House

So the very last day our house was on the market was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Our contract with our realtor was up and we decided not to renew... it was on the market for a year and nothing was happening. That day, we were headed to Geoff's aunt and uncle's house for wine tasting and a BBQ. I made the bed and straightened up a bit, and Geoff laughed at me while I did it. "Why are you bothering? No one has looked at the house in months." I thought, well, yeah, but it's Labor Day weekend and a nice day, someone might come out. And it's the last day we'll have to make our bed for a loooong time!

Someone DID call and want to look at our house that day, which we laughed about and then didn't think anything of. We made plans to schedule a fence replacement that week and our realtor called about taking down the sign and lockbox. But then on Tuesday... we got a call that the people that looked at our house LIKED it... so much that they wanted to make an offer. They looked at 18 houses over the weekend and ours was the only one they had any real interst in, and were confused and disappointed that it had disappeared from the MLS. They had originally planned to make an offer on Wednesday, but the whole expired listing thing threw that off. So they came back Thursday to look at it a second time. On Friday they made an offer, and by Saturday they accepted our counter off. Sunday they came a third time so they could show their daughter (who is 8) the house. 2 months later, it seems like it all happened very quickly, but Geoff and I were "cautiously optimistic" throughout the entire week so it went by veerrryy slowly.

They still had to have their inspection and all of that, so I remained cautiously optimistic and didn't start packing or anything. But the inspection was okay and their repair requests were reasonable. So the last week of September we started packing and planning. We always knew that if we sold our house, we'd live in the RV, so we started arranging for that. We found an RV park we could stay in, arranged for doggy daycare for the dogs, and got ourselves a storage unit. Everything really fell into place perfectly - we hadn't gone to schedule the fence repair yet, we had already ordered some things for RV "upgrades" (like additional storage and little things to better use our space - originally just for camping trips!), and who knows what else.

We moved Saturday, October 17, closed Monday, October 19, and went to Chicago/Northwestern for my 5th year college reunion Wednesday, October 21. It was CRAZY for 2 or 3 weeks there getting everything all finalized, but we're back and have been in the camper for exactly a week now. We both are really loving it. The park where we're staying is really nice and it's in a great location. So that's one piece of big news... we've sold our house and are living in the camper. The only horrible thing is the speed limit in the park - "walking speed". Do you know how hard it is to drive "walking speed"? A friend who came to visit stalled his car trying to drive so slowly! Ha...

A fun night

Tonight Geoff is out, so the dogs and I went for a 2.5 mile walk, which is the farthest Roxy has ever gone – she did GREAT! The longest she has done before this is just one mile, so it was significantly more. It’s been kinda rainy the last couple of days so they’ve been cooped up, so I figured they could handle it. Another dog upset Jax at the beginning of our walk and he kind of grumbled the whole way through. Weird, and very unlike him. Maybe he was mad we were walking and not running – but Roxy can’t run, at least not very far. Anyway, she just trotted along and was quiet, and Jax was a puffer, but it was a lot of fun overall. I was happy to see Roxy have so much fun. Then we chatted with our neighbors for a bit – they LOVE our dogs… and then we came inside. I had to make a phone call so I gave them a bone – a real treat. They get a bone every night but always in their crate. The only other time they get a bone is like on a Saturday morning when we want to sleep in… we let them out to potty about 6 or 7, and then leave them out of their crate on the floor of our room with a bone. Anyway, so they still have their bones and they are just chompin away… well Roxy is. Jax is sleeping/resting. But they are quiet and happy. I cleaned the kitchen & downstairs bathroom, swept, and mopped, all while they just chilled. I can’t really clean upstairs without taking them upstairs, so I’ll just wait until Geoff gets home. But definitely my kind of night!

Update...

DOGS
The dogs are doing great! We take them to the dog park regularily and they love it - they are learning more and more about how to interact with other doggies and humans. I taught Jax to high five yesterday (his newest skill), and they're both great about "crate", "off", "sit", "bed". They're not always great about "come" or "stay". They're a lot of fun... Jax is an excellent running partner. Roxy is too short to do much running, but she thinks she can so I take her occasionally. They get more well behaved every day.

HOOD TO COAST
Hood to Coast was a blast as always. :-) We had a great time and everyone had a lot of fun. Christine, Patrick, and Kathleen all flew in so it was a little hectic getting everyone from the airport, hosting a team dinner, and then starting the race the next morning, but we worked it all out. I had a couple of blisters and my calves are STILL a bit tight, but it's definitely always a highlight of the year.

DALLAS
We went to Dallas for about 5 days the weekend before Hood to Coast to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday! We had fun at the party and hanging out in Dallas... not so fun was the very early morning runs to train for Hood to Coast. We also went out to a nice dinner with my parents and sister to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary.

CHICAGO
We're going to Chicago for my 5th year college reunion / homecoming next month. I CAN'T WAIT. Geoff's never been and I haven't been in 5 years (yes... I can't believe it's been that long), so it's going to be extra special!

COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Has started! My favorite time of the year! Blankets, laziness, and football... what more could you ask for?

CAMPING
Lots of camping coming up! We camped with Geoff's brother and parents in early August when Trevor was in town for a week, and we'll be camping the next 3 weekends in a row. We're doing a quick weekend trip with Geoff's mom this weekend, then going to the coast with my coworker and her family and friends next weekend, and then we're going to try an overnight backpacking trip with the doggies the next weekend! It will be interesting to see how they do, especially Roxy and her tiny legs. Since she's still a puppy, she can't carry anything yet (her bones/joints aren't fully developed), but Jax can!! We'll take one week off from camping, and then we're camping again the second weekend of October - again at the coast. And I'm going CRABBING!!! That's right, me on a crab boat. Look for the footage on Deadliest Catch. ;-)

Those are most of the highlights... a few projects in the works as well... once those get going I'll post about them too!

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Part 3 of 3: My weird dream (now dreamS)

So here's the original dream (at least as much as I can remember over a month later):

Geoff and I had stolen something from Verizon for my father-in-law Gary. I don't know what it was, but we had each stolen separate things. We were sleeping one night and I woke up about 4 AM and thought "we have GOT to hide the evidence!" I wanted to burn it, but I couldn't - because I think we actually NEEDED the "evidence" for Gary. Geoff's was already hidden, but for some reason I couldn't hide mine in his place. The only place I could think of was under the mattress, but I kept thinking "that's the first place they'll look!"

I was still pondering where to hide it when there was a knock on our door. A man had arrived with two dogs, each in individual crates. I don't know what breeds they were but they were about the size of our dogs (this dream happened a couple of weeks after we got our dogs). He said that they were from the shelter and desperately needed to be adopted. So Geoff and I were looking at them and playing with them and thinking about adopting them when I realized "OH NO!!!! HE IS FROM VERIZON!!!! HE'S COME TO GET US!!!" So I said "c'mon Geoff, we gotta get outta here" - but then I just ran out. I didn't wait for him or our dogs or anything. I started running down our cul-de-sac towards where it turns off on the main road, when all of the sudden Melissa (who is a girl I knew in college, but was never close friends with and haven't spoken to in years - so random!) comes screaming around the corner in a pizza delivery car and says "GET IN!!!!!!!" and so I hop in her car. She flips a u-turn and goes flying out of the neighborhood. WHEW!!! Finally relief!!

But then a few minutes into the car ride, I realize Melissa works for Verizon too!!! So when we're at a stop light, I jump out of the car and roll towards safety. I start running away, when all of the sudden Grandma Katie (Gary's mother!) comes up in her car and tells me to get in. If you can't trust Grandma Katie, who CAN you trust? So I get in, and she drives off... and I wake up.

The end!

Now for a couple of funny dreams this week:

About 5 AM yesterday morning (this wasn't a dream, I was awake for this):
Me: Geoff, wake up, what time do we have to leave?
Geoff: Leave for what?
Me: To go to the mountain!
Geoff: Why are we going to the mountain?
Me: To run Hood to Coast!
Geoff: We already ran Hood to Coast.
Me: No we didn’t!
Geoff: Yes, we did.
Me: Are you sure?
Geoff: Yes. It’s Thursday, September 3rd.
Me: Are you sure?
Geoff: Yes.
Me: Okay, good.

Middle of last night (this was a dream):
Me: Geoff, wake up!
Geoff: What, why?
Me: Jax is out of his crate! How did he get out? Oh no! The crate door is still closed! JAX IS MAGIC!!!!!

When our alarms were going off this morning:
We hit snooze a couple of times each on our alarms, and we listen to different radio stations, so our room is interesting in the morning (why two people who get up at the same time have two seperate alarms I will never know) - it goes off with Christian music one minute, then 3 minutes later death metal (or whatever it is Geoff listens to), then 4 minutes later Christian music, then 3 minutes later death metal, etc. This goes on an obnoxiously long time, and yet neither of us care!

Right before the first alarm this morning, I had a dream that both Geoff and I lost our jobs. Then when the alarms went off, I thought "oh no!! we lost our jobs! we have to find new ones!" and then I'd fall back asleep. Then the alarm would go off and I'd think "oh no!! we lost our jobs! we have to find new ones!" and then fall back asleep... and so on. That was interesting.

Part 2 of 3: The case of the missing wine!

The night before the last time we went camping (yes... almost a month ago... remember when I was supposed to write this entry?) I couldn't find my wine.

