Merry Christmas to Us!

Santa came early this year! With the wedding consuming all our finances here lately, Mark and I had already decided we were going to keep this Christmas to a bare minimum. I'd started to get creative and was hunting for the best bargains that would stay within our $50 each budget. That is, until I mentioned (ever so casually) to Mark a couple weeks ago that maybe we should buy a new TV as our Christmas gift to each other and take advantage of all the Post-Thanksgiving sales and great financing offers out there. We both have older than old televisions that were nothing fancy and pretty clunky and had been dreaming about a new flat screen for some time now. I'd been saying for at least a year that when we got engaged, I'd buy us a new TV (yes, a total bribe.. I know!), but once we actually did, we couldn't stand to spend the money when it could go towards the wedding.

But. Saving every penny for wedding stuff gets really old. So I just threw out the idea, that we could buy one now and split the payments for the next several months, to see what he thought about it.

To say he ran with this idea is a bit of an understatement. For the next fourteen days straight he read about TV's online, compared prices, shopped around, read reviews and talked to the experts. This weekend we decided to blow a bit of our wedding fund and headed out to Best Buy and came home with this little guy:



Annnnnd, now we are back to saving up for the wedding, all day, every day. Scout's honor. In fact, I'm asking Santa for chair rentals and pinspot lighting this year. But we all need a break sometime, right? And you can bet I'll be watching plenty of "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway" on the new tube.

Wanted: Free Wi Fi

I have a confession to make. For the past nine months I have been "borrowing" other people's wireless internet. When I got my new laptop last year, it was immediately super stealth at detecting wireless connections from anywhere and everywhere. Like as soon as I took it out of the box and turned it on, it was all "hello, I've found you an internet connection!" So earlier this year when I made the switch over to the iPhone and I was going to be paying an extra $30 a month on the cell phone bill, I wanted to find a place to cut that expense out. My choices were to either quit the gym or drop my internet provider. Well this was back in the day when I was actually still working out and I wasn't even using my internet anymore, yet continued to pay it on "good faith" every month. So I officially quite Time Warner and have been living blissfully internet bill free ever since. I had three neighbors who didn't have passwords on their wireless access, so I jumped around from the three of them and was home free, quite literally. Today, only one of those open networks is still available and it's been pretty spotty here lately and this entire weekend its been zilch. No connection.

I have been oh so lonely.

So I packed up my computer and all its cords this morning and sought out some free Wi Fi. Library? Boring. Starbucks? I don't even like coffee! Corner Bakery? Bingo! I snagged a back corner booth, ordered an oatmeal cookie and have access to not only the free Wi Fi, but an endless supply of Diet Coke refills! I may never leave here. Well, at least not until my battery runs out because I can't seem to find an outlet anywhere around here. In the meantime, I'm (finally) downloading the iPhone update (picture text messages! about time!) and getting my fill of wedding blogs that I have been so deprived of all weekend. And looking hardcore at wedding dresses because we are going to look on Wednesday! Me = stoked.

The Details

I would like to clarify. I did not change the tire last week. I got out of my car and said about 381 Oh My God's while Kelly kept saying "it's okay, it's okay." To which I replied "Oh my god." Then, after about 2.5 minutes of this, before the shock could wear off and before the tears could really start, my guardian angel appeared. He drove a red pick up truck and wore a work shirt with his name embroidered on it.

David.



David quickly got to work finding my jack (beats me where it was?), taking off the tire, getting my spare down from under the car, and whipping it back on the car. All while Kelly and I cracked jokes on the side of the road. David got really dirty and covered in grease and other car goop. Luckily the entire back of my 4Runner was filled with nine bags of clothing I've been hauling around for the last month, meaning to take to Good Will. So I passed him my 2002 Delta Gamma Anchorsplash shirt to wipe his hands on. I told him he could keep it. I owed him.



About ten minutes into David's tire changing extravaganza, another pick up pulled up behind us. It was another friendly guy, checking to make sure we were okay. I told him David seemed to have it under control, but he hung around and watched anyways. I think he wanted to be in on the excitement. Once the spare was on, he jumped out with his air pressure gauge tool and checked the air pressure. It was so low it didn't even register. So he advised that I drive the three miles to Crobsytown and put some air in it. This I knew how to do. But I didn't have the little tool thingy, so he gladly gave me his. I told him I owed him one, the next time I saw him. So on we went on our way. Once we got to the gas station in town, I got out to put some air in the tire. David showed up a few minutes later, just to make sure we were still doing okay.



