HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISSY & BRO-N-LAW!!!

your gift is that my hubby comes home tonight so i won't be calling you fifty times a day anymore. have i mentioned how awesome my bedroom looks? now if only i could decide on a walk color and get it all painted. sheesh, that's going to be a job and a half. i really wish we had had the time to get that done before the furniture came.

bloodletting and power tools don't mix

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIRANDA!!! well, i was wrong about sleep last night. qu'elle surprise. in other news, i learned a valuable lesson today. climbing a ladder and operating power tools after giving blood can be a less-than-good idea. fortunately for me, i'm an excellent bleeder (filled the bag in under six minutes, thankyouverymuch) and never suffer ill-effects of the blood-letting. however, each time i got up on that ladder, dizziness did ensue. i'm not sure why. luckily, it was not debilitating and no harm befell me or my home. it just took much longer to finish my tasks as i kept having to climb back down to lay down a minute between drillings. all in all, my curtains look great.

i get by with a little help from my friends

i just had a wonderfully cathartic conversation with my katie. it's good to have a friend like her who is capable of being a "shoulder" friend over the phone. those are rare. my hubby is gone most of this week. crummy for him because he's freezing his toes off and working around the clock - although the latter isn't really a change now, is it. crummy for me because i don't sleep well by myself but since i've been in a very down and lonely mood for the last week, we're probably better being apart a couple days. maybe when he gets home i'll be feeling better and stop snapping at him for no reason. i'm sure he'd appreciate that. on the bright side, a fabulous cold front has moved in and tonight and tomorrow night should be great open window nights. that should help me sleep.

next week please

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD and BRIAN!!! aside from calling and assaulting dad with my singing, i'm done with this week. just make it go away, okay?

tiring out the troops

please say a prayer for gma h. we got a call this morning that she somehow fell out of her wheelchair and broke her femur. they took her into surgery this afternoon to put pins in, which worried us quite a bit since she is ninety-seven years old. they ended up putting screws in her hip and knee and a steel rod along her entire femur. she made it through the surgery fine (what a blessing!) and is in recovery. we are waiting to hear when she is awake again. i'm sure it'll be a difficult recovery at her age so all the prayers she can get will surely help. all of that aside, we have been having fun here with our friends. we spent most of the day yesterday on the beach. it was a beautiful day. one of those rare days when you can actually sit in the sun and not sweat to death. there was frisbee-throwing and football-throwing and hole-digging and castle-building and beach-running and sun-napping. we then went and swam around the pool for a while and warmed up in the hot tub before coming back up for dinner. before i had dinner done, the kids and jeremy were asleep on the couch. one of the girls' head kept falling on the table all through dinner. they were more than happy to go to bed at an early hour. us adults managed to stay awake until 21:00 before happily dragging ourselves to bed. speaking of bed, i am so far very pleased with my latex mattress. friday night, we only ended up with three hours of sleep so that wasn't the best to judge by, but last night was very comfortable. after a night and a half of sleeping on it, i have not had any shoulder aches or body parts falling asleep. see, i'm a side sleeper so i have a terrible time with my shoulders and hips hurting and having to flip to the other side every twenty minutes until that one starts hurting too. that's where a lot of my tossing and turning comes from. as an extension of that, my arms and hands and legs will fall asleep on me. that's a big part of the reason i was adamently against getting an inner-spring matress. the latex, like the visco foam, is supposed to virtually eliminate pressure points. so far, it seems to be doing the trick. it comes with a thirty-day trial period so i've got that long to decide whether it's going to work out. my next priority purchase is going to be curtains. until i have curtains, there's really no way to know for sure whether i'm sleeping well in the morning. enough of that, a rainy afternoon at the beach means we're all headed to dinner and the movies. i don't know why they don't want to watch a movie on our 20" tv.

beddy-bie time

woohooo, i have a matress! tonight, i will sleep on a real bed again; i am psyched! they delivered it and set it up and then we dressed it. our room looks so purty and sophistimicated. tonight our first guests will be coming in for the weekend. we are looking forward to a fun beach-filled weekend with them.

furnishing

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SANDRA & TONY!!! today was a happy day. our bedroom furniture came in and looks fabulous. we also got a dining room hutch that looks perfect with our dining room table. this place is really starting to look nice. as far as furnishing, it is far nicer than our old house. well, that and the location and the view. i'm just happy to have this place start feeling livable. and not a moment too soon with our first company coming in tomorrow night.

so much for new

wth would you go into someone's home and slap pieces of wood down on their brand-frikkin-new dining room table?!! and then go sliding them all over the place?!! j@ck@$$!!!

can it be?

