Yeah, yeah

So it's been a few days. I know you're all dying to hear more of my ticking-clock baby lovin' or rambling about my wedding, but just in case...

Watching the kids for Meg and Michael was really great, I love those kids so much-- and Julian, what an absolute HOOT! I think I taught him how to say "touche" which should be amusing. Three year olds, not so much with the actually grasping French parlance. As much of a nutter as he is, he does love his baby sister-- "My baby!" --and apparently spent part of the afternoon trying to convince Meg that HE was the one who carried Violet for 9 months! Every minute over at the Kavanaugh household is an episode of "Kids say the darndest things", I think. Also, it was nice to see Meg and Michael. I kept Meg up late (again) talking about the wedding stuff, and family stuff, and shared my invitations with her (which she seconded and approved), and poking at the baby who ate a little and then totally conked out. We both agree that babies are hilarious.

Sunday was low-key, but I got to catch the MotoGP race from Motegi which was nice. Even though that weekend in Indy was traumatic, I really enjoyed the race, and spending time with Jeremy, Josh, and Sarah! Sadly, Nicky Hayden got put out in the first lap by Takahashi, but Pedrosa didn't end up in first so I'll take what I can get.

Monday was loads of fun, it was our last AAC meeting of the year at CPK. I got there early to sit out in the commons at Atlantic Station and work some more on the Treasury office (I'm the financial adviser now for Gamma Sigma, and it looks like I'm going to do a really good job-- I'm so excited!) overhaul, and sat and talked to Vicki for a while outside while we waited for Lizzy and Becky. Dinner was OK, the best part was the appetizer. I know a lot of restaurants "known" for something don't usually have other good food, but CPK usually does! I got a panini that wasn't really anything special (though at least the Caesar salad was good), I don't remember what Vicki got, Becky got the Thai linguine which was good, but not stellar, and Lizzy got the pesto penne which wasn't really anything special, either! We also split desserts, which *were* pretty good and we certainly didn't mind spending the money since they had a deal that 20% of our check went to the Arthritis Foundation!

Anyway, I'm starting to get a little more excited about next year. It looks like Jeremy and I will be in Atlanta (since I can stay at Palate if I can't find a job anywhere else), which is really nice. I know I mentioned getting back in touch with all my old friends and their families, but I'm also really attached to these girls at GSU! Don't get me wrong, I would be ALL OVER being on AAC for Kappa Omicron, and I know it would make Rachel and Rebecca so happy, but I feel like not only do they need really good, solid, consistent leadership and alumnae support, but that I really am a part of the chapter now. Maybe that sounds silly to other people, but they really are like my sisters-- I love them, even though I want to shake them sometimes, and I can't wait to see what wonderful things they do with their lives and this chapter!

Tonight at work was SLAMMED. Thankfully, Matthew and Derek helped out in the dishroom, I don't know how we would have made it through otherwise! As a result, I'm able to keep my commitment for the collections payment this month for sure, and I can buy a bathing suit to take down to Florida with me! Huzzah!

Oh, and Jeremy and I are going to (most likely) split my gas to go down to Florida this weekend. I'm really excited, I miss him so much I almost can't stand it sometimes!

Off to bed with this tired girl! Ciao for now, pals!

Old friends and new babies

I went over to Meg's tonight for what was supposed to be an Atlanta Area Slacker's Club* meeting (*AASC was formed as a counterpart to the AARC-- runner's club --as we do not all care for that running thing the crazy people we love do), but much to our pleasure ended up being a smaller gathering than expected!

I took over Sweetwater 420 (the Atlanta Area staple!) and some of Blue Moon's summer brew Honey Moon (which tasted only slightly different than Blue Moon, but is still on my list of recommendations) and about 2-2.5lbs of raw fruit-- strawberries and three kinds of apples. While a couple ounces may have been siphoned by Meg and convincing Julian to eat his apples by bribing him with strawberries, I. ate. the. whole. thing. Yipes. On the upside, I don't feel particularly munchy, so apparently 2lbs of fruit does the trick...

We lit up the citronella torches, but were still getting bitten by mosquitos so we moved inside and watched "You Got Served" for the reason I bought it-- there's good dancing and it's total cheese. Julian went just about straight to bed, but Vi stayed up a little longer being fussy. If this is the fussiest she gets... I can only hope mine is like that!

Meg's sister Della stopped by and we all talked for a while about vacations, Austin, parenting, and assorted issues, and after Della left Meg and I stayed up even later talking about wedding stuff (I found my invitations! They are preddy!), sewing, and pregnancy.

I really hope we find somewhere to settle in nearby; I would still absolutely love to live in Austin, but I would be very sad to have caught up with Caq and Meg and their families and leave just as suddenly. Dill's parents moved out to Austin even after the triplets were born, nothing's set in stone. Besides, I don't know that I want to really own a place until after getting past the newborn-type age-- I mean, taking care of a house AND a baby could be a lot of work!

Well, it's 2a so it's about to be past my bedtime! I've given myself a 2a curfew so that I don't get back in to that 4a bedtime, wake up at 2p deal-- I realize it makes me feel really horrible and tired all the time to do that cycle!

Tomorrow is transplanting potted plants and watching the kids for Meg and Michael, which I'm excited about. Hopefully I will feel productive at the end of the day!

Just wanted to say

Since she's publicly acknowledged it on her blog, I will here...

I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of my friend Emily. She's had a problem with drinking (don't we all love when genetics meet circumstance?) and has decided to quit altogether. I've known a lot of people who have problems with alcohol, or addiction in general, and it's a really brave thing to step up to the plate and admit you need to do it for yourself and your friends.

