KirstenL4W

Last night I had a burst of energy and managed to get a lot done. I moved all the boxes out of the alcove area, sorted them by what’s in them (as in, office area or decor) and moved my desk into the alcove. I got my computer hooked up, which took awhile because I when I packed it I threw all the wiring into a box, so I had to untangle that and figure out what all the wires went to before I could turn it on. Still no internet, but only because I still need to go out and get a long enough coax wire. That stuff is never as long as you think it is. I’m working on that for week’s end.

I still need to unpack the office boxes and rent a storage unit for the few things I have no space for but I still want to keep. It is a studio apartment, after all. They’re not known for having acres of storage. And no, I won’t get rid of these items, because I really like them, I just don’t have room for them in my apartment. I got rid of stuff when I moved out here from New England, and I’m really regretting some of it, so no, not getting rid of anything again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a packrat, and I will edit out some things that I just don’t want, but I am keeping the things I really like even if I currently have nowhere to put them. Eventually I will move out of the studio apartment into a place with more than one room, and then I will want to use them.

I also have about 5 or so boxes full of decorations and such, but that’s not really a priority right now since they sit nicely at the end of my bed. Putting up decor is the last thing I want to do, since it has nothing to do with how the place functions. That’s a bit more important right now, function before beauty. I’m not concerned with decor at the moment, but being the freaky planner that I am, I have been arranging the stuff in my head so that when I do open those boxes, I’ll have a general idea of where stuff will go. It goes up so much faster that way, plus it results in fewer holes in the wall.

And speaking of unpacking, no I do not yet have the camera cord unpacked. As soon as that’s free and I have a link to the outside world, I’ll post pictures. Until then, you’ll have to deal with me blogging from my office.

That’s all for now, I’m off to check my email while I’m still at work.

Boy, am I exhausted! I got all moved in on Saturday, with the help of Mad Scientist, Sparkling Butterfly, and Stud. They all thanked me for packing (isn’t that what you do before you move?) then cursed me when I told them I was on the 2nd floor, but since we were in the middle of the move by that point, they couldn’t just take off on me.

So, we got all my stuff in, then I was so exhasuted I didn’t get half as much done as I had wanted to. Besides that, I was at church early on Sunday and worked at Job#2 Sunday afternoon and all day Monday, so I don’t have much unpacking done yet. And, horror of all horrors, I do not yet have my computer hooked up at home. I only have one, yes one, cable outlet in the whole place and with my busy schedule I have not had the time to stop at the store to pick up a splitter to hook up both the tv and computer. It’s not just the splitter that’s slowing me down there. I also have to shuffle some boxes around to set up my desk, which will go where the boxes currently reside. Some of the boxes can’t be unpacked until I get my desk set up, so in the meantime I have to do this dance (with my diminshed energy level, no less) around my apartment to move things around while keeping clear paths to the important stuff: bathroom, kitchen, bed - just in case I need to pee, eat, or crash.

And I do have pictures, but the camera cord is still packed. I know approximately where it is - it’s in one of the 4 or 5 boxes labeled “office”. So once I get the desk set up, boxes unpacked, and the ever-important computer set up, I’ll post some pictures of my new place. I promise.

I did manage to plug in my tv on Saturday, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate being able to watch it at a normal volume and actually being able to hear every word. Simple pleasures are best, you know?

Ok, today’s the day. I’m already tired from working the past 2 evenings at Job#2 so I’ve had like, no time to myself to relax and finish getting ready for this. I’m working at the office until anywhere between 12:30 and 2:00, but the exact time depends on other people. The sooner I can get out of here the better, since I only have about a million things to do - stop at the bank, sign my new lease, get the keys, start schlepping stuff over, do a couple loads of laundry, shower, clean, bring more stuff over, don’t forget to sleep! Tomorrow’s an early day, picking the truck up at 7:00am so I can get it done early, Sparkling Butterfly and Mad Scientist are helping me move all the big stuff then I have the rest of the day to make my new place have some degree of functionality before I end up working my tail off for the holiday weekend at Job#2. Aarrrrgghhhhh!!!!

