I Hate...

The dentist. I thought it would be smart to consolidate the yearly appointments on one day and see the optometrist and dentist on the same day. I do not recommend this. Staring at a dazzling light with diluted pupils while the dentist has your mouth stretched open wider than the grand canyon in order to drill your tooth so that fragments of it get lodged in your throat is not too pleasant. Sort of reminds me of being the gynecologist chair. Maybe I should have done that one today too and just had full day of it. GRRR.

The weeks have flown. What I've been doing I couldn't tell you. Mike working from home is, for the moment, fun. For instance since he is used to eating out for lunch eat day it has now become our ritual to eat out for lunch each day. This has to be nipped at the bud faster than a cheetah on crack. I've now developed a habit as deadly as crack: Subway's buffalo chicken ranch sandwich. It's gotten so serious that they told as last week they would be discontinuing the buffalo sandwich but they will keep some bottles of the sauce on hand for us since we come in, I quote, "practically every day". Excellent.

The net effect of this new habit is absolutely ZERO weight loss and have in fact gained weight. Excellent. The kitchen is almost done and this makes me very happy as at least we have eliminated the eating out at night portion of our day. What remains now is one last sanding of the drywall and to paint the walls. Wheee. The other house is also almost complete with just a few minor touch ups. Now if I could just rent the stupid thing.

I had a grand time in Santa Fe last week. The trip was great except for the part where I was seeping money at the poker table faster than what the national debt is climbing. Excellent. It was still a great time though and I absolutely enjoyed the mud wrap. I had crazy silly thoughts like "I should treat my body better" and "I really want to make time for me". This coming from a self absorbed princess might seem humorous to you but it did make me feel all warm and fuzzy. For about 2 hours. That's when I got back to the casa to find a very annoying and disappointing email from a disgruntled recipient of my monthly spam campaign. I mean, come on, who doesn't enjoy a rain poncho during the dry season? Whatever.

I'm off to Rochester this week. This can't miss. 5 or 6 of the family in one little 2 bedroom townhouse. Oh yes ladies and gentlemen there will be feathers flying. The best news of all is that Dad's lovely lady will be there to enjoy the festivities. I can't wait to hear all the words of wisdom she will have for us all. Seeing Lou Lou will be a treat. Any idea for Dad's B. day on the 6th?

We Shall Dance!

Mike and attended our first dance lesson last night! We decided to (finally) join some friends for Level 1 East Coast Swing/Jitterbug. The experience was interesting to say the least. I thought that maybe, just maybe, there would be about 10 people at the class. Man, was I wrong. There were about 20 couples! It was insane as I really didn't expect so many people there. Most of the folks were a little bit older and not all of them were couples.

The school's philosophy is to make sure that everyone dances with everyone else. Yuck. It, at first, was not really very nice. For one, you are dancing with all these strangers. Some are nice and some are just creepy. I'm sure they will become nicer as you get to know them better (the class if for 4 weeks total). Anyway, some of those guys really are a bit odd and smell funny. Hands are sweaty, the room is hot with all those people in it, and everyone is on edge a bit. By the end of the evening I had loosened up a bit and actually enjoyed myself. Wish us luck. Turns out my honey is not a great dancer. WHO SAID THAT.

After the dance we stopped in at the Rita Room for a little re-hydration. Lord, do they have some serious drinks. After just 2 drinks Mike and I were weaving home just a little bit toasted. Okay, maybe a lot toasted. The unfortunate part is that we drank all the calories we had just burned. Dammit!

New Mattress?

Thanks for all the great comments on the move. It's very tricky indeed. We will have separate office spaces and one thing I am very excited about is that my office will be bigger. I'm happy to take the basement space as my office which will be much larger and Mike will take the other room upstairs as his office. This is good too because it allows some more separation during the day.

I feel that we don't use all the space in our house because Mike is hogging the dining room. The most important space to me is really my office because I spend most of my hours there. Seems like that solves that! I'm so selfish.

Next big dilemma is the new mattress. I find that the internet has created such a wealth of information that it makes decision making more difficult for me. I have way too many choices which I feel needs plenty of investigation. So, the hunt for the mattress continues. Like any product, there are mixed reviews about the tempurpedic online. The alternative is the sleep number bed but that too is getting mixed reviews. I mean, shoot, if you are going to spend $2K on a stupid mattress one would think there would be good information out there. I know we can spend less and get a mattress from $800 - $1500 that would work well but how well? GRRRR. Sleep has become such a big focus now because we don't sleep well due to 1) bad mattress 2) outside noise (which moving will help). I think our street has become busier and busier with all the development 10 blocks down.

