Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The Cost
Don't you love those two-word titles?
Okay, so we are finally, finally in the last stages of laying down the floor. (And I mean it this time. I know that many of you have called me and asked about progress to receive this answer. But it really is true!) To some this bitter complaining may seem a bit premature because we have only been working on it for 3 days. But lemme tell you, in some aspects the 3 days have been pure concentrated hell. I won't go very much farther with that, as the floor is not completely done, and I am sure I will have more bitterness before it is all through.
But here is what we have been through so far:
20 boxes of flooring: 500 some-odd dollars
5 tubes of underlayment: $125
3 pull bars: $24
16 man hours: killing our knees, backs, and legs
Not killing each other, cussing each other like mad, threatening each other with various tools and not serving each other with divorce papers:
Priceless.
Hah! Had to do it!
Especially after seeing Peyton Manning in that commercial where he askes the grocery store guy to sign a loaf of bread for his brother. "He loves you man!"
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Floor
The effing floor is almost done. More to follow later.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Why Is My Blog Speaking Spanish?
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but part of my "Sephora-ed" posting has gone spanish. No, I am not fluent in spanish. I don't know what happened! But it is kind of disheartening, because I poured some of myself into that post, and now it is gone.
My only hope is that whoever got the rest of that posting enjoys it. :( But I still want it back!
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
'Tis The Season!
To deck the floors?
Well, that's what hubby and I think, anyway. We decided that our Christmas present to each other is going to be brand spanking new laminate flooring in our living room! Yippee!
Okay, now I know that I could just post a picture of our current living room floor to describe the situation, but I am way too embarrassed. Words will have to suffice. We currently have carpet that was installed when the house was built. Clearly this is no top of the line carpet, because it is VERY stain susceptible, not resistant. I have tried everything that I know to keep the stupid carpet clean, to no avail.
Plus, I have hubby. One time he dragged a dog kennel across the carpet instead of proving what a big strong man he is by carrying it. I wasn't home when he did it, so why bother trying to impress? As a result we have several black trails across our beige colored carpet. Nice.
Also, we must not forget those animals! The cats haven't really done much to it, but Zoe is a completely different story. She enjoys taking her aggressions out on the carpet, among other things. When I came back home from South Africa last year, she was proud to show me the new additions, (or should I say subtractions?) she made to the carpet. We now have several places where she chewed past the padding, showing bare concrete. These are just a few examples of how atrocious the carpet is.
We have tried strategically placing furniture over the embarrassing spots of the carpet, but we have now come to the point where we have more spots to cover than coverings. And we have been at this point for a long time.
So anyway, dear readers, I just want to share my overwhelming joy with you in this development. Tomorrow we are going floor shopping, and I have a feeling that that is where the joy will end. You know how sometimes the thought of getting something is actually better than getting it? I'm afraid that this is going to be the case here. So, for just this moment, I want to soak in the anticipation, the excitement, and the currently high levels of love I have for hubby.
For tomorrow we die. Or go shopping for flooring, which we plan on installing ourselves. Okay, must not dwell on that part. So, if anyone needs to know how to pray for us, this would be a good place to start.
I have a list of specific prayer requests:
1. Pray that we do not kill each other at the store. (I will want the more expensive flooring, he will want the cheapest flooring possible. In fact, if he thought he could get away with it, he would suggest that we lay down some cardboard and call it a day.)
2. Pray that I do not javelin any of the strips of flooring at his head. (Don't want bloodstains on our nice new flooring, do we?)
3. Pray that we are still speaking to each other by Christmas. (I know, this is a lot to ask.)
4. Pray that I do not try to show him up as the better handy man. (Sometimes I am!)
5. Pray that by the time we are done, the finished product actually resembles some kind of floor.
6. Just pray!
Oh, and for those of you confused about us receiving Christmas presents before Christmas: We can never actually wait for Christmas. We get way too excited about it, and act like little kids and exchange presents early. One year we actually gave presents to each other on November 1. So we were lucky to hold out this long!
Friday, November 18, 2005
Sephora-ed.
So, my small bundle of readers, do you remember when I went to visit my friend in Boston? No? Me neither. Ha!
Well anyway, my friend introduced me to my own personal Disneyworld: Sephora! For those not in the know, Sephora is a huge cosmetics, facial, hair care, perfume, basically whatever you want to beautify yourself short of actual plastic surgery. They carry tons of lines, from Jessica Simpson's dessert line (nasty) to Dior make-up (wonderful). And the best part is: you can try EVERYTHING!
I don't know about you, but I am the type of girl that will go into Wal-Mart's cosmetic section and try to covertly try stuff there. This is not so easy, because you have to do it without the staff seeing you, or the cameras. Trying out cover-up there is an exercise in futility because you sweat so much from fear of being caught that the cover-up refuses to stick to your skin. The sales people also become very suspicious if you show up in the check-out line with a rainbow of colors on your fingernails. Have you ever tried to pay for something without actually using your hands? Trust me, they are very reluctant to take money presented to them with your teeth.
So the beauty of Sephora is is that you can try anything! They have little stations set up with everything yo grande es que la gente guarda estos videos, y los han compartido conmigo, y asi ahora yo se los puedo vender. (risas) Seriamente, el hecho de que algunos de esos shows ni siquiera los recordaba, me vuela la cabeza. ¡Nunca antes me dí cuenta de lo mal que tocabamos!"
Sobre si el hecho de que los miembros de S.O.D. se separaran en malos terminos tiene algo que ver con lanzar este DVD:
"No. Recuerda esto Charlie Benante, dejó S.O.D. después del primer show de la gira europea, asi es que no tiene ningún derecho a decirme algo. Lilker es un volado que aún le gusta lo que era S.O.D. y respeta a los fans incluso más de lo que yo lo hago, y Scott Ian, es un judío, y ama el dinero por sobre todas las cosas. Creo que eso lo dice todo."
