A crazy, crazy week almost complicated even more by a burned down house fueled by massive clumps of cat hair

When we got home Monday night, we were pleasantly surprised to find that our oldest cat, Berkeley had survived a week on her own separated from Emerson with only a 20 minute check in from one of our friends. We expected this from her since she is the best cat in the world. On the other hand, our 10-month old kitten, Emerson did not deal with the separation/lack of human contact very well. I've mentioned before that she has had obsessive compulsive tendencies in the past...with pooping, with cleaning the litter box, with cleaning herself, with cleaning around her food, you name it and she's probably obsessive about it. She's a little weird. Anyway, apparently this week her obsessive compulsive trait happened to be licking herself until all hair disappeared. We arrived home to find massive, huge clumps of hair all. over. the. room. Like so much hair we had both hands full when we picked it up. It was enough to probably create a decent sized stuffed animal. Oh, and did I mention that the end of her tail is bare? Yeah, it was bad. So, she's since returned to normal now that her separation anxiety should be gone but from all the licking that we assume she did, whenever she licks now huge clumps of hair continue to fall out. And I see them on the floor and FREAK out because it looks like a giant rat is in my house, seriously.

As we are dealing with this issue, we are simultaneously trying to put back our house so that it is somewhat presentable since my favorite aunt and uncle are in town and Tim's family comes in tomorrow. Last night we tried to unpack, organize, do laundry, do dishes, buy food, and clean up the clumps of cat hair. On top of all of this, since my work schedule is completely whacked out this week (another story entirely), tonight we are getting together with my aunt and uncle, which means the house will continue to be a wreck when Tim's family arrives and there is nothing I can do about it. Which absolutely drives me crazy. Not necessarily because I want it to be clean for them (which I do) but also because I just want it to be clean and uncluttered...for me and for my sanity.

So last night was kind of crazy since I realized that it was the only night we had to get all of the crap done. Tim stopped at the grocery store on the way home and I met him there on my way home while he was in the middle of shopping to prevent the buying of only foods like chips, oreos, ice cream, etc. We got home at approximately 7:30 and realized we were starving. We decided we would be adventurous and make some tomato pasta stuff and put a loaf of bread in the oven. The thought being that while the pasta stuff and bread were cooking, we would be doing laundry, unpacking, and doing all of the other crap. So, we started the pasta and preheatecd the oven. 10 minutes later we smell something burning. The pasta was fine so we figured no big deal...just something on the burner. 10 minutes after that, we open the oven to put the bread in, and are greeted by a huge cloud of smoke and an empty pizza box that we had rashly stuffed in there last week in attempts to clean up our house before we left for KC. We rushed it to the sink and opened all windows to get rid of the fire smell... luckily, our fire alarms are shitty (for lack of a better word that could accurately describe how horrible they are) so they didn't go off.

Needless to say, our night was compounded by this as it was likewise with the massive clumps of hair that continue to appear. Good thing that we don't have a dry heat in our house... I think that Em is trying to shed hair as the basis of a fire just to get back at us for being gone. Now that would make the week somewhat more complex, wouldn't it?

Happy holidays!

Tim and I got home last night from Kansas City at approximately 11:30 p.m. MST, 12:30 p.m. in the central time zone that we'd become accustomed to over the past week. Getting home was a whole lot smoother than going. The whole trip was awesome, though.

We got in last Tuesday after sitting on the plane for an hour while the plane was 'mechanically inspected.' We're told the majority of the hour was spent trying to fill out paperwork, whatever that means. I guess I can't complain since I don't know what they are doing aside from trying to keep everyone safe. Even though we were about 1 1/2 hours late coming in, we still had the usual dozen cookies when we got to my parents house. A dozen cookies at 1 a.m. is a lovely thing, seriously...yummy.

