TGIF

I am SO grateful that it is Friday. I would be more grateful if it was like Good Friday or some other random holiday so I could be still laying at home in bed cuddling with my pets. But I'll take a regular Friday since I just have to hang in there for a few more hours and then can have two days off. Ah life!

Today, we are supposed to go to lunch with the copy guy at Pappadeaux, and since his company is paying, that works out nicely. I'm feeling a little under the weather this morning, so hopefully that will go away soon so I can enjoy my lunch. But that should at least take up some time during the day which always helps! Tomorrow we are going to see "Movin' Out" at the Bass Hall in Fort Worth. I am SO excited because it will be the first Broadway play I've gotten to see in quite awhile, should be pretty good with the Billy Joel songs, and we have awesome seats in one of the lower boxes there. I've only been to Bass Hall once before, and it was awesome and we were up a lot higher but it was still great. So this should be even cooler because we will have our own little box (well there might be a few other people in the box with us but still). Then we are going to eat at P.F. Chang's in downtown Fort Worth with Austin's family. Yummy! I love downtown Fort Worth. It's so pretty and fun to walk around. I wish Dallas would clean up their downtown area and make it more friendly rather than just businesses and old run-down buildings.

So that's my major excitement for the weekend. I can't believe it will be August already on Monday!!!! How time flies! :) They are voting to pass that Daylight Savings bill today or maybe next week, and it looks like it will go through which will be good to keep it through the beginning of November and start early in March. Of course, everyone's 2005 calendars will be wrong and anyone that has a 2005-2006 calendar will be wrong too, but oh well. I think it's a good idea personally because I hate how dark it gets in the winter. I feel like in the winter I barely ever see light because I go to work in the dark and leave in the dark. Not much fun! :)

Hope you all have a WONDERFUL weekend and talk to you soon! :)

My Adventure to the Dallas Public Library

Today, I was asked by one of the associate attorneys to go down to the Dallas Public Library and look through some microfilms of the Fort Worth Star Telegram from 2003. I thought, no problem, should be easy and at least I can get out of the office for a little while. It was quite an adventure I must say!

Now, I think of myself as a pretty decent book nerd. I have gone to this library once while I was in teaching classes to pick up some books and to the local branch that was closer to my apartment. I also frequent the Valley Ranch branch of the Irving public library because it is nearby, small but safe, and I can request my books online and have them sent from any other branch over to the one by my apartment and just run in to pick them up. It works out quite nicely.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into today. The directions I wrote down were easy, and I found a metered parking spot right nearby which was amazing. Fed the meter, locked up my car, and headed towards the WRONG building. I got a little confused, and when I was nearly upon the Dallas City Hall building, I realized the library was on the other side of the street. Okay, no problem, cross the street and in I go. There was quite a gathering of homeless people outside the library, a row of suitcases and other bags lined up against the side of it. I looked straight forward and just walked in to the front door.

Then I headed for the elevator. Being that this is the central library for Dallas, it is quite large, and I needed to go the 7th floor. As I walked towards the elevator, I realized that two homeless men had decided to also come into the library and were waiting for the elevator as I approached. Apparently, that is the popular thing to do if you are homeless and trying to avoid the Texas heat: go into the Dallas Public Library and they won't say anything that you're there. I looked around trying to figure out what other way I could get to the 7th floor and actually contemplated taking the stairs just to avoid them, but decided that I wouldn't want to be trapped in the stairwell either. Luckily at that moment in my decision-making process, another guy in a business suit came to wait for the elevator as well so I figured it was safe. I'm not normally scared of homeless people, and I'm sure they are harmless, but something about being trapped inside a 6 foot by 6 foot space with two homeless men wasn't sounding so appealing especially since the security guards wouldn't have heard my yelling, my cell phone probably wouldn't have worked, and elevators are easily stopped mid-floor.

Luckily, as I said before, the suit guy got on too, the homeless guys pushed floors 3 and 4, suit-guy pushed 6, and I pushed 7. I would not have to ride at all alone with these other two guys. And it was a good thing because 1) they both smelled horribly of body odor and outdoors and 2) one of them spent his entire elevator ride staring at my legs, then moving his gaze up my body, then back to my legs. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and I thought he wasn't going to get off on floor 4 because he was too busy staring at me but thankfully he did. I got up to the proper floor, got help from the reference desk person, and sat down at my microfilm to search away. Unfortunately, I never found what the attorney was looking for, but thankfully, he knew I had actually searched and said it was fine and that he would contact the company. I was there for over an hour searching through an entire month of newspapers. It was fun stuff! :)

