My friend Steven recently bought some “Holly” stock. Every day he tells me how my day is going by telling me if I am up or down, which I find amusing. He came over earlier in the week and was playing around on my computer. He asked me if he should buy some “Wade” stock and I said of course. Then he showed me how the stocks were doing on a graph. Obviously I am far outperforming Wade!
Month: January 2006
Madison will eat pretty much anything – especially if it comes from a human hand. I was eating an apple tonight and she kept looking at it longingly. I decided to give her the core. She wasn’t sure what to do with it, which I found hilarious. In the end, I had to cut off a few pieces for her.
I have determined that the only reason people rake leaves is so they can make a big pile and then burn them. (Fire is so fascinating.) My family always mulched the leaves or occasionally burned them. No bagging leaves for us. (To be honest, I didn’t really have much to do with yard work growing up. This is all a new experience.)
I can finally say we are done raking leaves, but it took me three entire days spread over a four week period. This Saturday all I had left was the front yard. Wade and I got our rakes and the tarp and started raking. We would drag the leaves to the fire pit in the back yard and then watch them burn. We quickly realized that the burning was taking longer than the raking. We decided to make a big pile of leaves near the fire pit and I could burn them at night during the week. As we were bringing our last trip to the backyard, we looked up to see our spare pile of leaves on fire. It was a huge blazing inferno! We definitely wouldn’t have planned that but it made the burning process much faster.
Jamie came over tonight to have dinner and make sugar cookies with us. I am constantly looking for new recipes for pork chops and finally found one to try out. The glazed pork chops were pretty good. But on to the good stuff. I had bought some colored sugar cookie dough (red, yellow, blue, and green) from a friend selling it for her school and wanted it out of the freezer before we moved. Because I only have one heart cookie cutter, we decided to make this an all-holiday event. We used every cookie cutter I had – Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and the odd ones. The cooking and decorating was a lot of fun, but the cookies weren’t so good. There is definitely not enough sugar in the sugar cookie dough.
After a hard day of work, or something like that, I came home just wanting to finish my book. Having both Madison and Wade at home, I decided to take a bath. Wade, being his normal self, decided to contribute with a Sponge Circus. (You remember those pill-like capsules that you put in warm water? The outer part dissolves leaving the sponge shapes behind).
Wade and I grabbed a quick bite and then headed out to see Walk the Line. Wade’s parents had loaned us the audio CD of Johnny Cash’s autobiography, which we really enjoyed. We had been meaning to see the movie for quite a while but never seemed to have the time. We went, we enjoyed, and then we got milkshakes!
We got home at 10:30, but of course Madison was fast asleep. I recently got her a new pillow (which she has already put a hole in). Doesn’t she look cute?
I opened my email this morning to find this picture from Johnna. Great, isn’t it?
I left work a little early today in order to prepare for my night of vampires (Buffy, Bloodrayne, and Underworld). Steven (my Buffy provider) had wanted to watch the last two episodes of Buffy Season 2 with me so we planned to watch them tonight before the other movies. Because the movie theater (Stonecrest, which is in the middle of nowhere out I-20 East) was so far away and it was traffic time in Atlanta, we decided to take my laptop and the Buffy DVDs with us. We plugged my laptop up to Steven’s car stereo and he listened and glanced occasionally while I watched (yes, we were in the slow lane).
We got to Stonecrest and had just ordered dinner at Johnny Rocket’s when Josh arrived. He was coming from up 400 and made excellent time. So we all ate and chatted and then began the movie portion of our evening. We chose Stonecrest because they were the only place still showing Bloodrayne. The movie was only released a couple of weeks ago so I immediately knew this must be a winner, but who am I to turn down a vampire movie? I actually enjoyed it. I might have laughed more than anything, but it was entertaining. The funniest part was a random love (there was no love, sex I should say) scene in the middle of the movie. It came out of nowhere.
