I've been outlawed...

Lickety Spit

2010-09-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

My boss refuses to stop licking envelopes and its driving me crazy. Let me explain. I purchased new 9x12 envelopes for books that we send out regularly. The last time I ordered these envelopes we bought a more expensive kind. Trying to save money I went cheap. The envelopes themselves were fine but I didn't realize that they were not self-sealing but the kind you had to wet in order to seal them. With the last kind you pulled a strip revealing a sticky strip and then all you had to do was push the sides together. So to fix this problem I bought some envelope sealer which is basically a spongy glue stick that both wets the sealer and puts some more glue on the surface. Who wants to lick a bunch of envelopes closed everyday, right? So this seemed to be working ok for everybody in the office until one day I was sitting in my boss's office talking to her about something while she was preparing a package in one of these envelopes. I watched as she put the book in the envelope, licked the thing closed with multiple waggings of her tongue and then pulled out a roll of packing tape, cut it to the appropriate size with scissors and then applying the tape haphazardly to the end of the previously molested envelope. After I witnessed this I asked her, "What are you doing?" She said that she was sending a book off to so-and-so to which I countered, "No, why are you doing that to that envelope?" To which she replied, "I just want to make sure the book doesn't come out in the mail." So I tell her to wait just a minute and I go and get her one of the handy spongy glue stick envelope sealers that I had purchased for just this purpose. As she prepared her next package I showed her how to use the glue stick on it and she agreed that was a better idea. Problem solved right? Well, perhaps not.

A few days later I am in her office again and witness the same envelope molesting as before except that this time after she licked the envelope thoroughly she applied the wet glue stick to the package as well. (At least we had gotten rid of the excessive tape step.) So I asked again, "What are you doing?" She replied that she was using the glue that I had given her. So I say, "Well yeah but the glue replaces the need to use your tongue. See the glue wets the sealer the same as your spit does so you don't have to lick them anymore." She goes, "I don't mind licking them." And I say, "But that's just gross! And now your doing the same step twice for no reason." So I try to explain again the idea of wetness being the same whether it comes from spit or from the glue stick but that argument was to no avail. A co-worker had come into her office to discuss something and I presented my argument just to make sure I wasn't the crazy one. My co-worker agreed and tried to explain the same thing I had just explained but again, it was useless. So now each package that is sent from her is sealed with a loving french kiss as well as the glue stick. (By the way she has her own glue stick that only she uses.)

One would think that would be the only envelope sealing discussion a person would have within a weeks time, but no, that wasn't the case. A few days later I was doing something in our mailroom when another co-worker of mine, who is a bit of a germaphobe, came in and asks if there is a way to seal an envelope. (This was in regards to a regular letter sized envelope.) I told him about the spongy envelope sealers that I had gotten and I also suggested that he could just lick it too. (It was just one.) Then he says, "Well, I just don't want the person who receives it to think that I licked it." I looked at him for a moment probably not hiding my confusion very well before I said, "What???" He explained that he just didn't want the receiver to be grossed out thinking that he had licked it closed. I still had the confused look on my face as I turned around and grabbed his paycheck out of his mailbox and held it up saying, "Who do you think licks these every two weeks?" He looked at me with horror. (I really don't lick them myself but it illustrated my point.) I told him that I didn't think many people thought about how the envelope they just opened was sealed but that the envelope sealer was available for him to use whenever he needed it. Also that he should probably never open any packages that were sent to him by our boss without wearing gloves.

Recent Work Highlights

2010-04-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

1. One of my co-workers yelled this, not to me but in a meeting we were having... "Feelings! I don't care about your feelings! Put your feelings in a bag and mail them to your momma because I don't care about your feelings!" It was kind of a "There's no crying in baseball!" moment. Awesomeness right?

2. My boss was meeting with a person from Austria about starting a film commission there. Right before she went to meet the person I told her to be sure to greet them with a "G'day Mate!" She thought about that for a second and then gave me a dirty look.

3. My boss agreed to meet with a troop of 7 year old cub scouts for an hour and tell them about our business. After that was over she said, "Well, that was a stupid idea."

Future's so bright.

2010-03-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

I am very lucky. I have an office that is on the 15th floor in a downtown building that has an awesome view of the San Diego Bay. I can see the aircraft carriers when they are in port. That also mean that I am on the west side of the building which is the side in which the sun sets. You might think - "ooh sunsets!" Yes there are some spectacular ones. But now with the stupid time change all I get is the sun in my eyeballs every afternoon. Right now I am squinting. One of my coworker walked by and laughed at me saying that if I kept scowling like that my face might stay that way. That launched me into a tirade about DST and the sun now being in my eyes! So I have a choice...

Do I close my blinds and miss the view? Do I continue leaning slightly forward at an awkward 45 degree angle every afternoon avoiding the sun and scowling? Someone might suggest that I open the blinds in the morning and then close them when the sun gets in my eyes later in the day. To you I say - that is way too much work for someone as lazy as me. Then as I was thinking about this I came up with a great idea...

