Saturday, June 10, 2006

A conglomeration of random photos that I promised...

Some are really dated...IE: the Scottsdale Culinary festival photos (this event occured in May). Most of the people in the photos are friends of mine that I met through work, just as an FYI. Anyway, it's a random spread of sort of current events...and proof that we have managed to be social and make some friends in Arizona. ;) Enjoy!

Kim & I at the Scottsdale Culinary festival.

Really old picture- the culinary festival back in May, I think... Me, Tim, Andy, and Jaimi

Me & Melissa... I took this picture- great shot, huh? (At Mickey's last night-June 9)

Me, Jaimi, Kim last night at Mickey's in Old Towne.

Me & Kim- last week June 2. How adorable is she? Did I mention she's the best?

Me, Kim & Jaimi last week at Dos Gringos in Old Towne Scottsdale.

Pamela, me, Jaimi last night. Seriously, how cute are we?

Jaimi, Michael & I (Ok, Poll: who thinks Michael looks like J.P. Roberts??)

Me & the norway brothers-Anders & Baard-pronounced "Board" (literally, they're from Norway). I'm so sad because Baard accepted a new job in Atlanta and his last day is this friday... and I'll be in KC so I'll miss his going away party... I'm going to just plain out miss him...

Me, Kelly, and Kim last night at Mickey's in Old Towne... I love them...

Jaimi & I last night at Mickey's (we're the midwesterners-she's from Wisconsin).

Kelly T. & I. June 9. (She's a midwest girl, too- from Chicago). She is totally the best...

Pamela & I... I actually just met Pamela a few days ago. She works in the Scottsdale office of our firm (I work in the Tempe office). But we get along really well...she's super nice.

Kind of a joke shot-they told us to be funny and this is what we came up with. Hilarious, no? These are my friends Mike & Ryan (left to right) last night at Mickey's in Old Towne.

My friend, Kelly, and I sharing a cookie thing- last night (June 9). She and I share the same sweet tooth and let me tell you, this thing was fan-freakin-tastic!

My friends from work- Kim, Melissa, Pamela

Our kitchen of our new house (the only completely finished room).

Our kitchen from a different angle

Our desk area in our kitchen looking into the family room

The day of June 8

I truly believe there was something funky happening on June 8. I don't have many bad, crazy days but Thursday was one of those days... Here's a couple of highlights:

1) Computer problems... I'm working on a client that I have a tight deadline on. Basically what I'm doing is creating a report that consolidates the general ledger/trial balances of several entities. It's the report where I do all of my work on. On Thursday, this report decides to go absolutely haywire. So, we do all we know how to do to fix it... we get the IT people involved, we regenerate the report-nothing works. Then I call the software technical support (an external company). They recreate a new report for me and fix several problems on my computer. So I'm thinking, "Perfect, I should be good to go!" So in addition to the 3 hours I've spent getting to a point where I think the report is fixed, after this I spend another 3 re-doing my work on the new report, doing periodical checks to make sure it is working, etc. I finish and it appears to be working. Then, I hit save one last time before I close it. It completely screws up again- I'm talking arrows all over the page, duplicate accounts (not a good thing when you're going for accurate account balances), complete chaos. I was almost in tears-that's how frustrated I was. So then I call the technical support back and tell them I'm going to email them a whole package and that they basically need to get their shit together and figure out is going on... As of today (Saturday) I still haven't heard back. And did I mention that we're on a tight deadline, here? As in, I have two days until it has to be met. Ugh.
2) Right after this report continued to be completely jacked, Tim calls and asks "Have you ever had any problems with getting the key into the ignition of the Focus?" Ummm... nope. He went to lunch with a co-worker and when they came out they couldn't get the key into the ignition. They finally managed to get it in but then it wouldn't turn. They had three people working on getting it in. And it wouldn't go. So, the drama begins. We just got AAA (thank GOD!) and so we called to get the car towed to the dealer (did I mention that the Focus had just hit 100,000 miles that morning... so naturally a problem occurs after the century mark). The tow truck was called at about 2 p.m. The car wasn't towed until about 10 p.m. (A mess in itself). So, I left the office at about 5 pm (after realizing that a bunch of additional things in my report were screwy and realizing that the day would end right then) and picked up Tim. We went to the gym and felt great. Once we got home, he dropped his phone. And even though he's dropped it about 500 times, this time it basically shattered and is not really usable. Oh, and it's the phone by which the tow truck people are trying to call us. Anyway, I guess it all worked out in the end... the ignition was jacked up so it cost $250 to fix it and we're getting Tim a new phone tomorrow... really, the whole thing was just comical...
3) Other random things happened to us (that aren't worth writing about) and to several of my friends on Thursday (including breakups, resignations of people) that seemed crazy in the 'normal' scheme of things...