She's doing her own rewards program in the form of her other, much more tolerable/physically healthier addiction, and I'm starting one from my side.

May 8 will be three weeks, 21 days, and when she makes it there we will go for the Nutella and Organic Banana smoothies at Nectar in Oakhurst! I'm going to figure out other yummy, culinary experiments to fill out every other three week (or so, depending on 'dem dollaz) interval.

I love you, Emmy!

Oof

Tonight wasn't so great at work, though Jon and I had some good talk time. I never really mind the slow nights as much when I'm working with Jon, and Amy and Carter (his wife and son) stopped by which is always a pleasure-- Amy's really sweet and Carter is just the pudgiest, cutest little kid! He laughs at *everything*!

I did get my Blackberry back, but I'm going to have to re-enter all my information because whoever picked up my phone first obviously had no intention of returning it... the password had been reset and there were things that had been downloaded! I wish I could say I can't believe it, but I totally can. Since they changed the password, I had to wipe everything to get in to the phone. Awesome. So, if I should have your number, just e-mail or text it to me and I'll put it back in!

Mostly I just wanted to make the announcement about the crackberry being back, I'm about to take a muscle relaxer and sleep and hope that when I wake up in the morning, it doesn't feel like I've been kicked in the hip by a horse... ugh. Stupid bone structure.

Weekend

Friday was low-key, but really nice. We had initiation for our spring pledges (hoorah new Alpha babies!) and a little pizza party after with birthday cake for India. Unfortunately, Alison couldn't be there because they were still taking care of some things with her father's estate. She got back tonight during LC, and is doing as well as can be expected-- possibly better. She's an amazing young woman, it breaks my heart she has to go through this.

After the pizza party, Vicki, Becky, and I went out and signed our gifts for the girls being installed as alumnae on Tuesday. I really wish I'd had an alumnae installation ceremony, I feel like I missed something there. Initiation was nice, though, because it made me think of Natalie (my new member educator) and Lindsey Hughes, our president at the time who initiated me. It's a really nice ceremony and definitely made me tear up a little! On the way home, I made a wrong turn and ended up at Magic City. That would be the strip club they talk about in the rap songs. Ohhhh yeeeeah.

Saturday was lazy, but I did go see Arcadia at GPC, which Alexandros was in. It was really nice, it's only the second time I've seen Alexandros since I've been back (the other when Jeremy and I went with him to lunch and Slumdog Millionaire), and we went to R. Thomas in Buckhead for my (much belated) birthday dinner and it was aawesome. I had a coconut curry linguine with shrimp and salmon. So. Good. They do all organic and locally grown food, it was quite delish. But pricey, definitely pricey. Also, the chai was perfect! I'm super picky about my chai, so I was happy it wasn't an absolute loss.

Tonight was LC, where we discussed some difficult things and I prepared myself to be the hard ass. I also did an arrangement for Alison of some roses and carnations I picked up at the Farmer's Market that looked pretty nice, actually!

That's about all. Clare was married yesterday, and though I wish nothing but the best for her, I'm still not convinced her new husband and step-children are that best thing. I would not have been surprised at the outdoor ceremony if it weren't for the fact that it was a product of him insisting they not be married in a church, which I find strange. I know Jeremy and I aren't getting married in a church, but that's mostly a convenience for our guests sort of deal, not anything to do with religion.

Ah, well, c'est la vie. All we can do is hope and pray that her life is as happy as she deserves for it to be and that he doesn't continue to be as sketchy has he has been to know...

This week: work, hopefully Memphis at the end of the week, and if Memphis is in the books then I will hopefully figure out why Jan and Marc's internet isn't working!

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!

For my much needed amusement

This week's waits on Netflix:

Quantum of Solace
Pineapple Express
The Tudors: Season One
Nick Frost's Danger! 50,000 Volts!
Namastey London
Slumdog Millionaire (hell to the yeah)
The Reader
The Caller


What I'm Watching:

This weekend, Jeremy and I watched Role Models which wasn't drop down hilarious, but was pretty darn funny. I frequently feel like a baby version of Paul Rudd's sarcastic, sick-with-uneducated-people character. One of my favorite lines of the movie? After being harassed by the coffee lady for asking for a large instead of a venti: "Tall is large, grande is Spanish for large, Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's Italian for twenty. Congrats, you're stupid in three languages."

At first, I was wondering if they were just going to be jerks the whole movie, but they definitely redeemed themselves and let's just say that if you're a KISS fan, you'll need to watch for the last battle scene. That's right, battle scene. LARPers, here we come!

We also watched the new Speed Racer, which was alright. The cartoon was kind of lame (that's not to say I didn't like it, but it WAS pretty lame), and the movie was a classic Wachowski brothers (Matrix) acid trip. The acting was proper for the style, and I couldn't help but fall out laughing when Matthew Fox (who played Racer X) started crying at the end. Matthew Fox is crying, must be a day that ends in "y"-- amirite, LOST fans?

Last night, I watched Son of Rambow, a British film about a boy whose ultra-religious family won't let him watch tv or movies (they seemed to be Quaker-ish). He's got a crazy imagination, and falls in with a boy at school who is quite the trouble maker. They start making their own version of Rambo: First Blood, and soon the whole school is involved and his mother (a widow) decides that God would rather her take care of her family and do what's best for them than listen to some of the members of the fellowship who think the child is out of control. It's one of those sweet, nostalgic-type movies that the British do so well, and I highly recommend it.

Next up, more Desperate Housewives. I don't care what you think, I'm watchin' it and I'm likin' it. I hear it jumps the shark later, but I'm starting from Season 1 so I haven't hit that point yet.