The Grand Scheme of Things

We have finally arrived in San Diego. At the very least, this move has been an adventure.

I last left off when we were in Texas. No offense, but I don't care if I ever see that state again. It's HUGE and the western part is BORING. I liked San Antonio though and would like to go back and actually see some of it. Seeing our friends again would be nice too.

Our next stop was Tucson, AZ. A very good friend of ours lives there so we made dinner plans and met up with him, his girlfriend, and their three daughters for dinner. You know someone is a good friend when you haven't seen them for six years but when you finally do, you pick up right where you left off. We went to this place called Chuy's for dinner. Pretty decent food and they make really good, really cheap margaritas. After dinner, we went back to our friends' apartment for some more visiting. I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. Josh, our friend, said it was his goal to see me laugh/cry which I did several times. Best of all, we woke up without a hangover, lmao.

We made it to San Diego on Thursday. The very first thing we did was drive around Lakeside and Santee which is our old stomping grounds from when we lived here the first time. Very little has changed in Lakeside. They gated our old base housing and there are some new shops and stuff but other than that, it looked exactly the same. Santee has a lot of new shopping but it's mostly the same too. After that, we drove downtown to our hotel.



I booked us into the Sheraton because the room rate was decent and they were pet friendly, not charging any pet deposit. I had no idea it was such a nice hotel. I didn't look at the pictures online, I just read the reviews. I was a bit intimidated walking in. This is the kind of hotel where they take your luggage to the room for you. We had never stayed in such place before. The hotel lobby is on the 12th floor and our room was on the 24th. Our view was pretty great. The youngest parked herself in a chair in front of the window most of the time and watched planes land at the airport. San Diego's airport has a unique approach route with planes landing over the downtown buildings. It's neat to watch them land.

Thursday night, we walked to a place called Brian's 24 for dinner. The Mister chose it out a magazine because there was a picture of fried chicken and waffles. Fried chicken and waffles was one of the things we laughed about with Josh so the Mister had to try it out. He said it was a unique combination but probably not something he'd want again. I had the meatloaf which was yummy. I also had a Ruby Screwed which is like a Screwdriver but with grapefruit juice. It was GOOD.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel (I love big city living) and left the girls in the room while we went to the Sky Lobby Lounge in our hotel for a few drinks. I had this:

Ciroc Champagne Cosmo
Ciroc Vodka, Grand Marnier, cranberry juice and
fresh lime juice topped with champagne and gar-
nished with an orange twist.

It was so good. The bartender was really nice and made them really good if you know what I mean. This night resulted in a bit of a rough morning on Friday. Perfect for having to go to the housing office for our lease briefing, lol.

So Friday takes us to signing our lease, picking up our keys, and checking out the new digs. Sounds simple enough but it was a process. First we had to go to 32nd St Naval Base for our lease briefing. This consisted of reading this HUGE binder and then going to a conference room with a bunch of other people so that the binder could be read to us. Something unique to signing a lease for military housing that civilians will probably never encounter is the explosive ordinance addendum. We had to sign a paper acknowledging the fact that our housing was built on the site of a former base and finding unexploded ordinance is a possibility. Fun times. After all that, we had to go to our local housing management office to pick up our keys and a folder with a bunch of info for schools, utilities, a coupon for a free pizza, etc., etc. We drive to our house and the keys wouldn't work. By this time, our movers were waiting in the street to unload our stuff. We had to tell them to wait while we drove back to the housing office to get keys that would actually work.

Finally, we get to see the inside of our new house. What do I think? It's base housing. That's pretty much it. It has walls, ceilings, rooms, blah blah. Oh yeah. And it has bugs. FREAKING BUGS!!! The water pressure is non-existent. The kitchen in miniscule. It says it has four bedrooms but it's more like two bedrooms with two oversized closets. But, it has brand new carpet and the living room/dining room is very nice-sized and we're using it for a living room/reading area. The kitchen is an eat-in kitchen so I have no need for an additional dining area plus it's all carpeted and I don't like eating on carpet. The view from the backyard is nice. It opens into a canyon which overlooks the 163 so we're high up and we don't have any neighbors behind us. Other than the bugs, which someone is going to get an earful when I'm done here, I can live with everything else. It's base housing. IT'S BASE HOUSING!! I expected everything else. I can live with it. That's my mantra.

