Amarantine

The in-laws purchased a porch swing for my birthday. We finally got it up last weekend and as of this past Thursday, it is painted and usable. Yesterday morning we got up to just go sit on it. It was a little muggy and drizzling, but we sat out there anyway. And read our mail. And listed to the hundreds of migrating birds chirp as they took a break in our neighborhood trees. And just were.

While driving around today we noticed that people really go all out (some of the neighbors, anyway) for Halloween. I can't wait to see everything lit up at night!

We saw Where the Wilde Things Are yesterday. Not really what I expected, and at parts I really just wanted it to be over because the fighting was too intense I thought for kids to be watching. That and the child behind me kept kicking my seat. I was reminded first hand why we don't go see movies and just NetFlix everything. One, no kids or other distractions from people you don't know. Two. If you don't like the movie you didn't just drive across town to see a movie, in the rain, and it doesn't coast the same as lunch did to see the movie.
I love going to movies, don't get me wrong. I just realized why we don't do it as much.
Totally excited about the Christmas Story in 3D.
I make it a point not to read anything about a movie, if i can help it, before I go see it.

Also this weekend, I was so happy that the husband put down the models for a few hours and we just got to be us again. It was a wonderful weekend. Even though I still haven't been able to make the banana nut muffins yet...stupid buttermilk that all stores in Raleigh seem to be out of today...

For NaNoWirMo, I am going to attack this in a whole different way this year. One reason I am abandoning my former idea was not enough time to put in the research i really wanted to, and because if i have learned nothing else this year it is to do things now, not to wait until tomorrow, or next year. You on;y live once, so have fun :)

No for some pizza and ice cream. Hey, i worked on the bowflex for an hour today, I've earned it!

Been thinking about taking night classes, or one night class, just to get my brain thinking. The thing I hate most about my job is that there is no challenge, nothing to make me really think. That every day it's the same thing, over and over. And, unfortunately, there are not jobs available, no promotions for me like I had hoped a year ago when applying for this job. I do realize this is most jobs. I realize I can't complain. I have a job and a paycheck and did get a promotion in May to full time. At the same time however, I am ready to move on to a new department.

Went to visit my friends at the Kennel last night. Oh, I miss the dogs and talking to Laura, my awesome former boss. Annabell, a white boxer, remembered me! Her grandmother was picking her up from daycare when I got there and I was like, "Annabell!" and she ran over to me and liked my legs. Aww, I miss working with the dogs.

This week I was able to get up with the sun and worked out three different days. A much improvement from recent times. Now is the time to work even harder to work off the weight gain from the move and the extra pounds I was not able to lose before the move. If only losing weight and being healthy was as easy at gaining it and feeling unhealthy.

The husband and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary two nights this week. The actual date of the wedding was August 5th at Camp Ottair, by campfire with our closest friends and family there, minus two people. That was a Friday night, the first Friday night in August and the camp's last camp fire of the season. If you ask us what our wedding date is you will receive many different answers. I would say August 5th. Jeff would say the first Friday in August. He thought it would be nice to think of our anniversary as a holiday that doesn't fall on the same day each year, like Thanksgiving or Easter. Well, this year, camp's last camp fire was the last Friday in July. Jeff was like, we missed it! We missed our anniversary. ON the last Friday in July, we went and saw Harry Potter in 3D and IMAX and had dinner downtown with old friends, so I guess that was a pretty nice date to celebrate.
Also, if you ask some friends and family, they will say our wedding date was August 26, the day of the big party where we dressed up and pretended to get married.

So, we went out to dinner at the Macaroni Grill on the 5th to celebrate. Last night, being the date Jeff likes to celebrate, we went out to dinner at BW3s and then came home to watch more Scrubs. There were no gifts distributed because Jeff's birthday gift was so big it doubled as a birthday and anniversary gift and he says mine will be equally as nice, but will be receiving the joint gift on my birthday.

So, on with the happenings of the day. There will be drinking of beers at the house tonight!