I like to go wine tasting, and I like to buy wine - MORE than I actually drink wine at home. I can't help it! These friendly Oregon winemakers and their sweet stories... I have to buy it! Anyway, so a couple of years ago I bought a second wine rack because I had too much wine. I used it for a while, and then decided that I didn't need it anymore so I gave it to Goodwill. Then came the Astoria Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival... then Memorial Day wine tasting - yup, more wine buying. So at home I have my wine rack, plus a box of wine, plus one of those little reusable bags with six slots for wine bottles. That was all sitting next to my wine rack.

Then we got the dogs - the night before they were being delivered (gosh they sound like a UPS package!) Geoff and I were "dogproofing" the house and we moved the box of wine up to the office and the reusable bag... well... somewhere. I THOUGHT we moved it to the office.

So we were packing up to go camping and I was looking for the bag of wine because it had a specific bottle I wanted to take with me. It wasn't in the office... and it wasn't in the dining room, which is the other place I thought we might have put it. I searched the ENTIRE house. I was going crazy... who LOSES wine? That's just weird. It's not like keys or a remote... it's WINE. I searched and searched... then I thought "well gosh... maybe we left it in the camper the last time we went? yeah... that must be it." So I gave up and went to bed.

For a few minutes. Then I realized "NO, it's not in the camper. The last time we went camping was 3 days after we got the dogs and I know I didn't take any wine on that trip. Guess again." So I got out of bed and went downstairs... and on the way down I had an epiphany - the wine was in the closet under the stairs where we keep the Christmas decorations and the vacuum cleaner. I have no idea how I remembered or WHY I thought it was a good idea to put it there in the first place - but I went straight there, and sure enough, there it was. I went back upstairs saying "I FOUND THE WINE!!!!!"

And thus the case of the missing wine was resolved!

Blog 1 of 3: The men in the elevator

Since we're camping and I have some time, and because my sister pointed out that I haven't blogged in 22 days, here is the first in a series of 3 funny stories from this week:

Overheard in the elevator...

Man 1: So how old is your kid?
Man 2: I don't know.
Man 1: Uh... you don't know?
Man 2: Well, he's like 25 or something. My wife keeps track of that.

HAHAHAHA. Good one. Then they went on.

Man 1: Oh I know what you mean... I think mine are 19 and 21.
Man 2: You still got them at home?
Man 1: Just one.
Man 2: Yeah, I got one and a half at home.

Then the elevator ride ended and that was all I heard. The end.

(somehow this didn't translate very well to a blog... it was much funnier at the time. I hope the next two are funnier)

Doggies

Soooooo we got some doggies. I don't remember how, but I started looking at petfinder.com a few weeks ago, just for fun. Then as I did it more, we thought, hey, we really could get a dog! So we went to a few adoption events this weekend and found one that was great. But it's super clingy so they wanted a household that would adopt 2 dogs or already had one at home, so it wouldn't feel so alone. Since we'll be gone all day anyway, there are other advantages to having them at home, like the fact that they'll have each other to keep each other company during the day. That is the VERY BRIEF summary of how we came to adopt 2 doggies! They were delivered to us last night. Here is something Geoff wrote about our first night together (but first, pictures):

Roxy

Jax

It went pretty well!!! The lady was a little late getting to our house. She had to deal a little with Roxy. Turns out, she hasn’t been spayed yet. I have to take her to the doctor today so that we can get her spayed.

Initial introductions went well. In a complete switch from what we saw on Sunday, Roxy was acting like a complete spaz while Jax was much more calm. Roxy was jumping all over Jax, so we got her some toys to play with. Holy cow. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. We had brought the beds down for them to see, and Roxy, with the toy in her mouth, did a full on nose dive into both beds. She would then get up, which is work because she has short little legs, run around the house and at full tilt do it again. We filled out the rest of the paperwork, paid the lady, and she left.

Jax really took that hard. He seems to be VERY nervous in new situations, and around new people. We would walk into a room that he was in, and he would sprint out of it. If a loud noise, like the A/C coming on, happened he would jump and run around a little bit. Eventually, Kelly got onto the floor with him and let him sniff her and figure out what is going on. We went outside later that night so that they could go to the bathroom, and he sat down, Kelly sat next to him and started petting. He seemed to enjoy this and started to calm down some. We went upstairs later, and he decided that he wanted to start sitting in Kelly’s lap. He was still very skittish around me though. But I had to try and restrain Roxy anyway. Eventually it was time for bed. We managed to get Jax into his crate with no real problem. Roxy though, is a pain in the butt. Eventually, we decided to just leave her out of the crate and let her sleep on the floor. Since she always wants to be around Jax, we put a bed next to him, and then put a bed next to me, since she seems to like me. She finally collapsed around 11, and started to fall asleep.

We went to bed around 11:30. Roxy was near the corner of the bed on Kelly’s side. At 2:30, Kelly woke me up. “The dog is chewing on something!” I turned on the light, and the Roxy had moved to the other corner, near my feet. She was licking her paws or something. So I went back to sleep. When I woke up, the dog had moved alongside me, next to the bed, and next to her bed. It was kinda funny.

We took them outside to go to the bathroom this morning, and fed Jax (Roxy can’t have food because of the surgery). Roxy was all over the place already, so we took them for a quick walk down the block and back a couple of times to tire them out. It didn’t really do anything. I get the feeling that if we want to tire them out, we are gonna need to do some major running and playing. Fortunately, we are training for hood to coast, so that will help. We gave Jax a Kong when he got into the crate. He seemed a little disinterested in it, but was happy to get in more so to get away from the ever playing Roxy. Then, I managed to get Roxy most of the way into the crate with my hand, and then scooted her in the rest of the way with my foot. Hopefully with food and crate training, she will realize that it is not a bad place to be. We put a Nylabone in there, as well as a squeaky pig that she seems to like. Hopefully that will keep her entertained enough until I pick her up.

They are at home now. Hanging out. We are going to take Jax to Petsmart later today to look at baby gates for keeping them contained during the day. Should be interesting…

Jake is 5!

My beloved Jeep Liberty, Jake the Jeep, turns 5 years old today! He came to me with 107 miles 5 years ago and had ~50,700 miles on him this morning when we drove him to work. I really thought there was a blog post with pictures of him with me from 5 years ago today, but when I looked there was just a comment that I FINALLY got the Jeep (it had been a couple of weeks since we first went to the dealer to get the Jeep). I know I have those pictures at home, so maybe I will post a picture of Jake then and Jake now. Like you care.

Since I had graduated from college the month before I got him, I was eligible for all sorts of special incentive programs from dealers. I paid 1% below invoice and got a 5 year zero interest loan - that was Jeep's "recent college grad" program at the time. Not a bad deal. So many times over the years I've been tempted to pay off the stupid loan, but it just didn't make any sense because it was 0%. I finally caved late last week and did it - it wasn't *technically* due until the 27th but I couldn't wait. It was only about 2 weeks early, and now Jake is all mine!! (okay, ours. :) Jake was just MY first car that I bought brand new all by myself, so I'm a little more possessive about him) Now hopefully Chrysler (Fiat???) sends the title. :-)

Geoff gave Jake the BEST birthday present ever yesterday - we took him through the car wash, and then Geoff gave him his first wax! He also vacuumed him out, cleaned all of the inside of the windows, used leather cleaner/protector (I do that every couple of weeks), and cleaned all of the dash & other surfaces. Geoff claims he hasn't looked this good since the day I picked him up all the showroom floor. That may be true... he's a little rough around the edges now, but I love him even more than I did on that fateful day 5 years ago.

Okay I'm done being a spaz about my car.

I can't resist...

I just can't resist a couple of good ones from CNN today:

"Although prices may fall further, low mortgage rates and President Obama's $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit make current prices attractive, especially in heavily-beaten down areas, such as California, Arizona, Nevada and California." (courtesy of Patrick)

and from the frontpage blurb right now:

"Apple fans in the U.S. and seven other countries lined up this morning to be among the first to get their hands on the new iPhone 3GS, billed as the fastest, most feature-laden iPhone yet."

No, really, CNN? I thought they would slow it down and remove features for the latest release.

Classic.

A trip down memory lane!

I just cleaned out my basket of old purses and wallets to take them to Goodwill. I thought I was just going to have to sort through the purses and wallets themselves to determine which ones to give away and which to keep, but then I realized there was stuff INSIDE of them. A lot of stuff. So I cleaned them all out (most of the purses and all of the wallets are going to Goodwill), then realized how blog-worthy this was. Here's a list of the highlights of what I found, followed by a picture of my junk!

- $7 in bills, plus about $1 in change
- 2 high school student IDs
- 11 pens
- what I’m pretty sure is my first ever Max ticket, dated 7-5-2003
- 8 lipsticks / lip-glosses/chapsticks
- Numerous feminine hygiene products
- A mouse
- Lots of movie tickets, the oldest one dating 12-6-2003 (Bad Santa)
- 1 AA battery
- A necklace
- 2 hair clips
- 2 hair ties
- A checkbook
- 2 CDs
- 5 moist toilettes
- A coupon for Chevy’s
- A Beer Garden ticket from Senior Week in college
- An ipod clip/holder thing
- Gum (weird, because I haven’t chewed gum in years)
- A warning I got from a kind Indiana State Trooper on 1/1/2002 coming back from Campus Crusade for Christ’s Christmas Conference in Indianapolis (excessive speed, but it doesn’t say how fast I was going. It was the first time I’d ever been pulled over and I cried. I have only been pulled over once since then and I didn’t get a ticket then either, but at least I didn’t cry that time! The second time I didn’t get a cool written warning like this one)
- Silica Gel
- A toothpick
- My keychain from college, including my good ole Dominick’s Fresh Values card (which I’ve probably had since high school). Cool thing about that card is it works at Safeway too!
- My Order of the Engineer ring I got when I graduated from college and became an engineer

Speech

This morning I was emailing my family about how it bugs me when people don't say words correctly - like my coworker Cindy who says "supposively" instead of supposedly. Or this other woman I know who says "ridicalous" instead of ridiculous.