Can you image walking past that every afternoon? I am going to try it and see how long it takes my coworkers to say anything. Maybe I'll start a trend. Hey if I can wear them in my car why can't I wear them in my office? I have a brother who used to wear his sunglasses at night, this is definitely not as bad as that.

Let the experiment begin!

It's Alive!

2010-03-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

See I told you this blog wasn't dead. Let's just say it was in a coma...for a year. It was breathing, there were a few signs of life - there were even thoughts but they just weren't being communicated to the outside world. This past year has been an interesting/weird/introspective one. I wouldn't say that it was a bad year, in fact lots of good things happened and hey it could always be worse, right? Look around, it could definitely always be worse. When Angelo and I were trying to come up with Christmas card ideas this last December we were cracking ourselves up coming up with ways we could joke about our 2009. We were a little worried that people wouldn't get the humor and think it was a cry for help so we went with the warm and fuzzy snuggie card. But we have learned that when life gives you lemons suck out all of the vitamin C and yell “EAT THAT, LIFE!"

It was right to give up my blog for a while. I was mostly blogging to entertain myself and I wasn't really feeling very funny the last year or so. I think it would have been a lot of complaining and I hate complaining so I'm glad I wasn't contributing more complaining to the world. After all I really don't have much to complain about so I'm glad I was mum.

So here are a few of the events/thoughts/haps from the last year...

1. I have lost a total of 55 lbs! Thank goodness I started losing weight when I did because if I had been puffy AND dealing with life I would have been a frackin' mess. It definitely helped my outlook to be shrinking my pant size. I went from a size 16 to a size 6 which I honestly can't believe nor did I ever set out to do. I have to tell you that when you finally change your lifestyle it really does come easier. I do have to give a big shout out to the swine flu for helping me with those last 5 lbs in October. There is a silver lining to every bad situation people!

2. My job has been an absolute roller coaster. I have realized that my boss and I get along loads better when we don't have a marketing budget. Mostly because I completely disagreed with what she chose to put out but it doesn't really matter because she is the boss. (Funny how that works.) Now that all our marketing money has gone away we get along just like old times. We had a crazy funding cut this year again so I am getting real good at dealing with no money. (There's something for the resume.) Since my company's funding is known on an annual basis at least I know I have a job for another year. A sad consequence to our budget cuts is the suspension of our internship program. *tear* Whatever will I blog about now?

3. Early last year my doctor found a "lump." Yep, that kind of "lump." The unknown didn't last for long and it turned out to be just a cyst but holy crap. My heart goes out to anyone who goes through that. My experience didn't even last that long but it really gave me some good perspective.

4. Facebook is weird. I joined and it's fun to be able to keep up with some people. It's weird to have some people friend you. My feeling is that if I would be happy running into a person at the grocery store and would have a conversation with them then they can be my facebook friend. If I would quickly duck into the next aisle then no, no thanks. To be perfectly honest it's best use for me is to keep tabs on the kids in our church youth program. They spill all kinds of stuff on it. I don't know if I would have said so much if facebook had been around when I was a teenager. I think they are just so used to broadcasting their lives through texts and such that they don't really understand that EVERYONE CAN READ YOUR CONVERSATIONS WHEN YOU TALK ON THE NEWSFEED.

5. I am coming up on 6 years as young women's president in our ward. That has gone really fast. I still totally love it! The girls that I have been able to work with have made such an impact on me. It has definitely been something I have really needed in my life. It's funny because it seems like whenever we have gotten any bad news in the past year it always seems to happen on a Tuesday. That is also the day that we have our youth mutual activities during the week. Usually I am saying, "Aw crap, now we've got to go to mutual." But then we go and have a good time and it's the best distraction. Things don't seems so bad after that. The kids are so fun and freakin' hilarious too! Angelo and I are constantly amused.

6. My husband is awesome. He is definitely the mac to my cheese. He constantly makes me laugh and takes life in stride which is all I can ask for. His family also continues to entertain us. His brother and his fiancee had a baby boy last year and that has been a very good thing. They created the first grand baby which has been wonderful (and frankly a relief.) There have been some funny stories but I can't send them out into the Internet for fear that someday they will be found by future anthropologists who will think that was normal for the early 21st century and I can't have that kind of guilt weighing on my conscience.

Being in a coma you sometimes fear people will have forgotten about you. I hope that's not the case. I made it through my blog coma and I'm hoping there is no significant brain damage.

THIS BLOG IS NOT DEAD!

2009-02-18T23:50:00.000-08:00

It's just been on the back burner for a few months. I think I'm back though.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm back. I have three blogs that I had worked on in the last few months so check them out. I will be updating more often - I promise!

45

2009-02-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

That's how many pounds I have lost! It has taken me nine months but its been worth it.

