Friday Bullets – 4th Edition

• This morning alone I had 8 spam comments for cialis & viagra – thank you so much for the information Mr., Ms., or Mrs. Spammer but I’m a WOMAN & not at all interested in those particular drugs.
• The husband was waiting at DMV to pick up his new license plates (and this is a post in itself for another day) and overheard a lady talking to her daughter – whose name just happened to be Desiree.
• Excited about my friend’s birthday party that is tomorrow night. We got my niece to watch the gremlins so we can go sans children to the party.  Drunkfest!
• I’m so tired of people complaining about our FREE, yes I said FREE, videos. Without ever having bought anything from us. They’re just complaining about the FREE video. You can go SUCKIT!
• SOMEONE brought donuts into the office today & before I had to control myself so as not to eat any of the donuts I found that another employee had eaten my favorite kind! Yes!! And I did thank him ever so much for eating it before I could get my paws on it.
• Filing paperwork is at the bottom of my list of favorite things to do. EVER.
• And I have a month & a half worth of papers to file. Oh, here let me show you!

Granted this stack (or my current papers to file) isn’t nearly as bad as the stack below (or my SIX months worth of papers to file) that I put off for oh, SIX months.

• Thankfully the antibiotics are doing their thang. I finally feel human again.
• I decided to wear earrings in the second holes on my ear lobe today after not wearing earrings there for 5+ years.
• I don’t know why I stopped wearing them but for some reason I felt like wearing them today.
• Actually had to go to Honey bunny’s room and steal borrow some small stud type earrings cause I have none anymore.
• Have officially begun the punch list of required records for our CPA for 2008. BLECH!

Well, that’s enough for now,

Ciao

My 3 Day experience was AWESOME pt 2

Alrighty, continuing on with my description of the 3 Day event. If you missed pt 1, then check it out here.  Let’s see now, I forgot to mention the blisters.  Yes, the blisters that I had on my feetz after walking (and not just walking for the 3 days, no, blisters that accumulated during the 5 months of training that would NEVER heal properly, probably because I was walking every other day & then SAT & SUN. 

Moving on, Day 2 began at 5:45am, I happened to wake up before my travel alarm clock went off.  But then again, I kinda didn’t sleep all that well.  I had some crazy dreams a couple of times through the night, woke up a half dozen times including the one time I woke up with my face in the side of the tent (that gave me a fright) so no, not the best night sleep all-in-all. 

Gonna skip all the boring stuff about me getting ready and jump forward to the point when we left camp for the day at nearly 8 am, in fact, the staff was starting to chase all the walkers out of camp with threats of being transported by bus to the first pit stop.  We were scheduled to walk over 22 miles.  We got to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge!  I’ve never done this before.  Amazingly.  The thing is a little over an hour away and I’ve never walked it before.  Born & raised here and never walked the bridge.  So here was my chance!  It was spectacular.  The weather, btw, was perfect on Friday and Saturday.  No fog, no real wind, just sunny blue skies.  We walked all through Sausalito & Mill Valley.  Charming, charming areas.  Ooooh, and hottt biker guys IN LEATHER!  That reminds me, I have to figure out who took the picture of me & Merry Jo with the biker guy so I can see how it turned out.  Heehee.  I will say that walking through Mill Valley was tough only because the temp. was much higher over there.  Like in the high 90’s.  And part of the the area we walked was wetland trails… NO SHADE whatsoever.  We basically fried during that whole section of the route.

After what seemed like two days, we finally made it to the lunch stop.  At this point, two of the girls had already been transported from one pit stop to the lunch stop.  Their injuries preventing them from walking the whole route.  We took a whole hour to eat & recover before changing our socks, shoes, band-aids, blister pads, 2nd skin, moleskin, sports tape, you name it we were using it, and getting back on the course to camp.  Yeah, it was tough.  We agreed that we’d go to the next pit stop then decide if anyone needed transport back to camp.  Once we got to that stop we’d decide if we could keep going.  I knew in my heart that barring any REAL injury, I was going to walk the WHOLE DAGGUM thing.  Luckily, my teammate/tentmate was on the same page as me!  So two pit stops later, it was down to 4 of us.  We made it back through Sausalito, we made it through the pit stop at the base of the Golden Gate, and we made it over the bridge.  I have to tell you that the two miles of bridge began to stretch out before me like that hallway did in the movie Poltergeist.  Do you remember that?  It just seemed to get longer and longer, like it would never end!!!!  Yeah, the bridge did the same thing to me.  I think at one point I got a little hysterical when the damn thing kept going and going.