All the while through this saga, Kelly and I are on our phones, giving the boyfriends, brother and dad a play-by-play. It went something like this: "yes, we are changing the tire now. or um... he is changing it." Mark felt bad that I was stranded on the side of the road, but was more bummed out because he had a sore throat and a cough (gee thanks.) Wes was panicking about these two guys who had stopped to help us ("how old are they?! do they look like they are going to kill ya'll?") My brother just laughed at us. And my Dad wasn't concerned at all that his two daughters were alone on the side of the road in the literal middle of nowhere, a mere 30 minutes away from darkness. He said once he heard that we were in West Texas he wasn't worried because "people are nice in West Texas."

So, thanks to some help from a couple Good Samaritans, we survived the ordeal and got to Lubbock with a story to tell. On the drive back, we found the exact hill where the tire blew and waved good riddance. As the say, happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my rear view mirror.

.5 Snow Days

This morning my school had a delayed arrival due to the "Artic Blast" that hit town last night and this morning. Every morning I leave my apartment to head for work at 7:08 (seriously, I have it down to the very minute) and get to my desk by about 7:25. I resisted getting out of bed until 6:25, waiting to watch the names of the schools that were closed or delayed scroll across the bottom of the TV screen on the morning news. I saw all our neighboring schools, but finally groaned and started brushing my teeth just shy of 6:30. As I prepared to walk out the door around seven, my boss called and said we weren't opening until 10:00. Awesome. So much for sleeping late. So I put on my PJ pants, and had the most productive extra two hours of my entire week. I wrapped all my remaining Christmas presents. I finally finished the calendar I have been working on in iPhoto for months and ordered it (express shipping) for my parent for Christmas. I unpacked my suitcases from this weekend. I did some shoulder exercises with my free weights (my weights instructor at the gym swears they are the easiest muscle to define). I watched the Today Show and Regis and Kelly and played with Gus. I emptied the dishwasher. If only work could start at 10:00 every day.

I had this zany idea to join a running class after the first of the year. My friend Laura inspired me because she is going to train for a half marathon and has signed up for a group that meets three times a week at five thirty in the morning to run. There's no way on earth I could do that. But I found a group that meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7:15 and runs for an hour. They put you in a small pace group of people that run at the same speed as you and the trainers help you increase your distance and endurance. It's a "101 Class" for non-runners. I am trying to convince Mark to do it with me, and also myself to believe that I would actually willingly go run outside in January and February. It could be a good New Year's Resolution though.

I have this really bad habit of forgetting to bring wedding gifts to weddings. I always forget them in the car. Then I drive around with them for weeks after the wedding, waiting to run into the Newlyweds and deliver the gift. I went to a wedding the weekend before Thanksgiving and finally gave the bride the gift today. This after taking it to dinner with the bride's sister last night to give to her to pass along, and then FORGETTING THE GIFT AT THE RESTAURANT. I guess we were having too much fun and the bottle of wine was taking a little too much effect. I didn't remember until I drove down the icy tollway and was pulling into my garage. At that point I was not going back to retrieve it. So I made a second trip to Houston's at lunch today and then finally dropped off the gift at the bride's office this evening. It was a set of cookie trays and a big wooden rolling pin, and I added these cute Christmas Cookie Cutters to give it a cookie baking theme. Good thing I have her nine whole days to get those cookies together!

Drying Out

Friday started out as a very good day. It was our last day of school at work, so we had a mimosa breakfast first thing that morning and then a catered lunch was brought in for everyone at noon. It was overall a very casual day, as the teachers were all closing up their classrooms for the summer. I even got my official new raise to go along with my new job title! My boss let us leave a whole fifteen minutes early, so I was ready to start my weekend with a little Sex and the City action that night.