Wednesday Tim and I spent the day beginning our Christmas shopping. It was a bit crazy but it helped us to get more into the 'Christmas spirit.' Thursday we met up with our GU friends. We saw J.P. and Jill, Jeff and Emily, Lee and Jenny, Andi and Johnny C., and Aaron A. and his new girlfriend. It was so good to see our friends. Friday morning we were able to meet up with more of our friends, the Johnsons: Travis and Rachel, Brad and June, Chelsea and Scott. Again, it was so awesome to see more of our friends. We miss them all so much!

On Friday, my grandparents also came into town. I haven't really seen them since the wedding so that was awesome. Then on Saturday, my other grandma, my aunt, uncle and cousins came over! On Christmas we were all together again which was great. Throughout the whole week, there were consistent card games, board games, ping pong games, and walks. Oh, yeah, and i ate so incredibly much. It was a perfect week at home.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has an equally wonderful New Year's!

62 going on 50

Today is my dad's 62nd birthday (Happy Birthday, Dad!!) I don't think he should mind that I'm telling the whole world his age. Most people would probably be genuinely shocked to learn that he is 62. The age that he would seem to be would be probably 10-12 years younger than he actually is. I hope that when I turn 62 I am still as young on the outside and inside as he is. He has good genetics, apparently. We just saw his parents (my grandparents) this week and they are 92 and 87 respectively and still going strong.

Anyway, I hope for him that this 62 year is the best so far. Love you, dad!

Time to fly!

Tim and I are leaving tonight for Kansas City. I took a half day at work so I could come home and get the cats and house together before we leave. We are leaving the cats home by themselves which may seem kind of mean but to put them in a kennel would have 1) traumatized them and 2) cost us $300. So, instead one of my friends from work is going to stop by and check on them in the middle of the week. We are still sort of paying him... we got him a pretty good sized gift certificate and a really nice bottle of wine. Not to the tune of $300 but enough to say that efforts are much appreciated. Anyway, I'm excited to go back home. I'm prepared to freeze my ass off but I can't wait to see my family and friends! Off we go...

As it usually happens

Every year I get all excited about sending out Christmas/Holiday cards. In the past I've always told myself that I am going to be ambitious and make my cards but I've since learned that that really never happens. So instead I go out and buy a TON of ridiculously expensive holiday cards that I only sort of like. I think I could totally make cuter ones...not as cute as Rachel's snowflake cards but still at least cute and not as generic.

No exception this year. I went out to Hallmark a few weeks ago and bought about 50 cards. I even printed off our wedding guest list for names and addresses of people I wanted to send them to. And I even individually emailed some people for their address.

I was going to make a Christmas letter to update everyone on Tim and my life. But that idea quickly got scrapped about 2 weeks ago when I realized that Christmas was only 2 weeks away and my Christmas card amibitions were slowly slipping away. So, I started writing individual messages on the cards. I got about 20 finished about a week ago. Then I totally lost all motivation. They have all been sitting in a bag in my car, which was moved to my kitchen table, which is now in the coat closet. At this point I think I am just going to scrap the idea altogether. It is almost Christmas and I really don't feel like sending them out this late in the game.

Maybe next year everyone will get Christmas cards from us. But I'm thinking that if that's going to happen I should possibly start the process a good six months before I need to send them out. For now, I will just add this years Christmas cards to the gigantic box I have of past year's Christmas cards that never made it to the mailbox.

Some progress at last!

We got a letter last week from our builder saying that our lot for our new house had been approved by the city. That was good news. It means basically that now they are ABLE to start building. Whether or not they do is a different question but at least they can.

Yesterday we drove by our neighborhood and were pumped up to see that they had imported port-a-potty's and there were curbs and sidewalks in the neighborhood. Today we decided to go back to take pictures of the sidewalks because we were so excited for at least that. Well, when we starting walking through the future neighborhood, we saw that on our street, on the end that our house will be on, the lots were marked off. So, needless to say we were even more excited because we are hoping that this means they will start framing relatively soon and maybe, just maybe, they will start from our side of the neighborhood first. We're hoping that it will be done in April but are still thinking that June could be the projected move in date. I guess we'll see! Here are some pics we took today...

Garage mark

Tim in our 'house'