A few minutes ago, Cindy came over to my desk with a piece of paper with the word "motorcycle" written on it and asked how I say that word. I said "motorcycle." She then told me about someone else who says "motorsickle." Naturally, I said to her "YOU SAY SUPPOSIVELY!!!!" :)

That led us to our other coworker's desk where we launched into a conversation about who says what how. My coworker said "well I say bag weird"... but that's just because she's from Wisconsin and has that long A sound that so many Minnesotan/Wisconsinite folk have (where it almost sounds like they are saying beg instead of bag). So that didn't count - that's an accent rather than a true mispronunciation. But I mentioned my dad says "oll" instead of oil, and my other coworker's husband says "ung-en" instead of onion. Several other things came up too! Interesting.

(Haha - blogger corrected my spelling of Minnesotan and Wisconsinite. I love that those words are in the Blogger dictionary!)

Livin' in a digital world...

Last night Geoff brought in the mail like he always does. We were going through it and he said "here's something from Comcast wanting us to switch our cable and internet to them." I responded "oh just delete it." What?!!? Delete it?! Yeah, I meant recycle it.

Then this morning Geoff's alarm clock went off, and I feel a tap on my back. HE TRIED TO SNOOZE ME! He realized it quickly and rolled over and snoozed his actual alarm clock.

Ooops. :)

So-So

When I was little I had an imaginary friend So-So. When we moved from Houston to Chicago, we couldn’t take him with us. So he stayed behind and lived in the Houston Galleria. Gaggy (my grandfather) would always tell me about how he saw So-So in the Galleria when he and Mimi (grandmother) went there. He seemed to like the ice skating rink. Then one year So-So got packed away with the giant Galleria Christmas tree, so I only got updates on So-So sightings at Christmastime.

This weekend Geoff's family went to Houston to see my sister-in-law Rebecca graduate from high school! While there was some shuttling to the airport, part of the family was dropped off at the Galleria to kill some time. And GUESS WHAT - they saw So-So! Even though he's packed up with the Christmas tree in some storage room somewhere, he just happened to come out to use the bathroom. And he says hello. Yay!

Another softball story!

I forgot about this one until just now... one of the girls asked me how old I was (for about the millionth time - they seem to be obsessed with how old Geoff and I are). I said "27". She said "you don't seem 27!" I asked her how old "I seem" and she said 38. Thanks a lot, kid! Even SHE seems to think I'm prematurely old. Then she asked how old Geoff was and I said 23. She said "so he's 4 years younger than you!" I said yes, and then she said "isn't the boy supposed to be older?"

Oh, and for reference, these girls are between 7 and 10. The majority of them are in 2nd grade. (including the girl who got busted for singing about boys with their pants unzipped and the girl who thinks I seem 38).

3 things

Here are my three amusing stories:

During softball on Friday (our last game!) two of the girls were playing one of those little clappy hand sing songy rhyme thingies. Great description right? I don't know what they're called, but like Miss Mary Mack. Anyway, moving on. So only one of the two girls is singing, I guess she's teaching the other girl this song. She sings something about kissing a boy, and I kind of raise my eyebrow, but I'm mostly paying attention to the batter that's up. The next thing I hear is something about "and has his pants undone!" and then her mom screams "HANNAH!!! I have talked to you about this song before! If I hear it out of your mouth ONE MORE TIME, I'm washing your mouth out with soap." HAHAHAHAHAHA. Love it!

After softball, I go home and check my email. I have two emails about orders at Amazon.com. I did recently place two orders, one for myself and one for father's day. But I click on these and they are for XBox Live points. I'm like "Geoff, did you order XBox live points?" and he looks at me like I'm crazy. Then the email immediately after those two is one from Amazon saying they've detected suspicious activity and have therefore cancelled my account. WOW! Within half an hour, they figured out that something wasn't right. Very impressed, Amazon. They have already processed it on their end, so they recommend calling my credit card company (an obvious next step), so I do. Before I do that though, I check my online account balance which doesn't show these Amazon transactions and also take a moment to fret about the Amex people yelling at me for storing my Amex info in my Amazon account. So I call Amex and the nicest young chap answers the phone. He says immediately "oh yes, I see them right here" and tells me the dollar amounts of MY Amazon transactions. I tell them those are legit, and he looks and says that he can see the XBox Live ones coming in but that they're not actually here yet. He says no problem, just keep an eye on my online statement and when I see them, there is a button to click to dispute a charge. YAY! I don't have to talk to actual people anymore. Then I ask him if I need a new card or anything, and he says "well, your stuff was just stored in your Amazon account, right?" I say "yes, stupidly". He says "oh no no no, that's actually very safe! No problem, and you don't need a new card because they don't display your card number on your account". YAY! I hate getting new cards. End of phone call.

Saturday I check my statement because stuff usually posts the second day, but I see nothing - hmm, maybe Amazon or Amex were able to get rid of it somehow. Then I check Sunday, and sure enough, $49.99 times 2 transactions. Dang. So I use the dispute charge option and fill out a couple of little forms, and I'm done within 10 minutes. It says it will be 6 - 8 weeks to resolve but they try to get it done within a month. Oh well, at least it's only $100.

Monday morning - two $49.99 credits on my Amex bill!!! SWEET - way to go Amex AND Amazon. Amazon for figuring out something was weird and putting a stop to it right away and Amex for crediting me so quickly and making it so very painless. The only problem I had then was that I could no longer track my two orders on Amazon since they cancelled my account, but mine came yesterday and I assume my dad's probably did too. YIPPEE! Three cheers for fantastic customer service!

My last story is a VENT. We listen to 105.1 The Buzz in Portland, and they do this movie guessing game where the host thinks of a movie and people call in and guess yes or no questions to figure out the movie. After the guesser's yes or no question is answered, he or she has one chance to guess the movie. It's a pretty entertaining game, but I get SO ANNOYED at these fools who ONLY have a guess that corresponds to an answer in the affirmative to their questions! Here's an example of how it goes:
Guesser: "Is Tom Hanks in it?"
Host: "No"
Guesser: "Ohhh.... okay.... thanks, bye"
Host: "Did you have a guess about the movie?"
Host: "Well I thought it was Castaway...."

Okay people. OBVIOUSLY you thought it was something that had Tom Hanks in it. But considering there are like a gazillion movies in existence and there is a 99.99999999999% chance that the answer to your question will be no, especially towards the beginning of the game, HAVE ANOTHER ANSWER!! Surely you can think of SOME movie that doesn't have Tom Hanks in it. I realize it may take you a second to think of, which is why you should be prepared. ANY other movie will do, and having A guess will give you higher odds of getting the right answer than having no guess and looking like a ninny! UGH. It's just unbelievable how person after person calls in and doesn't have a guess besides the guess the corresponds with an answer in the affirmative to his or her question!

Yesterday we knew that the movie wasn't a comedy although some people think it's very funny, there was no blind guy in the movie, and it wasn't made in 2009 (although when that person asked the question, he said "is it recent?" and they said "define recent" and he said "this year" and they said not this year... leading one to believe it was made in the last couple of years). We probably had some other clues too but I was too busy yelling at the radio to pay attention. Finally some guy calls in and says "is Hayden Christensen in it?" and they say yes, so he guesses "Jumper" which is correct. But I'm willing to bet that if they'd said no he would have awkwardly said "oh.... well I thought it was Jumper...." just like every other fool that calls in.

Anyway, I actually LIKE the game, it's pretty fun to try to figure out what the movie is (even though I've seen approximately fourteen movies in my life), which is why I listen to it, but ARGH!!!! People of Portland: have another answer.

Golden Girls

I KINDA remember Golden Girls growing up - my mom watched it so I'm sure my sister and I did occasionally too. I have a stronger memory of the spin-off Empty Nest. I know for sure I used to watch that. There was another spin-off, Nurses, which sounds familiar and I'm sure I watched it, but don't really remember.

Flash to 2005 - I don't rememeber if it was summer or Christmas, but I suspect it was Christmas because I don't think I went home that summer. My mom and sister were watching a ton of Golden Girls and Golden Palace. I'd never heard of Golden Palace before then, but apparently it was yet another spin-off developed with Dorothy wanted to leave the show. I know this because my mom told me at the time and also because I recently read the wiki for both Golden Girls and Golden Palace. My Golden Girls knowledge has gone up exponentially in the past week. (also this is how I know that it was 2005 that Golden Palace was on, the wiki informed me that was the first time since 1993 that Golden Palace was seen on American TV)

Side note: my grandmother had a friend who was a splitting image of Dorothy. I always called her Dorothy but that wasn't her real name. I have no idea what her name was, although my mom would know.

Back to the story. Anyway, so I was somewhat familiar with the Golden Girls. I had definitely seen them growing up and a few times in syndication, but that's about it. Last week I was feeling like watching some TV and Geoff was doing something else. That's a VERY rare phenomenon, so I took the opportunity and flipped through channels. I saw the Golden Girls was on, so I turned it on. It just so happened a new episode was starting, so I burst (loudly) into the theme song. Geoff was in the room and he looked up and was like "what ARE you singing??" Then the actual show came on and it was SO funny!! I don't remember it being that funny, and I kept laughing. YES, I laughed during a TV show. Those ladies are hilarious. So then Geoff was even more in awe that something was making me laugh (TV and movies usually don't make me laugh. It's very awkward when everyone else is cracking up and I'm sitting there all stoic-like). So then he started watching too and laughed right along with me.