I hate our cable. Time Warner is confusing. We have so many channels (it goes up to 1000+) that I can't find anything. If there's an organizational schema to how the channels are arranged, I can't figure it out. I've had Cox, Charter, Suddenlink, and now Time Warner and Time Warner is by far the weirdest.

The packers broke the flat screen TV we recently purchased for our bedroom. It turns on but we have no red. Red is black and skin tone is green. They took several screws out of the back of it trying to take the base off to pack it. I don't know if that's what broke it or if it was the actual transporting it 2700 miles, but it's broke. We'll file a claim but it could be years before we're reimbursed if they decide to reimburse us at all. We're only about 1/2 way unpacked and that's the only broken/missing thing so far. I guess I should count myself lucky. We know someone who was moving from Japan to the U.S. and they dropped his entire shipment off the side of a transport ship to the bottom of the ocean. So, things could be worse. They managed to get my Grandma's Italian table here with no problem and that's one of the few things we own that's irreplaceable. Other than that, our movers suck butt and I hope they rot.

My car was delivered after much hassle from the company. NEVER use Car Go Autotransport to ship a car. They suck ass. Suck as in S-U-C-K. I won't go into all the details cuz it's really boring, but in the end, they delivered my car sans the antenna. They swear it's in the car but my car is very clean (at least on the inside) and there is no antenna in there. I have to figure out how to get a new one because only one radio station comes in without it.

I have now moved into the, "I'm sick of moving, unpacking, living out of boxes, being so sore I can barely move at the end of the day, being so tired that I fall into bed exhausted but can't sleep because my back hurts so bad, sick of eating out constantly because I can't find enough kitchen stuff to cook with" phase of life. I'm irritable and I want moving, school, and work to go the hell away. AWAY! I've missed several assignments in both my classes so that a good grade is now an unattainable goal. I'm so far behind with work that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer visible. And I don't think we'll ever be done unpacking. CRY, WHINE, COMPLAIN!!!

To get some perspective, we're back in San Diego after longing to be here for the last six years. The only complaint our old landlord had was that we didn't pooper scoop the backyard. (Go cry to someone else about that because we paid almost $1000 getting YOUR house ready to rent to SOMEBODY else and if dog crap is your only complaint, count yourself damned lucky dude.) All the boxes will eventually go away. Logically, I know this. Base housing isn't choice, but it's in a pretty perfect location, it's free (basically) and we don't pay utilities. As long as they get an exterminator here to kill the bugs, I can be happy here. In the grand scheme of things, life is pretty good.

Reminiscing

I had to have our old electric company from Vermont send me a copy of some of our old bills today. It really sucked looking at them because one month of electric out there in NOVEMBER and DECEMBER is a third, literally, of what our electric costs us here in North Carolina. A THIRD! The cost of electric here sucks out loud. It’s ridiculous that it costs more to heat a house in North Carolina than it does to heat a house in VERMONT in the WINTER. Am I wrong here?

If I Didn’t Have Bad Luck…

After our infamous trip to Ohio, we arrived home to discover that our washing machine wasn’t working right. It was making noises like it was going to run a regular cycle but the lid wouldn’t lock and it wouldn’t fill with water. You can picture me with steam coming out of my ears. The ding dong machine isn’t even three years old yet.

So, I do a bit of research online and find a message board about my washing machine with people posting about similar problems. Their machines had the computer board go out on it which is about $200 just for the board to replace. This isn’t including a service charge or labor. Again, me, steam, ears. I have the worst luck with washing machines. My old machine had the shocks go out on it and that was $250 to fix.

Anywho, we get back from Ohio and we’re pretty broke. We are able to get our machine to work if we unplug it and reset the computer EVERY TIME WE RUN A NEW LOAD so this is what we’ve been doing. I finally was able to get a repairman out today and the DING DONG MACHINE WORKED FINE FOR HIM!!!! WTF?!?! I had to pay him $59 for a service call for him to tell me the freaking thing was fine. In addition to feeling like a complete and total idiot, this repair call is occurring right in the middle of a phone conference for which I have to keep muting myself so I can talk to the guy. SHEESH!!

