure is that at some point we're going to go to Which Wich for either lunch or dinner, because Marcus has a coupon that's expiring soon.  And obviously we're going to go grocery shopping at some point too.  And probably watch a lot of baseball!

Well, the game is over (we won, yay!), so I need to go and clean the bathroom now.  It's amazing how much less tedious cleaning is when I listen to music while doing it - thank you, Pandora!  I <3 the internet.

A More Productive Day

As I had hoped, today did turn out to be more interesting and more productive than yesterday.  I got up around 8:15, which was already a better start than yesterday!  Around 10 am, I headed over to get a haircut (yay for $6.99 haircut coupons!).  The place was completely empty, so I was in and out in about 15 minutes.  The lady who cut my hair was nice (I hadn't gone to this location before, but the coupon was only valid at certain locations), she talked a lot about her (adult) daughter.  She did use a little hairspray and blowdry my hair without asking (normally I just let it air dry, and I don't use any product at all), which I wasn't too happy about, but for $6.99, I guess I can't really complain.

After I got home, I worked for about an hour on Julia's slideshow.  It's getting pretty close to being done, which is nice.  I was briefly interrupted by the apartment maintenance crew coming in to replace our air filter and inspect our smoke detector (this was scheduled maintenance that they had so nicely informed us of two days in advance - with a note stuck in our door that said they'd be coming "between 9 am and 5 pm"), but they were in and out in under 5 minutes.  When I had finished working on the slideshow, I job searched some and did a few tasks on Mechanical Turk.

Around noon, my friend Marsha came over, as we had plans to go to lunch.  We couldn't decide where we wanted to go, so she decided we would just get in the car and drive, and pick something we passed.  We started off going to the Highlands, but the power was out (all the traffic lights were completely out, not even blinking red or yellow or anything, and the shops/restaurants didn't appear to have power either) due to the earlier storms.  So we cut across Ponce to downtown Decatur, found a rare parking spot IN the square, and after filling up the meter with all the quarters, dimes and nickels we could dig out of our wallets, walked around debating where to eat.  We eventually decided on Pita Pit, which was awesome because they literally had their nutrition information posted on the window!  That made it really easy for me to input my lunch into the website I've been using to keep track of what I'm eating, which was nice.

After lunch, Marsha dropped me off back home, and I did some more Mechanical Turk tasks and just sort of hung out until Marcus got home from work.  We went to the gym, and then ate a small dinner.  My mom called shortly after that, so I talked to her for a while and had a nice little planning session for my parents' upcoming visit (weekend of August 20th).  Then, I had promised Marcus earlier this week that we could watch an episode of Star Trek: Voyager tonight (he LOVES Star Trek, and I agreed to watch the series in order with him since it's available on Netflix), since we hadn't watched in a while, so we did that, and now I am sitting here writing this while he is working on a new character for his RPG tomorrow night.

My mom also mentioned that she and my dad have some photo scanning projects for me, which I already knew, but haven't been able to do because I didn't want to bring the photos down with me on a plane (these are OLD photos we're talking about, and they're just loose in boxes).  Since they're driving down for their visit, they'll be able to bring them down safely, so I'll finally get to do that!  We also briefly talked about Marcus and I possibly trying to plan a (driving) visit up there in October, when Marcus has two consecutive 4-day weekends (Thursday and Friday off) due to random Jewish holidays.  I don't know how I feel about that, I mean, I'd love to get up there for a visit, but that time of year is always so crazy, between going to Florida for Marcus's grandfather's birthday, the Jewish holidays, and then Thanksgiving, I don't know if I really want to throw MORE travel into the mix.  But we haven't been up there since mid-June, so it would be nice to go.  And we still have to meet with our wedding photographer to plan out our album, so we have to get up there at some point to do that!  So we'll see.  I think it'll probably end up happening.