Everything went downhill from there. When I got home shortly before 4:00, I opened up my apartment door and noticed that all of my stuff had been moved to one side of the living room. My coffee table, desk chair, huge exercise ball, ipod speakers - it was all shoved over. And then there was this huge fan plugged in and blowing onto the carpet. I knew right away that there had been a flood. I found Gus hiding under the bed and started to panic that this was all somehow my fault. Did I leave water running? Did the dishwasher overflow? Washing machine? Toilet? No. Nothing was running when I left for work that morning. I checked my phone and sure enough I had a missed call from my complex. I listened to the message from the girl at the leasing office as she explained to me in her most upbeat voice that a water supply line in the apartment above me broke and the water came down into mine. The amount of cheer in her voice was equal to someone informing you that she had just gotten engaged. She was beyond friendly. I called her back and she explained that they had already wet vaced my place, pulled up the carpet and removed the carpet pads. Now all we had to do was wait for everything to dry out and then they would replace the pads and clean the carpet. This would take five days. In the meantime, I should just run this gigantic fan 24-7 so that it can all dry.

This put such a damper on my evening. I was so distraught after coming home to this mess, that I just changed clothes and left for the mall to meet Stephanie for the movie. On the way there, I called Mark and complained to him how my entire weekend was ruined, now that I had to deal with this ordeal. He did his best to cheer me up and I finally hung up in a huff, saying I’d call him after the movie. And then things got worse. I ran over a squirrel! I saw the little guy dart in front of me and then bump, smash, he was a puddle in my rearview mirror. I called Mark back, this time in tears, because I had just killed a furry little friend. He tried to assure me that it was probably a “mean rabid squirrel,” but I knew he was really a hardworking father squirrel on his way home to his family. I got to the mall and did a little retail therapy before meeting Stephanie for dinner in the food court. I was all convinced that I was going to eat something healthy for dinner, but that went out the window after the previous hour’s events. Hello Chickfila. We had a nice little meal and then joined the other 2,000 girls who were lined up at the mall to see SATC that night. It was a great flick! It cheered me up until I got home and saw that huge fan whirling in my disarrayed living room. The next day I packed up my stuff and Gus and I went to Plano to stay with my aunt and uncle, which is where we’ll be until tomorrow.

Whew.

What Might Have Been

You could have inserted me right into this picture, if I had been about ten minutes earlier. Siiiigh.

This Just In

Jason Whitten was at my school today.  As the "only single girl in the office" (ie. not married/not engaged), it was my job to go take some pictures of him/with him.  I grabbed the camera and ran out to find him.  I was all set to get the real dish on Tony Romo & Jessica, as well as bat my eyes and get him to invite me to Ashlee Simpson's baby shower.  I ran to the Lower School and asked the first teacher I saw where he was.  She whipped out her cell phone and showed me that she and Jason had already taken a picture together, but she hadn't seen him since.  So I dashed across campus to the P.E. offices to ask our football coach where he was.  The offices were empty.  Darting back to the main building, I run into a coach in the break room, carrying trays of food.  Trays of food for Jason.  He had.... just.  left.  I missed him.  My one shot of celebrity hang out time at work.  Just missed him.  Oh well.  At least I saw him on the jumbotron at the Kenny concert.  That's close enough, right?  Sigh.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Last week, I house-sitted for my aunt and uncle who live a great house in Plano. They have a huge comfy couch that's perfect for TV watching and a great big kitchen that they stocked with food just for me. All I had to do was let their cat Red in and out whenever he wanted and make sure his food bowl was never empty. For seven days, I was living the high life.

Tuesday night was my last night in the Plano house and I had everything packed up so that I could just leave for work in the morning and then head back home to my apartment that afternoon. I went to sleep at about 9:30 and was out cold in no time. Just before midnight, my cell phone rang and in my state of complete sleep, I thought it was my alarm going off and quickly silenced it. Not even two minutes later, it rang again and this time I was awake enough to realize that was my ring tone, not the alarm, and checked to see who was calling. It was a Dallas number I didn't recognize, so I didn't answer. A few moments later I got the voicemail ding, so I checked the message. It was about 10 seconds of silence. Not like someone called the wrong number and hung up when they heard my voice or even a few seconds after the beep, they sat there and breathed into the phone for a. really. long. time. So I start to FREAK OUT. Someone out there is calling me, trying to get me through the cell phone. I check my call log and the call that came in a mere minute and a half before this one was from a completely different number. So I received two unknown calls, in the middle of the night, within ninety seconds of each other, from two complete strangers.