OMG! it must be snowing in hell this morning - our stove just arrived! anyone know how to do convection cooking?

gettin' high

i don't know about you, but it has been farookin gorgeous here the last few days. playing football on the beach has been not-too-hot. swimming in the pool has been not-too-cold. lovely, it is. and, our home is coming together nicely. stuff is actually jumping out of boxes and into cozy little put-up spaces. we haven't made any more progress on those other six chairs but, when we do, the dining area will be beeyooteefuwl! on a side note, it amuses me to look down on the coast guard and military helicopters and planes that fly by. most of the time, it doesn't seem like we're that high up.

coming together

we have furniture!!! yesterday was an expensive day. we purchased our mattress set and our bedroom furniture, which will both be delivered by next thursday. i am looking forward to having a bedroom that looks like a bedroom. and a new, comfy, non-springy bed to hopefully stop my tossing and turning for a while. we almost got a bunk bed but we were shot down at the credit card handover with the pronouncement "out of stock". dagnabit! it could never be that easy, eh? the only thing that we actually came home with was our dining room table. it's very purty. we got the table and two chairs put together (after we finally took down the christmas tree and put it away). those chairs were a beast; it might take us the rest of the week to get the other six assembled! we also attempted to buy the elbow for the dishwasher installation. unfortunately, the one little piece we need is the one piece they don't seem to sell so we had to buy the whole hose. of course, even that was too easy because we got home to realize we had dramatically underestimated the length. funny how we might actually get our stove (mythic purchase that it apparently is) and install it before the dishwasher that has been here all week. such is life. luckily, my husband is all the dishwasher i need. what i am looking forward to, aside from my matress, is my stove. tomorrow is supposed to be the day. i'm not holding my breath but i sure will be excited if it happens to show up. slowly - excruciatingly slowly - this place is starting to look and feel like home.

normal? what's that?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANDRA!!! the good news is that good things are happening finally. today, we were the happy recipients of a microwave and dishwasher - only thirty-eight days after we bought them! we got the microwave installed and it looks very pretty. we started on the dishwasher but we seem to be in need of an elbow so it will have to wait a few days for us to go out again. we are told that our stove and stacking kit for our w/d will arrive friday. keep your fingers crossed for us. it sure will be nice to have a complete kitchen again and not have to decide on dinner based on what will cook in a toaster oven (or now microwave). saturday we went on a furniture shopping expedition and i believe we found the mattress set and bed that we want. hubby will be calling to haggle prices make purchases tomorrow. (i am so not a negotiator) we also found a bed for the bunk room that we love but we're unsure that it will be a good fit in such a small room. it's so cool looking though. unfortunately, the dining room table that we hearted so much that my boy almost bought it without any prodding from me last year is gone. there is a similar one at a slightly higher price but we're not sure we like the two-tonedness of it. the only other one we've found that we like though is $500 higher for the same setup so we'll likely get over the two-tone dislike. we have also taken the time the last two days to remind ourselves why we moved here and that all of this is worthwhile. we've been playing frisbee and football on the beach and we've been utilizing the pool and hot tub. it's been wonderful. we also started back into the gym this weekend. life is starting to take on a semblance of normalcy. i'm ready for normal.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

have i mentioned how nice it is to be home? last night, we went to the gym for a while and then we took some wine to the hottub and soaked a bit. tonight, my hubby took me to a movie and yummy dinner. it was wonderful. i've also managed to tame the laundry which has been piling up for a month with no w/d and unpack several boxes. who knows, maybe one of these days we'll be moved in. here's hoping since i think we've got company coming in two weeks. and yes, SEARS, YOU STILL SUCK!!!