The way to get out was thankfully less eventful. I put away my microfilms, got on the elevator with another gentleman that was on my floor, and after he got off on 5, got to ride the rest of the way down in peace. I exited and was walking back to my car when I saw the "starer" walking along the street. Apparently he didn't last forever in the cool of the library (not sure if he left on his own free will or got kicked out) and here he was walking towards me and in the path of where I had to go to get back to my car. I stopped for a moment thinking he had seen me and would turn to face me head-on. Luckily, he either didn't see me or had something else on his mind finally because he walked on and I was able to continue on my path towards my car. The meter hadn't run out thank goodness, and I was happy to jump in my car, lock the doors, and head back to work. It turned out to waste a little over an hour and a half of my day which I was grateful for, but next time I think I'll bring someone with me!!!! :)

The Week is Nearly Halfway Over

This week has been slower than any I can imagine! I thoroughly enjoyed my two day work week last week and have now become spoiled. :) Too bad I don't have another day off until Labor Day which is the beginning of September. Yikes!!!

They finally did a full inspection of the old air conditioning unit yesterday. Turns out the problem lies with the thermostat (plus the fact that that unit is really old and doesn't function as well as the new one but we'll let that fact go). So today they are supposed to install a new thermostat that can more accurately read the temperature in the room, thereby more accurately functioning and turning on and off more regularly. Hopefully that will be the last of the apartment people in our place for a little while at least. I think we'll be house-hunting once it gets a little cooler! Even a rental house sounds like a good idea at this point.

Other than that, not a whole lot to report. I'm just hoping to make it through this extremely long week! Hopefully I'll think of something more exciting to talk about later - sorry for the boring post!

The War Rages On......

Now, you may have thought that the battle of the air conditioning was over two weeks ago when my new unit was finally installed. Alas, the war rages on......

Turns out that the reason the apartment was hot to begin with also had to do with the fact that the original air conditioning unit was not working. The apartment complex refused to believe us, despite numerous calls, and decided to install this new unit to make everything better. I can not complain entirely because at least now I can sleep at night (for the most part) because our bedroom stays very cool at whatever temperature we set it. However, the living room/dining room/kitchen area is still very warm. In fact, it is over 80 degrees nearly 24-7 despite trying to run the air at 75.

Saturday morning, we called yet again to have them come look at our old unit. In typical fashion, they told me they had put some extra freon in (they just did that about a month ago when we were having problems too which makes me think there's a leak or perhaps they are just telling lies), and that there was nothing else they could because the best the air conditioner could do is run 20 degrees below the outside temperature and since the outside temperatures have run in the 100+ degree area lately, then we should be happy that it is in the 80s inside. Hmm, that's funny because the new unit still manages to cool to 74/75 despite it being 100+ degrees outside. Oh, and I've lived here for nearly 8 years now and lived in many different apartments and not once have I had these problems with the air only cooling to 20 degrees below the outside temperature. After the maintenance man left with his pile of excuses, I decided I had had enough.

I took matters into my own hands and contacted the regional Vice President for Texas of the company that owns our apartment complex. I explained my frustration, the ongoing problems we had been facing since the beginning of May when it got warm, the excuses we were constantly given and yet nothing was done, and my anger at being forced to pay nearly $500 worth of electric bills in the past two months all because of their faulty equipment and still having my apartment sit at 80+ degrees. I received an e-mail back from the regional vice president of Dallas yesterday morning saying she was out of town until mid-week, but would be happy to contact me then to discuss this further. She or the regional VP of Texas must have also sent my e-mails to the apartment complex because we received a phone call from the maintenance supervisor at the apartment on Monday also saying that he had received my letter and that he wanted to work with us to fix the problem. Apparently you have to go to corporate to be taken even remotely seriously around here.

So today, our pets were forced to be put up yet again so they could come into our apartment and check things out. This time they are bringing a real air conditioning guy (the one that put our new unit in actually) with them to actually go up into the attic and check out the old unit and see what is going on. I'm sure they won't even tell us if there is something wrong with it because they won't want to spend the money to fix it and probably are just trying to bide more time and not get their butts chewed out by corporate later this week. That's the bad part about both of us having to work and not be able to be there and watch what they are doing and ask questions. I'm hoping though that since Ralph will be there (the air conditioning guy) and he is really nice and honest, they will call us this afternoon and tell us they are ordering x part or in the best world they are ordering us a new unit and hopefully by the end of the week, our whole apartment will be a decent temperature and our bill for next month will go down since our old unit won't be constantly running just trying to catch up to 75 even though it never will.

