Cuidado! Piso Mojado!

Those three words, be they in a different language or not, could have saved me a lot of pain and suffering!

I was at the end of my shift today, and ran upstairs to grab some stuff off the printer (as someone messed with mine and it now doesn't want to work)-- I stepped off the elevator on the first floor at First School and started sliding. Someone had spilled a whole lot of water right there and hadn't bothered to clean it up or find a janitor to do it, so I hit the floor and bruised my ankle, knee, and hip. Imagine my chagrin as tomorrow is our trip to Six Flags!!

I went up and filed an incident report with the finance/HR office and they sent me over to Urgent Care at DeKalb Medical where I saw a doctor we used to see all the time when we went there as kids (it's the neighborhood doc in the box as well, it's not too bad for a walk in clinic). They took a million x-rays and everything looked ok, wrapped my ankle, and told me to stay off it for the rest of the week. They would have released me from work, but I need to be there so things run smoothly, unfortunately it means I can't go to Six Flags. I'm minorly irritated to say the least.

All this could have been avoided had someone just taken responsibility!

I do have more pictures of the garden, and I'm slowly getting pictures from the wedding up on Facebook. We've had them for a while, I've just been so busy!

Now we're keeping Michael company and watching "The Book of Eli" since it came out today-- I think it's a good movie, though I'm still torn on the very ending. This weekend, we'll head up to Southaven to see Jan and Marc for father's day, and hopefully see Suzy and a couple others as well. Until then, join with us and encourage the rain to come! We had our first rain in almost two weeks today and if it doesn't keep up we'll suffocate!

So much to say so much to say...

SO much has happened since the last time I updated! We had spirit week last week at camp and it was a blast-- MY TEAM WON! GO BLUE DRAGONS-- RAWR! The kids had a lot of fun and I think the counselors all did, too. We did have one really sore winner/loser who would goad people on when Red team won and ended up having a complete meltdown when Richard announced the Blue team won overall! For first place, we got to go see "Up!" at the movies, Chick'fil'a for lunch, and Dairy Queen for dessert! Red team stayed at camp and watched "Bedtime Stories", had Chick'fil'a for lunch, and did ice cream sundaes at camp.

Last weekend was supposed to be my house-hunting weekend, but Jonathan came in and we went to breakfast at Sweet Melissa's (yum!) and went shopping at Lenox with Sarah, and I found my tea ceremony tea at Teavana (macha, the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony blend, is much different from your average green tea, and is whisked with a bamboo mixer in to boiling water) along with some very pretty tea sets. We went to go look at the house on Deerwood (right near the K's and Sarah) that I was excited about and met a really nice lady, Margaret, who was not only an AOII, but also the woman RENTING THE HOUSE! Thanks, landlord! Oh, well. The place was a little bit small, and I'm finding some much better stuff now, so it happened for a reason! Margaret's going to e-mail me to get involved with Gamma Sigma, which she didn't even know was here!

Sunday, Sarah and I met to look at an apartment in downtown Decatur in a courtyard building built in the 1920's. I am SO in love with it, but it sadly won't fit our needs :( For $1k/mo it's a steal in the area, and it's all vintage and even has the beautiful built in cabinetry! But, there's no covered parking and no storage unit for Jeremy's tools, so sadly I don't think we'll be able to do it. I did go and look at another place called The Conservatory at Druid Hills which is back on N. Druid Hills behind the mall that's $849/mo and has garage units to rent for $75/mo! The place was surprisingly big for a fairly new apartment and was really nice. The complex has a pool, tennis courts, weight rooms, all sorts of fun stuff, and they're guaranteeing the $839/mo for the next year! Yeehaw! There are still a couple more to look at, but right now that one's at the top of the list. It's close to all the highways Jeremy might could need to take to work, and it would take me about 10 minutes to get to work from there. Plus, it's gated and very private-- peace and quiet at last!

Richard had kind of been asking me to take on more responsibility slowly, and yesterday he told me that I'm the new Assistant Director of the camp!! It doesn't mean much pay-wise, but it does mean that I'll have a job in to the fall! Hooray!

That's about all, really. Tomorrow is Six Flags day, but I have little girls so it should be pretty easy :) Will update more as I have more, and I'll put up the pictures of the places I've looked at so far soon enough on Flickr.

Why deny the obvious child?

Ron, Jeremy, and Hans

Sunset at Flagler

the "normal" picture of me and Jeremy at Flagler
me (and the scarf from Val!) at Jazz Night

Lindsay, me, and Em at Jazz Night

After many deep breaths and much meditation (and a jazz night at Palate with Em and Lindsay) my week has leveled out. I always say that these things seem to happen for no good reason, but when I look back... they happen for a perfectly logical reason! My computer fried because it's 10 years old. I mean, we had to wipe it and start over three times around Christmas! I left my phone in Unadilla because I wasn't paying attention, and it's not the first time I've done something like that. The belts on my car snapped because they were 12 years old (which, according to Jeremy, is twice as long as they're supposed to last) and though it should have occurred to me, the battery died because the belt connecting it to the alternator snapped the previous night and it totally drained. I need to start taking my own piece of tough-love wisdom: shit happens.