Here's my obligatory puffy pants pictures:
Holy junk in the trunk!Here is a list of some of the differences losing 45 pounds has made:
-I now only have one chin. It turns out having more than one isn't helpful at all.
-I don't snore anymore.
-I have dropped 4 pant sizes.
-You know those muscles that exist just above your knee? I had forgotten all about those until a few months ago when mine started showing up again.
-I can walk up a flight of stairs an not get winded.
-I no longer weight more than my husband.
-Before I was getting headaches at least twice a week...now I maybe get one a month!
-My waist went from 41 inches to 31. That's 10 inches people!
-Shopping is fun again!
-No two points on my back touch anymore.

The funny thing is that I never started out with this weight loss thing for any other reason than I was feeling like crap. Yay for feeling like crap! I am now slimmer at 30 than I was for the majority of my 20s. Looking back that's kind of lame. Hopefully I'll do better with this decade.

The cool thing is that I did not go on a diet, I just learned to eat better and exercise. I exercise at least three times a week. The only things I really don't eat very often anymore are french fries and mayonnaise and I never thought I would say that! I also don't drink anything other than water usually. I haven't had a soda in 9 months! It's been interesting transitioning into regular life after being very careful with what I was eating. I haven't been using my SparkPeople site since before Thanksgiving. The weight came off slower than when I was using it but I even got through the holidays losing weight. This is puffy Katie from Christmas of 2007:And this is a much healthier, happier, and less puffy version:

Where all your dreams come true...

2009-01-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

So did you hear? I turned 30 in January! I know! 30. Geez, that's like three decades or something. For the momentous occasion I decided that I needed to get out of town. We kicked around a few different destinations but finally decided on Disneyland. It is the happiest place on earth you know. What better location to lose my 20s than a place where people wear hats with giant ears on them and elephants fly! We went up and stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel for a few days. The hotel is right on the Disneyland property so you get to walk right out of the hotel and into the park. It was awesome. We spent Thursday and Friday at Disneyland/California Adventure which was so fun. Here are some picture highlights of the trip...

Here is Angelo pointing at a monkey's butt. (Don't worry it's not a REAL monkey butt.)This is my favorite ride at Disneyland. I like to spin really, really fast! It makes me laugh. What does it say about me that I like to spin around in circles that don't really go anywhere? Hmm...
My new favorite sign:On Thursday night we were waiting in line at the new Nemo submarine ride. (Which by the way is a total snoozer in my opinion.) When we were almost to the front of the line this big group of people were rushed up to the front. There was a Disney employee with an ear piece standing with this big group and I knew something was up. So I kept staring at the group until I figured out what celebrity it was. Finally I caught a peak - it was Kirsten Dunst. It was freezing that night and she was wear some big mickey mouse gloves which was kinda funny. She kept her back to the crowd and stayed pretty incognito. She has really pretty skin and really blond hair. It was kinda funny.

One of the best part's of the trip was my surprise on Friday! Two of my nieces, Sherise and Whitney, flew down from Utah and surprised me at Disneyland! One moment I was wolfing down a giant waffle cone, the next two of my favorite people ran right up to me on Main Street, Disneyland. I was shocked! Angelo had been stalling for a while I guess. It was pretty funny. We spent the rest of the day running from ride to ride with them. On Saturday, my actual birthday, we went to breakfast with my nieces and my parents at a place Whitney swears has the best waffles. (They had all stayed in a hotel in Anaheim on Friday night.) After breakfast Angelo and I headed up to L.A. to see the musical Wicked. It was awesome! It was the last weekend it was playing up in L.A. I loved it! My 30s started out pretty good. RIP 20s. I'll miss you.

You will have a Merry Christmas!

2008-12-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

This is a story about my boss giving a Christmas present to a Jehovah Witness.

The week before Christmas me and some of my co-workers were piling into my boss's car to go to yet another funding meeting. In the back seat there was a silver gift bag that we had to move so that we could sit down. Cathy gave the present to my coworker in the passenger seat and said, "Can you hold it? Hopefully Nadine is in the booth." (Nadine is an attendant in our building's parking garage.) Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

Co-worker: "Cathy, Nadine's a Jehovah Witness."
Cathy: "I know, that's why the bag is silver. I didn't even use Christmas tissue paper."
Me: "Cathy, I think she's going to know it's a Christmas present."
Cathy: "It's not a Christmas present."
Co-worker: "Maybe it would be better to give it to her in January."
Me: "I don't think Jehovah Witnesses ever accept presents. They don't do birthdays or anything."
Co-worker: "I think you can give a Jehovah Witness a wedding gift."
Me: "What's in bag?"
Cathy: "See's Candy and some nuts. I made sure the packaging didn't have any Christmas stuff on it."
Me: "I don't think you should do this."
Cathy: "We'll see what happens."

Nadine unfortunately works the afternoon shift at our garage so she wasn't at the booth when we passed by. Dang it! A few days later I got an update from Cathy.