He did tell me that it probably is the computer board going out and I could go ahead and have him replace it if I wanted him to. I opted to wait even though I’m fearful that the board will crap out on me in the middle of a cycle and leave me with a washer full of wet, drippy, soapy clothes. It just seemed kind of silly to pay to fix something that was working.

Oh. And my wonderful Dyson Animal is broken too and the nearest repair shop for that is an hour away. I’m telling ya, bad luck. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.

The Grind

Pardon me while I whine and vent.

I need a vacation. Not the pseudo-vacation that we took to Ohio where the only person that might define that as an actual vacation would be Hitler or maybe Stalin. I worked almost every day that we were there and I was stressed out beyond belief. That was not a vacation. I’m talking the variety of vacations where there are no kids, no relatives, NO EMAIL, and limited access to a phone. What there is, is lots of books to read at my leisure. sleeping in until I feel like getting up, staying up as late as I want because I know that I won’t have to get up the next morning, and nobody for company except for the Mister. I need that. Seriously. I think I’m getting an ulcer and I know that I get migraines way too often. I’m about sick to death of hearing my incoming e-mail sound on my BlackBerry. That thing never freaking stops. I hear it in my nightmares. I can be reached way too easily and too many people know that.

Do you know the last time that I had a real vacation? A vacation where work and/or school wasn’t hanging over my head? That would be March of last year when I visited Jennifer in California for my spring break and even then I was thinking about having to hit the books when I got back. I suppose that’s not so bad when I look at it. It’s only a year and a half ago. Whatever.

A vacation. Seriously, And soon. I need one or you might be hearing about some crazed lady from North Carolina in the news.

Many Thoughts

I have so many things flying around in my head these days that it’s hard to figure out what to say.

I hate listening to other people’s descriptions of the dreams that they had which is why I don’t talk about mine that often, but I’ve been having some absolute doozies lately. Sunday night, I didn’t sleep at all. The Mister has a cold and when he has a cold, he snores like a bear. Coupled with taking nighttime cold meds, he’s impossible to wake up. Monday night, I couldn’t take it anymore so I went out on the couch. I don’t mind doing that. My couch is pretty cozy to sleep on. Still, even without the incessant snoring, I didn’t sleep very well. Around 3, I finally dozed off only to wake up again around 5. I laid there for a while and I think I must’ve dozed off again because that’s when I had my dream or whatever it was. I really could have sworn my eyes were still open at this point. Anyway, I “dreamt” that the youngest child came out of her room and then stood in front of me just staring. In my conscience, I knew that was wrong because she never gets up and the figure in front of me was too short to be her. This realization startled me awake and I was up for good after that. It totally weirded me out. Tuesday night, I started out on the couch instead of getting up like I did Monday night. I didn’t sleep very much at all because my other dream left me with an other-worldly feeling all day. When I did sleep, I had nightmares. Same thing last night too although I slept in my own bed. I figured that I’m not sleeping on the couch either so I may as well at least be in my own bed not sleeping, lol.

This not sleeping thing is totally getting ridiculous and having nightmares when I do get to sleep is making a bad situation worse. Whine, whine, bitch, moan, and complain. I know. Enough already. 

Now I’m on the phone with my sister and I get to listen to her whine, bitch, and complain. It’s really not so bad because it distracts me from my own whining, lol.

I Try

I try not to post obsessively about this house thing, but stuff keeps happening and this is my outlet. Every time I think things are calming down, something new crops up and it’s never something good. The latest?

The pipes burst in the VT house yesterday. Yuppers. That’s my life. I’ve been desperately trying to get oil delivered since…I don’t remember when. Sometime last week. The Tenants completely drained the tank to the point where the furnace shut off. If you’re not familiar with heating with oil, you’re not supposed to let the tank get that low because sediment settles in the tank and it’s not good for that to get in the fuel line which is why we never let it get below a 1/4 of a tank. Anyway, after a couple scheduling snafus, the oil company was finally able to get out to the house yesterday to deliver oil. They were the ones that found water in the basement when they got there. Just lovely. And to top it off, my homeowners insurance won’t pay for any of it. Not the tenant damage, not the water damage. Nothing. I really need someone to explain to me why I pay for homeowners insurance at all. I honestly don’t get it. Oh. And that oil that came one day too late cost me $350.00 for 125 gallons that didn’t even fill my 275 gallon tank up. Why didn’t the price of oil go down with the price of gas?