Anyway, we got to nearly 1 mile from camp & two of the girls decided that they’d had enough.  So one of the vans took them back.  It was down to Stacy & I.  We walked it all.  As we got to the camp, two of our teammates were sitting on the side of the path waiting for us to come by!  They took pictures of us, they cheered us.  It was sweet.  It was also almost 7:00 pm!  What a day.  I could tell that I was going to have some real issues after that day.  Not just blisters but because I was walking to protect the blisters, I began to have pain in my right calf.  Speaking of blisters, I had to have one drained.  I know it’s yucky but it was necessary.

I sure did’t have any trouble sleeping this night!  Let me tell you.  I fell asleep, slept through the whole night, and barely woke-up when my alarm clock went off at 5am.  I’ll continue on with this again later… for Day 3 and the Closing Ceremony! 

Ciao

Note to my 16yr old self

Hey D,

It’s me.  Just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to cry about not seeing George Michael in concert.  When you’re 37yrs old, you’ll get to see him perform.   And what a show it will be!  The stage, amazing, technologically so far advanced you wouldn’t believe me.  Just trust me, it will be phenomenal.  Plus, he has still got it after all these years!!  In fact, he’s probably better.  Sexy, check. Voice, check.  Boody shakin, check, check.     

So dry your tears, you’ll get a chance to see him; you’ll drool, sing, dance, and laugh with your friends about how silly you can still be… even in your 30’s. 

It’ll be all right darling.  Just go on & remember that you’ll see him eventually. 

Now if I could just tell you that you’ll see Duran Duran, then everything would be perfect.  Maybe another time. 

Love ya,
D

P.S.  Word of advice… maybe you should – you know what, never mind, just do what you’re gonna do.  Lessons learned. 

And now we bring you

More on the saga of our house for sale.  It is now month number 9.  Hey perhaps this will be like pregnancy but instead of giving birth to a child, we will sell our house!!  God willing.  We managed to survive Christmas and New Year with the house ready for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to come tramping through.  I somehow kept the house looking like a show piece despite the massive amounts of wrapping paper, ribbons, tie wraps, plastic packaging, and loads of new toys.  The day after Christmas our house looked like it had vomited colored bows, torn bits of paper, and random utensils and plates from the 1,000 piece Tea set my evil  wonderful sister got Pumpkin for a gift.  Ordinarily, it would have taken me weeks to get that mess cleaned up.  This year, I didn’t have weeks, I had a ~as in ONE~ day to get it back to Open House status. 

Believe it or not, there was actually a call from a realtor who wanted to show the house the day after Christmas.  I suppose we could have said no.  But we are trying to sell the house.  So we got it ready for them…  Yeah… they didn’t show up.  Big *f-in* surprise.  Gggrrrr.   

I have just finally agreed with the Husband to stop obsessively cleaning the house on the “possibility” that someone might be coming by to view the house.  Yes, it’s been 9 months and I am so incredibly tired of the constant cleaning.  So we decided that we would bring the lockbox in the house & make all agents call to schedule an appointment before they just show up with their clients.  One agent actually called & said, “we’re outside your house, can you come up and let us in?”  Hmmm, let me think about that…. “No”.  For goodness sake, make an appointment and give us a little tiny bit of notice.  That way the house looks presentable for you, not as if a twister had just blown through.  So no, a minute notice is not enough, but perhaps a days notice??!!  Or at the very least a half an hour notice?

Basically, moving the lock box inside frees me up tremendously.  It means that I don’t have to flip out over every toy Pumpkin drags out of her room to play with in the morning, cause I DON’T HAVE TO CLEAN IT UP BEFORE I leave the house!!  I don’t have to make three beds before I leave the house!  I don’t have to wash every dish before I leave the house!!  You have no idea what a relief it is.  Plus, I’m not constantly yelling at the children not to make a mess.  This is better for my mommy self-image, my mental health, and the gremlins mental health.  And you know, when you really think about, what I consider a mess, to them is just being creative children at play having fun. 