We've already started hibernating in our bedroom after dinner and turning the old unit up to 80 since that's about as cool as it gets regardless if it's 100 degrees or 85 outside. That way it won't run unnecessarily and still not cool and just waste our electric. So we shall see how the war continues......I'm tired of hiding out in the bunkers, I've made my move, now they need to hold up the white flag. We shall see! :)

Monday, Monday

Here it is Monday morning again. It's hard to believe that a week ago, I was already up and on a boat fishing! I definitely didn't want to get up so easily this morning. In fact, I slept through my alarm which wasn't very good, but luckily didn't sleep too long before realizing what time it was. I hate Mondays!

Our weekend was good. Nothing too exciting, but that was good since we had just came back in town. Mostly, I just relaxed and watched TV and read a book. It was nice. Saturday night, we went to see the Wedding Crashers. I thought it was really funny!!! Definitely a romantic comedy and aside for the brief nudity, it was very entertaining! ;) Yesterday, we watched Million Dollar Baby on DVD. It was also very good, different ending than I expected, but great acting and a good story.

Other than that, not a whole lot to report......this is going to be a long week I'm sure and then it's August already, I can't believe it. Of course, I hope August goes by quickly because we don't have any breaks again until Labor Day in September. It will be a change since we've been here and there over the past few months. But the good thing is that it will allow us to replenish our bank account!!! LOL Hope you all had a great weekend and hopefully I'll have more interesting things to talk about later this week. Still sleepy on a Monday morning! :)

Tagged Again

I was tagged by Amanda so here goes! Please be sure to read my other posting from this morning though too about my vacation! Oh and to all the people in London, my heart goes out to you. I hope this madness stops soon, and this sickos are destroyed!

What I was doing ten years ago: Ten years ago, I was 16 years old. I had just gotten my driver's license, and I traveled up to Pennyslvania and up the east coast with my friend from Switzerland taking her around and showing her the U.S.

5 years ago: Five years ago, I was 21 years old, about to start my senior year in college. I was working at an internship with a media company in Dallas and working as a nanny to two kids who were eventually in my wedding and living in a townhome across from campus. I had just gotten my kitten, Mikah, two months before. My roommate was in Italy for study abroad.

1 year ago: One year ago, I was 25 years old, preparing for my wedding to Austin. In a few weeks, Austin would graduate from college, and we would have our couples shower. I was picking up the bridesmaid dresses and sending them to them to get altered. I was working at a different law firm, and I was not so happy with my work. Jes had left the job a few months before along with D, and I was alone. I was also trying to get a job for Sara at the time, so I could at least have a friend to be in misery with me!

Yesterday: Yesterday, I rode in Austin's new truck for 7+ hours from Port Aransas in the rain. I was bored! I had good conversations with Austin, laughed, picked up our dog, and headed home to pay bills. What a way to end the vacation!

5 snacks I enjoy:- Kit Kat bars, animal crackers, pretzels, chips & salsa, ice cream

5 songs I know all the words to:- Kelly Clarkson - practically the whole CD, Sarah McLachlan - practically the whole CD, John Mayer- most of his songs too, Rachael Yamagata - Reason Why, Maroon 5 - pretty much every song on the CD

5 Things I would do with $100 million:- Pay off all our debt, Buy/build our dream house, Share money with our parents, Travel, Save money for the future

5 locations I would like to run away to:- Sydney, Australia - Hawaii - California - Fiji - Florida

5 bad habits I have:- chewing my cuticles/fingernails, being on the Internet all the time at home, not wanting to pick up after my dog (but I do), stacking my clothes up instead of taking the time to hang them up, forgetting laundry so it either has to be rewashed or redried or ironed

5 things I like doing: - spending time with Austin, playing with my pets, reading, dancing, watching movies

5 things I would never wear:- clothes that don't fit me right, a thong or any skimpy bathing suit, gold jewelry, a McDonald's uniform, a teeny weeny skirt that is so popular right now and doesn't work with my long legs

5 TV shows I like:- Desperate Housewives, Amazing Race, Lost, 24, The Apprentice

5 Biggest joys of the moment:- Having a relaxing vacation, spending time with Austin and my pets, spending time with my friends, thinking about possibilities for the future, comfortable and cute skirts

5 Favorite toys:- my laptop, my digital camera, Tivo, my cell phone, DVD player

I'm Back!!!

I know you all missed me - haha!