So, that's about it for today.  I'm glad tomorrow's Friday!  We don't really have any plans this weekend, so hopefully it'll be nice and relaxing! :-)

Hump Day

Well, I've made it halfway through another week!  Today was a pretty boring day, but I'll try to find something to write about :-P

I was REALLY tired this morning, so I let myself sleep in a little bit and got up around 9 am.  I took my time getting ready, and finally made it out of the house around 10:45.  I went to the bank to deposit a check, and then came back home.  HOW EXCITING! :-P  Haha...yeah.  Then I lounged around surfing the interwebs, job searching, making small change on Amazon Mechanical Turk (which is this great feature on amazon where you can do surveys and random small tasks for pennies apiece), and daydreaming about the future (by which I mean looking at houses for sale on the GA MLS website).  I ate lunch and watched a rerun of Millionaire Matchmaker (this blog is making my tv watching look MUCH worse than it actually is, haha) before the Braves game came on at 1 pm.  I watched that, then walked down to get the mail.  It was SO hot out today - the forecast high was 97, and it felt every degree of that if not more.  The only thing of interest in the mail was the new issue of Emory Magazine, so I browsed through that until Marcus got home.

We ate a quick dinner, then headed out to the weekly RPG that he plays in.  They usually play on Friday nights, but this was a make-up session.  Since I literally had nothing else to do, I decided to tag along.  I enjoy watching them play - the story is very interesting - but I don't really want to play at this point.  Maybe someday.  Anyway, we were there until around 11 pm, then we came home, and here I am.

Tomorrow should be a little more interesting, as I actually have a few things planned to do during the day!

Busy Day

My original plan for this blog was to post each night about what I've done during the day, so I figured I would try that out for today's post.  Today was an unusual day for me, because it was actually pretty busy!

I got up at 7:15 this morning (about 45 minutes earlier than normal) and headed over to Joel and Shosh's house (good friends of ours) to babysit Eli (their almost 2-year-old son) while Shosh took Talia (their 2.5-month-old daughter) to the doctor.  Eli is the absolute cutest child I have ever known...and I've known MANY adorable children in my life!  Anyway, when I got there, Shosh had Finding Nemo on, and Eli was playing in the playroom.  After she left, I played with him for a while, but as soon as the movie ended, all he wanted me to do was put on Cars!  He kept repeating, "Cars, please?  Cars, please?" and looking at me with that adorable little face...so eventually I put it on for him.  He actually sat in his chair and watched the first 45 minutes or so of the movie before he got up and started playing (but always running back over to check on the movie, lol) - pretty impressive attention span for a kid his age!  After lunch, I managed to get him into his crib for naptime about 45 minutes before Joel got home.  As always, I had a great time with my little buddy :-)

I ended up getting home a little after 3 pm - late enough that last night's finale of The Bachelorette was available on On Demand, so I actually got to watch it on the tv rather than my computer for once!  I was hoping to finish watching it before Marcus got home, but I got home too late for that to happen.  I did pretty well though, he only had to put up with the last 15 minutes or so.  My thoughts on the finale: even though I knew who she was going to pick (I had read spoilers fairly early on in the season so I'd know how it ended if I decided not to watch the whole rest of the season), I was BAWLING - especially after the proposal, when they showed the montage of all their moments together throughout the season to REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling"...I was already a little teary, but that just pushed me over the edge, haha.

While I was watching, I got a call from the library to let me know that I didn't get the job - but they said I was among their top choices, and they wanted to know if they could keep my info on file in case something else opens up.  They also said that sometimes the other branches call them and ask if they have any good candidates, and asked if I would be okay with them passing on my info to the other branches.  Of course I said yes to both - so who knows!

When I finished watching my show, Marcus and I went to the gym, and then he took me to Chipotle for dinner.  We just got back a little while ago, so now I am catching up with my Facebook Scrabble games and writing this post while watching the Braves game.

As of right now, I have nothing planned for tomorrow, except I have to go to the bank to deposit a check.  I should also do some more work on Julia's slideshow.  Other than that, I have no idea what I'll end up doing.  Marcus's RPG group is having a make-up session tomorrow night, so I'll be on my own unless I decide to go with him.  I usually prefer not to go - while I like the concept of RPGs, I'm really bad at playing them, and watching is only fun for so long.  After a few hours it gets pretty boring :-P  I could bring a book with me, but I think I'd rather just stay home, where I have my computer and television to keep me entertained!

I don't know who, if anyone, is reading this, so feel free to leave me a comment - let me know if there's anything you'd like me to write more about, or less about, or just say hi and let me know who's reading!  I am blogging for my own reasons, but there's no point in making it a blog rather than a private journal if it's not interesting for people to read! :-)

New Month, New Blog

Hello, world!