Cathy: "So do you want to know what happened?"
Me: "What happened with what?"
Cathy: "With the silver bag."
Me: "Oh, of course I do!"
Cathy: "So last night when I left the garage I had the present ready. I held the bag out my window as I passed Nadine in the booth. I dropped the bag into her hands and I said, 'Thanks for being my friend!' and I drove off."
Me: "Did she say anything?"
Cathy: "Well, she didn't really have time. I dropped it and drove off real fast. She kinda shouted thank you as I drove away."

That's right, Cathy did a drive by gifting. What can I say, she loves Christmas. This after all is the woman with 40 plus Christmas sweaters who keeps her 15 foot fully decorated Christmas tree up in her living room all year long (on purpose.) She just has to spread the Christmas cheer around even if the receiver doesn't celebrate the holiday they WILL have a merry Christmas if Cathy has anything to do with it.

You've got to be pretty ticked off...

2008-12-15T22:37:00.001-08:00

...to throw your shoe at someone. Maybe I'm wrong to think this is funny. You have to be at your wits end to come to the conclusion that taking off your own footwear and throwing it at someone is the answer. I'm sure it made him feel better too. There are definitely a few people I would have liked to have thrown my shoe at last week. Why didn't I think of that? Angelo and I immediately thought of the Austin Powers connection. Here's a funny parody video on youtube.

Other possible WMDs that could really cause some damage:

Jacked

2008-12-15T22:09:00.000-08:00

My parents are visiting my sister in Texas right now and I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day. While over there she got a speeding ticket. Apparently it was a very unfair speed trap that the police officer had set up. She was telling me about it and angrily said, "He was just parked in the middle of the road with his little radar gun pointed at the traffic. It was so jacked up." Proudly, I am taking credit for that one. I taught her the term "jacked up." Even better she used it in its proper context. Good job Mom!

You know what is awesome?

2008-12-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

When you sneeze right as you are putting on your mascara. It happened to me this morning and this is kinda what I looked like afterward:
Don't you love giant mascara blink marks? I hate it when that happens. The sneeze's force rocked my arm up and I almost stabbed my eye out with the mascara wand. I'm lucky I escaped without serious injury. Why is it when you have a tickle in your nose that become priority #1 to the body and all other functions are thrown out the window?

Glazed

2008-12-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

My boss Cathy brought in two boxes of donuts this morning. You know how many people in my office eat donuts? One. Her name is Cathy. She is very sweet to bring in food, I know, but most of us are trying to be good. So a few donuts get eaten over a few days and then she puts them in the freezer. Do you know how many bags of donuts we have in our freezer at work? About 6. You can tell when Cathy has eaten a donut because there is always a trail of glazed donut icing that leads from the kitchen to her office. We've been laughing at the trail all day. When a new person see it they say, "Oh, I guess Cathy's been here." When we pointed the trail out to her earlier she just giggled and went and ate another one.

One of my favorite Cathy traits is her ADD. Of course, I say this completely out of love. For instance, when you're meeting with her you only have a finite amount of time to get your point across to her. The last few months with this big project have been an absolute joy. If you go on too long or you're talking about something boring I can literally see the moment when she isn't listening anymore. I swear we could be discussing the end of the world and if you weren't getting to the good parts quick enough you will have lost her. She starts smiling and nodding her head and says "uh huh" whenever you require an answer. Her eyes glaze over and she might as well hang a sign on her forehead that says, "we're done here."

Sunday Nap

2008-12-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

The best blanket ever!

Tis the season

2008-12-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day back to work after Thanksgiving and the official start of the holiday season. You know why? Because my boss has begun her annual "Parade of Christmas Sweaters." I don't think she has this one but she should. You get the idea.

What?

2008-11-24T13:47:00.000-08:00

At one of our recent staff meetings one of my co-workers was sharing his list of projects that he was working on. My boss often takes notes about what is filming so that she can cause all kinds of trouble with her newsletter. One of the projects being discussed was about an Alzheimer's documentary. My boss was furiously taking notes about the last project and wasn't really paying attention to the current conversation. She finished writing and looked up and said, "What was that one about?" I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Oh Cathy, you're one in a million.

Twilight Party

2008-11-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

We organized a viewing party with our young women's group for the debut of the Twlight movie. We had dinner and then went to the Edwards Movie Theater. (Get it??? Ha ha.) Lucy made goodie bags for our outing with pictures from the movie on candy bars. It was awesome. Here's some pics.
We all liked the movie. It has its share of cheese but there also some good parts. My favorite part of the night was coming back for ice cream and hearing the teenager's reviews of the movie. They are so entertaining. Being obsessed is fun!

Election Day Losers

2008-11-04T23:33:00.000-08:00

While everyone else was watching the pundits discuss the new president of the United States, Angelo and I were at Target buying the just released Twilight movie soundtrack. We got the last copy available at the Target in Lemon Grove. Boo-ya! Take that tweeners! Angelo has been really into the Twlight playlists and the soundtrack is pretty good. So now that this election day nonsense has ended we can focus on more important matters...like the fact that the Twilight movie opens in 16 days! Shhhh! Don't tell anyone that we are so obsessed. That would be embarassing.