I was talking to my sister the other day and she was watching Golden Girls too - turns out my mom bought a couple of the seasons on DVD and sent some to my sister. I guess we're a Golden Girls loving family.

Since it was so much fun to watch, I set the DVR to record Golden Girls. Last night while Geoff was in the shower, I turned on an episode. He happened to turn off the shower right about when the theme song started, so he could hear it. I, of course, was singing at the top of my lungs, and halfway through the theme song (right around "and if you threw a party") he burst into song WITH me!!!! I couldn't stop laughing... apparently I sang it enough times that he learned the words. He then watched the entire episode with me, which was his first full Golden Girls episode. I gave him the low-down on all of the characters - Rose is the wingnut, Blanche is the man-lover, and Sophia is hilarious and Dorothy's mom. He was like "what about Dorothy?" I was like I dunno, she's just Dorothy. There's not much to say about her. And I filled him in on the little details like Rose being from St. Olaf, Minnesota and ALWAYS having stories about "back in St. Olaf"...

Good times, good times. Gotta go, gotta watch some Golden Girls! ;-)

Ha

Last night Geoff and I stopped into Ross (Dress for Less). While we were there, this 3-ish year old was licking the mirror. The mom was dealing with her slightly older child who was in tears and telling her mom that she didn't love her (the child was saying "you don't love me!"... or rather "yoooooouuuuuuu ddddoooooooooooonnn'tttttt looooooooveeeee meeeeeeeeee!"), so she missed the licking situation.

So today during lunch I said to Geoff "what would you do if you were in Ross and your kid was licking the mirror?"
"Tell it not to - what would you do, cut its tongue off?"

I thought this was funny. You probably had to be there. But at least I'm getting into the habit of blogging daily, even if my blogs are weird.

Interesting

I have read this somewhere before, but I don't remember where - people are all about letting other people know what a great deal they got on something. I was thinking about this the other day when I was wearing a new pair of shoes (that I got on clearance at REI). I got two compliments on them the day I wore them and both times I FORCED myself to just say "Thanks!" instead of "Thanks, they were on clearance at REI!" I don't know why this is, but I know I'm not the only one with this "problem". Just an interesting thought....

Take a good look folks...

This is the last I'll ever see of my wedding dress*! That's right, it's all packed up to be sent to Brides Against Breast Cancer tomorrow. I am soooooo excited, I've wanted to do this since pretty much right after I got married - and I'm just now getting around to it. I mean, talk about laziness. Oh well, at least I'm doing it now. My closet, the environment, whoever wears this dress next, and people with breast cancer all thank me. Or at the very least, I thank myself. I'm SO excited about this. I know I already said that, but I can't help it! I think it's cool! And I love getting rid of stuff.

*okay, so that's really just my slip and my shoes in the picture - but my veil, bra, and DRESS are below it, I promise!

Musing

I'm glad I didn't go to Johns Hopkins... because I would have cringed every time someone said "John Hopkins", and then my face would have been stuck in a permanent cringing position.

Slightly worrysome...

So I called my doctor today to make an appointment. I haven't been to this particular doctor in a while, so I wasn't sure if they had my new or old last name. They were looking it up and couldn't find me, and I was thinking "uh-oh"... they finally found me and asked if my birthday was 3/12/1970. Um, nooooooooooo, it's not. So then they asked about my street address. Yes, that's correct. Then they asked about my phone number. Nope, not mine! Not even a former one of mine. Then they asked for the last 4 digits of my Social - those matched. Okay, weird. So they went and cross-checked with an old system to "make sure they got the right patient". After all of that they finally came back and asked for my "new" phone number. I gave her the correct phone number and she confirmed/updated my marital status / employment / address / emergency contact stuff.

The icing on the cake was when at the end she asked "okay so what's your new birthday?" HAHAHAHA. As though it's changed at some point in the last 27 years. I should have made myself 5 years younger. ;-)

Wine weekend!

Once again, it was wine weekend! Geoff, Momlie, Geoff's aunt Gayle, and I all went wine tasting. We visited 4 wineries - 2 that we've been to before and 2 that were new! The last one was really great... the wine wasn't the most magnificent ever, but there were 3 different wineries pouring wines there and there were also different artisans - a goat cheese lady with some of the best goat cheese I've ever had (in several different flavors, no less), and a chocolate lady with some amazing chocolates. YUMMMM. Really interesting place, I enjoyed it quite a bit. After wine tasting, we went back to Momlie and Gary's house, where Gary and his niece Meghan prepared a GREAT dinner of chicken, salad with a yummy avocado/cilantro dressing, watermelon, and potato salad. Delicious. After that we all visited and chatted a bit and then Geoff and I helped get Momlie and Gary onto Facebook! Fun. :)

MEXICO!

Mexico was FANTASTIC. For future reference, I highly recommend travelling when the CDC recommends avoiding all non-essential travel to a certain country. We had our own rows on the plane going down and coming up we had two to a row instead of the normal 3. At the resort we stayed at, there were 3 resorts owned by the same people right on the same strip of land. They had closed 2 of the resorts and consolidated all of the guests into 1 - and it STILL wasn't full. It was absolutely fantastic. I also recommend NOT going to Mexico this June or July! They said everyone had rebooked for then... I imagine having to sit two to a seat on the airplanes, never finding a seat by the pool or tube for the lazy river, and having to wait in line for dinner.


The resort we stayed in is Mexican-owned, and there was a large percentage of Mexican folks staying there. Crocs are apparently the national shoe of Mexico - 95% of the Mexican people were wearing Crocs. When you'd get in the lazy river, there would be dozens of pairs of Crocs sitting near the entrance. So interesting and amusing! There were regular Crocs, Disney Crocs, Dora Crocks, Croc sandals, and every other kind of Croc you can imagine in every color you can imagine!


Here's the lowdown... I'll try not to go into TOO much painful detail like I usually do.


Sunday: We arrived and had a nice dinner by the pool at a restaurant named Samba. I had a very Mexican meal - cheesburger and fries. :) We enjoyed a short dip in the dipping pool on the patio of our unit.


Monday: We went to a nice brunch in the morning and then Geoff and hit the lazy river while Oma and Opa went to an owner's meeting (they are timeshare owners where we stayed). We read, relaxed, explored, and enjoyed fun in the sun. Oh, and we went shopping at the Mega (the supermarket).

Tuesday: It was overcast, so we headed downtown to Puerto Vallerta. We walked around for a bit, I was interviewed by a German student studying Mexican tourism, and then we went to Hard Rock Cafe! We had a delicious lunch (okay, so not very Mexican) and Geoff was finally able to "replace" his beat up holey Hard Rock Cafe London shirt. :)

Wednesday: Relaxed poolside, went to the water slide and in the wave pool.

Thursday: Another relaxing day in the sun and then we went to the Mexican Fiesta on the beach! We got to see the Mexican Flyers, eat a ton of fabulous food, watch contests and music and other great entertainment, and see a mama sea turtle lay her eggs. Soooo much fun.

Friday: Another day of lots of pool time! We had a nice dinner at a restaurant in the hotel and Opa and I shared a bottle of Mexican Merlot. Played some cards (Hand & Foot) too!

Saturday: Spent the morning and afternoon by the pool and that night Geoff and I got to go on this amazing boat ride to a fantastic dinner and show called Rhythms of the Night at a place called Las Caletas. It was so beautiful - we had dinner right on the beach about 20 feet from the water and dined just as the sun was setting. A fantastic last evening of our vacation!

Sunday: We woke up early so we could spend a few more hours near the pool. Oma and I went around the lazy river for a good hour and a half or so... capping a great week of stories! After that we packed up and headed out - Swine Flu free. :)

I think I've done a pretty darn good job of keeping the blog short! YAY for me!

A venting day :)

UGH! Today is one of those days, you know?

- Work is not going right. I am getting questions that are making me feel as though I'm not doing my job correctly, and that's annoying. I'm TRYING not to overreact, because it's quite possible people are just asking questions, but it doesn't feel that way. I think this is my own issue though, otherwise I would ask if there is something I can do to improve.

- One of our softball parents was rude to us yesterday, making us feel as though we are inadequate as coaches - not giving out information we don't have, etc. I don't particularly care what the parents think of me, but I DO want them to have a positive experience so I feel bad if they feel they are not. This is one area where Geoff and I differ - he cares more about people's impressions of him, whereas I am a pleaser - I could care less what people think about me, but if they are not happy I get VERY unhappy. I dwelled on this for most of the night last night and continue to dwell on it today. This is why I'm bad with conflict - because I don't like it when people feel I have disserviced them in some way, and it's hard for me to deal with it. Thanks to my college mentor, I am WAY better at it then I used to be.

- KFC was kind enough to put a coupon out for folks to print to try their new grilled chicken. It used a coupon printer called Bricks (that I use frequently) to print it. Bricks is awesome because it lets you print 1 or 2 coupons per printer and prints a new code on each coupon. This prevents people from just printing a million coupons and abusing them. I printed the coupon Tuesday through Bricks (yesterday was the last day to print it, although it can be used for a few more weeks). Today, I got an email with a PDF attachment of the coupon. UGH!!!! That is coupon fraud, people. Not only is that punishable by law (as it clearly states on the coupon), but it truly does encourage stores and manufacturers not to offer coupons anymore. And if they do continue to offer coupons, they are much less likely to take internet printables. This is frustrating to NO END to legitimate coupon users like me. PLEASE read all of the fine print on your coupons. If it says one per person, do that. If it says one per household, do that. It typically says one per item, and you can use it as many times for as many coupons as you have. But each coupon is different, and you need to read the print on each one (this goes for all coupons: internet printables, manufacturer's coupons from the Sunday inserts, and store coupons). Down with coupon fraud!