So we came to the conclussion, after reviewing data on the market and discussing the absolute least amount we could accept ~and still have money left for a downpayment on a new house~ that we should reduce the sale price.  This is the second time that we are dropping the price.  Believe me when I say that it makes me want to be sick when I think about how much money we are potentially leaving with this house.  I don’t want to go into the details since I don’t feel up for vomitting right now… suffice it to say that we will barely have enough left to make a minimum downpayment on another house.  And the housing prices here are still ridiculously high even on a simple single family home.  I try not to think about this overly much since it’s fairly depressing.  It is what it is.  I just need to learn to deal with the reality of the situation as it is now.  However, on the upside, once we reduced the price we had about 150 views per day of the virtual tour which was up by almost 100 pre-reduction.  More traffic viewing the house means more chances of the house selling.

********************

So, yesterday we had two agents bring their clients over to see the house.  One agent was bringing the second half of a couple to view.  This could be promising.  If the wife saw the house first and now wants her husband to see the house, then we might have a potential offer.  However, if it was the husband that saw the house first and now wants his wife to see it, then it probably won’t go anywhere.  Reason being, the wife almost always makes the decision about which house they will live in… think about it, you know this is true.  The husband may set the price limit but the wife will ultimately decide which house will be most comfortable for her family.  The other agent has never been out to the house before so his clients are really a long shot.  I sent all the info to our agent last night for him to follow-up.  We shall see if anything comes of this.  I try not to get my hopes up since it has been so long already without any offers.  I’m just going with the flow, what will be will be, and all those other corny expressions.

Enough for now,

Ciao 

Valentine’s Day 2008

 

Ahhh, the love.  Can you feel it in the air today?  I can.  I can see it all around me too.  Lots of heart balloons, colorful flowers in delightful bouquets, and candy being sold by the boatload today.  As I passed a vacant lot today there was two different people setting up their booths overflowing with flowers and balloons.  I can hear it too.  People are being so pleasant to each other.  Calling out wishes to each other for a “Happy Valentine’s Day”!  I think it’s wonderful that we can do this, but I wish the happiness and amiability would extend beyond this one day. 

If only we could remember to be this nice to each other on every other day of the year.  Don’t get me wrong, anytime we can be nicer to each other is a good thing.  Even if this is a completely manufactured holiday (as are most of the holidays we celebrate), does it really matter?  Spread love, Be love, Receive love.  We’d probably be better humans if we all lived by this credo.  Sadly, we rarely share love with everyone.  Even more sadly, many people don’t know how to receive love.  Like we don’t deserve to receive the love that is being freely given to us.  Go compliment someone today.  You’ll find out quickly what I mean.  And frankly, I think there are only a dozen people alive in this world who know how to Be love. 

We teach our children how to speak, how to walk, how to write, etc., etc., but do we really teach them how to love?  Give it freely and receive it graciously?  I think not.  Mostly we expect that they will just understand it from the way we are with them, our spouse, our extended family, and other close friends.  Now, I know that many children are unconditionally loving without needing to be taught.  When they are 1, 2, 3 yrs old you see this daily.  With the hugs and kisses they bestow without restraint.  It goes away though in just a few short years.  By the time they are 8, 9, 10 yrs old they realize that Mom and Dad aren’t always right or perfect.  Then by the time they are teenagers, forget it, we parents are absolute morons and total embarrassments.  Well, I could go on ad nauseam with that topic but that will have to be a discussion for another day.  Let me get back to love.  It’s at this point in time when the love lessons will really pay off.  The teenagers might be tolerable until they reach their 20’s.  At which point they become normal humans again.

So, anyway, today is a special day.  And as with almost all of our other holidays, has lost all it original meaning.  In fact, if you asked me to explain to you the original reason Valentine’s day became a holiday, I’d tell you to go google it because I have no bloody idea.  Is it a sign of the commercialism of our country?  Unequivocally, yes.  We celebrate holidays by buying things for each other without even realizing why.  Except that’s what we are being told to do.  Another topic of discussion for a different day.

My feeling is that any day we can be more loving, caring, pleasant, or helpful to each other is a great day.  We need to have more days just like this….

Enough for now,

Ciao 

P.S. The husband got me a dozen red roses, as is required by law.  Just kidding.  He did it because he loves me and I deserve to receive love!           