I'm back from my vacation. It actually turned out a lot better than I thought it would, and we got really lucky avoiding the majority of the rain and craziness from Hurricane Emily. We left Saturday morning (not as early as planned but early nonetheless), grabbed my Harry Potter book at Walmart, and headed down the road. We made decent time and arrived Saturday afternoon to the rental house. It was really nice, nicer than any of the others we've stayed at there. We settled in and headed for some yummy dinner on the water. Saturday night we were all pretty tired so we ended up going to sleep relatively early. The ride down was long and boring but sadly I can't read in the car because it gives me a headache or motion sickness so I didn't get to read any Harry Potter.

Sunday we got up and did a little shopping although I still wasn't able to find the sandals I wanted. I will have to order them online. We found some for Austin though at least so now we only have to find some for me. Then we headed to the beach. There was a quick rain shower but it subsided and we were able to enjoy the afternoon at the beach. Sunday night, Austin's parents went to the fish market and got all kinds of yummy shrimp and fish and we cooked out at the house.

Monday morning we got up super early and went fishing. We caught the limit in red fish and then tried to get some trout but mostly caught small ones and released them back into the water. It was fun though, even though we couldn't keep all the fish we caught! We have some good fish in the freezer now for later. We went to lunch after fishing, took a nap, and then went out to a yummy dinner again. I love seafood so it's great to be somewhere with fresh fish and shrimp and all that. There are a few good seafood restaurants in Dallas, but the best ones are super expensive and not an everyday place to go.

Tuesday, I rode along and drove the golf cart while Austin and his family played golf. I don't play golf. I actually find it quite boring, but it was alright because the weather was nice and I just relaxed and watched and drove the golf cart around which was fun! We went out to the beach when we got back because the surf was starting to churn up from the hurricane. The water was coming back further, and it was getting windy. I headed back to the house with Austin's parents, but Austin and his brother and Joey stayed out there and ended up getting drenched because a band of the hurricane hit. They were okay, just a lot of wind and rain. It ended up stopping, we went to dinner, and came home again and relaxed. I was sad because I didn't really read much at all the whole time we were there, but I had a blast so I guess I can always read at home! :)

Weirdly enough, we got up yesterday morning and it wasn't even raining. It was really windy and when we walked down to the beach area, the water had come up onto the beach access road and up to the sand dunes. I've never seen it that far in, but luckily it hadn't started flooding the island or anything. We grabbed some breakfast, packed everything up, and headed home. The drive was long again, especially because we hit a lot of rain and traffic on our way up, but we made it back to the area, picked up the dog from the pet hotel, and got home around 7.

This morning I got up with Austin at 5:15 am so I could shower and get gas in my car and head into work early because I need to leave by 3:30 today for an appointment. Fun stuff! At least tomorrow is Friday, and I can spend this weekend doing laundry and relaxing. I wish my synopsis of the weekend didn't sound quite so boring, but really we had a great time, didn't want to leave, and I was really glad to be able to relax and enjoy doing much of nothing for a few days. I was so glad the weather didn't ruin our plans either! Hope that you all had a good week while I was gone, and I'll try to catch up throughout today on everything! :)

I Hate Emily

If your name is Emily, I am sorry. Because right now, I hate Emily - the hurricane that is. I swear, I have had more run-ins with hurricanes in the past year than I would like. My parents went through three bad ones last year, the last they fled that morning before it hit so they could make it here for my wedding (it was the weekend before). That one was by far the worst because a few of my wedding guests couldn't come at the last minute as a result, and some others ended up having to drive all the way out here to avoid everything and to get away. I was so grateful they were there at least though!

Now, Hurricane Emily is threatening the southern part of Texas. We are supposed to leave for Port Aransas tomorrow morning and spend a nice weekend of fishing and beaching until Wednesday. We called the fishing guide to ask him how things were down there and he said to come on down. We're just waiting to hear back from the lady we are renting the house from to make sure everything is okay. Austin's parents were supposed to be there this whole week from Saturday to Saturday but they will definitely have to come back early now (unless it's just bad rain and they can just relax down there for a few extra days). We're hoping we can stay at least until Tuesday morning because it's not even supposed to hit until Tuesday night and hopefully way farther south. Just have to keep watching the news.

It just makes me sad because this was our only real vacation we had planned. I have two good books to read though in case of rain ("The Devil Wears Prada" - recommended to me for a good laugh to lighten the situation I'm currently going through and the new Harry Potter book which I will be picking up from Walmart tomorrow morning on our way out of town). I also bought some of those motion sickness wristbands yesterday so I'm hoping that will allow me to read in the car plus I'll have our portable DVD player to watch as well that plugs into the cigarette lighter in the car. And we're going in Austin's new comfy truck which will be super nice! So we are going to have fun and relax regardless, just don't know how much beaching or fishing we will get to do because of silly Emily.