This is a dangerously slow week for me. I'm not happy about this at all. On Saturday we went to a wedding reception of a client of mine and the only people we know there were some past clients of mine. The husband has since become a Realtor. It was good to see them but it's hard to ignore the competitive nature of our business. Talking shop with him is like walking on eggs hells. The thing that really disturbed me was the fact that he is so much more hungrier than I. The fact is that my light is beginning to fade as the year comes to a close because there is just so much energy one person has. I guess once you reach a sense of comfort the urgency lessens. Unfortunately, it is short sighted because it just creates panic again come December. I'm doing everything I know to keep motivated and keep at it but for the moment the motivation eludes me. I'm going through the motions but I'm just not there 110%. This is bad, bad, bad.

Should we move?

Hmmm..this is a perplexing issue right now. Dot is getting to leave us at the end of the month and go out on her own. This will be very sad but I understand that it's something she must do for herself. I've known dot for just about ever. She knew me when I was 16, into grunge, and just about the most difficult teenager ever. Dot was the kindest person during some of the toughest times in my life so it's very sad to have her move out. I know, I know, I can't have a roommate forever but I love Dot.

Anyway, with Dot leaving it has brought up the possibility of moving into the renovated house. It was something we were mulling over but now we are giving it serious consideration. There are some pros and cons. Being the Libra I am I cannot decide for the life of me.

Pros: Less busy street (maybe by 50%), less space to clean up, a new yard to tackle, an opportunity to throw away junk we have been accumulating (nothing like a move to do that), a house for Mike and I to move into together from "scratch", a tax benefit of actually having lived in the house, having a better cash flow situation (the other house will rent for more), more sunlight as this house is very light and bright.

Cons: Less space (50% less space), only 1 bathroom, no air conditioning, huge yard to tackle ( i know, i know..it's a pro and a con).

Seems like there are more pros than cons but I am a space hog so this is hard for me to do. I think it could be fun though and I know that it will only be for a short while (2 years max). This is very perplexing indeed.

Last night's dinner was very yummy indeed. The food was good, but not as good as Celadon. The pork we ordered was a bit on the dry side so Mike ate mine which he later came to realize as "I just ate $50 of pork!" The company was excellent though and the sorbet for desert was by far some of the best I have ever had. Yummy.

Almost There!

House is almost done. Floors in this weekend, finishing work next week, and all I have to do is paint it. Ha, ha. That's funny because it will take me forever. Anyway, I'm very happy that it's almost all done and then I shall rent it out. Whee.

I'm trying to think of things to do so that I don't have to do some paperwork. Having a hard time of it though so I shall blog. Firstly, I'm a bit annoyed with "...you can dance". For one, if Nigel mentions one more time how great it is that they are getting votes on the show and that the damn show has been picked up for another season I will puke. I find the show less entertaining now that it's down to the final few. I definitely think the judges are trying to steer votes too. Whatever.

I've picked up Big Brother. Ha, ha, this is really bad. I have never watched the show before so it's amusing to pick it up during the all star season. It cracks me up though as some of those people (Chilltown) are truly diabolical. Got to love it though. I have also been sneaking in episodes of Hells Kitchen which I have never seen before and it appears to be a show geared at swearing. Interesting.

Other junk: Treasure Hunters seems to be getting better. If you add all these up I'm watching about 4 hours of junk reality T.V/week. Supernova gets thrown in there too occasionally. Okay, so make that 5. Thanks to Tivo it's really only 3 hours and 20 minutes. I guess that is not too bad? Who knows.

Yesterday was my honey's b.day so we spent the day doing our favorite thing: eating. We also saw Miami Vice which I had low expectations for but it wasn't too bad. I thought the supporting characters carried the movie more than the leading roles. We ate at the Chop House and then of course tons of candy at the movie. Yummy. We then proceeded to buy his gift, which was a new cell phone. He insisted on Cricket service. Visiting their store was an interesting experience but honey loves his phone. Can you imagine using a phone for a year when the screen is broken? No caller ID, no message signal, no calendar, no contacts list. How has he been functioning I ask you?