I had a weekend! To those of you out there that work on the weekends, you know what it means when you actually get one off. For the past 2 years I have worked weekends at dog kennels. While I love the dogs and miss them dearly, I do not miss getting bitten, peed on, scratched, or being surprised about the amount of animal abuse out there. My last day at the kennel down here in Raleigh was just a month ago and this weekend I finally was able to enjoy two days off.

Friday night an old friend of the husbands came to town and we met his sister and her boyfriend downtown for dinner at the Busy Bee cafe (which was wonderful) and then saw Harry Potter in 3D and IMAX. After thinking about the movie for the past two days, I am still going to say that I enjoyed it for what it was. The humor was not expected because the book is so dark, but i enjoyed it nonetheless. Megan ruined the end for me the day before I saw and said the the funeral was left out, but I still cried when the wizard died. I think by now the movie makers believe that if you are going to see the move you have read the books and they can leave out parts without explanations and add in scenes and comedy for your enjoyment. Movie goers should know what is going on. I do feel sorry for those who have not read or listed to these books by tape/CD. I still think Rowing is a genius for reaching so many ages.

Saturday morning we woke to find a tire was flat in the Civic. Bummer... We switched the cars in the driveway and went to Cici's for lunch. On the way to the restaurant conversation was about Karma (the car thing...never mind here, not going to explain) but we decided that it was good that the flat was in the driveway and not on the was home from the movie the night before. We think we picked up the screw that was in the tire in the parking garage downton. On the way back home from lunch the discussion was Magic and what cards each of the boys still had and which decks were still built. Once at home I decided to make myself scares so husband and his friend could have time together to catch up (and look through magic cards). I ended up falling asleep and didn't get to say goodbye. However, I got to take a nap because I could. Not because I was so tired from working at the kennel I had to sleep or I wouldn't be able to function at my office job.

Saturday night the SCRUBS marathon continued. We are now on season 2 and the laughs keep coming. It took us about 5 months to Netflix our way though the Frasier seasons. We are wondering how long it will take us to finish Scrubs...and still watch other movies as well. We also have the ER seasons in the Q as well as Farscape...if they would only remake and resell the first season the husband and I would be happy to start watching those...

This morning, we skipped church and got up to change the tire. Tire and car went to NTB where we left the Civic in the hands of the good people there to be patched as we were off to WalMart to buy lawn furniture. We were successful and got the set we wanted on sale, yeah for me and my knowing to wait until the end of summer for things to go on sale and not buy them when they are fresh out on display and begging to go home with you. After WalMart we came back home to A, unload the car of lawn furniture and B, for me to change clothes because while Jeff paid for our new furniture, I ran in the pouring rain to bring the car to the door to load it. After I was dry, we went to Arbys for lunch, picked up the newly patched tire and went to Target to get the grocery shopping over with. I am really hoping that now that the house moving is over and the kitchen and eating areas are functional, we will stop this eating out phase.

We have been keeping tally of how many car trips (ie, loads of stuff we cram into our Honda Civic and Honda Accord because we are moving) and the number broke 20 this past weekend. Actually, I haven't been keeping count, just placing the tally marks on the calender, so it may have have already reached the 20 trip mark before this weekend. We are out of the rented house almost completely. That is a great feeling. The only items left are the cleaning supplies, Christmas dishes we haven't moved yet, a pack of light bulbs, a hammer and screwdriver, and the food in the fridge that still needs to be thrown away.

Four hours was put into scrubbing the walls with the wonderful magic erasers, vacuuming all rooms but the art office and the hallway, and all the windows have been cleaned. More could have been completed last night, but I came across something when cleaning the art office that had me go running to my phone, calling the hubby and telling him not to hang up until I was in the car. From there I grabbed my purse, work clothes and my Hollins mirror and made a dash for the car.

Of course, he kept asking me what was wrong and I'm sure nothing made since at the time, but the window in the art office was unlocked and partially open, which scared the absolute poo out of me.

I am home safe. But I am going to tell the land lord that I'm perfectly fine with them showing the house to new prospective renters, but they could have the decency to lock the windows back, especially when we still had belongings in the house and were still there cleaning and move out miscellaneous items. I don't care what kind of neighborhood you live in, good or bad, finding an unlocked and open window at 10 PM is not a good feeling. Especially when all you have is a bottle of Windex to defend yourself with.

