Is January over yet?

Not that I am that excited for February since my Birthday is the fourth and I am hitting that milestone big 3-0 and I am not really that excited about that.

But seriously January 2012 has sucked a big one and I am not talking about a lollipop or popsicle. I am over it. I want our house to be back to normal and I want all this insurance drama to be over and I want my routine back and everyone to be happy and healthy. Every other day something is going on and usually its not the best of news, and its making me grouchy. Seriously, my happy smiley demeanor is fading quickly and I am finding it harder and harder to be nice.

So we are still rocking the concrete floors but we bought some nice area rugs so that does make it better, I still sigh every time I come home though.  See how pretty the rug is though :-)

We also have our closet door sealed with plastic and lovely blue painters tape since there is a wall missing and old man winter has started to make and appearance and that cold air was straight up blowing into the house making it freezing. But now it is so much warmer, we just divert our eyes from our saran wrapped closet. It depresses me but I know things could be worse and mostly it is the other fun and games that are coming along with all this mess that are making me cuckoo. I can't talk about it but I will be so happy when this is all over. There really is so much to be thankful though, like that our gorgeous walls were not destroyed and that it really could be so much worse that it is. I am thankful for that, it is just starting to get to me.

Oh and by the way NEVER GO TO JIFFY LUBE. They suck and have added to my winter blues. They broke my car when I went in for an oil change. I drove away thinking how smart I was for getting it done one time and how there wasn't a line and then white smoke billowed from the tail pipe and my car wouldn't accelerate. WTF!? Lucky for me I have a great friend who followed me back since I was scared I was going to break down in the middle of the road or an intersection and end up on the 4 o'clock news for being the lady in the hoopty who cause a 10 mile backup. My car has never done this before ever and for the record it is definitely not a hoopty, so I was a little upset. So they gave me an excuse for what happened, even though between you and me I think they didn't put oil in the car. It is all back together and working well now. But I am NEVER going back there again. I have hear horror stories about Jiffy Lube before and I should have headed the warnings. Lesson learned.

I also got to spend time with my wonderful delightful cousins (in case you can't read sarcasm that statement is dripping with it). I love my family and my cousins, but sometimes they can turn into Satan and that's how I know we are really related. Everyone is well and on the mend now but I am sure I will get lots more qaulity one on one time with the little darlings. Also side note I am never having more than 3 kids seriously anymore than that and I might lose my mind. I have lots of respect for all parents but even more for people with half a dozen children.

Happy news though we booked a house at Chincoteague Island, VA for vacation this Summer, YAY! That is so a silver lining and now the countdown to June begins! I cannot wait for time with the family, sunshine, ocean waves and sand between my toes! Early morning bike rides, and seeing the wild ponies and amazing wildlife on Assateague.

Sorry for my ranting and venting but this has been the longest month ever. Hoping that we get our house back soon and we can move along and put this all behind us. O and I decided that after this month we have gotten all our bad luck for the year out of the way, so come on February and the rest of 2012! I am so lucky to have such a great husband who loves me and brings me wine for dinner.

When it rains it POURS

In our case though it didn't even need to rain to have water pouring from our ceiling all over the first floor of our house. O got home last Wednesday and our first floor was flooded and water was gushing from a pipe that had burst. How long had it been raining inside our house who knows but why couldn't it have happened while we were at home ugghh. That's life though I guess. We rent our townhouse and so are working with the landlord in getting everything back to normal quickly. And now our house is dry- yay! We spent 5 days with 13 industrial fans and 2 dehumidifiers and it was not fun, but as of yesterday we are free and dry and in the clear! That is a huge relief and now we wait to have carpet and few other repairs made and we can get back to normal. How long until it gets done is the question and with insurance you never know (or so I am told since I have never filed an insurance claim before and well there is a first time for everything). So I try not to cry every time I walk in the house and it is a little bit easier now but I am a neat freak and have slight obsessive compulsive tendencies so it is hard for me. O was in awe of why I had to organize all the things we brought up from the first floor into separate boxes etc. each specifically for a room downstairs, well organizing makes me feel better (maybe I have control issues you think?) and besides it will make it that much easier to put everything back when this whole ordeal is over. The long and the short of it is this sucks- big time and dealing with everything sucks even more BUT we will get past it and we will be done with all of this soon and things could be much worse. So we are thankful that it was only the first floor and that the damage wasn't worse because it could have been much worse than it was and besides who knows maybe we will start a trend with cement floors as the new it thing to have in your home :-) and while we are thankful we ask for your good vibes and prayers to get things swiftly taken care of and that everyone is happy in the end with the outcome.