Okay. Now that I have finished venting, a few highlights in my day:

- My manager noticed my long face, and asked what was wrong. I explained my frustrations and he said if there is anything he can do, let him know. He said he'd be happy to call the other group (that was asking so many questions) and talk to their manager or whoever for me. I told him that wasn't necessary, but still. That was awesome. He said it comes with having a wife and 4 daughters - he can spot a funny look miles away! :-) BEST. MANAGER. EVER.

- Mexico in 3 days.

- My coworker just send me this GLORIOUS article on KFC coupon fraud. Yay yay yay!!! KFC is saying NO to the PDF coupons (which all have the same barcode as opposed to the unique barcode on each Bricks coupon). Of course that doesn't stop someone from making a new PDF, but it's a step in the right direction!!!

Packing funnies...

So much to blog, so little time...

I've been busy at work - because we're going to MEXICO next week. That's right, a whole week of fun in the sun! We're going with Geoff's grandparents, who are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year with trips with their whole family. They're going all over the place, and lucky us, our trip is to Mexico. YAY, I love Mexico.

As I said to Geoff, the last few days before vacation are no fun - you're at work trying to finish things up, but your mind is already by the pool relaxing with a magazine. But the week is half over now...!

I do have a couple of other things I want to blog, but while I'm thinking of it, here are a few funnies:

Kelly:
are you planning to exercise in Mexico or not so much?
Geoff:
a little, but not a ton
Kelly:
but are you gonna bring your running shoes and whatnot?
Geoff:
no, probly not
Kelly:
Ok
But a workout tank?
Geoff:
yup, and some shorts
Kelly:
Ok

(some time goes by...)

Kelly:
Do you want to take your camera or just mine?
Geoff:
i would like to take my camera, yet
yes
Kelly:
ok
should we take joby????
Geoff:
yes
Kelly:
LOL okay. Joby can come!

(some time goes by...)

Kelly:
will you shave in Mexico?
Geoff:
yup
Kelly:
ok
I am making a packing list.
in case you couldn't tell.
FlyLady is helping!
Geoff:
you are making "the list" aren't you?
Kelly:
I started out by myself.
LOL yes.
Maybe a little.
And then I remembered she has a packing control journal
http://www.flylady.net/images/PackingCJ.pdf
So that's making it even more fun!!
Kelly:
hair dryer
ok.
I checked.
the rooms have that.
So yay.

Then today....

Geoff [11:29 AM]:
do you want to stop our mail?
Kelly [11:29 AM]:
Do you?
I thought about it.
Okay
let's do it
done
Geoff [11:31 AM]:
done?
already?
Kelly [11:31 AM]:
yes
Geoff [11:31 AM]:
did you have to call someone?
Kelly [11:31 AM]:
no
ew
phone
gross
Geoff [11:31 AM]:
lol

I thought there was another, but I can't find it now. Anyway, just thought they were kinda funny....

Common

Three scenarios:

1. Easter weekend, Geoff and I are sitting in a restaraunt having dinner and a woman comes up to us and says "how's Gigi?"
We both stare at her as though we have no idea what she's talking about (we don't).
She's like "you two are the ones who adopted Gigi last night, aren't you?"
"Nope... sorry..."
"OH MY GOSH, you look JUST like the couple. I could have sworn you were them. My goodness. Well you should adopt a dog anyway!"
Ummm.... okay. And she kept touching me. That was weird.

2. A couple of weeks ago at work, this woman stops me in the hall and says "can you believe how rude that cook was to you this morning?"
"What?"
"The cook!! I couldn't believe what he said to you!"
"I don't know what you're talking about..."
"Oh, I'm sorry, you look just like this gal who ordered breakfast this morning and the cook was mean to her."
"Haha..."
And then AGAIN last week she stopped me in the hallway and said "YOU'RE the girl the cook was rude to!" and I said "no.... you thought I was her before... I'm still not!"

3. This morning I was getting coffee and the coffee lady said "I have to tell you something... you look JUST LIKE MY SISTER. Ever since the first time I saw you, I thought you looked like her. In fact, I had to do a double take because I really thought you were her!"
And I was like "alright, people keep thinking I look like someone else. Where are all of my lookalikes?"
She said "oh, well my sister lives in Texas, so you never would have seen her..."
"my parents live in Texas..."
"Oh how funny! Well, yeah, you look just like her."

So apparently I have at least 3 twins (unless they're all the same person) running around out there. So strange... and just in the past month or so. WHACK.

Weekend

My coworker Cindy is in the same golf class I'm in (I roped her into it). She also owns an RV, and we were chatting about going RVing somewhere towards the end of April or beginning of May. We were planning to go somewhere in the Gorge, but her husband was a bit concerned about how windy it can get in the Gorge, especially with towing a trailer. So we looked around for some other places. I remembered reading some great reviews for an RV/Golf resort (before I golfed) so I looked into it. Sure enough, it still had great reviews and now I could actually take advantage of the whole golf part! Cindy & Geoff both liked the idea too, so we (okay, Cindy... I hate the phone) called to make reservations. The owner pointed out that it was Crab Festival weekend, but she still had just two spots available! So we snagged them! I also recalled a really great restaurant that Geoff and I had a great dinner at a while ago, so I looked it up. As I was browsing the website, I found that they had Friday night trivia in their lounge. Recalling my bar trivia days my last semester in college, I thought that would be GREAT fun. I called to confirm that (a) they would still be having trivia with the Crab Fest going on and (b) they would be televising the Trailblazers playoff game so Geoff could watch. Yes on both counts! We were set for a great weekend.

Friday we headed out about 4 and got into town just before 6. We were originally scheduled to not have a sewer connection for the weekend, but I inquired about cancellations and sure enough they did have one! So we got a sewer connection for the weekend which also gave us a better site - it now faced the golf course, right on hole 9. :) We got set up and then headed out to Baked Alaska. Their food was still excellent and we had so much fun at trivia. We never won (we played all 3 games) but still had a great time! When we got back, Cindy and her family had arrived so we chatted with them a bit and then went to bed.

Saturday morning was GOLF TIME!!! Cindy and I played our first-ever rounds of golf. The first hole was very painful and slow, which is what I guessed that all of the rounds would be. But somehow we improved quite a bit and started having tons of fun! We could actually get the ball down the course and would typically get 2 or 3 over par on each hole. I know, not great, but we had started with like 10 or 12 strokes on the first hole. We weren't keeping score anyway. At the 6th hole it started to rain, so Cindy and her husband decided to call it a day. I wanted to play at least the 9th hole, so Geoff and I walked through the 7th and 8th and played the 9th. I lost my first ball on the 9th hole. SO sad. :( Geoff lost about 6 or 7 balls on the course, so I was really excited to have kept a ball the whole time. But I did find another ball... it was yellow instead of pink, but it'll do. Anyway, it was soooooo much fun. I now officially love golf.

After that, the 7 of us (Geoff, me, Momlie, Cindy, Bill, their daughter Emily, and her friend Tabby) all headed out to the crab festival. Once we FINALLY got on a shuttle bus and got there, it was great fun. I had the most delicious fish taco and had fun looking at some of the crafts and trying wines. Probably the best wine was a raspberry juice / white wine mix - very tasty! I also tried several other unique wines, like a white port. So different! It was great fun, but then about 4 it started to get a little rowdy and crazy, so we headed out. I can't imagine what it gets like around 7PM or so! Crazy. SO much fun though. After that Geoff and Bill decided to play another round of golf, so Julie, Cindy, and I sat outside to watch them until it started to rain again. Then we headed inside and chatted and made dinner (Costco hot dogs - they recently started selling their food court hot dogs and buns - YUM!!!). We had lots of fun conversation and laughing - it was a great weekend.

Late breaking news: 2 kids in my mom's school district have Swine Flu, so they're shutting down the entire school for the rest of the week. This whole Swine Flu thing is getting interesting!

Golf!

I have taken up golfing. This started about 3 and a half weeks ago. Geoff went golfing with some friends, and the next day we were talking with some other friends who said they love golfing and that I should start playing too. I like the IDEA of golf, so I decided maybe that was a good idea. I looked at the Portland Community College classes online, and they had a golf class starting that day or the next day... so I signed up! Now I'm officially taking a golf class and have been going to the driving range somewhat regularily. I LOVE IT. It is hard, but so much fun. And I'm getting better and better. Yay golf.

Talk about weird...

I just googled something and came up with my own blog. What a freak.

For the record, I googled "the fondue cookbook" "dutch cheese" and my blog was the third of the four sites listed. Ha.

Ahh, Destin

You all know I was born in Houston... we moved to Chicago in August of 1987, weeks before I started kindergarten. Since we no longer lived right near my grandparents, we started an annual spring break vacation to Florida. The first year my family of 4 drove from Chicago to Disney World and my grandparents drove from Houston and met us. We spent a week at Disney World and had a grand time. The second year (I was in 1st grade) we stayed for a few days at Disney World and then went to Destin, Florida. We stayed at the Silver Dunes in unit A104. I remember the unit number because I was in room number 104 in first grade (that might beg the question of how I remember my first grade classroom number, but whatever). When I looked up Silver Dunes today, I was pleased to see that they had pictures of the units up on their website. It looks just the same today as it did then - which is somewhat frightening considering it has been 20 years since the first year we stayed there. The wicker furniture in the living room is definitely the same. Maybe it's been recovered, but that's about it. I'll have to check some old pictures... perhaps I will post some if I can find some.