bestest birthday gift ever

after a very tiring, sad, and trying week, we are finally back home. it feels so good. we worked from granny's one last time yesterday. it felt odd to be there all day just the two of us. most of her stuff is gone already, all of the pictures are off the walls (there were tons of photos of her family on every wall). when we started to pack up our stuff, we both started crying - it was like watching them close the coffin all over again. visits to wedowee will never be the same. on the way home, we had more of the continuing appliance saga. i can tell you this much: i will never again set foot in a sears store. i wouldn't buy a pair of socks there. if i had ty pennington's home number, i'd be raving to him because i bet he could get a manager to call us back. anyhow, my blood pressure shoots through the moon when i get started on sears and our lack of kitchen so i'm not going to bother getting into it. it's enough to say that it does not look like we will have anything more than a refrigerator and toaster oven (that we were forced to go buy because of sears) in our kitchen in the foreseeable future. SEARS, YOU SUCK!!! we got home late last night and it felt like a weight was lifted. luckily, my birthday present from my hubby is the month of february (i know, pick the shortest month, why donchya). he has promised that, barring another emergency, we are staying home to get unpacked, settled, and relaxed for the whole month. that may be the best birthday gift i've ever gotten.

we'll miss you, granny!

we're in wedowee. gma moore has passed away. she's the younger gma, 83. she's the one whose house we installed dsl at so we could work from her house and visit more with her. she's the one we spend hours playing dominoes with. she's the one who has made our closet so colorful. she came to our wedding. we took her to disney and to the mountains years ago when she was well. randal was the first grandkid, born on his grandfather's birthday, and lived with them for a couple of years in high school. randal is taking it very hard. i'm taking it very hard. we were in target last night buying a toaster oven (remember, we had no way to cook dinner last night). i was three aisles down from randal and i heard his phone ring. i was able to hear him say "which grandmother?" and i dropped what was in my hand and ran to him. i'm such a girl. my husband finds out that his grandmother died and i'm the one bawling in the middle of target. we bought our toaster oven (already picked it out and had it in the cart so might as well), went home to pack, and we were on the road about an hour later. it was a long night and a sad one. we're over at her house now and it just doesn't feel right. it's hard to believe that she's not sitting in the kitchen griping about us having the door open letting cold air in. she had cooked some food sunday night for another funeral and it was still in the fridge so everybody is getting one last bite of granny's cooking. randal's cousin just took me aside and said that she just wanted me to know that granny thought the world of me and spoke very highly of me. i broke down. i have a memory of about six years ago when my mil said something about us needing to get married and granny said that the only granddaughter-in-law she would ever have would be the ex. i was so hurt. i guarantee you she wouldn't even remember saying it. it was one of those comments that you make without thinking, without meaning anything ugly, and without ever thinking about again. over the years and the games of dominos, i knew in my heart that she had grown to love me as much as i love her. granny has a gruff demeaner but she's a tender-hearted woman. to know that she truly had grown to love and respect me - god, i'll miss that woman! they say she went peacefully in her sleep. her blankets weren't messed up or anything. thank God for that. when randal spoke with her saturday, she said she was feeling the best she had in a while so i'm glad that she wasn't sick or in pain. today would have been her and paw's 64th anniversary. i'm glad she made it home to him for their anniversary. please pray for us and the whole family. granny's departure will be felt for a long time.

we don't need no stinkin' kitchen

i tell you, there's just nothing about this move that has been easy. today we're dealing with an appliance fiasco. you'll recall that we bought all new appliances back in december and sold the brand new ones that came in the condo. since we knew we were going to be out of town for the last couple of weeks, we set the delivery date for today, as well as the pickup for the others. that's over three weeks since we ordered. i got a call late saturday night letting me know that they would be delivered between 09:30 and 13:30. this morning, i got a computerized call letting me know that the range we ordered would not be delivered until the 28th. gee, thanks for the notice. especially since we're not going to be here again next week. after i was just about done fuming over that, the phone rang again. it was a person this time letting me know that only half of our appliances were there and did we want to have those delivered today or just wait until the 28th to have it all delivered. ticked does not cover it. we ordered these a month ago! it's not like we went in there this weekend and said deliver it tomorrow. luckily, the appliances that they are able to bring today are the fridge, washer, and dryer. since our old appliances are getting picked up in about an hour, we absolutely had to have a fridge to transfer our food to and we're about out of clean clothes too. i'm so pleased with my new appliances. they are so pretty. i did a load of laundry already - kid with a new toy, i am. i was very entertained with watching the washing machine go (front loader) and i was astounded by how quiet it is. for those who were priviledged enough to have experienced randal's old washer, you'll know why. that stupid thing shook and shimmied and you could hear it miles away. i'm still ticked that we don't have a stove, microwave, or dishwasher. but at least we got the important stuff. although i'm not sure how we're going to cook for the rest of this week. woohoo, no cooking!