SOME SPOILERS
The next movie was Underworld: Evolution, which I was very excited about. I had wanted a sequel ever since I saw the original. I wasn’t disappointed. There were lichans and vampires and fighting and shooting – definitely my kind of movie. They killed one of the good guys but he came back to life as he should. I would love a count of spoken lines in the movie. I think Scott Speedman probably had to memorize all of 20 words.
Steven and I got back to my place, finished up the last part of Season 2 of Buffy, and that was my night of Vampires. I got into bed around 1:30 am and was very glad to have the company of my vicious guard dog who was comatose beside me on the bed.
Wade is known for forgetting things, or messing up small details. Tonight is a perfect example. He called me about 5:30 pm and asked if I would meet him for dinner halfway. It seems that a part he needed for work got shipped to our house in Atlanta instead of to his work in Anderson, SC. I just laughed, requested AppleBee’s, and agreed to meet him.
It all turned out fine, but let’s list similar incidents:
His newest wedding band was shipped to a nonexistent address (a combination of his Anderson and Atlanta addresses); a job offer was mailed to the same made up address; his table saw was on its way to Memphis before he realized it and “convinced” Amazon to change it to Atlanta; the list goes on and on. Mostly I just laugh.
I talked to my boss today. I hate having to tell someone I am leaving. I always feel like I am letting them down or disappointing them. My boss was really cool. I told him that Wade got a new job in South Carolina and his immediate response was to say, “Congratulations.” That made me feel better immediately.
Then I proposed the idea of telecommuting. Anderson will be a little too far away to drive everyday, but I could do it once a week or on a need-to basis. My boss didn’t seem 100% sold, but he said he would check on it. Sadly, everything has to be run through Cisco so their feelings will also play a major part. My boss’s boss came by to wish me luck and I also mentioned the telecommuting to him. He seemed to think it was a great idea and immediately went to talk with my boss.
My fingers are crossed. We’ll see what happens, but at least I know they tried. Even if it doesn’t work out, my last day is now official and will be February 17th.
Today was a Holly Day. I got up around 9 am and then proceeded to watch TV and read my book until 2 pm (that’s right, no shower either). What a bum I am! While I was being a bum, I found a new want item. This ring has been moved to the top of my want-to-have-but-will-never-get list.
Just to prove my worth – After 2, I showered, bathed the dog, cleaned the house, did the laundry, ran errands, cooked dinner, and did some soldering for one of Wade’s projects.
I think everyone knows I have “interesting” taste in movies. Most people would call my favorites bad movies. But I know a few of you appreciate The Best of the Best, American Ninja, the real Gladiator, etc. right along with me. Brad gave me a Christmas present when he came over for Wade’s birthday last Saturday. It was a movie called Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior, which I somehow had never heard of. Then he and Ryan invited us over to watch it on their new HUGE tv. Wade wasn’t too sure about the movie (he doesn’t share my love of “interesting” movies). We all loved it. The best movie ever! The movie was in Thai with English subtitles, but that guy can fight. I’ve never seen anyone use his elbows and knees so much to take people down. Great movie! I’m betting Jason Phinney, if he hasn’t already seen it, would love it!
I am sitting at my desk eating sushi for lunch. Wade doesn’t like it so I rarely get it at a restaurant. However, I remember the good old days of DC. There was a Chinese restaurant across from my work that had an all you can eat sushi buffet at lunch time. Yum! Restaurant sushi is much better than grocery store sushi (which is what i am currently eating). I wonder what about it I like so much? I think it is the rice – sticky Japanese rice. What I don’t like is cucumbers. California rolls all seem to have lots of cucumbers. I don’t remember those from my DC restaurant, but maybe I just liked cucumbers back then.
Wade’s birthday is next Tuesday, so we did most of our celebrating this weekend. Melissa and Chris got in late last night and we all slept late today. After maple bran muffins (yummy) for breakfast, Melissa and I headed up to the Mall of Georgia. Wade had just gotten up and Chris had just gone back to bed. Liss and I had a full day of shopping, but we got back in time for present opening and a quick nap.