I have decided to try daily blogging, partially inspired by reading my friends' blogs, and partially just to give myself something to do each day.  The first day of a new month seemed like as good a time as ever to start, so here I am.  We'll see how it goes!

It's 9:40 am, and I've already had a fairly productive day.  I was actually out of bed by 8:10 this morning (my alarm is always set for 8:00 am on weekdays, but sometimes I let myself doze until around 8:30 or even later), so that was a good start.  It's always easier for me to be productive when I start a week off that way - the longer I'm lazy on Monday, the less productive I'll probably be for that entire week.  So this is a good sign for this week!  After I got up and ate breakfast (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, yum!), I job-searched a little bit, and actually applied to two jobs on Opportunity Knocks - all this before I even got dressed!  I also certified for unemployment, as I do every Monday.

Plans for the rest of the day:

• Watch last night's "Men Tell All" episode of The Bachelorette.  I couldn't watch it "live" because it was on at the same time as The Next Food Network Star - a show that I actually watch regularly, unlike The Bachelorette!
• Take out the trash.  Marcus and I were going to do this yesterday, but the trash chute was broken, so it got pushed to today.
• Work on Julia's Bat Mitzvah slideshow.  This is my current project from my side business - Timeless Treasures by Tara.  The Bat Mitzvah is Labor Day weekend, and I need to have the slideshow finished by August 15th.  I haven't worked on it in a few weeks, since I had a meeting with Julia and her parents and they told me that they'd be sending me a bunch more pictures to include.  I told them they had until August 14th to send me pictures, so I've been waiting to have all the pictures before I continue working on the slideshow.  They haven't sent me any new pictures in a couple of weeks, though, so I think it's probably safe to start working on it again!
• Email the leasing agent at Dunwoody Gables.  Marcus and I have been apartment hunting again.  Our lease here is up in January, and if they raise the rent (or even if they don't, but they probably will, since we're currently paying well under the market value of our floorplan), we won't be able to stay.  I really don't want to leave, since I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else in my life except my parents' current house (we moved there when I was 12, after moving every 3 years of my life before that), but we really can't afford to stay.  We found a 2-bedroom floorplan that we LOVE at Gables Metropolitan, but it's super expensive, so we can't afford it.  However, a leasing agent at another Gables property we looked at told us that she had the same problem, and she found a floorplan at Dunwoody Gables that was similar (but smaller, and cheaper) to the Gables Met. one.  So we went and looked, and sure enough, it is fairly similar!  We went and looked at it last weekend, but we only saw a first floor unit.  The second and third floor units have fireplaces (first floor ones don't), and only second and third floor units are available in our price range over the next couple of months.  So I want to go back and look at one with a fireplace before we make any decisions.
• Read.  I'm currently reading "The Wise Man's Fear", book two of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.  I haven't read any in over a week, though.  I have been trying to go slowly with it, because I don't know yet when book three will be released, and I'd rather have as short a wait as possible!  But the book is so good that every time I read, I end up reading at least 100 pages, so the only way I can slow down is to wait a while in between each time I read.  I only have about 150 pages or so left in the book, so the next time I read might be the last for this book.
• Watch Secret Life tonight.  This is my guilty pleasure tv show addiction - Secret Life of the American Teenager.  I can't even explain why I like it, the writing is awful, most of the acting is equally bad, and these days it seems like most of the episodes are what I like to call "connector episodes", meaning that nothing important really happens in the episode, it just serves to connect one important episode to another.  I still can't stop watching, though, haha.

I'm also waiting to hear back from a job I interviewed for last week.  It's a part-time job at the public library, basically reshelving books and things like that.  The interview actually went really well (I normally suck at interviews, but this one was better than most), but they said that they had a tough decision because they really liked everyone they had interviewed.  They were still interviewing a few more people after me, and they said they'd let me know early this week.  So I'm hoping to get that call today (but it'll probably end up being tomorrow or even Wednesday).

Anyway, that's about all that's going on right now.  Like I said, I'm going to try to make this a daily blog, so hopefully I'll be back tomorrow.  I was originally planning to post every night, so I could recap what happened that day, so maybe I'll even come back tonight, who knows.  Until then, peace out, y'all!