Ten On Tuesday

Welcome to another Ten On Tuesday – hosted over at A Grande Life.  And here we go.....

1. I had jury duty yesterday. Long, tedious, and boring are good words to describe it. Fortunately, I wasn’t called to go into a court room. Unfortunately, that meant sitting in the juror waiting room for HOURS... Fortunately again, that meant I got a lot of reading done... Approximately 300 pages of reading, actually....

2. I have shingles on my roof! I am extremely excited about this. The first shingles were up yesterday and they made sure to put them on the side of the roof that I can see when I’m driving down the street when I get home. I may or may not have squealed really loudly and clapped my hands like a dork while still driving.....................

3. As much as home improvements suck – the dust, the cost, the fear that there will be freak rain storms flooding your house while you have no roof other than the plywood..... I am so excited to finally have the roof done! And next come WINDOWS!!!!!! I cannot wait!!

4. J was finally forced to chop up the tree in the backyard after it chopped itself down. We don’t know where this tree came from, we didn’t want it, and J had been saying that he would chop it down. Well, the other morning I was taking the trash out and saw that it had fallen over. All by itself!! So all he had to do was chop it apart. Now no more crappy weirdo tree! Now we can get the avocado and plum trees we want...

5. I never went to see the newest Twilight movie, so I am going to try to get to the $1 theater by my office to see it before it’s gone from the theaters completely...

6. The cell phone that we want is FINALLY being released for Verizon!! We are going to try to go pre-order them tonight!! (I may or may not have just squealed quietly and clapped my hands like a dork while sitting here at my desk....)

7. There are some big things that could be happening for J at work in the next six months or so!! I’m very excited! And it helps tame my green-eyed monster that reared its head when a friend that works with him just got a promotion...

8. I had to go run an errand for my boss this afternoon and really enjoyed flying down the road with my sunroof open and blasting Pink over the speakers... “So what? I’m still a rock star!”

9. I can’t wait for the new season of Dexter... It’s going to be weird to have to wait for episodes when I’m used to the dvd’s where I can watch mass quantities in a crazy marathon....

10. One of the normal people in my office is leaving. As she said herself, it’s bittersweet... She will definitely be missed, but she’s gonna rock at what she has coming. I wish I could be brave enough to make the changes she has and to dive in the deep end with them. Good luck, Es. You’re going to be awesome no matter what you do. Don’t forget us down here... Gonna miss working with ya, lady friend.

Go check her out here at http://www.restlessproduction.com/ or here http://restlessproduction.tumblr.com/

Odd Conversation

So we’re having our roof redone (yay!!) and we went with our contractor, G, last night to pick up all of the supplies at Home Depot. I was lucky enough to be able to take home the huge stake bed truck from my office to help be able to get everything home... I let J know – he let G know. This conversation (approximately... I didn’t record it or anything, but this is how I remember it...) took place on our way to grab a quick bite and head to get everything....

(Side note: Everything in this conversation was said completely seriously...)

J: It’s a good thing I double-checked the text about the truck that I was sending to G! I accidentally used the wrong kind of stake.

Me: That’s awesome! I kept double-checking every time I typed it today to make sure I didn’t call it the steak bed.

J: Mmmm... Steak Bed

Me: Of course that takes you to wanting a bed made of meat...

J: Well, yeah... Who doesn’t like steak?

Me: It’d be really messy. But probably pretty tender...

J: Well, yeah, if you tenderize it. And it would have to be cooked medium rare. Don’t want it to be too hard...

Me: Oh, I was thinking raw...

J: Yeah, that would be tender.

Me: But it would be really sticky... And messy.

J: And it would totally stink.

Me: (Indignant) Oh, like a COOKED meat bed wouldn’t stink??

J: Well, yeah, after a while... But until then think of the lovely dreams you would have while laying on the delicious smell of perfectly cooked steak...

Pause as the realization sets in that we have just had an entire conversation about having a bed made of steak.........

Me: I can guarantee no one has ever had this conversation before.


We’re a little on the odd side.....

Ten On Tuesday

I decided to participate in Ten On Tuesday over at A Grande Life.  Since I love lists (see # 10), this is right up my alley..... :-)

1. Our roof is being redone! FINALLY!! Our contractor is starting work today... I’m so excited. We’ve needed to get this done for a while now. J kept saying that he would do it because it would be so much cheaper, but he’s been saying that for about 5 years now... It’s not gonna be cheap, but we know the guy does really good work. And it will actually GET DONE! The only thing that has shocked me in all this is how much it costs to have Waste Management drop off a freaking dumpster! It’s ridiculous!!