Facts:
Get enough sleep when you can.
Never OD on caffeine when you are sleep deprived already and have a million things to do and your brain is everywhere but where you need it to be.
I’m totally psyched about moving.
I’ll post pictures once I unpack my camera cord.

That is all for now. Next post will be from my new apartment!

Tomorrow’s the day! I have a very full day today, working both jobs, but tomorrow I leave the office early and sign my new lease!!!!! It’s like waiting for Christmas. Once I sign the lease, I’ll start schlepping over a bunch of smaller things to make the main move go easier on Saturday. Plus, it looks like the weather will be good for my move - it’s only supposed to get to the mid 80s or so on Saturday, which is what we in Vegas call perfect spring weather. Oh, I can’t wait.

I took a picture this morning of my dining room, piled high with all sorts of boxes and stuff, but silly me already packed my camera cord so I can’t upload any pictures right now. But don’t worry, there will be pictures. I’ll take pictures of my new empty apartment, my apartment in progress, and my apartment once I’m all unpacked. But silly me for packing that one stupid cord. I have the cords for my Palm and iPod hooked up, but I put away the camera cord. Wouldn’t that figure.

Ah well, I’m just gonna spend the day working hard and wishing it was tomorrow already.

On Friday night, I went out with some friends. Big deal, you might say. Well, let me put it this way. I almost always work job #2 on Friday nights, so having a night off when I can actually sleep in the next morning is extremely rare.

Anyway, the plan was that Sparkling Butterfly, HikerGirl and I were supposed to go to this open house thingy at a jewelry store. We would pay the admission, ogle jewelry and the Chippendale dancers that were supposed to be there, and have a fabulous time. After eating a delicious dinner at a restaurant that HikerGirl was craving, we headed off to this jewelry store. Turns out it was a breast cancer benefit. I don’t have a problem with that, I think charity events are a great thing, but there were so many people there that we couldn’t get to the jewelry cases to drool on them! Plus, the Chippendales only made an appearance and were leaving when we came in. So we only stayed a short time and headed down the street to a restaurant/bar with nice club chairs and sofas and drank and talked some girl talk for a few hours. Those impromtu gatherings are what I like best, since it seems that plans, however much hyped up they are, never meet the expectations one has for a fabulous time.

In other news, this week I’m super busy at job#2, since I am the only sales clerk currently employed there. We have the 3 members of management and me, and I’m very very part time since I already have a full time job. So I’ll be working an additional night at the store during the week. I’m already Monday nights at the office, and now 2 nights during the week and Sundays at the store. Just what I need when I’m trying to move - which is in 5 days! But the extra money will be nice, even if I’m too exhausted to do anything with it.

I’m almost done packing up for the move. I quit a bit sooner than I wanted to yesterday because I ran out of bubble wrap. I have a bunch of plastic tubs that I had in the storage closet, and I’m using those to pack instead of running all over town trying to scrounge up free boxes. Tonight my roommate tells me that she had 2 of the same exact color, size and brand as the ones I have, also stored in the storage closet. You tell me this now, when I’m just about done packing? And if in fact they are yours, why the heck did you put them in the closet with mine, all nested in together, and not say anything about it until now? Did you even think to label them so we’ll know what belongs to whom? I mean, our dishes are easy. Yours are ugly, mine aren’t. But plastic tubs? So now I do have to scrounge a up a couple more boxes, because I had exaclty enough plastic tubs to finish the packing I have left to do. Just add it to my still-growing list of reasons why I will never live with a roommate ever again.