Wade told me exactly what he wanted and I tried to get it right. We had 12 people meet us for dinner at Corky’s (a Wade approved BBQ restaurant). We had Melissa, Chris, Josh, Jamie, Grant, Paddy, Ryan, his girl, Brad, Steven, Wade, and myself – what a crowd. Grant kept insisting there would be some making out with Jamie before the main course, but he’s just a lot of talk.
The next stop was laser tag. We were there a little early so we proceeded to play air hockey (I won my game!). I’d love to have an air hockey table some day – what a fun game!
It turns out that there is an “Iron man” laser tag competition at 10, which means you get to play for a full 30 minutes. We had a blast! Wade was the overall top scorer, so he got a free game. I guess we’ll have to go back one more time at least before we move.
Then it was back to our house for cake. On the drive home from Thanksgiving, I had asked Wade what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. He got creative and described the perfect cake, which I tried to provide. He wanted a Baskin Robbins strawberry ice cream cake with clown cones on top (which weren’t supposed to have any icing). The candles were supposed to be a number “2” and a number “7” surrounded by 25 regular candles. Then he wanted ice cream cookies- with oatmeal cookies on either side of some vanilla ice cream. I couldn’t find those, so we ended up with round ice cream sandwiches. The guys working at Baskin Robbins got a huge kick out of my order.
The rest of the night was spent just hanging out and talking or playing Wade’s new Gamecube game – Mario Strikers. Steven also came through and brought Wade’s new favorite drink – Orangina. (Which can only be found at one Kroger – the one near Steven’s).
My friend Josh invited us to a movie on Friday night. I looked at the link to the movie and read the summary. It looked pretty good so I said I’d go. I vaguely knew the movie was playing at the High Museum but didn’t think much about it. I invited a couple of other friends and we all met up on Friday night. And by that I mean Wade and I got there minutes before it started.
It turns out that the movie was part of the Danish Film Festival. The movie was called Stealing Rembrandt. After the head lady introduced the movie and one of the actors from Denmark (how cool, he flew over just for this festival), Wade leaned over to Jamie and asked if the movie was going to be in English. The first opening lines were and then it was subtitles.
We all really enjoyed the movie – subtitles or not. Wade was excited about ice cream afterwards, but my sister and Chris were coming into town and we wanted to be home when they got there.
We all know I am addicted to tv shows – most of the time the weirder the better. The one show with a cult following that I didn’t watch was Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. One would think this show would be up my alley – even I thought so. But I never could get into the show. I’d catch an episode here and there and rarely even finish the episode.
Well, my friend Steven recently watched the show from first episode to last. I told him I would give it a try when I finished my class. Well, I am no longer taking my EMT class. I went over to Steven’s the other night and we started watching Season 1. I think we watched four episodes that night and I was sent home with a bunch of DVDs. The jury is still out on whether I like it or not, but I am definitely giving it a good faith effort.
I have a friend at work who loves blonde jokes. This is one of my favorites.
A blonde called her boyfriend and said, “Please come over here and
help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t figure out how to get it
started.”
Her boyfriend asked, “What is it supposed to be when it’s finished?”
The blonde said, “According to the picture on the box, it’s a tiger.”
Her boyfriend decided to go over and help with the puzzle.
She let him in and showed him where she had the puzzle spread all over
the table. He studied the pieces for a moment, then looked at the box, then
turned to her and said, “First of all, no matter what we do, we’re not going
to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger.”
He took her hand and said, “Second, I want you to relax. Let’s have a
nice cup of hot chocolate and then…………”, he sighed,…………………..
…………………..
…………………..
…………………..
……………………
Let’s put all these frosted flakes back in the box.”
Wade and I have recently discovered clementines. I love them! They are so small and sweet. They are easy to peel and rarely have seeds. For those of you who don’t know what a clementine is, let me share with you my research: Clementines are the tiniest of the mandarins. Imported from Spain, Morocco, and other parts of North Africa, clementines are a cross between a sweet orange and a Chinese mandarin. They are in season from October through February.
