birthday girl

happy birthday, maria.(that's the big one rolling around on the floor, not the little one.)

halloween?

ok, what happened to halloween, y'all? when i grew up scores of kids knocked on our door starting at like 4:30 and not stopping until 10:00 or whenever the candy ran out, whichever happened first. this year, when we live in a nice little neighborhood, no trick-or-treaters! even last year (and the few years prior) when we lived in graduate housing we at least had 2 or 3 kids stop by. kids suck this year!

so in honor of halloween and no trick-or-treaters, i think i'll eat a kit-kat (i better get started because we have 2 bags of candy. this, just in time for when chris and i were going to give up refined sugar! sweet!).

halloween hooliganism

last night chris and i went up to north south carolina to a party of some friends of our friends, adam and sara. we've not dressed up in years. actually, i think it was in 2004 at said adam and sara's house that we last dressed up, as publisher's clearing house winners.

anyways, we donned some costumes and had a good time. thanks for those suggestions, by the way.

chris posted about it already if you're curious what we are. and he's got some other fun pictures. but i wanted to add this video. it may not look as funny as i thought it was at the time. that's jello brain for those who really want to know. pretty gross.

born again

it's a strange thing. for the past 2 weeks our fish, abe, keeps going through a process of almost dying and then coming back to life again. he will be curled up at the bottom of his bowl, turned in on himself, totally flaky scales, and barely moving. we did some googling, found some potential problems and tried various things. he'd be okay for a few days and then go back to half-dead fish. for the past week, every time i walk by the bowl i tap on it to see if he's still alive, he’d move a bit and i'm like, "ok, still alive." in some ways i started wishing he would die because it was so sad to see him just laying there and waiting for him to be gone. but then last night i came home and abe was swimming at the top of his tank. apparently, the fish whisperer did something and brought him back to life, at least for now.

for the record

i just have to say i was wrong.

yup. wrong. i admit.

i have been so dreading going back to work today. and now that it's done and over with i see that i was just being a worry-wart, and for no real reason. i mean, seriously, folks. i was like d-r-e-a-d-i-n-g, dreading it. dreams about work. thoughts all weekend of it. avoiding phone calls on the work cell and emails. all because i though it would just be chaos when i got back.

and you guessed it (well actually i told you); i was totally wrong. today was great. the staff had everything in order. without me there they really had to step up to the plate and handle daily operations, which is exactly how it should be. no major mishaps (the few we had i already knew about). it was fabulous.

that, and i already got 2 things checked off my "to do" list from ideas i acquired from my training.

so, wow. how great.

calling for submissions

chris and i have been invited to a halloween party next weekend. we've not done the whole dress-up-for-halloween thing for a few years now, so it's about time we got back into the groove. i've never been too good at it myself, being that i'm not very creative but extremely tight with my money. but as i was saying, we have this party to go to. the theme is quentin tarantino movies. we've got a few ideas we're simmering about, but as much as we've been racking our brains we've not come up with anything that really knocks or socks off. i'll steal anyone's idea if it's placed here and we find it fabulously witty!

double vision

no, you weren't seeing double. for a while there were 2 of the same posts up. i didn't even know about that until chris told me yesterday. how strange. but if you didn't notice then you'll have no idea what i'm talking about because i fixed it.

fancy living

In my last post I said I was a wallflower and that I would stay inside my hotel room by myself for the night. Well, I wanted to let you all know (since I know you've been dying to find out what I did for the rest of the week) I actually went out that night (Tuesday) as well as for the rest of my nights in Atlanta. After blogging and checking my email on Tuesday I went down for the free drinks in the hotel and ran across a few folks from the club. Three of us went out here for dinner. It was not as fancy as the website makes it out. But it was expensive and the food was really good. We figured, what the hey, we were getting reimbursed for it.

Then Wednesday night everyone in the club was taken out to dinner here by our trainer. This place was also really fancy and expensive. I had a glass of wine and an awesome vegetable plate with squash, cous cous, curried cauliflower, the best baked potato ever, and one other veggie that’s escaped my memory. We were living the high life, I’ll tell ya’.

Then yesterday I ended up the week of training by having dinner with my aunt Mary. I stopped my high-life-livin’ there and we went cafeteria-style, as Aunt Mary always does. But it was still good food and good company.