When I finally get all my stuff out of here I’m going to be ecstatic. Exhausted, but ecstatic. My apartment will be 100% my domain. No questions about what belongs to whom, no making tons of noise when I’m watching tv, no washing the part on my vacuum that is clearly labeled DO NOT WASH, no germ discrimination, no improperly washed dishes (ask me about the coffee rings in my allegedly clean mugs - and I don’t even drink coffee!). No, none of that. It will all be MINE! My mess, my silence, my properly washed and maintained dishes and appliances, and most of all, my sanity. Oh yeah, counting the hours. As of this writing, approximately 112 hours until lease signing. :-D

Ok, so first of all, I’m feeling a lot better. After I posted the last time about not feeling well, I woke up in the middle of the night with intense pain on my right side, and since it woke me up and made me cry, I decided to visit the Urgent Care facility. Luckily it was a slow night so I got a lot of attention. The doctor at first thought it was my gallbladder, which had me more upset than anything, because I don’t need any more issues. I already have acid reflux that developed last year, I don’t need gallstones on top of it. So 3 1/2 hours and many tests later, it turns out that everything looks normal, I was given some pain meds and sent home. I went into the office late, called in at the store, and was mostly annoyed because this is appearing to be nothing. Yesterday and today I feel back to normal, so I stand by my original theory that it was the heat. Just gotta be careful with my upcoming move.

Last night I was seriously craving ice cream, so I headed down to the local market and lo and behold, I found it. You may remember me complaining in this post about not being able to find my favorite ice cream, Edy’s Cherry Chocolate Chip. Well, Edy’s has it in their regular ice cream formula, but Dreyer’s, the west coast version of Edy’s (why do they name things different like that?) has it in the Slow Churned Light formula. Not the original, but it certainly gets the job done. Now I just have to keep from bankrupting myself by purchasing it, and keep from getting really fat eating it.

Today was a really fun day at work. We closed up shop early and went to The Drive, which is a really cool track here in town where you can drive off-road vehicles or performance vehicles. It’s sponsored by GM, so it’s only their cars, but boy was that fun. I was a passenger with my co-workers before I decided to try my hand at the very scary off-road track in a Hummer H2. I seriously thought we were gonna tip over, and going up that hill and seeing nothing but sky was freaky, but the beast handled well and there are professional performance drivers in the car with you to talk you through it. Then I was feeling the need - the need for speed - so I got behind the wheel of a 2006 Corvette. I didn’t go nearly as fast as I wanted to, only because they have a really weenie performance course. I drive faster than that in parking lots! (If you’re a cop reading this, I don’t really.) What I’d really love is to take that Vette up to the Speedway and redline it. That would be a serious adrenaline rush!

The waters are going down at Dad’s garage, he’s retrieved the cars from their hiding places around town, and business is starting to trickle back in. He lost the furnace in the cellar, a week’s worth of business and a lot of sleep, but other than that he’s in pretty good shape.

So that’s the news for now. I’ll be keeping busy at the store since I’m the only person there at the moment, besides the 3 members of management, and of course things are busy as always at the office. All that on top of moving. Oh yeah, busy is good.

The great New England Flood of 2006 has been felt all the way in the desert. I’ve been reading the news and gawking at the photos posted online, and I knew that my dad’s garage has a tendency to flood up in the spring and during heavy rains, but I’ve never seen this before. Business will recover fairly quickly, but WOW! is about all I can say. I’ve never seen the water come inside before. Take a look:

Well I don’t even know what happened. Saturday I was fine. Kept busy - came into the office to let the air duct cleaners do their thing, ran a few errands, packed up some more stuff for my move, drank plenty of water and ate fairly well, though I did stick to comfort foods. By mid-afternoon I was completely wiped out. Then, Sunday morning I woke up feeling queasy. Food hurt my stomach, and my BMs hurt my toilet. I took Immodium, I drank Gatorade, but food still hurt, so I couldn’t eat much. Of course, when you get like that it’s a downward spiral. You feel icky so you don’t eat, then you don’t eat because you feel icky. I had to call out at the store yesterday, which I hate doing because not only do I lose money, there’s no one to replace me so my boss was all alone on a busy Sunday afternoon. I felt bad, but what can I do?

Today I feel better, but I need to get a decent amount of food in me to feel a lot better. I slept in today and came into the office around 3, only because I was the only one available to be here tonight for project appointments, which is seriously frowned upon by project company if anyone tries to cancel. At least I can sit down and a bathroom isn’t far away if I need it.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the heck caused this, and the only thing I can think of is the heat. I was pretty active on Saturday, and it was the first day it hit 100 here, so that’s gotta be it. With my upcoming move, I should make sure I have plenty of Gatorade on hand. I hate moving in the summer - next time I’ll make sure it’s cooler out.