So, anyway, June 8, dudes. Let me tell you... watch out next year. Tim and I were talking on Friday June 9 about how we were so glad that the previous day was over. Yeah, it was that weird. At least we were able to laugh about it...

Saturday, June 3, 2006

MIA- I know, I know

Things have been pretty crazy lately.... I promise I will post in more detail later (pictures included!) Here are some highlights to suffice everyone's growing curiousity, at least for the moment:
1) We are IN! (To our new house, that is). Hooray!! We took friday off last week and spent what was our 4-day memorial day weekend moving into our house. Actually, friday we spent all day walking through our house with contractors, signing our life away and finishing packing our apartment.
-Tim's family joined us in the move-in process. I am completely positive that we would have been absolutely beyond screwed without their help. We are so ignorant... we thought we could just round up a couple of our guy friends and spend a few hours getting stuff moved in. Well, with Tim's family's help (that's 6 of us working, folks- and non-stop at that) we spent 3 straight days moving, unpacking, installing stuff (ask Tim about his speakers...), buying stuff (refridgerator, washer, dryer, lawnmower, grill, furniture, etc), and cleaning the old apartment. At work on Tuesday I literally was falling asleep at my desk. On the plus side, I worked so hard that I lost three pounds last weekend... Interesting, but I'll take it...
-Anyway, we are mostly in now. We're living in a fishbowl... we have no blinds. We ordered custom made blinds and shutters and we're crossing our fingers that they'll arrive this week. The only bad thing we've found about this is that it gets light in the summer in Arizona aroudn 4:45-5:00 a.m... and we're talking BRIGHT. So, we've had some early mornings.
-Our formal dining room, formal sitting room, and two guest bedrooms are basically completely empty. But the kitchen, family room, bathrooms, and master bedroom look amazing... (pictures to come later...)
2) Aside from the house (which, by the way, why did no one inform me of how much work being a homeowner is? It took me a couple of days to adjust...) we've been busy working. I'm slightly confused by the fact that my busy season has 'officially' ended but I'm still busy... it's a total phenomenon. I'm only working 40-45 hour weeks (because, hello, busy season is OVER... no more long hours for me) but I really have about 50-55 hour weeks in terms of the work I have. So this weekend I have to spend some time catching up...
3) In a few weeks, I'm getting ready to go back to KC for a couple of weddings- Wish's and Chelsea's... I can't wait. I finally got my dress fitted for Wish's and I'm glad to say that my well-being is no longer in danger as a result. (As a side note, I was actually starting to get worried at the procrastination I exhibited on the alterations... it was unlike any other procrastination I've ever experienced, well, maybe not...)
4) I just met a neighbor that lives across the street from me... she seems really nice... We have a very diverse neighborhood, which I love. The people across the street are Asian (she needed a lighter for candle-she said in their culture they say a prayer and have a little ceremony before they actually move in), the people next door to them are African American (I think...), the people next door to us are white, and on the other side they are hispanic. It's really very cool... I think we are probably one of the only people on the street without kids, too, by the way... it's pretty neat that everyone is so young...
5) I have some pretty great pictures of my night last night... I went out with a bunch of work people... Fun times... I'll post pictures of that, too, when I have a chance...
6) It's 113 degrees here today. We broke a record. But amazingly, it doesn't feel as hot as it did last year when it was 120... apparently we've adjusted to the climate...

Anyway, I can't think of much else going on... right now Tim is yelling at the dumb Sprint people who keep screwing up our bill. That could be an interesting story later judging by what I've heard him say so far...

Oh, and as a last thought, I really hate it when you discover that someone isn't who you really think they are. It just makes me really sad. And I really despise gossiping. I'm getting sick of dealing with both... But oh well...

I can't promise I will be better at posting but I can promise I'll try... my work schedule is continuing to look insane and a lot is going on... so I might still be MIA for a while, but I'm going to try to do better... I know I've had some funny stories in the past few months but by the time I get around to posting, all I can do is a generic, rambling post. (Yes, like this one... I know)...