I remember many great things from Silver Dunes and A104 (although I REALLY think at the time it was called 104A, it feels very unnatural to stay A104 and I don't think we did then). Some highlights:
- watching Duke in NCAA playoff games (my mom's sister and my dad's brother both went there, so we were always rooting for Duke)
- my mom reading her first John Grisham book there (it was The Firm, and it was left in the unit either by the owner of a previous occupant, and it actually mentioned Destin in the book)
- peeling raw shrimp and getting my eyes swollen shut from a terrible allergic reaction (to this day I'm still VERY careful when I peel raw shrimp... I wash my hands like a million times afterwards)
- all of the sand that was always in the bathtub (probably the fault of a 7 and 4 year old...)
- the very clear sliding glass door... one time a bird crashed into it. ha.

And from Destin...
- The Back Porch. OHHHHHHHH what glorious wonderful fried shrimp. YUM. It's actually the first place I ever had shrimp.
- The teeny little candy house where we would go and pick out one little chocolate shell or other equally delicious chocolate shell.
- In 1995 Hurricane Opal hit and ruined Silver Dunes. They have obviously rebuilt, but the next year (1996... it was the same school year since Opal was in October) we took our newly purchased 1989 Coleman Sequoia pop-up camper all the way down to Destin and stayed in an RV park. There were TERRIBLE thunderstorms and my sister and I clutched each other closely... we thought we were going to die for sure.
- The awesome looking waterpark that was never open because it was spring break and spring in Destin is really not that warm.
- Later on when Destin expanded and started growing more towards Sandestin. Sandestin used to be a resort fairly far away from Destin itself, and eventually it kind of became one with the city.
- Staying in Maravilla Condos one year while Silver Dunes was rebuilding.
- Reading Crime & Punishment. Ahhh, high school English.
- Silver Sands Outlet mall. They added this later, but I remember going to a J.Crew there. I bought 2 pairs of shorts.
- Getting accepted to Northwestern!! I was online (good ole AOL) in March of 2000 and chatting with my friend Jenni. She said that she had received her acceptance and asked if I had. AHHHH, no I hadn't. We had specifically asked our next door neighbors to check our mail for us and call if anything came from Northwestern, but no call yet. Jenni informed me that there was a website for admitted students and to put my name in there and see if it worked for me or not. I remember her saying "don't worry if it doesn't work... it might not mean anything!" But I tried it... and it DID work. I screamed. Literally screamed, and it was 11 PM. I woke up my dad and my grandparents... but that's okay. I got into Northwestern. :)

Good times with my grandparents in Florida for spring break for pretty much all of elementary school, junior high, and high school. Yay.

Farmer's Market!

Saturday morning we went to the Portland Farmer's Market for the first time ever. We went with Geoff's parents and it was SO fun. :) There were so many great things... a pesto guy, a pickle place, lots of produce stands, a peppermint stand, lots of honey places, eggs, fish, etc. It was AMAZING. I loved it so much. AND I had my very first tamale ever. It was from the Salvador Molly's lunch cart. Yum. I was making the Pioneer Woman Meal of Love (well, an adaptation) for Easter dinner the next day, so we bought almost all of our produce from the Farmer's Market. Here's what we bought:

- salad mix
- a shallot
- garlic
- red onions
- red potatoes
- sour cream
- butter
- eggs
- honey
- hazelnuts (not on the Meal of Love list, but oh-so-delicious. there was a lady handing them out as samples)
- peppermint candy (ditto above)
- tortilla soup (ditto above, and this is my favorite thing we bought. YUM!!!!!!!)

I think that is all we purchased, and we're already planning on going back this week. We learned that if you see something you like the looks of, you must buy it IMMEDIATELY. I kind of had that thought, but I figured we could make a loop around and then make our purchases... so not true. I missed out on parsley and chives taking this approach. But now I know! Plus the Beaverton Farmer's Market opens in a few weeks and apparently it's even bigger, so we're going to hit that up too. YAY!

A quick funny... while we were there, Gary grumbled "couldn't you just buy all of this from Safeway?" Now you have to understand Gary... you know he's having a great time being there with all of us, but (a) it's not necessarily what he would have selected as a family activity and (b) he just loves giving us a hard time. Minutes later he found a vinegar lady and he stopped by her stand and sampled all of her vinegars and seemed genuinely impressed. He even BOUGHT vinegar. Me being me, I of course had to say "don't they have vinegar at Safeway?" :)

Friday night

Friday night I was antsy... I was NOT in the mood to be sitting around, but Geoff was really excited because the Lakers were playing the Blazers. Understandably a big game. SOOOOO I got the bright idea to clean the oven. My mom came to visit about 3 or 4 years ago and tried to get the self cleaning oven feature to work but couldn't. She told me at the time that I needed to buy cleaner and just do it the old-fashioned way. So about 6 months ago (yes, 2.5 years later) I took the first step in that journey - I bought some Easy Off oven cleaner. But then I was worried about the smell while we were selling our house and all that so I avoided it. Friday night it was nice enough to have the windows open so I just opened them up and did it! IT WAS AMAZING. I had noooooo idea the cleaner worked so well, the oven looks brand new. It's very hard to get in the back of the oven (I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, normal people probably HAVE cleaned an oven), but it turned out so well. I did the "fast method" of heating the oven up to 200 degrees and then applying the cleaner for 20 minutes for the main part of the oven. For the racks, though, I let them sit out overnight with the chemical on them. They also just wiped right up in the morning. Now that I know it's so easy, I'll definitely be doing that more often.

While I was cleaning the oven, I had to put newspaper down on the floor (per the can's instructions). When I did that, I saw the weekly Michael's coupon for 40% off one item. I had thought earlier in the day about doing some origami, and decided that since I had a coupon, I might as well run up to Michael's and buy some origami paper. So I did. And then I did origami. And it was fun. :) I have done origami two nights so far and I'll do it a few more times I'm sure. Easy entertainment, for only $2.99 after coupon!

More on the weekend later or tomorrow...

Great news!

Apparently the latest style is NOT MAKING THE BED!!!!! I'm so excited. I HAVE been making my bed every day for the last 6+ months while our house has been on the market, and I HATE IT. Geoff and I both hate it. Seriously, it is my least favorite chore, well below taking out the trash, cleaning toilets, and whatever other gross thing you could think of. I don't know why, but I hate it. Now the beds shown here are like "prettily" unmade, but I think that's tolerable. I just detest making it so much. Ugh. Just the thought of it makes me shudder.

I always knew I was hip. :)

Little of this, little of that

Alright, here are a bunch of random tidbits for you:

- There have been FOUR people who have seemed overly perfumed/cologned today. I'm very sensitive to smells, but there usually aren't a lot of smelly people at work. Today's an exception. Ick.
- This is our FIFTH day in a row of beautiful weather. YAY!
- There was a guy in the elevator today who had a salad topped with tofu and cheddar Goldfish crackers. Interesting combo.
- The pollen is killing me. I can barely see because my eyes are so watery / itchy. I don't remember the last time I had to regularly take allergy medicine, but I have been taking Claritin every day for about a week.
- I'm taking a golf class! I'm very excited, I just signed up for it and it's one hour a week for 5 weeks, beginning tonight!
- Geoff and I are coaching softball again. I don't think I mentioned that before. We had our third practice last night. So fun... that age group is really cute. We have two returning players from last year, and everyone on our team seems to be able to hit really well! We have a bunch of girls who played t-ball previously, whereas last year we had mostly newbies. The parents seem to know more about softball too, which is helpful from an assistant coaching standpoint.
- I'm planning to go to the Portland Farmer's Market this weekend. I've always heard great things but have never been, so I'm looking forward to going.

Here is the story about my lifetime of allergies. I just feel like this should be documented. You don't have to read it, but I'm writing it anyway!

When I was 3, I was somehow "diagnosed" with having allergies. I don't really know what led up to it or what led my mom to get me tested, but I know I was 3. We had a dog then, his name was Dusty. I was allergic to Dusty so he had to go away. He went to my dad's cousin Dick's house, where he was later run over by a bulldozer and killed. Or something - I dunno... my dad makes things up. Seems like I've also heard a story that he ran into a street and hit by a car. That was probably my mom's version (aka what REALLY happened).

Anyway, starting when I was 3 I had to go to the allergist's office once a week for shots. All I remember about that allergist's office is that when you were done, you got a little token to put into a gumball machine and you got a little ring or bouncy ball or something. As a 3 year old, I'm sure that was the highlight of my week!