S.O.D. comenzó a mediados de los 80 durante una pausa en las grabaciones del álbum "Spreading the Disease" de ANTHRAX. Lo que partió como un juego para Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, Dan Lilker, y el políticamente incorrecto Billy Milano, terminó siendo una gran influencia en muchas bandas de hardcore, metalcore y post-hardcore. El primer álbum, "Speak English Or Die", ha vendido más de 400,000 copias y es todo un clásico, imperdible, del underground.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Zoe!
This is Zoe as a wee little pup! And yes, that is a real Louis Vuitton. I sold it on E-bay! The girl who purchased it has not seen this picture! But she probably already put her dog in it too! If not, what she doesn't know won't kill her bag. ;) 
Isn't She Lovely?
Isn't she beautiful? This is my Maddy Girl.
Isn't this the cutest?
This is baby Simon, and Garfield. Yay! I figured out Pictures! (aka-Watch Out World!)
This is my nephew, Kirby. He is tiny tiny tiny. (Chihuahua, for those of you who require such details.) This was taken on my recent excursion to Orlando!
Put Me OUT of My Misery
Why am I awake? It is 6:55a.m., and I have been up since 4-ish. I have developed this habit of going to bed late, waking up 4 hours later, and then going back to bed and getting up late. Ugghhh. I feel nauseous. I feel hollow. I am bored.
Have you ever noticed there is nothing to do at 4a.m.? No? I have. I even had to wait until 5:30a.m for hubby to get up, gnash his teeth at me and abandon me for the gym.
Okay, so here's something random about me. I am a technology geek without the skills to follow through. Example: My first mission for this morning was to download digital pictures off memory card and distribute copies to friends via e-mail. Successful? I am not sure, I have to wait and see if said friends received their copies of their pictures. Turns out that I don't know how to send more than 5 pictures at a time through e-mail. I wonder if there is a program that lets me do that, instead of breaking a batch of pictures down into 6 separate e-mails.
Luckily for me, a more successful technology geek is going to be at my disposal for the next several days. Yes, that's right. Ms. AE is coming to town. WOO-HOO!
Plus, I can get her to weigh in on my new drastic haircolor. REDDDDDD! C-Los sort of weighed in, but she gave me the cryptic "it's going to take me a few days to get used to it." Okay C-Los, does a few days mean that you will call me in a few days and tell me what you think? Or does a few days mean literal collections of 24 hours of concentrated time with me and my hair before you weigh in? Are you a young-earther or a old-earther?
I think that was more clever than any person in their wrong mind could expect to come up with at 7:08 in the morning. With that, I bid you adieu.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Et Tu, Computer?
So, I was away this weekend. And hubby got bored. He no longer wanted Quicken on our Computer, so he tried to remove it. Instead of removing Quicken, he deleted my... I mean our digital pictures, and messed up iTunes. I know, I know. Say it isn't so. It is.
I don't blame him. He is like the child that wants to touch the stove. I blame Computer. Isn't it supposed to be on my side? Haven't I been good to it? Haven't I kept it updated? Didn't I give it more memory? How could Computer have betrayed me by not being hot when it saw what was coming from hubby?
*Sigh*
How can I live without iTunes?
Have to go cry now.
The Fun is in the Details
Yep. It's been a really long time. Sorry!
So, to catch you up a bit, C-Los and I went to Houston, TX for the Colts' Appreciation Trip. It was the weekend of October 21. It rocked. (Thanks again Mom and Dad!)
Highlights from the trip include:
C-Los whaling her ankle on the water slide, and me talking her into going on it again the next night anyway.
Me getting crapped on by a bird while trying to relax in the hot tub.
C-Los' embarassment at juvenile males' commentary. (I like her trick better!)
Me calling Dad and demanding that he have something done about the roof at Reliant Stadium. (They wouldn't open it.)
But the best part of the trip by far happened at Rainforest Cafe.
Okay, so they had a dinner for us at the Rainforest Cafe. It was buffet style, with an open bar! (Whoa!) Their special drink for the night was the Colt-a-Rita. (It was blue.)
We were informed that there was a ride attached to the Cafe, and we could ride it as many times as we liked for free. They had dressed it up for Halloween, and I was all about it! C-Los, on the other hand, had to be talked into it. Well, after (finally) finding someone who told us that the ride was PG-13 at its worst, and that we could take our Colt-a-Ritas with us, we were sold.
We got into this raft thing that looks just like the round rafts at amusement parks where they dump copious amounts of water on you. Same idea here, sans water.
That ride was freaking scary. The only thing PG-13 about it was the picture they took of us at the beginning before our raft left. At first everything was okay, because everything was mechanical. Things were popping out at us, but it wasn't very scary. The scary part started to come when our raft brushed the side and started to spin. No way were we letting our backs face what was coming next. So we start seat hopping in an effort to continue facing forward.
Then jitters start to set in. At one point I noticed this skeleton thing that had popped out on the raft that was ahead of us. "Now C-Los, see that skeleton? That's going to pop out at us so don't be scared. You don't have to be scared of that skeleton because... AAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!" Yep, that's right. I screamed.
Then, they threw in people dressed up as scary guys. Well, that was it for C-Los. From that point on she was crouched in the middle of the raft. She alternated between screaming and saying "Dawn, I hate you." Then of course I made everything better when one of the scary guys jumped out at us and I spilled my Colt-a-Rita all over C-Los and the raft. After that the only things that we could manage to do were scream and laugh.
Right after we got off the ride I asked C-Los if she wanted to do it again.
"I hate you."
Ahhhh, friendship.