Case of the Mondays

I went to the office this morning only to find that the elevators in the building were broken. I had two options. Either I could go back to the main building and camp out in an empty office or I could suck it up and climb the stairs up to the 7th floor where my office is. I decided to go with option #2. How hard can it be, right? I do a lot of cardio with all the spin classes that I take. This shouldn't be too bad. WRONG. I felt kinda winded when I got to my office. Two of my co-workers were talking in the hall. I tried not to play it calm and cool, but my breathing gave it away. "Yeah, Tina, we just went through that too."

Fortunately, they called a technician who got them back in working order by the afternoon. Even if he didn't, climbing down the stairs is easier that climbing up them!

Was this supposed to be a surprise fitness test, and I just didn't get the memo???

Happy Anniversary, House!

July 8, 2011 was a major day of my life- the day that I officially bought a house! I call it my Independence Day from my parents since I was living at their house beforehand. However, I think that's kinda misleading since I'm over at the house a lot. This year has gone by so quickly...here are some of the highlights/lessons.

a. Spiders are best killed with a vacuum cleaner. No contact necessary.

b. Spiders can be killed with brooms. #shortpeopleproblems.

c. Cats are great for keeping an eye out on spiders and bugs (see a and b).

d. If you keep order in the house every day, there's less to clean when guests arrive.

e. It makes me happy to see lines in the carpet that the vacuum left behind. OMG, I'm turning into my mother. Always a nice feeling.

f. Be careful of doors that don't work. They will eventually fall off and scratch your wall.

g. Be sure to have the correct color of paint to cover up the scratch on said wall (see f).

h. Artwork helps cover up ugly mismatched paint (see f and g).

i. Having a home warranty is awesome, especially when the air conditioner needs to be replaced.

j. If you're patient enough and not too picky, you can find some really great secondhand items at estate/yard sales to furnish your first home.

Card: I finally had the time to make a card today. With all the power and heat issues, I haven't really felt like making one until now.

Card Specs:
Tag: American Crafts Bits- Peachy Keen Collection
Paper: American Crafts- Peachy Keen, American Crafts- Letterbox
White Gel Pen: Uni-Ball Signo Broad White Gel Pen
Stickers: Lily Bee Design
Punch: Fiskars Scalloped Sentiment border punch

Songs of the day: "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)"- Pink and "Scream"- Usher

Brave

Yep, it's 2 movies in 2 days. Today's movie was Brave. I went with a friend, and we sat in a theater surrounded by a sea of little kids. It's okay though. It just goes to show that we're still kids at heart. The movie was pretty good, but I don't think it's at the level of Pixar's Finding Nemo and Toy Story. It was heartwarming, and I definitely could relate to the mother-daughter dynamic shown in the movie. Afterwards, we went to California Pizza Kitchen, where I had the mushroom/pepperoni/sausage pizza and a mojito (I'm not convinced there was any alcohol in it though). We shared a slice of red velvet cake, and it was fully awesome.

I also scored 2 bottles of lotion at Bath and Body Works at 75% off. (happy dance)

The Amazing Spider-Man

Movie: Julie and I went to go see The Amazing Spider-Man today, and it was pretty good. I wasn't sure how this one was going to work out since it was a new actor playing Spider-Man and the love interest was Gwen Stacy instead of Mary Jane Watson. I'm kinda glad we didn't go see it in 3D or something because the flying-through-the-air scenes were kinda intense. When we first got there, we were the only ones in the theater. I guess that's what happens when you go see a 10 AM show. A few other people showed up but we were all spread out so no one was in anyone else's way. The actor that played Peter Parker did the "awkward teenager" look very well. Would it be something that I'd buy on DVD...hmm...I'm leaning towards probably not. I'd definitely check it out on Redbox though.

After the movie, we went to get some Indian food, yum! :)

Happy July 4th!

Today started out on a sad note actually. My uncle (Dad's older brother) has been battling cancer for the past few months and the prognosis has not been very good. Since Julie (my sister) was home from school, Dad thought it'd be a good idea all three of us to go over to my uncle's house to cheer him up. Apparently he talks about my sister and I to the hospital folks. On the way there, Dad warned us that my uncle had lost a lot of weight. I kept that in mind, but still, I was not prepared for what I saw...a person who normally has a lot of energy and a loud joyful voice be reduced to someone whose body is failing him. Fortunately his mind is still very strong...he even had the energy to do his routine lecture...the importance of having good reading and writing skills and keeping journal. Even in his state, he still pushes us to be our best. I think it was good that we still had the BBQ tonight, just so that Dad could focus on something else for a few hours.

