Sunday, April 23, 2006

More of the house...

We went and checked out our house yesterday and were thrilled to find that 1) The roof was down 2) The house was painted 3) We have light switches and most importantly, 4) our cabinets were in (and they look fantastic!!) Enjoy the pics below... can't believe we are only a month away!

Other than that, yesterday we spent the day at the Scottsdale Culinary festival... And I am now 20 pounds heavier... We were there from about 1 pm to 9pm and met up with several friends from work. It was a really good time...

Outside...we have a roof and paint!

Kitchen

Desk area in kitchen

Kitchen

Looking into master bedroom/bath

Master bath

Down the hall

Looking through the front door...

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Ok, ok....

I shouldn't have posted the last entry. It was a terrible day but people are flipping out on me. Some things are better left unsaid. I feel better now...things are still unsettled and I'm still a little off as a result, but I know everything will be ok in the end. In some ways, I think it's time to reinvent my life... to shift my vision and reconfigure my attitudes about my personal life and my professional life. I think that change can be hard but it's completely possible and definitely warranted. I guess we'll see...

If anyone is still worried, please don't hesitate to call or email if you haven't already done so. I would be happy to talk/email one on one about specific issues that I vaguely referred to in my last email but I could never post about them online. And I should never even have vaguely referenced to anything being wrong...

ANYWAY...enough about that. I have my second Saturday off in a row (and I'm actually going to be in the office next week!) I'm not sure what to do with myself... two days off in a row feels like vacation!! And having a whole week next week to wrap things up...holy cow! The actual work is starting to slow down...finally! Today Tim and I are headed to the Scottsdale Culinary festival where we're going to eat and drink all day and hook up with some of my friends from work. It should be a good time... I'll post about it tomorrow (when I am 20 pounds heavier...) We are excited to go see our house this weekend... I went to a place yesterday to look at and approve the granite we selected. It looked good...so everything is coming together on the house front. I'll post pictures if I remember to take the camera today.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Warning: this post may not be censored.

Today was one of the worst days I've ever had. It was a day where I, at various points, doubted every decision I've ever made in my entire life. Everything that's been bad for a while peaked today, at least in my mind. I realized that my whole goal in life is to be happy and right now I'm not.

Professionally, everything is completely out of whack. I wish I could go into details but I simply cannot.

Personally, things have been better. Again, I can't give details.

I feel like everything is just going to shit. I know it seems vague and I wish I could share, but I can't expect for to say that you have to trust me when I say that things are worse than I thought they could ever get. And I am astounded by that. Luckily, I have my health, I have my family, no one is hurt or dying (that I'm aware of). But these things, these issues...they just flat out suck.

Oh, and to top it off in a slightly comical way, I, being the smooth person that I am, managed to completely wipe out while getting gas in my car today. How you ask? Well, I just tripped over the hose on the pump. Fell flat on my face and have a nice, gigantic bruise all the way down my left leg. Sweet. That was the point where I pondered why I even got out of bed this morning. And I knew, at the point that when I asked myself that question, that it was a really bad day.

Monday, April 10, 2006

House Update

We've been watching the progress on our house on a weekly basis...it's going so fast now! The only thing left on the outside of the house is to lay the roof tiles and to paint it (and when we went this weekend the trim was painted...the pictures below are from last week). They also had cleaned out the whole inside of the house which means the interior work will start in the next week or two.

So, we were super excited about this when we went by this weekend but we were still thinking our move in date would be probably around the beginning of July. However, when I went into work yesterday, I had a voice mail waiting for me from earlier in the week. It was our agent, Sara, and she told me that we had a walk-through date set for us on May 26. WHAT?! Seven weeks? Are you freakin kidding me? A walk-through date means that you meet with the superintendent of the job and the agent (Sara) and walk through the house, make sure everything looks ok, go through how everything was built, etc. Then if there are problems, the builder has three days to correct it. So, three days after the walk through we get our keys. HOLY CRAP. That means we will be in our house by May 31. As exciting as that is, it's a little freaky... we weren't expecting it to be so soon and we still have so much to do-pack up our apartment, buy blinds, refridgerator, washer, dryer, get homeowner's insurance... YIKE! So, we're super excited but at the same time it is a little overwhelming... this process has been so fun, though.