While in the midst of this O decided that I was right about us having WAY too many dvds (after having to carry them all to the third floor in a hurry) and so we sorted through them (well he did mostly while I was being crazy and organizing things into boxes) and went to O's favorite place 2nd and Charles and we got $106 for them - YAY! We also left with 20 more comic books for O, but as he tells me this will be an investment and really in 20 years those comics will be worth a lot of money. So here's to retiring early with all the money we will make off comic books!

it all started with a book

First off Happy New Year and hope everyone is off to a great start to 2012! O and I had an awesome end to 2011 and 2012 is starting off pretty well. It has been freezing here in Northern Va the past few days, I really don't want to get out of bed when I see that its 13 degrees outside. I was not made for cold weather and I hate it, unless there is snow as long as its not snowing on my birthday. Having a birthday in February I had many a birthday party cancelled because of snow and ice and what have you.

Monday Jan 2 O and I both had off work and I had really been wanting to check out the new used book store 2nd and Charles. I got the 4th book in the Inheritance Cycle "Inheritance" for Christmas from O and I used to own the first book "Eragon" but over the past 6 years I had lost it, I own all the other books and so I wanted the first one to complete my collection. Yes Yes I could have downloaded it to my Nook but there are some books you just need hard copies of and I have hard copies of all the others so maybe due to my OCD I needed the first book as well. I also wanted to reread the entire series again since its been a couple years since the third book came out and I need a refresher on whats going on.


So first I convinced O that we should go out to lunch and I even got him to go eat Thai food which was amazing. I needed some green curry to start the New Year right! Then off we went to 2nd and Charles and the whole way there O complained. "Why do you need to go buy the book!?" "I hope this doesn't take long". I just told him I wanted the book and I knew I could get a deal if it was used. And so we went and then we went into the store and this is what happened...I ran to the back and grabbed the book and it was only $3.85 SCORE! and then turned around and couldn't find O anywhere. 2nd and Charles has everything, video game consoles, video games, ipads, books, dvds, cds they have it all. Then I saw him in the comic book section and there he stayed for an hour. Then he found the video games. And so our quick trip into a store O didn't even want to go into took us an hour and half and this is what we ended up with:


The entire reason we went to 2nd and Charles

 

And 15 comic books and an Xbox 360 Elite for $160 notice only the book is for me.

(Also now we need a Kinect so I can play awesome fun games like Dance Central and drive O nuts!)

 

 Here is another picture with Ninja in it since he is an attention whore and just so darn cute!

 

Lesson Learned never take O with me to 2nd and Charles again. Also I love that store!

Happy New Year!

Here's to saying goodbye to 2011 which brought so many wonderful things to us this year and memories to last a lifetime. I must say 2011 just went by way too fast, I feel like the majority of the year was spent counting down to our wedding in September and then before I knew it O and I were married and starting a new and wonderful journey together. I have met new and wonderful people and watched some of my favorite people move across the country and while I miss them terribly I am so truly happy for awesome and amazing things to come for them as well (ahem M and B I'm talking about you two love birds getting engaged out there in CA! Congrats!) O and I had quite a few friends get engaged in December like our cousin K and her fiance C who we love to death (you may remember those are the two we visited Unicorn Winery with in November and we have been waiting for these two to get engaged and C popped the question in December in NYC in a horse drawn carriage (collective awwwws now please)) and we are so excited for all the fun to come as we get to celebrate them and all our friends in the next year(or two) getting married! Lots of babies were born this year that I love to spoil and cuddle and snuggle with, so happy for my friends who have such wonderful loving little families and letting me play and spoil their children and then give them back when they need a bath.

O and I were so blessed in 2011 I cannot wait to see what 2012 has in store for us. I am sure it will be filled with even more love, laughter and crazy silly adventures! We don't do New Years Resolutions I mean really who keeps them anyways. I want to keep going just the way that we are, with love in our hearts and joy in our souls and smiles on our faces. I want to keep making sure our friends and family know how loved and appreciated they are. I want to keep helping those who we don't even know but have so little and ask for even less. I want to keep God first in our family and remember to be thankful everyday that we are so blessed and remind ourselves not to take anything or anyone for granted.

So where will you be New Years Eve? We will be ringing in 2012 at home with a bottle of champagne and each other. We are taking it easy this year and not spending $100 on a ticket to party, trying to save that money for some great things to come in 2012! You all will hear much more on those adventures later. Until next year may your glass be full and your heart even fuller! Happy New Year! O&J

My hearts a .... SHUT UP PLEASE

So I am sure most of you have heard the The Gym Class Heroes song "Stereo Hearts" and for those that haven't here you go:

  I mean they play this song on the radio at least once an hour at least on our local station here HOT 99.5 they do. It's not so bad, I mean it's catchy and can get stuck in your head and make you feel like you are going to have a seizure or brain aneurysm if you hear the chorus repeat one more time as you walk around singing it all day long. Usually it doesn't bother me so much but this morning I had a rather adverse reaction when my alarm went off at 5:45 (yes I am working this week see I like it cause no one else is here and I get to take naps at my desk and do cool shit like update my blog) and BAM "Stereo Hearts" is playing, I immediately wanted to smash my alarm clock and scream but instead hit snooze. Of course then when my alarm went off a second time Adele "Someone Like You" was playing which I hate to wake up to because that song is depressing and makes me feel sad and like I should be on Xanax or something (not what you want to wake up to in the morning) Now don't get me wrong I love Adele (we used her music in our wedding ceremony), its just not fun to wake up to sad songs about lost loves.