I’m home now and trying to keep my fantasy living alive by taking a comp day from work. Well, I was "forced" to take a comp day because I’ve been working so much, or so they said. So I will try my best to avoid my email and cell phone today. I’ve already heard the phone ringing and have sent a few messages out, so we'll see how well I stick to that. But it's a good goal to have.

Happy weekend, everyone!

the learning club

completed day one of my training. it's been fairly "training-like," you know, very covey-like, which is fine. it's always good to remind myself of some of those things. the intersting thing is to see and fully realize how big the organization really is. i found out some intersting things to look into for overseas career advancement. you know that's totally cool.

dinner on our own tonight. went out last night for dinner with trea and the cousins. after driving around for freakin' forever we ate at the best mexican restaurant ever*! so i may just do take-out and stay in the room tonight. i'm such a wall-flower.

*or so the band claims it's the best mexican ever. i do think they, of all people, would know, being that when we eat out i think i've only even eaten mexican food with them. the restaurant was aptly named "el torrero." i'll admit it was good. and yes, peter, the guac was excellent. but i can't honestly say it was the best just because i don't know what i would say is the best mexican. but it was good.

balance

this weekend i had a nice balance of "girly" stuff and...well...the-opposite-of-girly-stuff stuff.

on saturday i went to the mall to look for some fall/winter things i've been needing. following the mall i went to lowes and bought various sorts of weather stripping and plastic window coverings. (our house is rather drafty so i'm trying to find cost-effective ways to insulate a home that is not ours to keep.) then i got to go home and install all this fun stuff. it's not like it was that hard, or all that fun really. but i felt useful and it is keeping my hopes going that we won't have another astronomical electric bill. then yesterday evening i followed all this excitement up with a mary kay pedicure party at one of my staff member's homes. i don't usually go to those sorts of things. (in fact i usually don't just NOT go, i avoid them like the plague.) but it was actually enjoyable and i didn't feel pressured into buying anything. AND i went home with really soft feet!

2 things i like

1) that i paid $1.98 for gas today

2) that i'm going on a "vacation" to atlanta next week.

* ok, i'm not going on a vacation. i'm actually going for a training. but i'm really excited about being a big girl and getting my own hotel room for the week where there's a tv and perhaps (so i've heard) a jacuzzi.

blustery weekend

Ok, so it isn’t really "blustery," exactly. But for South Carolina, it's turned chilly! And for now I'm loving it. Though we've already realized that our apartment is going to be freezing this winter because it does not keep the heat.

Saturday Chris and I got up at the crack of dawn (ok, at the crack of 9 AM) and went for a bike ride. It’s a good thing we did it then because it ended up raining the rest of the weekend. But while we were out the sky was gorgeous and we really had a good time. We’re still trying to pick out names for our new bikes. I’m leaning toward Roger for mine and Chris is leaning toward Apple Scruffs (don’t ask). But we’ll let you all know when the important decision has been definitely made.

We spent the rest of Saturday waiting around for the landlord to come by with our new fridge. We were supposed to get it last weekend but that never happened and we had been expectantly waiting ever since. Then last night we went to 2 (that’s right TWO) parties in one evening. One was a work function for Chris. It was held at the Keenan House, which was beautiful but really chilly. We followed that party up with a trip to northeast Columbia to a housewarming for a co-worker and friend of mine.

Today was the usual weekend stuff-laundry, grocery shopping (a big one since we’ve not gone in 2 weeks!) and cooking. I love the smell of cooking in the house on a cold, rainy day. I made pasta fagioli and cornbread. It was awesome!

15 acres/ year = 3.3 planets

check out this link to see how many acres a year it takes to sustain your eating/living habits and how many planets we would need to sustain that habit if everyone on earth lived like you. i thought i was doing good. but obviously i could be doing a lot better!

the family that plays together...

...stays together.

chris and i have been having fun playing together lately. not that we've not played together in the past. but it seems like we don't have much free time anymore so we try to do fun stuff more often and take advantage of time together. you know.

last week we did face masks!



this sunday we took a 6.6 mile walk in congaree swamp.




and tonight we purchased bikes so we can have more adventures together!



we're not the only ones to have recently bought bikes though.