I sat up in bed, my heart racing, trying to determine what to do. There was no way I was going to walk downstairs and wander through this HUGE house tyring to find the would be attacker. I debated calling Mark, but didn't want to wake him up. Then I realized that the whole point of having a boyfriend is so you can call them when you are terrified, right? So I called him and told him my situation. He assured me they were wrong numbers, but I just didn't buy it. Two totally different wrong numbers calling me so close together? I hung up with him when he was no help in calming my fears and sat in the bed, dead silent and not moving a muscle. Now of course, the house starts making all kinds of scary house noises. Creaks and snaps and dings and all kinds of scary stuff. So I call my Dad. I know he lives no where near me and can do nothing for me, but I just need his assurance that I am not going to die in this bed on this night. My mom answer the phone and immediately goes into panic mode. Why am I calling so late? What is wrong? Where am I? What time is it?? She is no help. Then, just as I am explaining the voicemail of breathing, my phone goes dead. I check and I have lost all my service bars. Someone has messed with my phone! Some cell phone lines somewhere have been cut! I can't even call the police now! I panic even more and call Mark back two more times before my phone finally puts me though.

I am near tears now, even though Mark swears no one can interfere with cellular signals. There are no lines to cut with wireless phones. I'm not buying it though. My Dad beeps in and I click over. He says he will call the two numbers, pretend that he got the missed calls from them and then find out who these mystery stalkers really are. So I hang up and wait. I can't stand the waiting, so I call Mark back again. Take note that every time I call him, I am completely waking him up again. He is not up losing sleep over my sheer terror. Every time I call, he answers in that voice that so obviously is trying to tear itself away from sleeping. I tell him he has to talk to me until my Dad calls back, has to distract me while I wait. So we chit chat. He mostly sleeps on the other line while I blurt out "say something!" Finally, Dad beeps in. I click over.

My Dad has called both numbers and the first one is a lady who says her kids were using her phone but "they are gone now." The second one goes to a voicemail. This does not assure me. I have now convinced myself that these "kids" that were using the phone are really hoodlum gang members out on a killing spree. They are after me. My Dad swears that no one even knows where I am, since I'm not even at my apartment. I tell him fine, I will survive and he tells me I can always just call 911. We hang up. I sit in bed for a few more minutes, listening to the house make all its freaky sounds. It doesn't take long before I call Mark back. He answers and immediately says he is coming over. Yes it is 1:00 AM and yes he is a good 25 minutes away, but he will come over so that we can both get some sleep. I fell bad, but readily agree.

As he drives to Plano, I make him stay on the phone with me. During this time, my entire right leg falls asleep but I am too scared to even shift positions, in case it alerts someone as to my whereabouts. Finally, Mark arrives. I run downstairs to let him in and don't see any predators in the living room. At 1:30 we get in bed and he is asleep and snoring in about seven seconds. Three hours later his alarm goes off and he gets up to head back home to get ready for work. Needless to say, we were both pretty tired the next day and I felt pretty silly at the whole ordeal. But really, you would have done the same thing, right?

Bruised, Yet Festive

Last night I went over to Mark's to finally start watching this season's episodes of Friday Night Lights. It is my absolute favorite show on TV and really the only one I still watch religiously. Mark and I started watching it together last year when we first started dating, so last night as we sat huddled in his living room, me freezing under a huge blanket, it really reminded me of one year ago when we barely even knew each other. So much has happened since then, but.. I am getting off topic.

The only difference with last night's viewing of FNL was that it was in front of Mark's computer screen. Somewhere in the depths of his DVR, we missed the first episode of the season and didn't get it recorded. The following weeks nine are safely sitting in his DVR list, but we could not watch them without seeing the season premiere! Which would have been a lot easier if Mark's computer hadn't been broken for the past four months! I was quite excited Tuesday night when he told me he had actually called Dell and his PC was up and running again. So alas, last night we finally got the season started off.