People may be under the impression that because we own a house in Vermont and live in N.C. that we have money. Let me assure you, we don’t. Under normal circumstances, we have enough money to pay our bills, buy some extra stuff, and sock away what’s left in savings. Under normal circumstances, I enjoy our life and the things that we have. Since this house thing, money in savings is a distant memory, I’m paying utilities at two houses, I’m employing people to help out that I can’t afford, and my attorney’s bill increases on a daily basis. The situation is bleak and I’m angry and crying all the time. At least nobody has told me not to worry. At this point, that’d be the most pointless and useless advice that someone could give me.

The VT house has just about completely taken over my life. I’m constantly on the phone, on the Internet, sending e-mails, leaving messages, making appointments, and filling out paperwork. It’s almost become a full time job. This is the pie of my life:

That purple piece takes place in during the 25 minutes I’m sitting in carpool and for maybe an hour in the evening after the kids go to bed. It’s depressing. I’m depressing. I just want it to be over. However it plays out, house in foreclosure, credit ruined, house successfully sold, whatever. I don’t really care so long as it’s done.

::Sigh:: Now I get to get off of here and call the youngest child’s school to see why she has 8 tardies. I have no freaking idea how she could be late to school when she rides the bus.

There are no comments for this post. Thanks anyway.

Can We Get Some Heat Please?

This is what I’ve been hearing all week from my kids. I’m cold!!! It’s like they’ve never met me before or something. They should know by now that I’m The Heat Nazi. Yes, it’s a bit chilly in my house in the mornings with the temperature hovering around 67 degrees. But it warms up to 73 or 74 when the sun comes up so it’s all good. I don’t think it’s necessary to turn the heat on yet. And why is it that if the temperature in the house during the summer was 74 they’d be complaining that it’s too hot? It’s because they are never happy. My solution to chilly mornings? Put on a sweater, jeans, socks, and grab a throw blanket. I’m perfectly comfortable in the morning with just jeans and a sweatshirt on. Pansies. We could still be living in Vermont where they have snow on the ground. Get some perspective.

9 days until we leave on our vacation.

When Technology Sucks

I’ve had a sense of foreboding since 4:30 this morning. I didn’t sleep very well last night because I had nightmares. They were of the variety that left me feeling like a scared little kid when I woke up and have left me what a bad feeling. I actually got up with the Mister this morning while he was getting ready for work to tell him to be extra careful on his motorcycle today.

We found out last night that we’re going to get to take possession of the new house on Sunday rather than Monday which is a good thing. Because of this, I decided to register the youngest child at her new school today. We also have some last minute school shopping for things we forgot the first time we went out. While I was getting ready to go I got an e-mail from the Mister telling me he accidentally took both sets of Scion keys. Not that big a deal except that the Rav has a flat tire. SO, I’m basically stuck at home today. I don’t change tires. Anyway, I responded to his e-mail and now we are in the middle of an argument via e-mail. Just lovely.

To sum things up, I have a butthead husband on the other end of my e-mail, the youngest child is crying because I can’t take her to see her new school, the oldest child is pouting and copping an attitude with me because I can’t go and buy her the rest of the stuff she needs for school the very second that she wants me to take her, and I’m tired beyond all belief because I got about 3 hours of restful sleep last night, or this morning depending on how you look at it.

I would go back to bed and cry myself except that I have work, cleaning, and packing to take care of today.

Hear Me Whine

So, I’m currently, as I type, on the phone with Panasonic’s customer support. I’m on my third transfer just so you know. Anyway, we’ve been having an issue with our LCD TV for about a year now. It started out as a small yellowish blob in the lower left hand corner. That blob has spread so that the entire screen is now yellow. Of course, it’s out of warranty. It’s out of it’s extended warranty too. I got a bug up my butt today and decided to call around to some repair shops to see how much it would cost to fix it. After describing my problem to a very helpful and patient man, he told me that the PART is going to cost $1400. THE PART!!! $1400!!! I also just found out today that Panasonic was involved in a class action lawsuit having to do with the life of the projection lamps. Ours blew in less than a year, but WHATEVER.