After the trip to my uncle's house, we went to Safeway to get some last minute BBQ stuff and then I took a nap in my old bed at my parents' house. Gotta save up energy for eating, ha ha.

Meg, my uncle and aunt, and several cousins came over to help eat the steaks, pasta salad, and tres leches (my contribution). Hope y'all had a great holiday! :)

Happier Refrigerator

Storm aftermath: I was able to blast through a bunch of items on my work to-do list today: sent off performance review summary, started reporting on the Annual Plan, and worked on my article for my organization's quarterly publication. This was great progress since I'm not going back to the office until Monday, yay! The acting Executive Director sent out an email yesterday saying that we could leave 2 hours early today, so I busted out of there at around 2 PM and headed to my parents' house to hang out with my sister, who is home for the next few days. By hang out, I really mean fall asleep on her bed while she does work on her computer. Heh.

Originally we were going to have dinner at my uncle's house tonight, but because of an emergency plumbing problem, the dinner got moved to my parents' house. We'll be having a BBQ there tomorrow too. Lots of family time these past few weeks!

I went to the grocery store to get ingredients for the tres leches cake, which will be my contribution to tomorrow's BBQ. All the smaller milks were gone, so I had to get a gallon. I hope my sister will help me put a dent in it. It was either that or no milk at all. My refrigerator is happier today than yesterday.

Etsy: Yesterday was a really good card day! My co-worker purchased 8 cards from me, and I got a 5 card Etsy order from a guy that I went to college with. Talk about a blast from the past.

Song of the day: "Dark Side" - Kelly Clarkson

Stormy Weather!

OMG, the storm that came through here on Friday was terrible. I was at my parents' house when I saw a weather report that a co-worker posted on Facebook. It was in all CAPS, so I had a feeling that it was serious. I zipped home just in time. The storm crashed through about 20 minutes after that, and I lost power. The adventure begins...

I woke up on Saturday, not really thinking much of the storm. I was thinking to myself that I need to run to the ATM and gas station because I was still planning to go hang out with Meg and Robyn Saturday night. I noticed that the main intersection's traffic light was out. I'm still thinking that things weren't really that bad. However, I got to the bank, and a lady was walking away from it. I was about to pull into the parking lot and we made eye contact. She shook her head from side to side and mouthed, "It's closed." Sigh, ok, well, maybe I can gas up my car. So I drove to a nearby gas station. It was closed too because there was no electricity to power it up. Super. I then decided to go to my parents' house to check on them. There was a huge tree branch that hit the sunroom but everything else was okay (see photos below). Some people were not as lucky as I saw many trees down and some even fallen on people's houses and cars. I ended up staying over there on Saturday night because they got their power back on.

On Sunday morning, I went back to my place to check on RJ and throw away some of the food in my refrigerator. The chicken and pork chops in the freezer were no good. I was so sad to throw them away, but I would have been even more upset if I got sick after eating them. Food safety first! I went back to my parents' house afterwards only to come back to a warm house because the power at my parents' house went out in the afternoon. I stuck it out with RJ for a few hours and then headed back out to my uncle's house because he was the only one I knew that had power. It's good to have family nearby! I slept on the air mattress in my living room and woke up around 5:45 AM today. I really needed to take a shower. The heat and the humidity was just nuts. Fortunately, I had some warm water still in the hot water tank. Thank goodness for small blessings.

I went over to my uncle's house after work today for dinner (he and my aunt have been taking care of all us storm refugees) and to charge my phone. I checked the Pepco app on my iPhone around 9 PM and the app said that my zip code was no longer identified as part of the outage area! Hmm, interesting. How reliable is the information though? My cousins and parents went home to check out respective houses, and we found out that we all have power! YAY! We'll still be going back to my uncle's house tomorrow for dinner because none of us has food in the fridge. Ha ha.

RJ was on the lookout for the power company to fix the electricity yesterday...with no luck.