Now, the reason I was doing research. Clementines are always sold in boxes and never singly. Does anyone know why? Even though I can buy apples in a bag, I always have the option of buying just one. There are a lot of clementines in a box and I always have to rush to eat them before they go bad.
For Christmas I got gift money to J. Crew, one of my favorite stores. I noticed that they were having a sale online so I ordered a couple pairs of jeans. Imagine my surprise when I received not only the jeans but also a dress in the mail. The dress was not listed on the packing slip or on my bill. The crazy part is the dress is one I have admired for two years and not been able to convince myself to buy. To top it off, it was my size. How weird is that?
I have never cared too much about my cell phone. I almost always choose one of the “free” phones when I renew my contract. This year I saw the Motorola Razr and really wanted it. Of course, I couldn’t convince myself to actually pay money for a cell phone. Then everyone wanted a Christmas list – so I put the phone on there – and got it!
My new, skinny cell phone is awesome. I love that it is light weight and did I mention it is new? My old one was falling apart. Last night I had some time to kill so I tested out the Bluetooth connection. I had been told that my car and my phone would sink up. It’s awesome. I can push a button on my steering wheel and tell my phone to call “Mom”. Then I am hands free – without the annoying ear piece. I love this new phone! I’m sure I look funny just talking into space, but what do I care? This makes my driving much more enjoyable!
Wade and I woke up this morning in Destin to a huge thunderstorm. It was the scary, house shaking kind of thunder. It poured and rained and then poured some more. The storm let up a little about the time we were meeting my dad and Laura for breakfast. (They just happened to be in the same area this weekend – how random!) Then we packed up and headed back to Atlanta.
Most of the drive home was cloudy and it got stormy the closer we got to Atlanta. Then traffic seemed to stop. It only took us a minute to realize that it had begun to hail and cars just stopped under the bridge – blocking traffic. Since I have heard horror stories of the damage hail can do to cars (and this was big hail) we got off the interstate. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea. All of the covered gas stations were full with cars.
We just picked a random road leading away from the hail and drove. At one point I turned to look at the clouds and thought I saw a funnel cloud. I pointed it out to Wade and then we started to see things flying in the air – it really was a tornado! I was chicken so we drove away from it – Wade wanted to drive toward it. In the end, we pulled off the road and the tornado passed by, closer than we realized. Here are a couple pictures. Look closely – it is the narrow white cloud in the middle of all the dark clouds.
The tornado is in the middle of this picture, but behind the tree. If you look closely you’ll see the dark outline.
After the cloud had passed by, we continued down the road to the interstate. Traffic slowed at one point about 1/3 of a mile down the road. We realized the tornado had hit this house. There was debris in the roadway and the other side of the house had even more damage than the side in the picture – how scary.
If we hadn’t stopped, but kept driving we would have been right in it’s path!
I got a call last Tuesday from Kate, my best friend from high school. She called to tell me that she and Scott (the guy she has been dating for over a year) had decided to get married – this coming Sunday. Talk about a quick wedding – but that’s just like Kate!
The wedding was going to be in Destin, which is only about a 5.5 hour drive for us. Wade and I decided we definitely wanted to be there. I offered to help Kate in any way I could and she asked Wade to be the wedding photographer. Then she called back and said they’d decided to have a wedding party and would I be her matron-of-honor. Of course I said yes! She said to just wear whatever I had (this is when I realized Destin weather was really nice in Jaunary). I decided on the dress I wore in my sister’s wedding and had my mom overnight it to me. My dad’s company has a condo in Destin so we had the key overnighted to us for that too.
Kate and Scott’s wedding was outside in a small park gazebo that was all decorated with lights for Christmas. It was a small wedding, but all of their family was there. The reception was at their house, which has just undergone some major renovation. I couldn’t believe how great it looked! Their daughter, Taylor, was just adorable and a really good sport.