I just disconnected with the customer support person. I gave her an earful in a very dignified voice. I didn’t cuss or yell at all. And then I told her to enjoy the few thousand we spent on the thing and hung up on her. Panasonic sucks. Their customer support sucks, their technical support department is worthless, and they purposefully design their products to breakdown directly after the warranty expires. Okay. That last part is my opinion but I’m sure it’s probably true. I’m not happy. Oh. And they design the stupid TV’s so that they only fit on certain stands that cost $314.96. They suck for that too.

I’m tired. I’m sorry. I didn’t get to sleep until 3 something and I was up again at 4:45. I went to the Harris Teeter to pick something up for dinner and forgot to get my Starbucks on the way out. I should forget about the Starbucks and have a glass of wine. I have a nice Pinot Grigio I should decant. Have I ever mentioned that I hate people?? BUT COME ON!! $1400! What a load of bull. It’s not even four years old yet.

In a Funk

I’m missing my kids. Yesterday, I turned the TV to the Disney channel while Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place was on and read my book. I told the Mister this and a friend and they both laughed at me. The kids are doing well in Ohio though. They call me at least once a day and we text off and on too. They’re having a good time with my dad and step mom. They’ve been visiting with my nephew too which is a lot of fun for them.

As for me, I’ve been bored out of my mind. I’ve been working, playing on the Wii, working out on the elliptical, cleaning house, shopping, reading, and we’ve visited with a couple of our friends both Wednesday and Thursday but it’s still not a lot to fill the days when I’m used to my kids hanging around me constantly. I’ve been going to bed before 11 out of boredom which kinda backfires because I’ve been getting up early in the mornings which just makes the day longer. How do people with no kids fill their days??? The Mister is taking a couple days of leave right after the 4th so that he can get away from work for a couple days so that’ll be nice. He’s taking more leave at the end of July so we can take a vacation of our own. We just have to decide where we’re going. We’ve nixed the Texas idea because I don’t want to go anywhere that’s going to take longer than a day to drive. We’re considering renting a beach house either at Atlantic Beach, NC, Myrtle Beach, or Virginia Beach but I’m afraid the pickings will be slim this time of year. We’re also considering heading back to the Asheville area and actually taking the time to see it and the Mister’s never been there before at all.I dunno. I just want to go somewhere that’s an actual city with shopping, great places to eat, and lots of people. I’m tired of the boonies. That might nix Asheville as well, heheh. GEEZ!! Who knows?!?! We’ll probably end up doing nothing at all because we can’t decide.

Anywho, I’ve been reading another Philippa Gregory book. This one is The Constant Princess and it’s the story of Katherine of Aragon. I’ve never read an actual historical account of her early life, so I don’t know how much of Gregory’s story is historically accurate but it seems to be very much romanticized. I have read how her life ends though so we’ll see how it turns out. It’s a good read and I’m really liking it so far.

Well, this killed ten minutes, lol. Now what?

Things

That I find annoying right now and in no particular order...

1. My neighbor and his stupid motorcycle. I have nothing against motorcycles in general, but this asshead insists on rev'ing his until the windows in the house rattle and then speeds off down the street. HELLO!! There are kids out and about you dillweed.

2. That I have a virus or something on my computer that randomly pops up about 20-30 tabs in my browser. I know where I got it, but my virus scanner can't seem to get rid of it.

3. People who have music on their blogs. Don't get me wrong. I like the music and think it's nifty, but I have a headset and when music randomly starts blaring in my ears, it scares the bejeezus out of me.

4. Web 2.0 I need to give Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, Jaiku, and all the rest a break.

5. That I had to be on the phone for 30 minutes just to figure out that the audio on my comp had been disabled in my bios. Again, tech support people suck.

6. My house and the fact that it NEVER stays clean for more than an hour.

7. That I'm tired. I'm tired of being tired all the time. I'm beginning to wonder if something is wrong but since I hate doctors and I feel like an idiot when I go to see them, I'll never find out.

8. Skinny people. You suck too.

9. Single people who live alone and have housekeepers. Get off your lazy ass and clean your freaking house you slob. If I were single, my house would NEVER be dirty.