In case I don't write again this afternoon, have a wonderful weekend and beginning of next week and talk to you on Thursday! :)

Will Work for Sleep

I slept horribly last night. I couldn't fall asleep and once I did, I was tossing and turning and kept waking up because Austin was very restless in bed. Then I woke up at 5 with Austin and couldn't fall back to sleep because I had to get all of my stuff to get ready and go in the guest room because the air conditioning people were supposed to come at 7 to start working and needed to have access to our bedroom and bathroom. At least last night was our last night (cross your fingers) without good air conditioning in the bedroom. Yippee - that should definitely help provide a better night sleep!

The air conditioning unit seems to be coming along. They left yesterday evening around 6:30 because they had been working until 11 the night before on one unit in order to get done in time to do ours yesterday. So they wanted to come early today so they could finish today and it's much easier to do when it's not quite so hot up there. We had stuff all over our living room and bathroom (couldn't even use the bathroom at all) so we were using the guest bathroom last night and this morning. Now that air conditioner (the original) that is in that bathroom has started leaking (I think it does this because it's trying so hard to cool the whole place that it gets a lot of condensation and they need to empty the tray again), so that was lovely. Hopefully the apartment people will come mess with that because the contractors aren't allowed to. The one guy finally showed up about 7:20 this morning, made the dog go crazy barking and start shaking, and gave me just enough time to finish up and head out the door. The other guy wasn't there yet when I left at 7:30 so I'm not sure what was up with that, but hopefully they will be at least close to being done when we get home tonight since I would like to be able to make dinner tonight and get some sleep. We shall see!

Other than that, not a whole lot to report. I feel like putting my head down on my desk and taking a nap and the sad thing is most people probably wouldn't even notice. Especially if I shut my door! Things to consider doing with my lunch hour! LOL That's all for now - I will make sure to write something at least tomorrow since after that I will be away from a computer and blogging until Wednesday evening. Can't wait for some much needed rest and relaxation! :)

In the Trenches

The war for the new air conditioner has begun (at least I am hoping they have already started). We never got a call from Ralph, so we called the apartment maintenance guy last night at 9 pm since we hadn't heard anything yet and asked what the deal was. Ralph was supposed to come by our apartment around 8 this morning and begin. Apparently, up in the tippy top of the building where he has to crawl around to hook everything up, it gets to be 140 degrees!!!! Needless to say, he will be working this morning until around 1 or 2 and then take a break and then come back again probably around 5 and work until we kick him out tonight (I think my limit will be about 9:30). So who knows what our apartment will look like when we get back. I hope the pets don't completely freak out and think the world is coming to an end as they are in the guest bedroom today together. At least the work won't be going on directly above them, and they will be cool because that bedroom is right next to the original air conditioning unit.

The scoop is that they are going to crawl up in the top from our balcony I guess, cut down through into our living room to give another vent there, and then cut down into our bedroom to put another vent in there, and then cut in through the top of our shower to put whatever it is that goes there (there is already a square like that in our guest bathroom so I guess that's a common thing). We had to move everything off our bathroom counters, pull the furniture away from the one wall in our bedroom and clean out everything from the tub. I'm sure it will be great for my allergies!!!! Then we will have a thermostat in our bedroom which will control the bedroom and the one vent in the living room. It should definitely cut down the heat and our air conditioning bill since that one unit won't have to try to pump the entire apartment any more. We'll see!

The battle should be over by tomorrow. Actually it better be over by tomorrow because I need to be able to pack and maneuver around the apartment on Friday to get ready for our trip. Plus I want to make sure it is functional and unscary before leaving my poor cat alone in the apartment all weekend. So it must be done by tomorrow, even if it means Ralph has to stay later tommorrow night or get there earlier tomorrow morning. I will update you tomorrow I'm sure, and here's to hoping I can actually sleep tonight. I guess I can always sleep in the guest bedroom if our room is a disaster area.

On a side note, today is Jes' birthday!!!! So go wish her a happy 27th! That's all for now, I will report more from the trenches when I can! :)

Our Dog Needs Pet Therapy!

I have decided that our dog needs pet therapy. She is afraid and goofy at the silliest things. She barked yesterday for like half an hour at the gladiolas we had bought at the grocery store. I know they are tall and there were a lot of them because we got two bundles of ten each for $5, but still!!!