A dent, some bags and a twitch

2008-11-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

That is all that is left from my October. I feel like I have been MIA for a whole month! I've had two major proposals due at work within a week of each other and they account for our funding for the next 18 months... so no pressure. It's been killing me. I turned in the second 30 plus page proposal on Friday. Get ready for a whine-o-rama.

This is my dent. Apparently, I furrow my brow when I'm frustrated, stressed, concentrating, thinking something is stupid, looking at the computer too long, or waiting for the printer to spit out my pages. So that means I've been furrowing a lot this last month. Well now I have this big old dent in between my eyes. Here's a picture. (Please ignore my very unkept brows. It's been a long month.)
What the freak! I have a giant wrinkle in my face now!

The bags I referred to earlier are the two dark ones that now reside under my eyes. No amount of cover up has been able to fully conceal them. Last weekend all I could do was sleep. I crashed on the couch at 7:30pm on Halloween. I am lame.

The second report's deadline was moved up by about 3 days so that was really fun. Last Thursday afternoon as I was in the final stages of printing and compiling the second report I developed a twitch in my left eye! That one made me laugh though. It was like a badge of honor which I announced proudly to all of my co-workers. "Hey look! This report has given me a twitch in my eye!" You've got to be about ready to flip out in order for a twitch to appear and I was ready to crack up by then. They were all very nice to me that day.

So I got everything turned in last week and now this week we have to present to the funding board. On Monday we began outlining our oral report and developing a Powerpoint presentation. That's when the freak out finally happened. I don't know what crazy juice my boss was drinking that day but she came into my office and asked that I work with the intern (that's right the Guerilla) to develop the Powerpoint. I guess last week she'd asked him to work on the Powerpoint so that we could maybe integrate some of his ideas. I had seen a copy of the presentation that he had slapped together and it was a joke. One of the graphics on one of the slides looked like three ping pong balls in a toilet. I'm not trying to be mean but our funding is not really the time to be utilizing our vigilante intern. I couldn't keep it together and that's when the yelling began. I told her that I would absolutely not work with the intern and some other stuff. Oopsies. We worked it out later in the day but wow, I had hit my wall. (By the way, I won because the intern is nowhere near this project anymore. He's back concentrating full time on the demise of our enemies.) I will be really glad when this week is over. Next week we have our big industry networking party that we put on every year so that isn't going to be any prettier. So basically I will be glad when Thanksgiving is here. That is bad considering it's only the 4th. Sorry for the whine fest but I can't afford therapy, I don't eat my troubles away anymore and I don't have many more people that I can yell at.

Some good news is that I have maintained by good eating and exercising habits despite all of this and my total weight lost is now at 33 pounds. Wohoo!

Halloween

2008-10-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

Angelo's department at work had a roman theme for Halloween. They had a gladiator, a roman queen and a Caesar salad. Angelo dressed up as a Roman Gnome. Get it? Like the "roamin" Gnome? HA HA! He won second place in the company's costume contest. It was the shoes that won it for him. Not bad for throwing the costume together the night before.

Angelo's 30th Birthday

2008-10-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Angelo turned the big 3-0 on the 17th! We went out to dinner to Shogun (like a Benihana) with our parents and his brother. Here are pictures from the night just to prove Angelo's family exists. (They are very hard to get on film.) Here's us with my parents.Angelo acting his age with his mom and dad.
Angelo and his brother Nino.
For his birthday I surprised him with a ride in a WWII plane. You've got to do something fun when you turn 30, right? This was super cool! Angelo got to fly all over San Diego. The pilot let him fly the plane and they did loops and all kinds of tricks. He got to pull 4Gs!

Here's a video of the take off.

The Guerilla

2008-10-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have named the new intern. He is now to be known as The Guerilla. Notice the spelling; this is not in reference to a big hairy monkey, but what the dictionary defines as "a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage." Actually, he named himself. I have overheard many of his cell phone conversation (remember his proximity to my office) and he has often referred to himself to his friends as "guerilla." I so wish I was kidding about this but sadly, I am not.

He offered to knock someone off again at another one of our staff meetings. One time, ok maybe that's a joke, twice, I'm keeping my distance. Then later I heard the following conversation between Guerilla and my co-worker:

(They were talking about something not going right. He was obviously joking around but dude, come on, stop with the killing jokes.)
Guerilla: "We could just shoot 'em."
Co-worker: "You just want to shoot somebody, don't you?"
Guerilla: (Laughing) "I do, I really do."

If anything bad happens to someone who wasn't nice to my company it wasn't our fault! It was the Guerilla! I do not want to go to jail as an accessory to murder.

For your entertainment

2008-09-30T22:58:00.000-07:00

For a mutual activity our youth group made some awesome videos. Check them out.

Here's the url: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc-7Ns3vhkM

Here's the url: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVe-Vh9rfnc

More intern shouting...