In other news, Mad Scientist made a boo-boo with my paycheck today. I noticed that it was higher than usual so I looked some more to see if I had gotten a raise. No such luck. He added in the amount for my 401K instead of taking it out. Silly boy. He fixed it. As much as I’d like the extra money, it needs to go to my 401K and not my pocket - isn’t that the whole point of a 401K?

And oh yes, the flooding in New England. It’s affecting my family back there. My parent’s homes aren’t flooded and they won’t be unless they get another 10 inches of rain (on top of the 10 they already have). But my dad’s business is flooded. There’s no damage, it’s all in the yard but he has no access, which means he has pretty much no business. It’s happened before, so he knows the routine, but it’s still a pain in the behind. My niece and nephew, Messy J and Bubba, are surely enjoying their days off from school. I’ll have to try and get on the IM to talk to Bubba in the morning.

That’s about it for today, I’m just sitting here trying to recover from yesterday and hoping I get my strength and energy back for a major stock move at the store tomorrow night. And of course hoping that my family won’t have to use their swimming skills until they are swimming voluntarily.

My birthday is coming up, and while I was reading a blog that mentioned something about a birthday, I was reminded of one time I decided to celebrate a friend’s birthday. It was his 26th, not a notable birthday by any means. But since Officer Friend is approximately 2 months and 23 days older than I am, I decided to make fun of the fact that he was aging faster than me. I bought a 4-inch decorated cake from the supermarket, managed to fit “Happy Birthday Officer Friend” on the top, and put 26 candles on it. Now, that many candles on a larger cake would have been no big deal, but on a cake that small, it produced one large flame, lots of black smoke, and left a sheet of wax on the top. I had to open the window to prevent the smoke alarm from going off, which was not pleasant in the late weeks of a New England winter.

Within the past decade, both of my parents have celebrated their 50th birthdays. Of course, with a milestone birthday such as this, one must be given a surprise party. My dad’s was pretty typical of his gatherings, and the surprise would have gone off without a hitch were it not for my impatient nephew, who was not quite 6 at the time. About 10 minutes before getting ready to leave the house, Bubba asked, “Papa, when are we leaving for your surprise party?” So, 2 years later when my mom’s milestone birthday rolled around, it was decided that the best way to protect the top secret plans was to keep Bubba out of the loop altogether.

My mom’s party was very well planned, and boy was she surprised. See, she was planning on going down to the mid-Atlantic states to visit her oldest brother, whose birthday is less that a week from hers. They would be going to a classic, popular steak house in the area for dinner. I called up my uncle and we got our evil heads together and decided to invite a few more people along - mostly relatives in the area whom my mom didn’t get to visit with very often. Also along for the ride was my stepdad, who pretty much never made the trip to visit the relatives, and my sister, who also didn’t get down there often, if at all.

I managed to use my busy schedule and lots of errands as an excuse to not meet my mom at the house before heading to the restaurant, which was important since I had my sister and stepdad in tow, and we also stopped at Great Auntie’s house to pick her up. We gathered at the restaurant and waited for everyone else, and I was to get a call from my uncle when they were on their way - he would call with the ploy that he’d be putting in his name for a table. Everything went smoothly. My mom had Bubba with her, and he was really clueless. When they walked into the room, my mom blurted out, “What’s my husband doing here?” as we all yelled SURPRISE! Oh, it worked, she was surprised. After threatening me a few times, we had a grand old time, Mom got to catch up with relatives, and I kept all the organizational things under control.

My own birthdays have been memorable, but in a I-wish-I-could-forget kind of way. There was the year I came home to an apartment I was sharing with one of my best friends and found my birthday card ripped up and a note that said to get out. There was the year that my then boyfriend left a message on my answering machine saying I was no longer welcome in his life. There were a few others that weren’t quite so bad, but now I don’t place too much emphasis or expectations on my birthday. And no, I don’t want to explain these incidents and rehash the past. I’m just trying to get through each and every day and trying to make it a good day, whether it’s my birthday or any of the other 364 days in the year.

