medium crazy

saturday catch-up ramblings

I’m finding myself here with a big block of truly free time, something that hasn’t happened since we bought a house a couple months ago. The reason it’s truly free time is because I’m up at my parents’ house in New Hampshire watching their dog while they’re away (watching = cuddling with and professing my love to) and I’m attending a christening here tomorrow. Puppies and babies and reading and lots of quiet time. Which in my world is basically hitting the life jackpot. I spent some quality time taking walks with Maddie and hanging out on the couch where she wanted to watch the end of Sense and Sensibility, and I was like oh come on, I’ve seen this a hundred times, but she insisted. As for the question of whether I can ever not cry at the end of that movie, the answer remains firmly: No.

So, what better time to post something to your much neglected, admittedly not the highest priority in life right now blog? Here is a random collection of things that have been going on.

We went to the Bahamas for a company-sponsored long weekend a couple weeks ago. We drove from the airport to the resort and from the resort to the airport, so we didn’t see a whole lot of the non-resort Bahamas. But we did have our first ever experience with driving on the left-hand side of the road and it was bizarro. We stayed at the Atlantis resort, which you’ve probably also stayed at because it seems like everyone has. It’s absolutely huge, so much so that it mildly triggered my Fear of Being Lost, an offshoot of my debilitating childhood Fear of Being Abandoned By My Parents In A Shopping Mall, a fear that was created by Punky Brewster’s backstory and exacerbated by the book Homecoming by Cynthia Voight. It took me about a day to kind of know where I was going. There’s a casino and several beaches and waterslides and a big marina that we didn’t find until the end of our visit. I read a book, a whole book, and life was good. They have a ridiculous indoor aquarium that was truly amazing, and probably the best part of that was this huge and very expressive fish. I made M. jump in the shot for size relativity. That fish could tell you some stories.

On the home ownership front: we now have a sink and running water in our kitchen. And a beautiful beautiful joymaker. (That’s what I call a dishwasher.) Here’s the before shot of the kitchen:

Please disregard the realtor and inspector in this shot. The kitchen didn’t seem that terrible to us when we bought the house. Well, the painted brick on the walls seemed a bit terrible, so we decided to get rid of that. But then once we were in the house we realized that the cabinets were in sorry shape, and since we were already tearing down the walls, we thought it might be a good time to just do it. Also note the small (cracked) tiles. Here’s the after:

Ahh. Pretty tiles. We clearly aren’t done since there are no knobs or handles on anything, but it’s lovely to have a working kitchen. My father, brother and M. did this work, bless their hearts. We also put some cabinets in the opposite corner of the kitchen. On the wall there will eventually be awesome shelves, but the awesome shelves are pending.

The family room isn’t dramatically different, except that there used to be a red, red, red wall in it:

The red wall thing isn’t my thing.

We haven’t really gotten around to much in the way of decorating yet, and yes that is a Rubbermaid storage container being used as a coffee table. We are still in need of some furniture. Unfortunately that will have to wait since the priorities went in this order: 1) hot water, 2) kitchen, 3) laundry room and now 4) yard. Yes, we’re moving out of the grace period during which we neglected the yard because we were the people who had just moved in, and now we are officially the New People with the Bad Lawn Who Everyone is Pointing At. So…we’re working on it.

I don’t really have a before picture of the laundry room because there isn’t really anything to show. It was just an empty room, carpeted, where the previous owners stored their treadmill. Behold The Purple Laundry Room:

I figured if there was any room I could paint a color that was a little too much, it was the laundry room. There is a tv down there, along with my complete series of Gilmore Girls DVDs. Ironing just got a whole lot less horrible.

The other rooms I can’t show you because they aren’t presentable. The only other room we’re really overhauling is the full bath…at some point over the next couple months.

So…the house has been awesome and I’m really enjoying it, but the thing about it is that there is so much to do that anytime I have a free hour I feel like I should be working on the house. So while I’m away for a night, I have no choice but to let it go and sit on the couch with the dog.

I told you a couple months ago that I started a new position at work. I don’t really write about work for obvious reasons (see: dooce), but I can say that the new role comes with more hours, more visibility, more responsibility, more presentations, more difficult conversations with clients, really more of everything that can give me a stomachache. I’m glad I’m doing it because I don’t think I would have been happy with myself if I had just stayed indefinitely in the safer and easier job, but it has been a bit all-consuming, and a bit humbling, to be in a little over my head, which is where I currently am.

Only four episodes of Lost left and this week’s will be a repeat, fyi. It would be easy to try and focus on the faults in the show and its wrap-up and many people will. I prefer to pay attention to the good stuff. For the level of complexity in this show, it’s amazing that it has worked so well and I have a lot of faith in it. I am thoroughly entertained for one very fast-moving hour per week and that’s all I’m looking for.

You may notice that I haven’t mentioned the American Idol pool so much, and far less than I did last year. That’s because I’m not doing well at all. Yeah I picked Crystal Bowersox to win, but so did everyone else, it was a no-brainer. I would actually possibly buy her album though. I can’t say as much for Siobhan, who I liked but now actively dislike. I can’t stand her petulant backtalk whenever criticized.

Guess what? It’s almost our one-year wedding anniversary. It was a very very fast year. If the first year of marriage is the hardest, as they say, then I think we’re in good shape. Trying to decide what we should do to commemorate the day in addition to watching our wedding video while eating the top of the cake. I told M. that I didn’t think we should do presents, but that he has to say something to me that will be beautiful and touching while also being completely original and not cheesy at all. Is that a reasonable request?

And finally, yesterday someone landed on this site by searching for “What will happen to Betty Draper?” Dude. GOOD QUESTION.

back to business

Too much to write, don’t know where to start.

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while, to anyone out there who might care. We were in the Bahamas since last Thursday and I couldn’t go online there, since apparently it costs a thousand dollars a minute for roaming and they scared me into leaving my phone off. Not even a tweet, incoming or outgoing. Radio silence.

Before we left for that trip, things were just crazy here. Work is pretty intense at the moment and I had my first real visit out to meet with a client since taking on this new job. With that and our mini-vacation, I missed three days of work so I just had to work like a crazy woman to prepare.

So, I’m back. I have some things to tell about our trip, but tonight I’m in organization mode getting ready for the week. After we got back, we did a ridiculous Trader Joe’s run and then got down to the unpacking, the doing of the laundry, etc. We agreed that it felt nice to return to our new house. Though I’m dreading my inbox, I’m sort of looking forward to having a normal week and of course looking forward to Lost because I swear it’s all going to work out perfectly in the last five episodes.