The biggest problem we are having with her right now is that she won't drink out of the new water container we got her (or any water container really). We got one of those 2.5 gallon automatic dispensing water containers for her a week ago, and she drank out of it and was perfectly fine. This week she is scared to death of it. She won't go anywhere near it, and even when we tried the peanut butter trick of smearing peanut butter (her favorite) around the edges, she refused to do anything but gingerly lick the peanut butter off and then run away. She needs pet therapy to get over her fear of water containers!

Other than that, it is DEFINITELY a Monday. This morning I woke up a little later than usual because I couldn't manage to get myself out of bed (been having trouble with that lately on weekdays), and stumbled into the shower. I mentally chose the outfit I would wear, and when I went to get out and put it on, I couldn't find one important piece of it. I ran around the apartment trying to find it, but with no luck. So I picked another outfit and then I couldn't find a certain pair of shoes that matched it (I did end up finding those at least before I left). As if I wasn't already running late and frustrated!!! I couldn't get a hold of Austin at work which was annoying me and then I had to walk the dog and give her her antibiotic (Austin usually does this but he was also running late this morning and he has a more strict time schedule than I do). Needless to say, I didn't leave the apartment until almost the time I normally get to work so now I will have to work later as well which makes me bitter! Luckily, we have a flexible time to get in and I still got here before anyone else I work with, but now I also have to stay later. Oh well!

Hopefully the rest of the day will get better. I'm very anxious/nervous today and that doesn't help. I'm trying to calm my nerves with music, and I think I will put on some Sarah McLachlan, shut my office door, and calmly resume data entry. Hope the rest of the week goes faster and more smoothly. At least I just have to manage these five days of work and then off to the beach on Saturday for five days - yippee! :) Our weekend was good at least - go see "The Island" - very good, interesting movie that comes out this weekend but we caught a sneak preview on Saturday night. Hope you all had a great weekend and here's to hoping this week passes by quickly! :)

Victory is Ours!

The air conditioning battle has been won - or at least it's drawing to a close. We received approval today for our second air conditioning unit, and it is scheduled to be installed on a two-day period either on Tuesday/Wednesday or Wednesday/Thursday of next week. Just in time to give us a few days of cool to test it out before we head down to the beach! :) Let's hope that everything goes smoothly. Ralph, the air conditioning man, is going to call us and let us know what paths we need to make and things like that so he can do his job and the pets will be in the guest bedroom for those two days. Hurray! Hopefully I will be enjoying cooler air next week at this time! :)

London Calling

I woke up this morning at 3 am to the sound of my cat ripping paper. This is not a highly unusual occurrence because my cat is too smart for his own good, and I should have known better before I went to bed.

We have started a process for the past month of letting the dog sleep in a dog bed on the floor next to us instead of in her crate like she used to. It has worked well. The only downside is that we have to keep the door closed so she doesn't run around the house willy-nilly in the middle of the night. Keeping the door closed makes the room very stuffy and warm because in their vast intelligence, there is only one vent in the bedroom (which is a fairly good-sized room). Needless to say with our recent air conditioning fiasco, we realized that to keep maximum airflow and the ability to sleep without feeling like we were in a sauna, we needed to keep the door open. We had bought a baby gate for my old apartment because it was split level and we wanted to keep the dog downstairs with us while we were down there so that she wouldn't go upstairs and terrorize my bedroom (she was in her puppy stage at this point). So we found the old baby gate, put it in the doorway to the bedroom, and can now leave the bedroom door open so we can breathe at night.

So you are probably wondering what all that has to do with anything! My cat, Mikah, likes to sleep with me. He usually sleeps in my arm or pressed up against the side of my body. He has done this since I got him at six weeks old and he is now 5+ years old. He also likes to be able to get up in the middle of the night and eat or drink or whatnot so we have to keep a smaller food dish for him in the bathroom that he can get at night. Since we have the baby gate now (which he can jump over), we assumed that he would be nice enough to jump over the gate if needing food to his main food dish which is in the living room. We assumed wrong. That is obviously too far to have to go for your midnight snack, and in his infinite wisdom, he decided last night that ripping paper was the way to wake me up (his other methods include banging on the blinds, etc.). Each time he did, I would swat at him in my half-sleep and try to get him to stop, only to have him run into the bathroom to point out his lack of food, and come back a few minutes later when he saw I hadn't taken his orders and begin ripping paper again. This is why I was awake at 3 am this morning.