2008-09-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

...from the office next to mine. He yelled, "AHHH YEAHHH!" today to himself.

There was also a really loud yawn and some whistling too.

Things I have whispered from my office: "Shut up" & "You are an idiot."

Going Bananas

2008-09-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

I had the exciting task of taking my parents to the airport this morning. As I entered their house my mom yelled down the hall to my dad that I had arrived. My dad shouted back something about which shirt was packed, I don't know. My parents are retired and therefore spend A LOT of time together. Which means that sometimes they annoy the crap out of each other. It's hilarious. Sitting around while they finish packing for a 5 day trip was beyond entertaining. My mom had a bunch of stuff on the kitchen counter that she hadn't put in her carry on bag yet. My dad was buzzing around the kitchen and started asking her what she was going to do with this stuff. She told him that she would take care of it. He asked her another question and she grabbed a banana, pointed it at him, and blurted out, "ARE YOU GOING TO EAT THIS BANANA????" I think she was just trying to illustrate to him that his constant questions had become annoying but instead she just sounded like she was brewing her own brand of crazy. I couldn't contain myself and my dad and I just started laughing. Earlier my mom had asked my dad to take out the trash before they left. While they were still gathering up their stuff I grabbed the bag and took it outside to the trash cans. When I got back my mom was shouting down the hall from her bedroom asking my dad if he had taken out the trash. My dad wandered into the kitchen and asked her where the trash was. To my mom, of course, this was a stupid question. "What do you mean where's the trash? I left it right there next to the trash can!" (I decided I would just sit and enjoy this for a while.) My dad yelled back, "There's no trash." My mom comes back into the kitchen and says, "What do you mean? Did we loose the trash? You didn't take the trash out? Where did it go?" My dad responds, "I don't know, there's no trash." By this time I couldn't hide my convulsing shoulders anymore and they looked at me. My mom asked if I had taken it out and I said no, I hadn't seen any trash. They knew I was lying and the mystery of the missing trash had been solved. Sometimes its fun to make your parents think they're crazy. As they finished up it was fun to just randomly shout, "ARE YOU GOING TO EAT THIS BANANA????" at them. My mom looked at me as we exited the house and said, "Ah shoot, this isn't going to be a blog is it???"

Operation: Name the New Intern

2008-09-17T15:40:00.001-07:00

So I was being sarcastic when I posted this farewell to Sybil blog that said..."Keep your fingers crossed that we'll get another entertaining intern this summer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the overzealous ex-military kid that has shown up at our office 3 times in one week asking about our intern program." Luckily, that didn't happen.

Instead it is happening NOW, during the fall semester. That's right, apparently we ordered a big bag of crazy and it came in the form of the overzealous ex-military kid. My co-worker announced earlier this month that she had lined up a great new intern, a real "go-getter." Later on as I walked past the intern office my jaw fell ajar as I recognized who this "go-getter" was. At this point I didn't have any real ammunition to inform anyone of the crazy we had let infiltrate our operations but it didn't take long for him to demonstrate it himself.

At his first staff meeting we were complaining about a person that we deal with a lot that isn't very helpful in our cause. New intern blurted out, "Hey, you know bullets are only 50 cents, you want me to knock him off for you?" Everyone laughed a little but I just wore a fake smile and inside I knew that this was going to be an interesting few months.

On a more annoying personal level, we have him parked in the office right next to mine and he has this awesome habit of sighing REALLY loud. Just out of the blue, he'll screech out a really long, irritating sigh. You know, the attention seeking kind. The first time he did it he scared the piss out of me. I haven't come up with a good nickname yet. It will come, they have a way of naming themselves. This is going to be great.

26

2008-09-15T17:25:00.001-07:00

I have officially lost 26 pounds! Wahoo! Today was my goal deadline. It has been 4 months since I really got serious about my need to be healthier. I was only 4 pounds shy of my 30 pound goal weight and I am so happy!

This is me now compared to what I am affectionately calling "Puffy Katie." The "Puffy Katie" picture was taken in April and this is me now. My SparkPeople program has worked so well for me. I have not had to starve or give up many foods that I like. (The only thing I am really staying away from is french fries but I haven't missed them that much.) I really needed to learn how many calories were in the foods I ate. I also have been really committed to working out at least 3 times a week. I now fit into the clothes I was wearing the last time I lost some weight. I'm not stopping here though. I got to set a new goal weight and deadline today and anything above this is just icing on the cake. (Figuratively speaking of course.) I feel so much better and my headaches are few and far between. Angelo says that I am much happier too. This is totally possible! There are good days and bad but it is so worth it! This is really cliche but it's not about a diet. You really have to have a long term perspective. I am not eating and exercising like this from this date to this date. I am eating and exercising like this for the rest of my life. No more "Puffy Katie!"