hu hot

it's been a great visit but i'm happy that we're heading home. maybe we'll be able to get moved in. my hubby came back late thursday night. there's a restaurant called huhot that has become my cousin's and my sister's families favorite restaurant. i decided to take advantage of that so i arranged for all of us to meet up for dinner friday night. and since we were all getting together, i invited my dad to join as well. it was a big gathering for our family and we had a great dinner. it's a very yummy and fun place. it turned out to be a surprise party when we were through eating and they came out singing and carrying a cake for me. i invited everyone and arranged everything and then they surprised me with an early birthday celebration. i was full of warm fuzzies.

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY, BRUDDER!!!

i'll be calling him to sing at him (again - poor guy). luckily i was able to semi-celebrate this milestone birthday with him this year when i took a cake cookie to him and sang at him this weekend. i hope it's a fantabulous year for him!

blast from the past

we packed a lot into this weekend. saturday morning, the men folks had a man-project going on. once they were to a point where i could steal my man, we went to my dad's for a visit and Christmas exchange. we had a great visit and dinner with them and then we left to meet up with jenny and some of her friends. they were at a little greek restaurant around the corner from her new place so we stopped there to meet up with them. we were there a few minutes when a guy came up behind me and put his arm around me and said, "i knew it was you when you walked through the door." folks, this was very, very exciting for me. i know that i'm a weirdo and all but i have been confounded over the fact that i grew up and went to school and worked in orlando and have NEVER run into anyone i know since i've left. this was a guy that i worked with almost TWELVE years ago! he remembered and recognized me from when i was fifteen years old. i was amazed and so pleased. it really made my weekend. i'm probably revealing my crazy here, but the part that really excited me was not so much running into someone from my past, but that someone that i knew for a matter of months over a decade ago would bother to remember me. i've alluded to it in past rants that a good portion of my thoughts are thinking about people in my past and wondering how they are and who they are now. perhaps it's kind of creepy but it's what i do. and i often wonder whether i've ever made a big enough impact on people's lives that maybe they would think of me once in a while. so for a guy to remember me by name after twelve years - well, it made me happy. and no, there is no chance that he only remembered me because of some romantic complication as he was several years older than me and batting for the other team so nothing like that existed between us. /tangent. so when we got to the restaurant, jenny and friends were finishing up and waiting for their checks so we weren't there long before heading back to her place. we got there and played scattergories for several hours and ended up getting back home around 0100. sunday morning, i slept in a bit while my man got up early to continue the man project started the day before. they finished early in the afternoon and we headed out to see my brother. we stopped along the way to get an oversized birthday cookie for him since i doubt i'll see him on his birthday wednesday. we got there and sang happy birthday to him and gave them their Christmas present and watched some football and chatted for a couple hours. we then headed to katie's for a couple hours before heading back. this morning, my hubby left me for a business trip. he'll be gone for four days. i'm taking advantage of being husbandless by making arrangements to help jenny with being a bride. it should be a good time.

i'm not dead yet... i feel much better...

yesterday was a nightmare migraine day. i emailed my boss around lunchtime, took a handful of motrin, wrapped my head in a blanket and slept all afternoon. i woke up just in time for our after-hours conference call and managed to drag my computer into my lap to get dialed in. i took more motrin and made it through the call. i made it through dinner and guitar hero III and a tv show and took more motrin before bed. this morning, thankfully, the migraine is gone and the headache is mostly gone. that means it's going to be a great friday, right? it's just as well that yesterday was a bust since the plans we had for last night got blown off. wednesday was good though; we had a fun night with my cousin. we walked over there after dinner to poke some cards but ended up poking balls instead. i'm pleased to say that even though i'm about the sorriest billiard player around, i managed to win two games. we even wii'd a little before heading back home that night. i'm not sure what we'll be doing tonight. i was going to make calls last night to try to get some plans going for tonight and sunday but the migraine kept me from getting very far with that. i think i made one unsuccessful call and sank back into the couch to watch more ghiii. we'll come up with something. if nothing else, it's family pizza and movie night here.