Bone weary tired

I almost hate to ask if it’s possible to be any more tired than I am right now.  And it’s not just the ‘I haven’t been sleeping well the last couple of days’ kind of tired.  It’s more like ‘I haven’t slept well in 8 yrs (due to the two gremlins we affectionately call children never sleeping at normal intervals) and now I’m worry about not getting the house sold, the business being slow, the husband having a breakdown from stress, Pumpkin having screaming crying fits for no apparent reason, and Honey bunny whining about *whatever* topic of the day’ kind of tired.  The feeling of being so tired that you ache ALL THE WAY DOWN to your bones.  I feel like I could sleep non-stop for a week and then maybe, just maybe, possibly I might feel as if I’ve gotten enough sleep.

Add to the above: sneezing, stuffy nose, sinus headache and I’m in GREAT shape!  Lets go get a flu shot!  *Brilliant!*  I scheduled the girls & I to get flu shots today not knowing in advance ~cause I’m not psychic & I don’t have any friends that are part of the psychic network~ that I would be getting s__… (no, no, I won’t say it, I’m not going to say it, then maybe it won’t happen).

The two black eyes ~and before you ask, no it’s not cause the husband & I have been boxing~ that I have from stress and/or lack of adequate sleep levels, which are now part of my every day look, help in my overall appearance of “health”.  Thankfully I don’t have matched luggage to go with the black circles perpetually stationed under my eyes… hey, we’ve go to remember to be thankful!  That was my effort for the day.  I’m thankful that I don’t have bags on bags hanging from my undereyes.  Hold on… here. comes. a. sneeeezzze.  These are the times that make me happy to be alive.

Blah! 

You know what, I’ll get *plenty* of sleep when I’m DEAD.  Why waste all that precious time now?!  I’ve got things to do!

Enough for now (I gotta go blow my nose anyway),

Ciao

I get to see (part 2)

So we went to the Justin Timberlake concert on Sunday night and it was freakin’ AMAZING!!!!  Yeah we saw him in concert before, but that just doesn’t even matter.  This show was different than the one we saw in Fresno.  Different order of songs, dances, costumes, even some of the players were different. 

I have posted pictures and more about the concert here.  So go read it, now. 

Ciao

I get to see…

Justin Timberlake in concert tonight!!!!  OH YEAH!!!!!  And we have VIP Lounge tickets which means that we will be right at the stage!!!!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!  If you are wondering whether I am excited or not, then just check out the number of exclamation points used so far, that should be some kind of indication.  ***Writer’s note: My apologies to those of you reading that have a problem with excessive use of the exclamation point.

OK, where to start?  One of the girls in our office & her sister went to see Justin Timberlake (aka my mid-life crisis sex toy ~ all right maybe not in reality but definitely in my fantasies!) back in January of this year.  They had a blast & showed us the pictures (I know, they weren’t supposed to bring cameras in but everyone does it, in fact we did it too, and you’ll see those pics below) and told us how fantastic the show was.  He danced and sang like a 2o-somethin’ hottie should. 

Now, the reason that I wasn’t at that show was due in part to my need to pack for a business trip that the husband & I were taking to Las Vegas for CES, which we were leaving for the night after the concert.  But, as soon as we heard how excellent the show was, we immediately decided that we needed to find out where and when he was playing next.  As it turned out, he was playing the very next week in Fresno ~Fresno, nobody goes to Fresno anymore~ and we could still get tickets.  ”Amazingly” enough.  And, not just any tickets, but VIP Lounge tickets which would put us directly at the stage!!  Take that all you people sitting in the nose bleed sections. 

Just so I can brag a little more, here is a picture taken at the Fresno show:
 We were all reaching for his shoes & pants (or any part we could reach!) like the ridiculous teenagers around us, while screaming out his name.   

and here is another one:
 There is just something about being this close to a guy who is so hot, can dance, and sing like nobody’s business.  The energy at the show was super high.  We were screaming right along with the other thousands of screaming teenagers.  Yeah, I know, it’s silly.  I mean we’re “adults”, right?  Ah, who cares!  It was too much fun!!!

The show was originally supposed to be on Sept. 12th.  However, the VMA’s were in Las Vegas this year on Sunday Sept 9th… and Mr. Justin Timberlake was performing and also receiving awards.  Some say that he “may” have “over-indulged” while in Las Vegas.   Like this reporter. But then again it could be truly as the AP reports it.  I’m sure it was more along the lines of TOO MUCH PARTYING! 

Anyhoo, so now we are going to see him TONIGHT!!!  Just a small delay in pleasure.  Helps build up the excitement.  And now it’s CONCERT TIME!  We have a limo driving us to the venue so we’ll be doin’ a little bit of partying ourselves on the way.