Toe Cheese

2008-08-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

When we were in Utah, Angelo and I we were hanging out with my nieces and nephew and we had an hour to kill before our reunion dinner. We found a Bed, Bath & Beyond and decided it would be fun to have a little competition. We split up and had 15 minutes to go and find the strangest item the store sells. For anyone who has been to Bed, Bath & Beyond you know there are plenty of choices. We each returned with our own treasures. The winning item turned out to be some house slippers that you were suppose to use to clean your floors. They came complete with a warning that a person should take great care when using the slippers and that the company can't be held responsible for any injuries you might incur. Angelo's choice was also a great one. It was an item called the "Ped Egg." This little egg shaped contraption is suppose to get rid of callouses and dead skin. Essentially, it is a cheese grater for your feet. What was especially disturbing about this product were the detailed pictures on the back of the packaging. The picture showing the flakes of skin being emptied into a waste basket was really great. It turns out this product has it's own website which has a very informative video on it. You should definitely check it out. There is a shot of someone emptying the product and it is waaaay grosser than the picture on the back of the packaging. So after we played our little game in the store we were joking about who actually buys this stuff. It took us only 3 days to answer this question.

When we got back from our trip Angelo was telling his mom about all the stuff we'd done. He told her about our little outing to Bed, Bath & Beyond and about the Ped Egg. Guess who owns one??? You'll never guess...I'll have to tell you...wait for it...my mother-in-law! She told him that she had bought one for his father but after one use my father-in-law had deemed it too dangerous for his feet. Apparently it is too easy to grate past the callouses and go on the healthy, useful skin. Bloody Ped Egg! (Can I please enter my "Duh!" here.) My mother-in-law is a very practical woman though and it turns out that was not the end of the Ped Egg. She told Angelo that after she cleaned it up she found that it was the best kitchen zester she had ever had! (Insert dry heave here.)

DAD

2008-08-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Dad! My dad is the coolest guy in the world. He is funny and kind hearted and just wonderful! My dad is a retired fire captain for San Diego and always came home from work smelling like diesel fuel. My dad's bandaid of choice is duct tape. Maybe that's where I get my aversion to the ER. You bleed, you just tape it up. He has always been very enterprising. You want a house, you build it yourself. Your car breaks down, you fix it in the driveway. Going to amusement parks as kids was always kinda funny. My dad always seemed to be about 10 paces ahead of us, much more excited to get on a ride than us - the KIDS. He would keep looking back at us trying to get us to hurry up. My mom would get so irritated and tell him to slow down and wait for us but that never worked. My dad loves telling stories. Some of his best ones are when he starts laughing before he finishes it. He'll laugh so hard he starts to cough and he's trying to get out the rest of the story but you don't even care how it ends because it's hilarious just watching him crack himself up. This picture totally sums up my dad. (Karyn, I stole this from your myspace.) My dad loves his dog and is always waiting with a camera. We love you Dad - you are the best! (Dad, I did not choose this picture because it has my chair in it, that's just an added bonus.)

Utah News

2008-08-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I lived in Utah but it didn't take long till the old Utah vernacular came rushing back to my mind. In the four years I lived there to go to college I have to admit I did fall victim to some of the Utah slang. I was a big fan of both "flip" and "fetch" and I'm sure I occasionally fell victim to the dreaded "oh my heck." So I almost laughed my head off when we were watching KSL News and the sportscaster (a sophisticated, middle aged man) reported that "all heck broke loose" during a NASCAR race crash. After the footage of the wreck was shown, the camera cut back to the female anchor who simply shouted, "Yowzah!" I couldn't decide if that was fun and casual or weird and unprofessional. It caught me off guard but oh my heck it was flippin' hilarious.

Family Reunion

2008-08-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

We just got back from our annual Ballard family reunion (my mom's side) in Park City, Utah. Here's a picture of Tommy, Whitney, Karyn, Dad, Me, and Mom... We always have a great time and it's nice to see lots of extended family. Here are some highlights:

I got to see one of my favorite people - my old roommate Brittany! She and Tyler took us to Cafe Rio which was a first for us. I am so glad we got to see each other!We had fun going on the alpine slide! Here's our trip up the lift: (Can you figure out which one isn't blood related?)Here's the annual scarfing of the molten chocolate cake at Chili's with Michelle, Sherise, and Whit. The record is 1 minute 32 seconds...My sister Karyn came this year! It was fun to see her and it was fun staying up till 4am talking about random stuff. Here she is on the alpine slide... Posing in Park City. The sign reads,"When the Hunter Becomes Hunted." (We agreed we'd all been reading too much Twilight.) We also got to play the game Rock Band with the family which was totally fun. I suck at drums but I did okay on guitar. We saw The Dark Knight on a giant IMAX screen and got to swim a lot. It was a great trip!