Now, getting back to the surprise parties. My mom made many threats that evening, mostly hinting at her need for revenge. The following year, I was getting ready for my move to Las Vegas, so I wanted to have a party, a combo Going Away/1st Annual 29th Birthday party. Since I had sold my home, my mom would be hosting this party. I had lots of things to do, so I gave her a guest list and how to contact these people. Then, a few days before the party rolled around, she tried her best to be sly and ask me if I could come over on Saturday afternoon with a really vague mention of something to do. I told her it wouldn’t work - for one, I had given her a guest list and told her when to hold the party. I also wasn’t going to let my guard down anytime soon, so if she wanted to throw a surprise party for me, wait about 20 years. I might let my guard down by then.

So she moved on to my uncle. He was turning 60 that year, so mom thought she could exact revenge on him for his part in the planning. I told her not to do it, once someone is past 50 it’s just not safe. My uncle may still be a world traveller, but I know his ticker ain’t what it used to be. I love the guy, and I want him around for many more years. So I did what I could to diffuse the surprise element. Go ahead, call me a spoiler, but I only did it out of concern for his health. If he was younger, I ‘d be all for it. But I also wanted to prove to my mom that she will never be able to plan a surprise party as well as I can.

When I was in high school, my mom wanted to plan a surprise party for my stepdad for a milestone birthday he was having. She invited his twin brother to visit us from his home in Moose-land, so Uncle Brother and his wife came down and the 4 of them went out to dinner. For some odd reason, Stepdad actually believed that I was staying home to study on a Saturday night. Fool. I’ve heard enough stories about him in high school and college to know that he’s seriously losing it if he bought that. What I really did was let in guests, go with one of the guests to pick up a keg (at 17, there was no way I could do this myself), and set everything up. Meanwhile, Stepdad and Uncle Brother ate pretty much everything on the dessert cart. (I have previously mentioned that my stepdad is a human garbage disposal; that trait is also seen in his twin.) When the group arrived back at the house, no one noticed the unusually large number of cars parked nearby. And the guests of honor certainly didn’t smell the chocolate sheet cake that was permeating the air. Also not noticed were the large number of people hushing each other in the dining room, until stepdad walked in and everyone yelled out the obligatory surprise party greeting. After recovering from his near heart attack, he turned to my mom, told her he hated her, and made a vow to himself to be a bit more observant about things.

Here’s what I’ve learned about surprise parties and how to have a successful one:
1. Micro-manage the details. It’s the only way to keep everything under control and keep the cat in the bag.
2. Be careful when involving minors. It might be fun to let the kids in on the planning because they get so excited, but their innocent honesty is just the sort of thing that will spoil things here.
3. Never attempt revenge against a master surprise party planner. You’ll never get it.
4. One self-adhesive Depends undergarment can hold a very large amount of beer.

About birthdays in general, really, they aren’t that important. It’s just another day that just happens to be listed on your driver’s license, so don’t let expectations get you down. Don’t rely on others for the best birthday ever, and don’t let people who inadvertently (or purposely) ruin your day with seriously bad timing get to you. Get over it, get drunk and eat fattening food, and feel better tomorrow - or the day after, once you get over that hangover.

When I used the spell check to check the post just below this one, a few things were a bit off. Not my spelling - I know how to spell. The spell check has some weird ideas. “Job” replace with _____. No suggestions. “Shoestore” replace with “Chester” or “scooter”, and my favorite - “Blogger” with “Blocker”. I don’t think so!

And by the way, one of the intellectually challenged project people here in the office now is on a break, halfway through his appointment, and JUST NOW read the signs on the door. He’s one that came in the wrong door and did not read the signs regarding opening times. Because he’s just reading and paying attention to the signs now, he’s about 10 seconds away from going over his allotted break time, which would require me to file a report. I don’t find out what happens to people after I see them for the appointment, but I’m willing to bet this will be the last part of the project process for him.