Tonight, we will go back and finish scrubbing the walls, mopping, cleaning the carpet and getting out of that house.

Another weekend at the lake with the family has come to an end. This year, the only "issues" were sleeping arrangements, the air conditioning that would not set a nice temperature for those of us in the basement, and my grandmother spent too much time in the sun after being up all morning making breakfast so my grandfather and aunt helped her to bed, where she remained for most of Saturday.

Jeff, Baden and I arrived on Friday to find my mom and Michael outside, hiding form the slide show of my mother's growing up. So we stayed outside with them. Later, my cousin and uncle took out the paddle boat and Daniel and I took Hailie and Baden to the man made beach to let the little once play in the water. Hailie became Velcro baby and didn't want to let go of anyone who was holding her. She did like the sand in her toes and the fingers, but that was about it. Baden, my Baden, got in the lake willingly to chase sticks. He was very cautions about this through. He would tip toe out in the water, careful not to get his belly wet and then would ever do gently, retrieve his stick from the perils of the lake water.

Saturday morning my great aunt and uncle arrived (it's their lake house that we take over every summer) and some of us went out on the boat. I really want a boat now. Baden liked the boat to. It was like my dog became someone different. He didn't try to jump on anyone, we let him off leash and he stayed moderately close to us.

Saturday night we left the lake house to go watch Will Brown marry his Erin. It was a beautiful wedding with probably the most Christian themed wedding I have been to. Everything was just pleasant. Except for my husband kicking a kitten we found when leaving the church.....It was extremely hot at the reception site (of course, it was a July wedding). We left early to get back to the lake and because I have a gruesome heat induced headache.

I really need to not allow myself to eat at night until I have written something.

The husband started a blog last night, so because I am so competitive and have not made the time to get on here in a while, I figured I needed to. To keep up.

Recap:
In May I got a mini promotion at the office job. Now I have full time hours, full time benefits, and a little more added pressure. Yeah me!

Starting the last weekend in May, Memorial Day weekend, Jeff and I have been running about like a pair of crazy people. I guess it actually started in April, once Jeff got back from Chicago from his Warhammer convention. We started working with a Realtor. I can go into details later. Actually, I may not as to it is over now and we are moving forward. All I can say to sum up the house buying experience is that I don't ever want to buy a house again. I told the husband, if something were to happen, which it won't because the D word is not in our vocabulary, but, if it were, I am keeping the house because I am not going through that again. If we happen to repopulate to the point where we outgrow this house, we are building a guest house in the back yard. Sorry Jeff Junior.

Anyway, our Realtor was an absolute Saint. She took us out on stormy nights, helped us understand the whole house buying processes from start to finish, and even cleaned the house before we got the keys. I love her and am SO happy the kids up the street recommended her.

I loved looking at the houses and trying to imagine myself living in them and the neighborhood. There were two houses that I fell in love with that the husband vetoed. Reason being the lack of yard and excessive trees in the back yard. Not enough room to play with the dogs he said. House number one was painted just like I wanted my house to be painted, was laid out great in the feng shui aspect of things, and there were no neighbors in the back, just cattle and the millionaire's mansion. Figured he (the owner of huge ass house) would not bother us little folk.

But that house did have a lot of huge trees that would need to be cut down and the yard wasn't fenced in. So I agreed to pass, but pouted about it for a while.

So, there was the looking at houses with the Realtor after work, working the kennel job on the weekends, going to Lynchburg to hang out with the camp kids and relax in the woods for a weekend (Baden spend the weekend at the vet, no medical reasons this time) and then the following weekend to Roanoke to see Hailie and Jeff's parents. And then June 1st happened.

Because I have been sworn to secrecy on this one, i will just say that June first 2009 was an absolute nightmare. I got a phone call the night before from my brother saying something was wrong with my mom. Not sure what do to, I stayed up wondering why she hadn't mentioned it while i had been home that day and wondered what on earth could be wrong (besides the huge weight loss that she says is not medical related.) The next morning, with my eyes still dried out from crying the night before, my mom IMs me and gives me the news. Through AIM!!!!!