After watching the first episode courtesy of Amazon.com, we settled down to watch the rest. My cell phone happened to be across the room from me and Mark happened to be walking right past it, so I asked him if he would check to see if I had any missed calls. He looked and said I had a message. I asked him who it was from, since it displays it right on the screen. Instead of telling me, he opts to "toss" the phone over to me to check. Only it wasn't a toss, it was a throw. An MLB pitcher, bottom of the ninth, two strikes down throw. Right. At. My. Face. I wasn't expecting this and had zero time to react, so it smacked me right above my left eye.

Ouch.

The tears streamed down my face and I was reminded of being a kid and getting hurt and just wanting to CRY really loud. My face was throbbing. Mark runs over, pleading his sorries, swearing he didn't mean to, trying to look at my face that I now have shoved down on the pillow. I know it was an accident. Surely he did not intend to smack me in the face with a hard chunk of plastic. Five minutes later I have a bump on my head the size of an egg and I am imagining waking up the next morning with a black eye and having to explain to everyone at work that my boyfriend? Yeah, he throws things at me. However today, there's nothing more to show other than a small red dot and a great big knot. Sadly, it actually looks more like a pimple than a domestic abuse wound. I have the headache to prove its still there though. And my boyfriend just might be feeling guilty enough to stick another present under the tree this Christmas...

Speaking of, I totally have the Christmas itch! I cannot wait for it to get here. I've got exactly one week left of work and only a few more gifts to buy. I haven't sent out any cards yet and I really still want to, especially after checking my mail yesterday and getting a stack of cards from friends, including the cutest card(s) ever from Sadie! (I am wearing my new kitty bracelet today!! Thank you!!). So those might still go out, if I have the time to get creative enough and send out something cute and festive. Watch the mail, but don't hold your breath yet!

The Great Flood

This weekend I had a lot of downtime, which lately has been pretty unusual. I used this time to clean up my apartment, but pretty soon my place was spotless and I still had all this time on my hands. So I wrapped some Christmas presents, but quickly ran out of gift boxes, so that hit a dead-end as well. I decided I would get ahead of laundry for once, which almost never happens. I am more of an uh oh I am out of underwear, I guess I better do some laundry kind of gal. So I started a load. Then I took it one step further and even began to hand wash all the sweaters and delicate tops that usually just sit in the pile month after month and never get worn again. So I poured some Woolite into the sink, popped the sweater in and turned the faucet on to let it fill with water.

And then, for whatever reason, I left.

I took the trash out, turned the Christmas tree lights on, lit some candles and basked in my oh-so-clean and festive apartment. I turned on the TV and did some crunches (man I was on a role!). I did a couple sets of lunges. I sat there and thought to myself hmm what I am forgetting. Gus was walking around meowing kind of weird so I followed him into the bedroom to see if he wanted to play. Then I heard a strange sound and glanced into the bathroom. It sounded like flowing water. My first thought was CRAP my toilet is overflowing! But no. Then it hit me. I never turned the water off to fill the sink up.

The sink was beyond full. It must have been running for at least ten or fifteen minutes. There was water running down the cabinets and spilling onto the floor. The entire bathroom floor was covered in water, about a half inch thick. I went into full blown panic mode. Is the water going to spill through and flood the apartment below me?? Will I get mold damage?? How will I ever get all this water out?? Will I have to call the maintenance people, who will in turn come to clean up and find the illegal cat that I am hiding without paying my $300 pet deposit?!?! My heart was racing and my hands were shaking as a frantically grabbed every towel I owned and threw them onto the floor. They all quickly soaked up full of water, so I threw them into the bathtub and did the next most logical thing I could think of to control the mess… I reached into the laundry hamper and started throwing dirty clothes all over the puddles of water. So I got all the water mopped up, but was left with a tub full of soaking wet towels and clothes. So much for getting ahead of the laundry.

I spent the rest of the day and most of the next doing laundry and trying to get all those towels dry again. My little washer/dryer in my apartment is not only tiny, but its not the strongest machine out there, so towels take 2-3 cycles in the dryer before really drying out. But the good news is that since my bathroom floor was all wet and slippery, I went ahead and grabbed the mop to give it a good scrubbing. That hasn’t happened in… oh four or five months.