HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUBBY!!!

even if YOU don't think it's a special day, I do. i love you and am so proud to celebrate another year of you!!! yay for being the answer!

job relief

HAPPY one day late BIRTHDAY, NEPHEW!!! and if that's not reason enough to celebrate, today is my first day of being off the phones again!!! yay for no phones!!!!

thems not fishes floatin' out thar

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to the one who denies me. we had a wonderfully relaxing long weekend at home. i cannot even tell you how nice it is to be back. sadly, it was also a very deadly weekend in our backyard. randal was out running last night when he ran up on the police pulling in the first guy mentioned. luckily, they already had him covered so my hubby did not have to see the body but he said it was a ghastly scene, just a ten minute walk down the beach. the second mentioned guy, found sunday, was an army paratrooper who went in to rescue another swimmer. that seems so tragic to me. here's a military kid in presumably great shape who did manage to save another man's life but lost his own in the process. i have not found anything that details how he managed to get the other guy to safety and still get himself pulled out to sea. we were out walking saturday night while the helicopters and boats were doing a grid search for them. very sad. one more reason i don't like to swim in the gulf/ocean. there's dead people out there. and we all know what happens to our bodies after death. yep, that's all out in that water. ick! i'll stick with my pool and hot tub, thankyouverymuch. anyhow, on the less gruesome side of things, we had a great weekend and got rested up. fortunately/unfortunately we did not get any painting done. we decided to wait for the bedding to come in so that we could really decide on color. since i was watching the tracking, i'm almost certain the bedding was there sunday since it was "in transit to store" from a town less than three hours away but i called the store sunday and yesterday and they insisted that the order number was not checked in. my guess is that it was there but they didn't bother to scan the shipment until this morning. so we'll be going to pick the bedding up this afternoon and buy paint. there will very likely be paint on the walls tonight but you can never tell these things for sure. although i would like for the walls to be dry when the furniture gets delivered and set up thursday. call me kooky like that. really, there was no excuse for me not masking and painting the bathroom over the weekend. it's emptied out and the paint is sitting there. i guess i just didn't want to ruin the quality time with my hubby who i have missed oh so much this past month.

no comforting me

why do i always put things off until it's too late? we finally found a comforter set for the bunk room that we can agree on and we both like very much. i gave it a few days to look back a few times and make sure that i still liked it. this morning, i went to buy it and they only have twin and king sizes now. aaargh! any chance that i'll look back in the next few days and the full size will be back again? yeh, i doubt it. stupid, stupid, stupid me. such is life, right? on a brighter note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNY! i'm looking forward to celebrating with her and her friends/family tonight.

spring break!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS-N-LAW!!! if i recall correctly, they should have had a great weekend at a music festival in ft lauderdale over the weekend. we, too, had a great weekend. our spring breaking on friday was a great success. it was the most fun i've had at our favorite little club yet. we managed to stay out until 0300 and never sat down the whole night. yep, that's right folks, i danced the night away. inexplicable, i know. alright, so it wasn't so much dancing as jumping and head-banging and shouting along with the music. it was an awesome time. i even got hit on (and my husband got congratulated - yay self-esteem boost!!!). there was, of course, a price to be paid for all of that being young and partying. saturday was very much a hold down the couch kind of day. although we did drag ourselves out long enough to sit in the hot tub a bit. we had actually planned on going back for a second night but we were just too wiped (alright, we're old but at least we can muster up the strength to play young once in a while!) sunday was slightly more productive with grocerying and hot tubbing. it was really just a great weekend!

meltdowns goin' 'round

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COUSIN!!! i hope the big three-one is a fabulous one for you. as for me, it's been a week. on the bright side, we did become official floridians this week when we were mercifully granted our homestead exemption even though we didn't exactly meet all of the requirements (thank you mr property tax assessor guy!!!) - stupid fine print. just so you know, we did have all of the required pieces, just not by the required dates. on wednesday, i had a total melt-down that my poor hubby had to not only witness but also talk me down from quitting my job. gotta love those kind of days. today was his turn. he handled his melt-down much better by going for a run instead of ranting like a lunatic. the good news is that it's spring break so we're going to go out tonight and party with all the young little whipperschnappers. better go get a nap in, eh?

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.

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?

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.

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!

freshly baked bread

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE!!! hope it's a good one for you! and now i'd like to take a minute or several to gripe. we just finished lunch. granted, it was just sammiches but i went to special efforts for them sammiches. i ask my wonderful hubby, "how was your sammich?" "it was fine," he replies. fine? fine! that sammich was made with fresh, hot, just-out-of-the-machine, homemade sweet bread! fine. it was freeken fabulous is what it was! that was no month-old, hard and stale merita loaf bread from the fridge. no, it was a gourmet sammich right here in your own flippin living room! men!!! and he wonders why i hate cooking. /tangent. so, yeh, happy birthday to you, katie.