Front of house

Front of house...we have stucco!

Living room/entryway (front door is on the right...you can't see it)

Looking into the den/office from the dining room and living room.

Looking into the master bath

Bedroom (I think the master?)

Looking into the master bedroom and bath (bath is on the left)

YUMMY! Who wants a bath?

Looking from the kitchen into the family room.

Master bath...shower will be on left.

Our back door view...Estrella mountains are about five minutes away. The green thing is a park that's a block away.

Our kitchen..

Sunday, April 9, 2006

The most amazing tennis shot EVER...

For about two seconds I seriously was Lindsey Davenport...or so I thought. Last Sunday, at about 5:30 p.m. Tim and I decided to stop being lazy and go play tennis. We play tennis a lot at nights and on weekends when we have time and want to get a good workout. Well, last week, about ten minutes in, I had this idea in my head that I was Lindsey Davenport. Unfortunately, I forgot that I'm not nearly as conditioned as her. So, Tim hit this shot into the back right corner of my side... in the prior shot I was in the front left corner. I zoomed to the shot and I GOT IT BACK (see, Lindsey, I'm telling you-it was amazing. Tim was impressed until what happened next...)

Well, after I had run to get the shot, my foot kept running right even though my body and my head were moving back towards the left. So I completely rolled my foot and wiped out. I'm not kidding when I say that this is probably one of the top 3 worst pains I've ever felt in my life (it hurt so bad that I was ignorant to the fact that I wiped out and was lying on the court with all of these strangers looking at me like, "why the hell did she even go for that shot?")

After about 15 minutes of just writhing on the court on my back in pain, I decided I would try to stand up... I'm tough. Some pro football player (Donovan McNabb?) played with a broken leg for a whole game, I could keep playing recreational tennis with a sprain, right? Once I TRIED to stand up I realized that this was possibly the worst thought I've ever had. As soon as I stood up, I blacked out. Sweet.

After about 30 minutes of standing up, almost blacking out, and sitting back down, I decided we weren't going to finish our match. I wasn't so sure about one-legged tennis. Problem number two now comes into play: I decided that we should ride our bikes to the courts as an additional workout. Ugh. So I attempted the ride home with one foot... I made it but it hurt like (words I will censor) and it was slow going.

We went home, put ice on it, elevated it, etc. I decided it wasn't broken even though I couldn't stand on it. Brilliant.

The next day, I could sort of walk and managed to drive. It gradually got better over the week but during the course of the week it was about 3 times the size of my other foot and purple. And still killed. It's better now but it still hurts and is still sort of swollen and purple.

So, that's the story of the amazing tennis shot I got back. For the two seconds that I was Lindsey Davenport, the after affects were totally worth it... it really was an incredible shot!

Yikes!

The foot on the right looks like it could possibly explode...

Woah...one of the huge days.

The flash made it look better than it does... I guess that's good for my mom's sake.

For my three readers...

Does anyone know how irritating it is that the dry cleaners are not open on Sundays and that they are not open past 7 p.m. on weeknights?

We have new info on our house and I still have yet to post about my amazing tennis shot last week... will post more later.

Friday, April 7, 2006

SERIOUSLY

I know I've been kind of on and off on this thing for the past few months but does anyone even read it? I feel like my time might be better spent if I kept a journal...