So I finally got up and went in the living room and brought his food in and put in the bathroom. I laid back down thinking I would go to sleep. No such luck! The dog for some reason was sleeping at the foot of our bed on the floor wrapped up in the comforter which we have on the floor temporarily because it's so hot. She had made a nest there (our animals have issues!), and had seen me get up and go get the food and go in the bathroom and come back and apparently that was an open invitation to come see me in bed. So then I had our 40 pound dog in the bed with us too and she has been sick lately so I felt guilty about kicking her out. Of course, I could still not sleep, probably something to do with the fact that my cat, me, my dog, and my husband were all smushed in a queen size bed. Needless to say, I was still awake when Austin's alarm went off at 5 am, and I didn't fal back to sleep until about 5:30 for an hour and then had to get up. I'm a little sleepy! ;)

Of course, when Austin gets up, he turns on the TV regardless of whether I'm awake or asleep. I should have done that to him at 3 am!!! I think I sensed something was going on because it was exactly at that time that the explosions had occurred in London even though I didn't find out about it until 5:15 or so. I'm a little worried because one of my good friends from high school (she was my maid of honor in my wedding) is over in London right now studying at the University of London for a summer abroad program in law school. I saw on the news that the tube station that was affected was right by the University of London campus, and I am just hoping and praying now that she was in class or in the dorms when this occurred and not having to take the subway for any reason. I have e-mailed her and am waiting to hear back and will try calling her mom tonight if I haven't heard anything.

Please keep my friend and the many others that are involved in this disastrous event in London in your thoughts and prayers. It is such a tragedy, but I was so proud to see President Bush standing behind Tony Blair this morning along with the other world leaders in a show of consolidated support. I don't think these terror events will ever end, but we must stand strong and try to be aware of what is going on to prevent them the best we can.

I just finished my first cup of coffee to keep me awake today and hopefully after one more or a soda, I can at least function! :)

What I Wouldn't Give..........

What I wouldn't give to be able to open and honest and vent my feelings, thoughts, and frustrations right now. But fear of who might read it keeps me from doing that temporarily. One of these days, I hope to be able to explain all this mess and get it out in the open and receive the feedback and comforting comments I enjoy. But for now, my lips are sealed, and I struggle with it internally, only able to speak of it in person with my husband or friends yet somehow not being able to describe the intensity of feeling that resides. I am a much better writer than speaker, and how I wish I could write. But for now, the typing must stop until I think of a more positive, unrelated topic to discuss, one which will not jeopardize anything.

Sorry to keep you all in the dark and to be so quick and vague. Take comfort in the fact that it does NOT have to do with my health, my husband/marriage, or my family and friends. Thanks for letting me get this out at least! :)

Torture Devices

I'm in a blogging mood (don't really have a whole lot else to do!) and thought I would share a warning to those of you that are female out there (and to men reading this and wanting to buy something for their wife/girlfriend)........bras are torture devices meant to bring pain and suffering to women everywhere. Now don't get scared, I'm not joining some hippy revolution of bra-burning or anything crazy like that. I am just annoyed. Annoyed by the fact that bras and panties for that matter are so darn expensive for women. For the cost of two bras and a few pairs of underwear for a woman, a man can get a whole outfit! And not only do they cost a lot but they are not meant to be pretty and comfortable. You pretty much have to pick one or the other.

This weekend I went on a shopping adventure determined to get at least one cute fun bra and then a replacement for my nude-colored strapless that has seen its better days plus a few pairs of cute but comfortable underwear. The first store we went into was lots of $$$. I might add that I haven't had to buy a bra for myself in awhile - either been on a shopping excursion with my mom and therefore reaped the parental plastic benefits or received the sexy kind by way of my lingerie shower before the wedding. I have plenty of that if and when I choose to wear it from all of my wonderful friends, but the sad part is I'm lacking in the every day, comfortable yet look nice kind. So we went to another store. This second store had some bargains - I of course found nothing in the bargain section but found two that seemed reasonable, one with a cute design and the other to replace the one I needed. Got home and put them on and the pretty one has thick straps and not very comfortable even though I only had it on for about 5 minutes. I guess that should have been a warning sign right there! Now today, I have the practical one on and that is cutting off the circulation in my left shoulder, and pushing into my chest like a torture device. I am NOT a happy camper.

Now, I get to go home, search around for the receipt and tags, and at least take the two torturous devices back. The good news is that I found online at the first store we went to a few things that they didn't have available at the actual store and they are on sale and in colors and patterns and things that I like and seem comfortable so I may take that money and try those out. Or I may just wait because right now, I'm not feeling in the mood to deal with any more torture devices!!!

Sorry if this was TMI, I tried to limit the graphic nature, but I had to vent because it's just not fair!!! :)

The Need for More Three Day Weekends

After having a wonderful and relaxing weekend, I have decided that we need to petition to enforce a four day work week on a regular basis. Having that extra day made all the difference in the world to actually getting some time to relax over the weekend besides just having to run errands and do chores. We had a great weekend, and I'm sad that it's over but at least we only have to work four days this week and then it's the weekend again.