When I was 5 we moved to Chicago. My allergists there were Dr. Dold and Dr. Hart. They were on the 4th floor of a 4 floor building that had black and white stripes in Arlington Heights, Illinois. My favorite nurses were named Karen and Laura. I remember that whole thing very clearly because I went once a week until I was about 13. I got between 2 and 4 shots a week. The nurses gave them to me, and then I had to wait 30 minutes for them to measure the reaction and make sure I was okay. During the 30 minutes I had to be seen by one of the allergists, just a quick 5 minute check in. That might not have been every time, maybe once a month or something. Then they'd measure me with this clear plastic ruler to see how big the reaction to the shots were - if it was smaller they could up the dose for the next week to start building up immunities. I was/am allergic to dogs, cats, rabbits, pollen, mold, etc. "Environmental" allergies, if you will. I also had to take Seldane and Sudafed - one Seldane (a big white round pill) and 2 Sudafed a day. Wow - just looked up the wiki on Seldane and it was removed from the US market in 1997 for potential to cause fetal heart conditions. AWESOME!!! :) Actually if I remember correctly, at some point I started to take Allegra and I believe the doctor told me that Allegra does the same thing as Seldane, but it comes in the form that your body had to metabolize Seldane into and was therefore safer. Something along those lines. HEY. I just looked up the wiki on that and it confirms what I just said!!!!! From the wiki - "The older antihistaminic agent terfenadine was found to metabolize into the related carboxylic acid, fexofenadine." (Terfenadine = Seldane, Fexofenadine = Allegra). INTERESTING. There was also a green and red capsule pill that I took for some period of time that started with an E, but I can't remember the name of it. I did NOT have to take the Sudafed when I took that... I think that they would switch me between the Seldane & Sudafed combo and the "E" drug (no it wasn't Ecstasy, get your minds out of the gutter) as I would develop tolerances for one or the other. I'm not sure, I'll have to see if my mom remembers anything about the E. ;-)

Okay. I'm back. Sorry for that offshoot into the history of allergy medications.

So somewhere along the line, when I started junior high I started seeing the allergist less and less often. I think it was a combination of being more busy and just not needing to go as much. But I really do think that having all of those shots all of those years (by my calculations, an average of 3 shots a week, 50 weeks a year for 10 years is 1500 shots!!) really helped. Because I was so young when I started, they helped me build up tolerances/immunities (okay, I'm not sure of the actual correct medical word there) that still help me today. I consider my allergies to be very mild now. Not to cats - cats are horrible for me. The worst allergic reaction Geoff has ever seen me have was to cats (although the worst I've actually ever had was to raw shrimp in Destin, Florida, circa March 1989). But I can handle dogs reasonably well, and I'm pretty okay outside. I still like to go outside and weed / do other yardwork BEFORE Geoff cuts the grass because fresh cut grass make my eyes itchy (he's the grass cutter instead of me for that same reason), but all in all I'm okay.

Until last week. UGH!! I have been taking Claritin daily for the last week. I always have it on hand in case I'm going to someone's house that has a dog, but rarely take it. The last time I took daily allergy medicine was at least 12 years ago. It's weird, I don't know what's going on in Oregon right now but my allergies no likely!

And that is the story of my allergies. I'm sure this won't be interesting for anyone other than me and my mom (my partner in crime at the allergist for 10 years), but it was fun for me to remember it all! And apparently share my medical history with the entire world. Wait for the day I tell you all about my Crohn's history......... :) Hey, my entire blog could be dedicated to Crohn's like this guy's! (I have to admit, I am a regular reader of his blog!)

Best part about being married!

Okay, so the title might be a bit of an exaggeration, but reason #8926 being married is awesome: I can use the name on mail addressed to me to determine if it's worth reading or not. Sorry, but if you don't know me well enough to know that my name changed a year and a half ago, you're not worth me reading your mail. :) That means Verizon, Washington Mutual, and random Century 21 realtor are all out - and that's just from today!

I know this wasn't worth a real blog, especially when I never blog. But I always think of these amusing little anecdotes and think they would be blog-worthy, but it seems like I shouldn't blog them because they're just a small snippet. If I ALWAYS blogged them, I would have an actual blog worth reading!

A visit from the ergonomist!

I just had an ergonomist visit me to make sure my monitor/keyboard/mouse/chair/desk were all set up correctly. They were not. :-) My body is basically positioned totally differently now than it was. Different to get used to, but I'm all about making things better for myself in the long run. Here are some of the highlights:

- She immediately noticed my keyboard wrist rest and tossed it aside. She asked why I was using it, and I said to rest my wrists on. She said NO, it is simply to remind you to HOVER. Your wrists should be straight and you should not be resting on anything.
- My monitor was actually at the proper height - to test that, she had me close my eyes with my head straight, then open them and point to what I saw first. It was in the center of my monitor about 1/3 of the way down the screen, which she said was good.
- My keyboard was totally in the wrong location. I had to pull it VERY close to my body, right at the edge of my desk, and center the alpha keys (NOT the keyboard itself, with all of the "extra stuff" (arrow keys and 10-key pad)) right in front of my body. She also put down the little tabs that raised the keyboard up, I didn't need those at all. In addition, I have to turn my wrists out a little which she said wasn't good, so she ordered me a new split keyboard that will put my wrists into a more natural position. It also won't have a 10-key keyboard, because the extra stuff on the right side of the keyboard is making my mouse have to be too far away from me. So it will basically just be the alpha keys with the mouse right near it. Since I said I used the 10-key a lot, she also ordered me an extra 10-key keyboard that I can either swap out with my mouse as I need it OR put on the right side of my keyboard and learn how to 10-key with my right hand (or put my mouse over there and mouse with my right hand). Lots of keyboard changes.
- With the mouse, the main thing was just moving it in closer to me. I do use my wrist rather than my forearm to mouse, especially when I'm in a rush, but I already knew that (and in fact told her that right off the bat). It's something I'm working on.
- My chair was too high! Your legs are supposed to be at a 90 degree angle (knees at the same level as your bottom) and mine weren't. Also I told her that I often tuck my feet up on my chair legs, which she said is HORRIBLE - cuts off your circulation at your knees. I have a foot rest but I wasn't using it much - she said I need to be using it to help keep my thighs parallel to the floor. So she lowered the chair and pulled my footrest in, and now I'm at the right angle. In addition, she moved my arm rests UP and IN so that they would help keep my arms at a 90 degree angle and leave my shoulders more relaxed. She said it's important to keep your arm rests as close to your keyboard as possible so that your forearms are primarily resting on the chair arm rests and then you just have to keep your wrists up (hovering) and flat/straight while you are typing.

Those are the main things - check out your workstation, some of these are good easy changes to make things easier for you. It feels very different to be in the position I'm in right now, but I'm sure as I get used to it I will feel better and better! Yay for ergo health. :)

My bunnies are delicious!

Costco has a variety pack of these snacks (along with these) on coupon this month, so I purchased some yesterday to try them out. Just now I said to Geoff "oh my goodness, my bunnies are delicious!" He laughed and said "don't tell that to a lot of people without explaination". :)

Clarification and Fidgy

Per one of my comments, it may not have been clear in my previous blog that the unexpected visitors on Saturday were with a realtor... so that's how they got in the house, he just keyed his realtor code into the lockbox to get the key. Obviously a slightly confused realtor... but a realtor nonetheless.

I think I've mentioned before where I do this thing where I "fake die"... I don't know why, I certainly wasn't attention-starved as a child or anything. I don't know why I do it, and yes I recognize that it's stupid and could turn into a "boy who played wolf" situation, but anyway... that's not the matter of discussion here today. Just remember that I do fake die.

As we've kind of been looking at some houses / properties, Geoff and I have talked about how we would mow several acres if we had them. One suggestion was a goat, which I thought sounded pretty fun. One day Geoff said "how do you feel about a Tennessee Fainting Goat?" I asked what that was, and he told me that it was a goat that essentially faints when it gets scared. It uses that as a defense mechanism. I said, "YOU MEAN A FAKE DYING GOAT?!?!? OF COURSE I WANT ONE!!!!!!" :) Then I asked him how he knew about them, and he said it had been an episode of MythBusters. There is a hilarious YouTube video of them here... they really are the funniest looking things.

Then we were talking about naming the goat (I have no idea why) and I said FDG (Fake Dying Goat). Then I said Fidgy... and asked Geoff how he'd spell that, and he said Fidgy. So then I said it could stand for Fake Insecure Dying Goat, Yo. FIDGY!

And that is the story of why I want a Tennessee Fainting Goat! (although on Sunday it came up when we were at his parent's and we learned that sheep are easier to care for and as effective as goats at keeping grass down, so I may never see my Fidgy dream come true)

The oh-ten crisis

I can already see it coming... I hear it all the time and I even did it once myself. People are so used to saying oh-eight and oh-nine that they are starting to say oh-ten. But it's NOT oh-ten... at least not if you're being consistent. (by the way, I'm talking about years... 2008, 2009, 2010... maybe I should have started out mentioning that).

If you're currently saying double-oh-nine or oh-oh-nine, then oh-ten is consistent. But if you're currently saying oh-nine, then you should be saying just "ten". Or perhaps twenty-ten... two-thousand ten perhaps?

It's gonna become a problem, folks... mark my words, soon you'll start to hear it too!

Saturday morning

So this past Saturday, Geoff and I both woke up about 9:00 and were just chillin' in bed, talking about what to do with our day, etc. Thank goodness the TV wasn't on...

As were were chatting, all of the sudden, I hear voices! I say "SHHH!!!" and listen for a second, and then I say "GEOFF, there's SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!!!!" He quickly jumped up, threw on some clothes, and headed downstairs. He's like "um, hello!!" Here's the conversation as I heard/remember it:

Geoff: HELLO?
Realtor: Oh, there ARE people here!!!
Geoff: Yeah, we didn't get a phone call...
Realtor: Well I talked to Karolyn yesterday.
Geoff: I have no idea who that is.
Realtor: It's the co-listing agent.
Geoff: There IS no co-listing agent!
Realtor: Hmm... (rifling through papers)... no, that's the last house... (rifling through papers)... hmmm... well are you 12345?
Geoff: No, we're 6789, that must be the house for sale down the street.
Realtor: Oh... well you were the only house with a for sale sign that we saw... gosh you have such a beautiful home... I love the layout.
Geoff: Well you're welcome to stay! Give us just a minute or two, we'll be out of here!
Realtor: Oh no no no, we're leaving right now. SO sorry about this.