Jeremy, God love him and so do I, thinks I'm a little too hard on myself, and maybe I am. Perhaps it's being the oldest, perhaps it's being the child of an alcoholic (children of addicts tend to take on too much responsibility either to compensate for that parent or to prove to themselves that they won't make the same mistakes), but he's right-- I do need to start cutting myself some slack. Worrying takes years off your life, after all!

My weekend down there was really fantastic, a few pictures are above and if you want to see the rest they're up on Flickr with the jazz night pictures. Friday we went and had dinner at Ron and Kathy's with Hans, hung out for a long while and played with Sarah, their new Weimaraner puppy who was absolutely beautiful and absolutely bonkers off the wall hyper, and Harley, the sugar glider.

Saturday was pretty low-key, we watched movies and then went down to the beach at sunset with Ron and Kathy and took a walk and watched the sun setting over Ft. Mantanzas. It was really nice, quiet, and even a little romantic. We also saw a Boxer puppy I wanted to take home with me.

Sunday, I had intended to go to Easter services with Jeremy, but the fan kept me up the night before and I only got about 2 hours of sleep! I was sad, I'd even brought something nice to wear, but I would have felt worse yawning through services or being cranky with the nice old people. That afternoon, we went down to Flagler Beach in the afternoon and took a walk about a mile up the beach and back, stopped at Steak'n'Shake and got a milkshake to split, and then went home and lazed around. I brought a nice bottle of Verdejo up from work, and I had the recipe for the tarragon corn relish that was served with the steak special on Valentine's day so I made that and paired it with a baked swordfish steak. It was pretty darn good if I say so myself! We watched some TV and had dinner, then went for a walk, and came home and curled up for a while since I was leaving in the morning.

The drive back on Monday was harrowing, to say the least, and probably didn't help my distracted state when I left my phone in Unadilla. The storm I got caught in was really intense, and even though the speed limit was 70, traffic was settling in at about 55 for somewhere around 50 miles at a stretch! I kinda felt like an extra in Twister and couldn't see 10 feet in front of the car for the rain. There are some pictures, but I haven't gotten them off the camera yet-- had everything but the cows. (that was for you, Dill) I hit it about Tifton (about 200 miles south of Atlanta) and rode with it to around 20 miles south! I have driven in some really intense stuff, but this was possibly the worst I've encountered-- I was really surprised there hadn't been an actual tornado when I got back.

Speaking of getting back... when I got back, I realized that my phone was gone. I left to head to work, but all the roads were blocked off by fallen trees and power lines! I had to back up (as in, drive in reverse) for a few blocks because nobody bothered to stop me going the other direction to say there was a power line down. I was a good neighbor, though, and did stop people once I got turned around to tell them they couldn't get through. Nobody wants to get to a stop light and find a) a stalled out school bus and b) a power line looped so low it's almost touching the ground. A 30 year old oak tree fell in a neighborhood behind mine and took out three or four cars, lots of power lines, and half a house. It was really shocking! Then, when I got to the Oakhurst area, there were (shocker) loads more oak trees down. The power was out, so work was out for the night... I got home and went to get on Skype to talk to Jeremy and that's when my computer decided to spaz out. I was so upset I was shaking at this point, so I talked mom in to taking me up to Kroger to pick up sushi and Sweetwater, and I came home to wait for Casey. We were both pretty sure that the hard drive was fried, which really didn't make things better, and then I got twitchy and started moving things around and knocked over an entire 12oz bottle of Sweetwater!

Since then, things have been a lot better, you know how those days go. The computer decided it would work again, much to pretty much everyone's shock-- my brother thought I was joking with him when I told him it turned back on and was working fine! Thursday, I went to jazz night with Emily and her friend from work, Lindsay, who was really awesome and a lot of fun to meet. Nicole played, and when we were talking afterwards she said she'd love to play the wedding! So we'll have an hour of live jazz at the wedding, and Nicole has such a great voice, AND a sound system we can rent for cheap! Huzzah for wedding planning!

I think that's QUITE enough for now, so I'll head to bed. Everyone pray for and send happy thoughts to Emily, she's trying to get through something right now and could use all the support she can get!

I think I can, I think I can

You know, an hour ago I was in a great mood. There are lots of retail jobs and restaurant jobs up at the Forum (Norcross) and as big of a pain in the but as it might be, Emily's out there so I can make it an excuse to see her since I seem to not have any friends in Decatur anymore. I was going to go vote, take my mom her lunch, apply for some jobs, get my brother (yay for the last trip to Smyrna!), and get home and wait excitedly for Jeremy.

I pulled out of the driveway and my front right tire went flat.

Is there any particular reason that God, fate, karma, whoever's on duty today seems to hate me? Do they not pass memos around letting each other know that they've already screwed me the day before? I think they need to have that tube system checked out.

It's getting a lot harder to stay positive and I know I have to, so just say a little prayer and send happy thoughts to me... I could use them right now.

Since I am trying to make myself feel better, I bring you Bruno (Joanna's Bunny) and the Pumpkin Pi.