10. That I'm in a bad mood and it's not even that time of the month.

11. That women's bad moods must ALWAYS be because it's that time of the month.

12. That I have nothing good to watch on the DVR. I just finished watching season 3 of Weeds. It was awesomely funny, btw.

13. That it's probably going to be too hot to stay too long at the beach tomorrow. I LOVE the heat, but this is ridiculous. Our temps today: 98 was our high with a heat index of 110. Wtf is up with that??

14. That Jennifer can't find a job. Wth is wrong with people and this economy??

15. People who are all political because it's trendy to be so. You're not impressing anyone.

16. Parents who don't teach their kids manners and their kids that just walk uninvited into my house and proceed to raise a ruckus.

17. People who want Obama to be president just because he's African American or people who wanted HRC to be president just because she's a woman.

18. That highway 43 is going to be under construction for most of the summer.

19. That I don't have a crystal ball that will show me the future.

20. That my husband is incessantly tapping on something over at his computer. GRR!

21. That the air show on Cherry Point this weekend is going to make it impossible to go to the commissary.

22. That I just yelled at the Mister to stop it and he's now tapping just to annoy me and watching me get more annoyed by the second.

23. That I'm out of stuff to complain about and that I screwed up Whine-fest Wednesday and I'm whining on Friday.

THERE!!!

24. Wait, wait!! That Jennifer posted a nice, fantastically optimistic list on Thursday and this is what I manage to come up with.

25. Oh! And one last thing. All the freaking holier than thou people who can't shut up about conservation, going green, and that high energy prices are a good thing. You people make me want to go out and buy a Hummer. Stuff your conservation where the sun don't shine.

Whine-fest Wednesday Episode 2

I don't really have too much to whine about. I am sitting here waiting for a friend to pick me up so we can go shopping. She's going to be ten minutes late. She's always late. I've never seen her be on time for anything since I've known her. She's just one of those people. Unfortunately, where we're going is an hour drive each way and I have to be home by 3:30 for the kids to get off the bus. Doesn't leave us a lot of time.

I can whine because The Tudors season is over!! WHAAAA!! The season finale was great but it won't be back until 2009. Ugh!!

That's it. I gotta pee before she gets here so I'm off.

Busy Saturday

We started out our day making a grocery list and hitting the commissary. Yuck. I do not enjoy grocery shopping. I don't know why, but it's such a chore. While we were there, this little boy, I'd say he was 3 or 4 years old, broke a jar of applesauce on the floor. Man! His mother totally let it rip all over him. Yelling and cussing like...I dunno what a child of that age could do to deserve such a storm. It was mean.

We get home and I had a little sumpthin' sumpthin' at 1:00. After that was over, we began our hunt for a new refrigerator. Ours is old as dirt and it's going out on us. There is so much condensation built up on the ceiling of the fridge that it drips down on the food and there's a buildup of ice along the inside, back wall. Also, stuff like soda cans have sweat on them even though they're inside the fridge. It's a mess. We rent so it's my landlord's problem, but I would really like to have a refrigerator that I like and that is big enough for our family and not just some cheapo thing that he will probably put in here. Easier said than done, however. We looked in two different towns and online and can't find a decent sized fridge that will fit in the space it needs to go into. We need one that's shorter than 68 1/2 inches but bigger than 20 cubic inches which is really hard to find. In fact, we haven't found one and I'm not sure what our next step is going to be. I don't want to buy a tiny fridge just to fit it in this house where we will only be living for another year. Can't they make short, fat refrigerators instead of tall skinny ones? Sheesh.

Whine-fest Wednesday

I'm making up my own meme and declaring Wednesdays as whine days because you know what? I'm sick to f'in death of this RAIN!!!! It has rained here for at least five days straight and it's seriously starting to depress me. I tried really hard not to complain because we needed the rain but dayum. Enough is enough already. I just got back from lunch with the Mister and it was nice and sunny in Havelock, which is where his base is, and it's only 30 minutes from my house where it is currently RAINING!!! It's also only 69 degrees here where it was 74 there.