Back to the point, yesterday morning when my alarm went off at 5:45 "Stereo Hearts" was playing and I was slightly annoyed but not angry like I was today. "Someone Like You" used to play every morning at that same time but I would quickly turn off the radio so I didn't start off my day in a downward spiral of sadness cause seriously that song makes me want kill myself. SO when I was driving to work today what should my ears hear the opening beat to "Stereo Hearts" (see I told you it gets played once an hour on the radio just like Adele and Katy Perry songs, its like the law or something). Which got me thinking...(after I changed stations) I wonder if I always hated "Stereo Hearts" or if it is a reaction to having to wake up to that song and it is getting imbedded into my brain to have a negative reaction to it. "Stereo Hearts"=waking up from a peaceful slumber in dream land and then going to work in cube land with old guberment farts. You know instead of Pavlov's dogs salivating at the ring of a bell, I get angry whenever I hear that song. I didn't get angry when Adele used to play every morning but I was more worried about hearing the sad sad lyrics and being depressed in the morning so I turned it off. I guess I should just hope that Gym Class Heroes isn't playing tomorrow morning or I may need a new alarm clock or to switch radio stations but I have mad love for The Kane show and need them to function in the morning and to get my giggles out.

Guess I will find out tomorrow and hope that they find something new to play at 5:45 like some Katy Perry since I know that gets played once an hour too...maybe some Britney Spears, Pitbull, even Bruno Mars but please god no more "Stereo Hearts".

And to show how much I love Adele here is the song our wedding party walked down the aisle to

Santa I know him!

So I didn't die from the invasion at the beginning of the month but did have lots of fun and then I got busy getting my Christmas on! Then I got the flu the weekend before Christmas and then I started feeling better enough to get my Christmas Cookie bake-a-thon on and now its all over and I can try to breathe through my stuffed up nose again. It was a whirlwind of a month so far and I loved every single minute of all the holiday festivities with the family. O and I are so truly blessed in so many ways!

Santa came to our house Christmas Eve and we woke up to wonderful gifts and full stockings! I was relaxing looking at the tree and our gifts and playing with Ninja and Sirius Black (our cat children not human children-I am not that strange to name human children that and besides we don't have any human children yet that I know of) and O kept making a big deal about how I should go make a cup of coffee for myself. Now O doesn't drink coffee so I was like what the what is your problem-and got up to go make coffee in the kitchen while O presumably watched and much to my surprise there was this - SCORE! ( I love my husband! and not just because he surprises me with awesome coffee on Christmas morning but because he is wonderful and funny and loving and caring and just perfect!)

We had Christmas morning just the two of us (a perfect 1st married Christmas) and Ninja and Sirius who played with the wrapping paper and snuggled and had a perfect Christmas morning. Then we packed up and headed over to my parents (Momma Bear and Papa Bear) house to have brunch and open gifts there with my brother Mario and his wife Princess Toadstool and most importantly eating Stolen which is my favorite part of Christmas Morning. After a few wonderful hours there sharing and laughing and relaxing we headed home (YAY because we only like about 5 miles away). We relaxed and watched Elf (which was the movie for our family Christmas trivia game and we won for the second year in a row!) and just enjoyed the afternoon. Then we headed to my aunts where EVERYONE met up for dinner, fun and family. We seriously have the best family ever, I mean it you may think you have us beat but you don't. I love how much love there is in our family which is the best gift anyone could ever ask for...don't you agree?

Now its back to work and back to the daily grind well somewhat since O and I are both working this week but 95% of everyone else isn't so there is not much to do but I do find pretending that there was a Zombie outbreak and not much else is happening outside my cubicle walls helps time go by faster during the day... New Years Eve is coming up on Saturday and I can't believe how fast the year went by! I am so excited for a new year and new adventures and celebrations in 2012.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and end 2011 right and have a great beginning to 2012! Oh and that's me with my nose covered in Vaseline and catching a cottonball on my nose---told you my family is awesome! (we are also very competitive which is why playing Christmas games is so much fun but we love each other even more and that's what counts most!)

Preparing for the Invasion

My teenage cousins thing one and thing two have been asking forever to have "Girls Night" at my house. Today is the day.....I think I may need a lot of caffeine and perhaps a red bull or 7 to stay up with them tonight past 11. Wish us luck!