Somehow I got myself dressed and made it to work. I don't remember the drive. All I remember is talking to Megan on on the phone and her trying to calm me down. When I got to work I went to talk to my supervisor and asked for the day next day off so I could regroup myself. I began crying, she started crying and then she sent me home. We both knew I would be of no use that day.

All i can say is, thank for, whoever up there made me so determined to move closer to home. We need to be in Raleigh!

Mom is doing better. We are all thinking uplifting, good thoughts to get through this. I still feel that I am too young to be be dealing with this, as is my mother, but we are dealing with it as we can.

On to June 30th. The day we signed the papers and became future home owners (i say future, because technically, we are paying the mortgage, but the bank owns the loan, eh, whatever.)

I will never forget just sitting in my house that night with friends. Just sitting in the house we now own. It was priceless. As was the first time Baden saw his fenced in back yard.

Jeff's parents came down to help us paint last weekend. We got 3 rooms done.




This is my favorite room and the room that took 2 gallons of paint to complete. Not sure if we will refer to it as the Hookie room, the bowflex room, bonus room, or the art room.

We have been moving stuff out of the rented house out little by little after work.

My last day at the Kennel job was last Sunday. I figured it was just too much right now to be working two jobs, going to Roanoke every other weekend to help out up there and needing some time to spend with the hubby and dogs.

AND, Jeff fixed my iPod last night! Life is good today.

I really need to stop leaving this journal on the shelf to get dusty. It hurts my feelings just thinking about how long it has been when i last had time to write. Not to mention my new found allergy to all that is small, dust and pollen!

I used to do this all the freakn' time. Of course, I took every workshop and Creative Writing class I could since eight grade, so I had to make time.

Don't even know where to begin.

Boss at AKC called me to her desk last Thursday. We get along very well, she is a very honest person and I can't stand fake people, she is ALWAYS up front with me. I had just sat down and turned on my computer when she came over. Without a smile on her face. I was worried to say the least. She is always smiling. I didn't even look at Kathy, my new cube mate. I just got up and walked. When I got to her cubicle, my other supervisor was sitting there with her. My first thought was FUCK, what did i do? There was an open seat by the wall and I took that as my place to sit. I looked back and forth at them, trying to read there faces. Supervisor number two's face was completely blank. Though, I am not as close to her and I am to Supervisor number 1, I have never liked her not smiling back at me. Supervisor number 1 says, Becca, we are very disappointed in you. I gulped so loud it trigger my brain to think of gunshots and my heart stopped. I looked at Supervisor number 2, she wasn't even looking at me. I looked back at Supervisor number 1, asking what i had done. Supervisor number 1 looked at Supervisor number 2 and said she could not be mean to me. Sup number 2 says, "you have to be."
I know I turned white. My palms were wet and shrank back in my chair hoping to disappear.
"What did i Do?" I was pleading with Sup number 1 to tell me. She looked me in the eyes and said "Becca, we are so disappointed in you that we are going to offer you the full time position"




















Do I need to say that I merely fell in the floor????

So this week is my last week of working 2 part time jobs! Woot Woot!

This came right after i had applied to work in Companion Events and lost the job to the summer intern that did the same job last year. I wasn't too upset about it, why train someone to do the job when someone else already knows how.

So husband and I continued looking at prospective houses and I went on with life as if the not getting that job didn't bother me.

The hardest thing was having to tell boss at the Kennel I could no longer work during the week in the AM to help out before driving across town to AKC. She seeded sad to let me go, but said I would be stupid not to take it.

I felt on cloud nine for the rest of the day and weekend. More on that later.

If I can keep up this week, there is HOUSE season finale tonight and Grey's on Thursday.
And kicking my body at the Expert level on the Bowflex this week.

Today and yesterday were great as far as the jobs go. I still have both of my jobs and am still making money to pay the bills. What a plus!!!