And you know what else? I was going about 65 in a 55 mph zone and still getting passed like it was cool. I don't understand that since the Mister has gotten three speeding tickets in a matter of months on the same road and that's about how fast he was going when he got pulled over. How do these people get away with it but he doesn't? Before we moved here, he hadn't had a speeding ticket since 1996 or'97.

And you know what else? Nah. That's all I've got but I feel much better now. It's raining and the sun is shining all at the same time now. That's not so bad. I gotta get off of here and get ready for my Spanish oral quiz. I hate those things. They make me so nervous but I always get A's so that's not so bad either.

Laters. Oh. And feel free to join in on Whine-fest Wednesday if you need to vent.

Picky, Picky

The story of our trip to the Outback isn't a huge deal. I'm just starting to think that I'm too picky and I expect too much from the food service industry. Anyway, to begin with, we give our name to the girl and she said the wait would be about 25-35 minutes. We didn't consider that to be too terrible so we settled in to wait. We waited an hour for a table. By this time, my patience was pretty low and I was thinking that the food had better be worth it since we had never been there before and didn't know what it was like. Our waitress took our drink orders and I ordered a mixed martini which was on the specials menu. The girl brings me my drink in a regular martini glass with about a shots worth of drink in it. She asks me if it's ok and I'm like, "This is it? This is $7.50 worth of drink? The glass isn't even half full." She looked like she expected that sort of reaction and said she'd take it back to the bar and ask if that's how it was supposed to look. A couple minutes later she brings my glass back filled with strawberry mix. Whatever. I took a drink and there wasn't enough alcohol in there to get a flea buzzed. As for the food, my shrimp and scallops were overcooked and the Mister said that we make better steaks on our grill at home which is exactly what we did Tuesday night. We might go back and give it a second chance but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

Below is my drink. It's the after picture though because I didn't have the opportunity to take a pic before the waitress took it back to the bar. The line, however, shows where the glass was filled the first time she brought it to me. All the other times I've ordered martinis, the glass was filled to the brim but oh well.

In other news, the Mister and I are on the hunt for a Wii. A very unsuccessful hunt. We have looked everywhere and nobody has one. I've looked at every online retailer that sells them and they don't have any either. We wanted to get one for the youngest child's birthday tomorrow but it isn't going to happen. Nintendo needs to get off their collective butts and start manufacturing these a bit faster. Everyone we spoke to said that Nintendo sends them Wii's when Nintendo feels like it and in whatever amount they feel like sending. Nice. So, she's getting something else that was on her list and we'll get the Wii at the first available opportunity as a gift for the entire family. This is the first time that the Mister and I have bought a gaming console for somebody other than ourselves, lol. It's a weird experience. I guess we're growing up.

It's Friday

I just finished interviewing a guy to take care of our lawn. I interviewed another one yesterday. Lawn care is such a scam, but we're lazy about keeping up with it. You could lose small children and animals in our yard right now. It's a mess. C and I are often at odds about the yard which is another reason I'm hiring someone to do it. He says he doesn't always have the opportunity to do it (read that to mean that he doesn't feel like doing it on the weekends or after work) and why don't I get out there and do it. I say I do everything else inside the house, I take care of the dogs' needs, the girls' needs, and car needs, so he can do the yard (read that to say bitch, bitch, bitch, nag, nag, nag). See what I'm saying? So, this is a solution we can both live with.

In other matters, C has decided to sell his bike. I have such mixed feelings about it. We're going to use the money to beef up our investment accounts because of the whole Vermont house, inconsistent rent payments deal. But at the same time, this means we'll only have one vehicle and I HATE that. It makes me feel like a child. I always have to make elaborate plans in order to have the car and it's a pain. (Bitch, bitch, whine) To give you an idea on why he can part with it so easily...He bought it new in 2004. He rode it a handful of times while we lived in VT because of his work schedule, the weather, and the fact that he didn't have a motorcycle endorsement on his license. As a result, it only has 1600 miles on it. Whichever guy at work that he's selling it to is getting a practically brand new bike and we can sell it for more than it's average resale value. Blah.

And I'm freaking tired. Recently, I've been staying up until around 2 am and getting up with C in the morning. This means I'm getting about 3 1/2 hours of sleep a night. At least it'll make getting up with the girls in the morning when school starts on Monday easier.