And apparently some people have a problem with my cussing. I am truly sorry if I offend anyone. I censor what I write pretty well but if it bothers anyone, feel free to not read. I reserve the right to post anything I want to post and if anyone has a problem with it, I apologize in advance, but it's just me. I respect everyone's opinion and if you do have an issue, please let me know. But also know that I'm not going to be someone I'm not. People should be open minded and accept me for who I am. If something as trivial as cussing changes anyone's opinion of my character then they are people who I do not wish to associate with. I do not like to be judged and I try not to judge. Cussing is not a reflection of who I am. It is simply words that I use to express myself. I also drink. And I don't want kids. And I'm not entirely sure if I believe in god (although I do think there is a higher power). But if those are the worst things about me, I'd still say I have a lot of things going for me: I treat people well, I'm good at my job, I volunteer, I cry when something touches me, I'm a good friend, I laugh, I live life, I love animals, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt (sometimes I am too trusting). I will not drink, cuss, or discuss religious beliefs around anyone who I might offend. I will respect your values, beliefs, whatever but I require the same respect from anyone else. Just because I choose to do certain things does not make me a bad person.

Sunday, April 2, 2006

Today. is. April. 2.

And my question is: how the hell is it already April?

I got on the computer to balance the checkbook/spreadsheet thing that I use to keep track of our money. I've been neglecting it since the middle of March. I keep paying bills, transfering money to saving, and buying stuff... it's kind of exhilirating to not even care how much money I have and to do it anyway. Probably not the best tactic in the long run. I developed this huge spreadsheet in excel that breaks out expenses by month, that reconciles what I say our cash balance is to the bank, and that tracks our expenses on a daily basis. Probably a lot like Microsoft money but I feel so much cooler because it's my own invention. And it's color coded. Way cool, let me tell you. I totally am a nerd. Anyway, point is, I'm not balancing the checkbook. I hereby declare myself queen of procrastination.

Last night was fun...Tim and I went out with a group of people and had a blast. We met a few really nice people that I can't wait to hang out with again.

I am so sick of drama at work. I swear to god, every week there's some kind of new drama... I've been the subject of a couple of office gossip/rumors, myself. (That, I might mention, sort of got blown up into an unbelievable scope). Anyway, I lost a friend of mine at work yesterday (I guess not that good of a friend, apparently). I was told something in confidence a while ago (which, really, in my opinion shouldn't be that confident...he's getting screwed, if people knew about it, they'd have his back). Long story short, he emailed me again Friday with additional news about this thing, I was pissed off about it, and I reacted outloud. The girl I'm working with noticed, asked, and pressed for details. She reminds me so much of one of my friends back home that I told her (and the confidential thing is about work, so yes, that was STUPID). Oh, and did I mention that she is really close friends with this guy's girlfriend? Ugh. IDIOT. She has no loyalty to me to not tell him that I told her. So she will tell the girlfriend that I know, which will lead to problems in the relationship (why does Jenn know? why are you talking to Jenn?) and will then proceed to tell the guy not to talk to me because I can't be trusted. So, that really blows. I feel so terrible and guilty about it. But it's not like I told anyone else.... I told one of his friends. In a moment of weakness. I guess I feel so bad about it because that's something I try to never do. But I also guess that if he's not going to forgive me and be my friend then he was never really a friend anyway. It still totally sucks. And I feel so unbelievably terrible. I was so angry for him and I just needed to tell someone. I should have just called Tim. He has no attachments to the situation. So I feel awful. But really, I guess the dude was never really a friend anyway if he can just walk away and not care even though I was telling someone who was equally as angry and who equally had his back as much. I guess I betrayed his trust though, and apparently that can't be forgiven.

See what I mean? DRAMA. I am sick of feeling like I'm back in high school and there's all of these problems, these issues, gossip and crap. I just want to go to work, to be a good person, to be good at my job, to not piss anyone off, to get along with my co-workers and to just work. I am sick of this shit! MORAL OF THE STORY: don't start gossip and DO NOT redistribute gossip. It's stupid, it's petty, it's annoying, and it hurts people. And it ultimately causes you to lose friends. Do not get involved with gossip. It just flat out sucks.