They went back and forth for a few more minutes, with the guy commenting again on how much he liked the house and Geoff again offering to leave but the realtor insisting that they would leave. I sure do hope they liked it well enough to come back.

YIKES!!! What a way to wake up on a Saturday morning... so strange.

COMPETITION!

My family emails every day - I think I have mentioned this before, the Family Chat Bin. It contains me, my mom, my dad, and my sister. Yesterday my sister emailed and said that she got hit by a car while she was walking. She said "I'm going to take some Tylenol and rest a bit." Then in the next email she was like "I'm fine." Then the next email was like "I feel a little banged up." Then "I think I was just more shaken up than anything."

Yesterday afternoon I was shopping at Walgreens (one of my favorite places!) and was busy with all of my coupon matchups and whatnot when she called. I didn't answer. She called again last night and said "you can't answer the phone when your sister gets hit by a car?!" I said "I was in Walgreens and it sounded like you were fine! You were all back and forth about it!" She pretended to be mad but I could tell she wasn't.

Later in the conversation, the subject of my blog (or lack thereof) came up. I said I have nothing to blog about. She said I could blog about her getting hit by a car. I said "what am I going to say? My sister got hit by a car. The end."

She said I better figure it out, because otherwise she is going to start a blog and steal away all of my readers. It's true... she's funnier than me, everyone knows it. I better step up my game!

I don't know anything

I kind of grew up a suburban girl. My family went camping and stuff, but it was always car camping, or in the later years, pop-up tent trailer camping. When I was first moving out to Oregon, a guy told me about "all the great hiking" and I thought "ew. Hiking? I barely even know what that is. It's certainly not something I've ever done or would ever want to do." I never knew anyone who owned a pickup truck, I didn't know anything about farms or gardens or animals, and I just didn't know anything.

Oregon is not like Chicago. Even though I still live in a suburb, it's just DIFFERENT. People here go hiking and like to be outside. On a sunny day, the streets are packed with runners and walkers and bicyclists. People drive trucks. I LIKE trucks. I know people that own trucks. I wouldn't even mind owning one myself. People own goats and horses. It's just a very different life.

To be fair, part of this is attributable to the fact that I'm now an adult and want to know about things like growing vegetables in my backyard (my parents did have a garden at one point). But I still think that the majority of the difference is the Oregon vs. Chicago thing.

Case in point today: Geoff and I are going up to his grandparent's house this weekend and are going to be running in this race. I am QUITE excited about this race because I've been working on speedwork for the past month. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that Momlie sent an email and said "have fun, but don't bring back any smelt!!!"

And then I had this conversation with Geoff:

Kelly:
Oh.
smelt is a fish.
I didn't know smelt WAS anything
I thought it was just a word.
Geoff:
hashahahhahahah
Kelly: Don't laugh.
It's not nice!
Geoff:
sorry, that is kinda funny
Kelly:
Nooooooot funny!
Geoff:
a little funny
Kelly: Maybe a little.
Kelso Washington is apparently the Smelt Capital of the World.
Geoff:
really?
we aren't runnning there
Kelly:
wiki says so!
I know.
Geoff:
WIKI FTW!
Kelly:
ftw?
Geoff:
For the Win

See. I didn't even know smelt was a fish. I just don't know such things. If it involves nature, I'm pretty much an idiot... unless I learned it in Oregon. :-)

Our new couch

I love my one post per month trend for 2009, don't you? :-)

Little by little Geoff has been adding things to our living room to make it more "home theatre" like. The latest update is a Blu-Ray player, and sure enough he now only wants to watch movies downstairs. I prefer to watch them upstairs in our room... it's just more comfortable. A few weeks ago Geoff decided that this is because our couch is not spacious enough and we both can't "lounge" on it. After some persuasion, I agreed that he might be right. We also had staged our family room for our house being on the market (aka put the two comfortable chairs we have in there) so there is no other seating in our living room so it's kind of awkward when people come over to visit. We agreed that it might be time to go shopping for a sectional.

A couple of weekends ago we went to a million furniture stores… the Furniture Depot (a store that I LOVED where I bought all of my furniture when I first moved to Portland... the guy there, Carl, was just awesome) shut down a year or two ago so we couldn't go there. Instead we checked out all of the others on TV Hwy (where the Furniture Depot was) and then there is a cluster of stores on a street named Cornell. Most of them have Stanton furniture (which is a brand our current couch is - they are AWESOME), so it's just a matter of picking the right place you want to order from.

We were up on Cornell driving around checking out some places on Saturday (Dania, Dania Home, Ashley Furniture) and we went into a new store called Urban Home. I didn't want to go into it because it was pretty empty and I could see this saleslady staring us down. But Geoff said "give it a try" so we did. Sure enough she jumped on us the minute we walked in. She took us all around and showed us all of her stuff. We didn't really like anything so we left. She said "well if you find something you like, come back to me because I can get ANYTHING and get it for less!!!"

Sunday we checked out some places but they weren't that great. We had really liked one at Dania Home the night before, so we went back to look at it again. It was a floor model, so it was an extra 20% off the already clearanced price. I said "let's go back to Sharon (the saleslady at Urban Home) and see if she can get it cheaper". I really didn't think she'd be able to, but figured it was worth a try. We walked right up to her and she gave us a blank look for about 1.8 seconds and then recognized us! I asked her if she had Stanton and she said of course (I figured she did, they're a local place). After some going back and forth (certain colors are cheaper than others, etc), she's ordering us a BRAND NEW ONE for the same price as the floor model! The couch comes with an ottoman (at first she was like "there's no way that the ottoman was included in their price" - but when we told her that it was a floor model she understood), and the ottoman at Dania Home was a different color from the couch. The Dania couch was cream and the ottoman was brown - but Sharon is getting us a matching ottoman AND including some pillows. The ottoman is really exciting because it lifts up and you can store blankets (or whatever) in there. So if you're local and need furniture - go to Urban Home! Sharon is awesome. :-)

Here is a picture of the couch we are getting. Same colors (this is the stock color, which means they have pre-cut fabric which makes it cheaper), but the chaise lounge will be on the opposite side on ours. We are also getting the ottoman shown in the picture here - I am SO excited about the ottoman.

Edit: The first link to the couch seems to be a little weird. If it didn't work, you might try refreshing the page or clicking here: http://www.stantoninternational.com/Portals/0/UltraPhotoGallery/675/7/large/STANT_348_GAL.jpg
It does work, but it's just a little finnicky.

Now I am on a mission to find the perfect ottoman tray to turn it into more of a coffee table. We went to Pottery Barn, JC Penney, JC Penney Furniture, Macy's, Target, and Pier 1 a few weeks ago looking for one but we couldn't find any. I have a gift card to Pottery Barn so my preference is to buy it there. I don't shop there much otherwise so this is a perfect thing to use it on. I'm leaning towards this Bradford Tray (I didn't see it in the store, but I might try another so I don't have to pay for shipping. I'll call around).

I was also on a pillow mission but I think that is done now. I adore this really bright pillow from Crate and Barrel and some of these various colors to go with it, but c'mon, who pays $30 for ONE throw pillow? I am going to keep my eye on those to see if they go on clearance. In the meantime however, we found some GREAT pillows at Costco. They're not completely the color scheme I was envisioning, but they are quite a few different colors and they're really nice pillows. Plus they were the most reasonably priced of anywhere we looked (Target, Kohl's, Nordstrom Rack, Ross, etc.). I had no idea throw pillows were so expensive. That is lame. My fabulous mother-in-law is going to teach me how to make pillows too so I can make my own fantastic brightly colored pillows. YAY.

Back to the sectional... two days after we had made the purchase, we got a thank you note in the mail from Sharon at Urban Home, thanking us for our purchase and choosing Urban Home instead of Dania Home. THAT is why I love doing business with local shops! (I'm not by any means opposed to large corporate conglomerations, but local is nice sometimes) I love Sharon.

Then this morning Geoff sends me this article. The gist is that Stanton (which is located in Tualatin, about 25 minutes from where we live) shut down for Christmas break and never restarted production. YIKES!!!! I had commented to Geoff before we bought from Urban Home something along the lines of "I hope this works out, with places shutting down right and left these days, you never know who's going to be in business tomorrow". I meant the STORE though, not the manufacturing plant. Geoff called Urban Home and they said that someone DID buy Stanton and they are back in production. Geoff asked if that will delay delivery of our couch, and they said they don't expect it to but they will call Stanton to find out for sure and get back to us. So we'll see. Maybe we'll get a couch, maybe we won't. :-)

This is a long entry for a couch, a tray, and some throw pillows. But what can I say... I'm REALLY EXCITED FOR IT!!!!! Geoff said "you're going to have buyer's remorse for sure" (I always do... I so despise spending money). But I didn't! I had no idea I wanted a new couch, but I really do! I'm so excited!!

And if this one doesn't work out, there's always this couch that Geoff found.

I must be rubbing off...

Geoff just called to tell me he called Verizon and "did some stuff". I got worried until he told me what he did:

- saved us $3 a month for the next year on our Verizon bill
- got us free DVR for 3 months
- got us free HBO and Starz for a month
- got us more HD channels every month
- got us faster internet every month

YAY!