Loooong Weekend

Last Wednesday, we left for Indiana for the Inaugural Indianapolis MotoGP (Grand Prix) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It effing rocked. The rest of the time, however... well, here's a brief timeline...

Wednesday: Travel Day
Drive up was good, leisurely. We dropped off my bid day CDs (which were a big hit) and cookies for the chapter, and sauntered on up. Lost our way a couple times, but then I discovered Google maps for the Blackberry which is FREAKING AWESOME and Jeremy and I were thoroughly amused for the rest of the trip.

Thursday: Pit Walk
Talk about fun. I've never been to a race of any kind, so it was a totally new experience. Pit walk involved looking at all the bikes in the pits while the mechanics and techs worked on them to get them ready for qualifying rounds the next day. There was also a stunt show going on which was loads of fun.

The Rossi team (Fiat Yamaha) revs up the bike













15 year old Aaron Colton smokes out his back tire at the stunt show with Christian Pfeiffer









Friday: Qualifying Day 1
Otherwise known as the day the stupid crackhead in the Hyundai ruined my week. On the way from Martinsville to Indy, some lady who was letting the whole world in front of her (since talking on her cell phone was more important than driving) slammed on the brakes to let someone in last minute to get on the highway. The roads were wet, but not soaking, so all the oil and crap was all over the place and when we had to slam on OUR brakes, the brakes locked, we skidded, and rear ended her. The Toyota was a 97, which of course is apparently the year BEFORE Toyota started getting good crash ratings, so the car was entirely totalled. To make matters better, the car was only liability. Awesome. Jeremy's sister in law came and picked us up, and we went home for the rest of the day. Later that afternoon, my mom called to tell me my brother and dad had gone up to Muscle Shoals because my grandfather had a stroke the night before and probably wouldn't make it through the night.

If you're ever in a wreck in Indy, don't let the police set up the wrecker service, they are running a massive scam. A total of less than 20 miles, 200 bucks. Ruh-diculous.















Saturday: Qualifying Day 2
Otherwise known as... Qualifying Day 2! My grandfather passed about 5a, but it's ok. He was really really sick at the end, he needed to be able to rest. The day was actually beautiful, nice breeze, sunshine, perfect for pictures. We walked around a bit to try and keep my joints loose (I strained all the muscles in my knees and thighs because of how I was sitting in the car), and watched all the qualifying rounds which was awesome. Ben Spies rocked the track out, finishing 5th in qualifying which put him behind Nicky Hayden and next to Casey Stoner for starting positions the next day. It was amazing to see the GP riders in person, not just on TV. Completely stunning the things they do with these bikes going as fast as they do! I'm going to be putting all the pictures up on my flickr page, so just check it out over the next couple days.

Sunday: Race Day
I didn't go to race day, there was only one extra ticket so Jeremy took his brother, which was probably for the best. That day, it poured down rain like nobody's business and the winds were gusting up to about 70mph and sustained around 45mph. They red flagged almost every race that day, cancelling the one that wasn't red flagged, including the GP race at 7 laps to go. Rossi led the pack after lap 12, when Hayden's lead fell, probably because he's not comfortable in wet conditions. Casey Stoner took 4th, and Spies took 6th. We think he would have done better, but apparently there was a problem with his visor so he couldn't see well enough to pass without causing some major issues. I watched on tv from home and stayed dry, and not windblown. Rossi says it's the worst weather he's ever raced in.

Monday: Travel Day... oh, wait
We were supposed to travel back today, but that didn't quite work out so much. I was waiting to hear from the shop about my car, then they called back with $2500 which would be a new freaking car just because Toyota couldn't build a sturdy front end. Panic attacks ensue. Start trying to find a salvage yard and the title for the car.

Tuesday: Sit and wait day...
Tuesday there wasn't much I could do. Mom was supposed to mail the title, so I just decided to forget about all of it. Jeremy and I drove around and went up to the Oliver vineyard in Bloomington which was actually a nice little winery. But, in tradition of the weekend being awful, when we went for the tasting, we discovered Jeremy's ID expired the day after the accident (which, by the way, was his birthday)! Went home, had burritos, watched the premire of House and the second episode of Fringe (which I think is awesome).

Wednesday: Actual travel day
Since Jeremy's license was expired, I had to drive the whole way back. Illinois is boring and you have to go exactly the speed limit or they give you a ticket, so it felt like I'd driven 5 hours after 2. We made it back safely, though, and cleaned up a bit before watching a movie and having some of the cider we brought back from the winery.


So now, I wait for the headlamp assembly for my Hyundai and try to get everything ready to leave Mississippi. I'll probably leave progressively because I want to see Jeremy a few more times before he starts school. Also, it'll just be easier than trying to shove everything in a car and go. I got a position as a substitute for the City Schools of Decatur, so the orientation is on Thursday next and I'll hopefully start getting calls after that. I'm excited, I love CSD, and it'll be fun to be back in my old school system for a while. Plus, I found out that CSD pays first year teachers with a bachelor's upwards of $38k and THAT my friends is almost incentive to talk Jeremy in to staying in Atlanta after he's done with school...