2. After a lapse in my working out, I am not only back on track – I am now down a total of 18 pounds! Yay me!! Now I just need to stay on it... My weight will not rule my life forever!!!!!

3. I have decided to get an e-reader. Now I just have to make the decision of which one. It is down to the Kindle or the Sony. I know people that have both and everyone loves the one they have. The Sony is far more aesthetically (sweet! Spelled that right first try! Haha) pleasing. Plus it comes in red!!!!! BUT.... The Kindle has AMAZON behind it. How do you compete with that?? Plus the new one isn’t too bad... It actually looks kind of nice in the grey color... I’m so torn.

4. I think having my IS250 has made me a little snobby... We need to borrow a stake bed truck from my office (think gardener truck – but nicer) in order to help get all the stuff for the roof home from Home Depot... And I really don’t want to drive it................ Even just the 10 miles from work to home and back in the morning... I can’t help it.

5. I am dying for Glee, House, Bones, Dexter... All my fall favorites to come back... But I will be sad to see my summer shows go... I will miss True Blood.

6. I am being extremely well-behaved in my goal to read all the books I already have in a pile waiting to be read before I buy anymore... If I get my e-reader, that may go out the window... Or I may be disciplined enough to work on filling up the e-reader to get it ready for when I finish the stack...

7. It is so cold in my office right now that my nail beds look a little purple. Crazy! Time to turn on my heater I have hidden under my desk. I swear, the hotter it is outside, the colder it is in here!

8. This is the longest I have ever been able to keep my natural nails long and pretty... (Knock on wood - gently... Don't want to break a nail!) I was a serial nail-biter my whole life. Figured it was time to grow up... It still trips me out to have nails.

9. I need a week off. It’s been too long since I took more than a day off from work. (Other than the weekend – that doesn’t count...) I’m thinking that taking a mental health vacation sounds pretty freaking lovely right now.

10. I have lists everywhere... Stuff I need at the grocery store, books I want, To-Do Lists, funny websites... Post-its litter my life at work and home... :-)  I never remember things, so I have to write everything down...

Vivid Dreams

This week I was not planning on participating in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop because I didn't really have anything good to write about.  Until last night, when I suddenly had something to write about for the prompt "This one time I was sleeping and…" My chest feels tight just thinking about it again....



So, I have always had very vivid dreams. I can go for months without remembering a dream, but then they come back. Usually with a vengeance... Last night was no exception.


I had a dream last night that I was in a plane crash.

I was on a plane – don’t know where I was going, why I was going there, or if I was with anyone – and I remember that I was woken up from a nap (I’m weird, I sleep in my dreams sometimes) on the plane by a slight jolt. I thought we were just starting to land, so I looked out my window.

We weren’t landing.

I watched as the plane pointed more and more directly at the ground. I remember there was water and land – it looked like a city, but I didn’t recognize it. Completely helpless, I turned and buried my face in the chair and braced my feet on the back of the chair in front of me. I knew that there was nothing I could do to stop it, so the best I could hope for was for it to be over quickly and not have to see what was happening. I was holding my breath as the pain and heat started from my feet up.

I woke up feeling like I was on fire. Even though we keep our house at 70 degrees at night and all I had covering me was a sheet. It took a little while of being completely uncovered and clinging desperately to my sleeping husband to soothe myself enough to sleep again...

And, of course, I did my childhood trick to make the bad dream stay away by rolling over and laying on the opposite side of how I was laying during the dream. It always seemed to snap me out of that dream and start a new one. If I stayed in the same spot and position, I could usually get right back into a dream again.

And I didn’t want to get back in that one.

Wordless Wednesday - Puppy Loves Camping Too

(Ok - almost wordless... It's my friend's puppy - not mine... And he is ADORABLE.)

This is my first time participating in “Angry Julie Monday’s Wordless Wednesday Linky”! It's easy to play along...  Just post a picture(s) that you took in the past week and link back to it here. Wordless Wednesday is a great day to post an awesome picture that “speaks” for itself, no words needed.

Picture Time

It's been a while since I pulled the pictures off of my digital camera, but I finally remembered to do it... So here you go :-)

This was my birthday dessert that they brought me at Gemmel's when we went there for my birthday... Like I said, I didn't think about the fact that I had my camera until after we destroyed it... It was so pretty - that little tower of sugar cubes in the background was on fire... It would have been a really cool picture... Oh well...