OK, enough for now.  I’ll post something in a day or two with some pics & tell ya’ll how PHENOMENAL the show was.

Ciao

Girl’s night, drunk night (Part 2)

 

Well, now that I am fully recovered from this event, I am ready to fill you in on the night.  This is not to say that I was overly wasted.  In fact, I think we were all pretty reserved on our level of alcohol intake.  There have been many occasions when we drank much more.  Thankfully #17 did not happen.  See part 1 so you know what I’m talking about.  I’ll wait…

…ok you’re back? Good, moving on, I did still manage to have a mini headache the entire next day, despite taking a couple extra strength Tylenol.

Since we had to drive about an hour to get to A’s house, four of us carpooled, I drove the husband’s car (which was a treat in itself since I hardly ever get to drive it & it’s a BMW & it drives really fast!  Weeeeeee!  So, lets say that you’re going oh, I don’t know, 90 mph but you feel like you’re going 35 mph ~ that’s how smooth it drives.) 

Anyway, we got a great start on the chatting.  That’s the thing about friends, you can talk & laugh & listen to music, and make an hour long drive feel like minutes.  By the time we got to the house it was after 7:30pm.  A had made a huge batch of spaghetti sauce from scratch (who has the time to do this anymore?  well, she doesn’t have children yet, so that must explain it.) and the effort was very much appreciated because the sauce was delicious.  We didn’t end up eating until after 9pm, which was fine, but generally, at home, we eat much earlier (you know, we have children and we’re trying to set a good example by eating as a family and all that which means that we eat at 6:00pm or thereabouts).  It was undeniably delightful eating that late, I felt a bit like a grown up.  (Side note: Isn’t that silly?  I am a grown up.  At least I’m pretty sure that being 36 yrs old with two children makes me a grown up.)

Yes, we drank.  I saw an ad in a magazine that Smirnoff makes a pre-mixed Cosmopolitan available in a very large bottle.  It was most excellent.  I will be getting that again in the near future.  I think I drank about a quarter of the bottle and a couple of the girls drank the other quarter.  In addition to the champagne that was consumed ~probably three bottles.  Oh, yeah and I think there was a few gin & tonics served. 

Yes, we snacked.  Chips & 7 layer black bean dip.  Cheddar cheese Ruffles.  W brought two bags of chocolate covered pretels, YUMMY!  Opps, I forgot!  For dessert we had this ooey gooey pumpkin cake that V made.  Good stuff.

Yes, we drank some more.  And yes, we most definately talked & laughed our guts out.  I can’t recall what most of the conversations were, but I do remember laughing till my stomach hurt.  Plus, in the morning, A made some kind of croissant french toast casserole stuff that you bake & serve with syrup.  Très délicieux!

All in all, it was a fairly mellow night full of great food, even better friends, lots of laughs, and much drinking.  What could be better?!!  I do have to say that the only thing missing, was two of our dear friends, who were unable to make it to the party.  They were certainly missed!  It just means that we’ll have to do another girl’s night, like immediately.

Enough for now,

Ciao 

Girl’s night, drunk night

Oh, yeah!  It’s girl’s night!  I am so excited!!!  I think I can probably use a few more exclamation marks!!!!

After we went to movie night, a few weeks back, see my movie review, we went to a little bar by the theater and got a drink.  It was mentioned that we should have another girl’s night.  One of the girl’s boyfriend was gonna be out of town for about 4 days.  This makes their place an ideal location to hold “Girl’s night, drunk night/sleepover party” & we picked tonight! 

So after multiple emails between the 8 of us we decide we’re gonna:

1. eat
2. maybe go to a bar
3. drink
4. eat some snacks
5. drink
6. laugh our guts out
7. watch a movie
8. play some cards 
9. drink
10. watch a movie
11. eat more snacks
12. drink again
13. drink more
14. LAUGH our ASSES off
15. eat again
16. drink some more
17. possibly throw up

Probably not in that specific order.  And hopefully not #17, but we shall see.  In fact, I will continue this blog in a part 2 with all the details of the night.

I wish I could say that we are going to be all intellectual while daintily sipping our cocktails and discuss important world issues but I can’t and we won’t.  We all have jobs and most of us have kids so when we get a chance to let loose, you better watch out.

All right, I gotta go start packing.  Aahhhhh, I’m so excited!!  I can’t wait!

Ciao