This morning, after having to practically re-train the new hires, I got to play with the dogs in daycare. I had the relaxed, well mannered, for the most part, small dog group. This consisted of two toy poodles, a Mi Ki (still not sure what breed that is) a long hair dachshund, fluffy white mutt, golden doodle, and a puppy (another mixed breed). Oh it was so much fun! After getting Hunter, the golden doodle, to stop barking at the very scared puppy, I just sat down on the floor and all the little ones jumped all over me. Oh, I forgot about Misty, a shaved down small dog who liked to sit in my lap. All of the dogs, and I mean all of them, were trying to claim me. When I say claim, i mean leaning against me, claiming me as their own. I know this can be dangerous if not corrected, but there was never any teeth, so I just let them lean on me. There is nothing like dog kisses to start the day! I know I need a "real" job, but the truth is, the kennel is too much fun.

A sad note, Bo Bo, the rottie, will be leaving soon. I probably will never see him again. His family closed on their house on Wednesday.

This weekend sister in law is coming to visit and the weather is supposed to be rainy. Again. Not sure what we are going to do.

Oh, and on Grey's last night it finally happened. Meridith is now engaged to McDreamy! I know it's sad that I have stuck with this TV show through all the, well, weirdness it has become lately, but I was squealing on the sofa last night while the husband was making loud noises trying to make it so I couldn't hear Derick propose. And then Christina broke up with her army guy...those two just can't be happy at the same time. Also, Callie was having a hard time dealing with wishing Izzy would die, back when she wanted Izzy to die. I almost feel the same way. i mean, Izzy's character really got crazy there for a while and she has never been one of my favorites, but now that she won't be on the show anymore...I don't know, i'm stuck not knowing how to feel at the moment.
George, I am going to miss you.

Yay for an actual weekend!

The Jimmy Buffet concert is weeks away, not months anymore and I am getting excited.

This week has been a little rough. I just feel like I want to quit both of my jobs and be a house wife. In our case, it would be me staying at home and bothering Jeff all day because he works at home. Which would probably cause him to ask to rent an office space somewhere in town. Oh well. I just wish work could be exciting. When the day goes by the exact same as yesterday I feel like my brain cells are melting away. And damn it, my student loans were worth more than a repeat of yesterday!

I can't wait to go back to school. I am still working out on what exactly I am going to study when I get to go back. Nonetheless, it is fun to think about.

The plan is get back on the workout horse. Husband dragged me out of bed this morning and TOLD me I was going to work out. My warm blankets were in the floor and all the lights were on on the bedroom. The dog even ran out of the room begging me to follow him. I don't know why it is so hard to keep motivated. I was doing so well and could see results and then I just stopped.

But, to stop whining, on to what the best friend did today. She sent me the web site that will probably change our lives :) Cheap Cruises! I had a customer tell me that cruises out of NC would be cheap and that I should look into it. When I passed this info on to the husband, he actually looked excited about a vacation. He then proceeded to check his time off and then asked me if we took a vacation last year. I said no, and then we both pouted. So, this year, maybe, just maybe we will get to go somewhere!!!!!!

Well, maybe not the greatest, but it was pretty great. Got back on the Wii fit this morning and found that even after the flu and not working out like a crazy person I am still at the weight goal I was targeted for this month.

I didn't make it to the dog show class today, but did get to the monthly staff meeting instead. They said, as of right now, we are ok and should be thankful to still have our jobs. So, looks like I am safe for another day.

Baden didn't sleep well last night because he seemed to have an upset tummy, but after pooping this morning, he seems to be his normal self and slept all day today.

Because I went into work early for the staff meeting I, in part, got off work early. Which means, I beat the Raleigh 540 traffic home and drove through the neighborhood we will soon move into. We are still trying to discuss what kind of home we want (I want single story, he wants two) but I can't help but look.

When i got home my new shoes were here. Oh I love my new chacos and can't wait for it to be warm again so I can take them out!

My attempts at being a green thumb are still in the works. This morning I knocked over the bamboo plant which in part made all the water go all over the floors. I refilled the plant and when I got home, she is still holding on strong. This is great because in my flu absence, i ignored the plants and they had no water and no one to open their blinds. The African violet still won't give me any more flowers and the daisy sprouts are trying to survive.

Best Friend is coming to visit for the weekend and I couldn't be happier. And I get to work at the kennel on Sunday so husband will have the house to him self to practice the new violin, alone!