This was the final product of the supreme cakewreck that was our friends' wedding cake...

This past Saturday was a great food day... We went up to meet with family at my brother's place up in LA.  It was nice to see two of my sisters, a bunch of my nieces and nephews, and hang out with my brother and his wife and kids.  We all went to have lunch at Pink's.  I love their nacho cheese chili dogs. YUM.

Part of the crazy Pink's menu... Seriously - YUM.

One of my nephews and my brother waiting in line with us...  My baby sister is the one just over my brother's shoulder in the grayish blue shirt...

This is She-she (Shakira), their landlady's dog.  She hangs out at their house.  My sister-from-another-mister (sister-in-law) said that it's great - the fun of having a dog, but you get to send it home... :-)  She has a serious underbite and it cracks me up... haha  She's a really sweet dog.

When we left, we HAD TO stop at our favorite donut shop seeing as how we were in the area...  DK's is a chain, but this one is unique.  No other location has the donuts that this one has.  They are absolutely incredible.  I was only slightly crushed by the fact that they were all out of my favorite vanilla buttercream donut at the moment... The chocolate buttercream is good, but it's just not that same.......

My office does a backpack drive every year for a local charity.  I did a boy one and a girl one.  I absolutely loved the binder that I got for the girl one... I love butterflies...  And as if doing something good wasn't enough incentive - I now get to wear jeans for the rest of the month just for doing something I do every year anyway...  And I love me some jeans days at work... :-)

And last, but definitely not least.... Say hello to my lil friend!!!

My new RED Lola baguette!!! I absolutely 100% heart Harvey's Seatbelt Bags.  No surprise there... I've talked about it a few times... Yeah... haha  It's definitely an obsession. You can see her big sister behind her on the left......  LOOOOLA! La la la-la Lo-o-la! 

So... yeah... There you go. Oh! And apparently there is definitely nothing broken in my hand.  It still hurts a bit, but it seems to be getting better. It doesn't hurt to type anymore, which is awesome...

And... I'm going camping this weekend!! Pismo, here we come!

Lame...

There is lame-ness or lame-osity playing in my day today... haha :-)

Over the weekend my middle finger on my right hand started hurting... Totally weird and really painful.  I didn't go to the doctor over the weekend because I figured I must have just bumped it or something and it would start to feel better... Then yesterday I noticed a little bit of swelling around my knuckle on that finger (the one at the bottom where the finger meets the hand) and found that weird.  Then this morning there was a bizarre little bruise on my palm below my middle finger that got darker and more sensitive as the day went on.  So I finally made it over to my doctor's office after work today to get it checked out... They did three x-rays of it and the doctor said that it looks like there isn't anything broken, but that the radiologist would look the x-rays over to be sure and they would call me.  In the meantime I am just supposed to take Advil or Tylenol, ice it a little, and take it easy... Easy enough - I'm a lefty and do a lot with my left hand anyway.  However... I have found that apparently I always pick up my liter bottles of water with my right hand, open the same bottles using my right hand, use my middle finger on my right hand a lot when I'm typing (oops... probably shouldn't be writing this then, huh...), and exclusively use that finger for my track wheel on my mouse... Oh well... I'll do what I can...

The other lameness is that J is on call this week and has to be at a job at 11 pm.  As soon as he is done with that, he has to go to another job in Culver City - which is not close to home...  Poor guy.  Who knows what time he'll get to come home and sleep...  Hopefully everything will go smoothly... (knock on wood!)  Still, he has to work until early tomorrow morning and then still go to work in the morning.  Gross.  I would not be able to function.  I need my sleep.  I love sleep.  In fact, I am going to go to bed soon so that I can get more of it...  Especially since I know that I won't sleep well without him here and will have my sleep interrupted when he finally gets home.

Oh well... That's what happens with his job.  At least he won't be on call for several weeks after this week....

What lame-ness are you contending with? :-)

**Edit: Update**
My poor husband didn't get home until 5:03 this morning.  Poor guy... He got in bed around 5:30-ish.  I'm assuming he had already sent an e-mail to his boss telling him what happened and that he was definitely not going to make it to work on zero sleep because he did not move a muscle when the alarm went off at 6 and was sound asleep when I left for work at 7:30.  I would put money on finding him lounging or napping on the couch when I get home today....... :-)