I wanted to start out by congratulating Amanda and Blake! :) That is so exciting!

Now back to our weekend activities.....Saturday we went to see War of the Worlds. I must say that this is a very well done movie in the fact that it is done so well that it makes you extremely uncomfortable sitting in the movie theater. All three of us that went said afterwards that we nearly walked out not because it was bad but just so disturbing and made our skin want to crawl. It is definitely one of those movies that I'm glad that I saw once, but probably won't ever see again. And Tom Cruise wasn't as annoying as I thought he might be! :)

Sunday was great because we got to relax by the pool at Austin's parents' house. The water was warm like bath water, and it was so nice and relaxing. I miss having a pool (we have one in the complex, but I don't really go often because it's always crowded and it's just not the same as having one of your own to jump into whenever you feel like it). We also did a little tiny bit of shopping on Sunday which is always fun. Sunday night, we drove to Addison to watch the Kaboomtown Fireworks. They were great! We were able to come in the back way from our place, found a good parking lot nearby to park in, and sat in the bed of Austin's new truck to watch. They were 30 minutes long and spectacular! Nothing like some good fireworks for the 4th!

Yesterday was back to the real world again, grocery shopping and cleaning/laundry. But we still had a good time, Austin made a great dinner, and we watched all the holiday specials on TV last night! I have to say that I can NOT watch Jessica Simpson while she sings because she is just too spastic and her mouth gets too big, but if I look away, then her voice is not bad! :)

I almost forgot! The air conditioning fiasco! We went out Friday night and had a very romantic evening of putting up heat resistant film on our bedroom windows which helped a bunch. But we have finally complained enough that they are going to put in a second air conditioning unit in our apartment and cut more vents for it. Apparently whoever built the apartments 10+ years ago was cheap and put the smallest air conditioning units and smallest number of vents they could. Since we have a VERY large apartment in terms of square footage, this doesn't really work so well, and this has happened to several other units our size in the complex. They are getting approval as we speak for this second unit which will have a thermostat in our bedroom which will be super great and should cut down on the electric bill and the heat issue. Hopefully they will be able to put it in this week/weekend so that will be great! :)

Other than that, not a whole lot to report. I am counting down the days to our vacation (I tried to put a ticker in but it was too big to fit on the side. So I will post one here and it will stay on the page at least a little while :)

Hope you all had a great weekend and keep on blogging!

Home, Home on the Range

Sorry that I haven't written since Monday. Needless to say, it's been a pretty boring week, and all I've really wanted to do was catch up on sleep and learn to laugh about the disaster that was last weekend! :)

That being said, our air conditioner has been getting progressively worse yet again. Last night it was 83 degrees in our apartment at 9:30 at night. That is insane considering our thermostat is set at 72 degrees! I understand that when it gets this hot that the air has to struggle to cool, but there is just something not right about it continuing to not cool until about 3 or 4 in the morning when it gets to about 77. We tried calling the maintenance people last night, but of course they wouldn't come because it was deemed an emergency and was after hours so they are supposed to look at it again today. Considering this is like the fourth time we've had to have them look at the air and I REFUSE to pay another $250 electric bill when it's their faulty equipment that is running up the bill, Austin was on the phone to them at 9 am when they opened and he is now on his way back to the apartment since work ended on time today because of the holiday weekend and he is going to give them h*(& until they fix it! :) We're hoping they will give in and just get a brand new one.

Since we have had such run-ins with the appliances and other factors of our apartment, we are even more interested in trying to push for a house purchase (or rental if necessary) in the near future. Our lease at the apartment is up in February so we will be madly looking this fall I'm sure to see what we can find in our price range without having to live in the middle of nowhere and a good house that is new or at least updated and good to live in for the next 10 years or so. I know this process will be tedious and may take awhile so we want to get a head start after the heat of the summer and begin looking in the fall/winter. Because I don't know if I can spend another summer in that apartment! :)

Other than that, not a whole lot to report. We don't have much planned for the holiday weekend other than R&R and a trip to the vet tomorrow morning for the dog to get her annual checkup. Maybe we'll spend some time by the pool, I'm sure we'll catch a movie, and I'm hoping to make some fondue on Sunday night (yum!). At least I will have another four day week next week which will help even though short weeks always seem longer than regular ones for some reason.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and here's to hoping we get our air conditioner fixed before the 100 degree temperatures come back on Sunday and Monday! Happy 4th of July!