Bloody Luau

2008-08-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

I'm really late in posting this blog but it's kinda funny so here you go. Last month our church had a luau party with fire dancers and everything. We have had to do some fundraising for a trip our youth were taking so we had set up a dessert auction and also a photo booth at the luau. Angelo had done this at work before where you take pictures of people in front of a green screen and then have them choose a background for their pictures. It turns out really cute. Angelo had borrowed the green screen from work and we went down early to set up. The screen sits on to a metal frame that you can move up and down. Unfortunately, once the party started we had a mishap and the frame came falling down. Angelo caught it as it came down but in the process the metal part of the frame sliced his finger wide open. He didn't really notice until he felt the wetness running down his arm and examined the area to see what had happened. He had a deep cut on one of his knuckles and he was dripping blood all over the floor. So he rushed to the bathroom to try and get it to stop bleeding and I was left trying to clean the blood up off the floor. I have spoken of my aversion to blood before and I can tell you that I still feel the same way. A little is ok but once there are actually drips I'm in trouble. My ears started ringing and my vision was getting a little tunneled. My favorite part was when I was leaning over cleaning up the blood all over the floor with some napkins, barely holding it together, and some idiot who was standing there waiting in the food line laughing, asked me, "Is that Angelo's blood?" What I wanted to say was, "Yes, you moron, my husband is bleeding all over the place and I get to clean it up, hope you enjoy your food!" But I just nodded and went back to smearing the blood around. Once I figured I couldn't do that anymore I went to find Angelo. I basically floated to the bathroom, ears still ringing, and found him with his hand over a blood speckled sink. I had to lean against the wall once I saw that. Then Angelo goes, "Look, it's really deep, I think it hit the bone." I looked away and shouted, "Are you crazy! I can't look at that! Dude, I'm barely hanging on here. What do you want to do?" He wrapped in in paper towels and went to our car's first aid kit to get some gauze. I couldn't believe I was left to clean up more blood! So I quickly wiped the sink down and headed back toward the party. I had to sit down before my body forced me to LAY down. One of the girls in our ward who is a nurse said Angelo better go to urgent care to get it stitched up. I tried to get out of going to the place where there would likely be even more blood but eventually conceded. So we left the picture taking to Ann (thanks Ann - you're a lifesaver!) and we went to get him fixed up. Of course we couldn't leave until we got our luau picture taken! (Ann had told me I looked pretty green by this time so here...) That's pretty much what we looked like when we arrived at urgent care - Hawaiian shirts and all. It didn't take long for us to get admitted and soon we were in our own little curtained room. They cleaned the wound and decided the best thing was to glue it shut. It was pretty weird. Here's what it looked like glued together.

The best part of urgent care are the conversations you get to eavesdrop on. The guy right next to us, sharing our curtain, had some kind of golf injury. (I know, who gets hurt playing golf?) He thought he had hurt his ribs or something while he'd been playing. The male nurse had gone in to discuss the x-rays they had taken. Here's how that conversation went:

Nurse; "Nothing is broken, you must have just pulled some of the muscles in your back."
Golfer: "Ok."
Nurse: "What we suggest you do is get some Icy Hot Balm. It comes in a blue jar. Get that stuff and rub in on your rib cage a few times a day. Just be careful not to touch your testicles after that because that stuff burns!" (Obviously speaking as a voice of experience!)
Golfer: "Uh, ok."Angelo and I had immediately broken into a fit of silent laughter when we heard that. (You know where you are laughing hysterically but are keeping quiet so no one knows you were listening?) That almost made the whole trip worthwhile. The trip cost us $75 but can you really put a price tag on good advice?

Spark!

2008-08-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

So I have to gloat for a moment. My pants no longer fit! ( I mean that in a good way.) I mentioned a while back that I was going to start working out and be healthier and I have been a very good girl. I started working out pretty consistently in March and was feeling better but not really losing any weight. On May 1st I signed up on www.sparkpeople.com which is a FREE health website which is so cool. It helps you manage your fitness minutes and also has a nutrition tracker where you input food you eat and then it tell you how many calories you are eating. It helps you balance what you need to eat versus how long you need to workout to reached your desired goals. It's super easy to use! It has lots of other tools as well like message boards and articles too. Once I started tracking my food calories and fitness minutes I started losing weight immediately. I have now lost 20 pounds! (That works out to be over 10% of my previous body weight - doesn't that sound cool?) An article last month reported a recent study which showed that if you record your food intake your chances of losing weight doubles!

I had no idea how many calories I was eating in a day. I had to be pushing 3,000 calories per day easily. Now I've learned how to judge portions and I basically eat what I want just not as much. People have no idea what they are putting in their bodies. New York City just enacted a law which makes food establishments print the calories with the prices of their food. Check out this article. People's reactions to the postings are hilarious.

So I am adjusting to my new lifestyle change. That what it's called, it's not a diet, it's a "lifestyle change". Whatever it's called I'm liking it.

12:01

2008-08-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

That's when the screaming started and I found myself, Angelo, and Nikki (my 15 year old niece who was staying with us) standing in a line at Barnes and Nobles on Saturday morning. That would be 12:01 AM. You may ask, 'What were you doing at a bookstore at midnight with a ton of screaming tweens?" And I will proudly say, "Getting Breaking Dawn the last book in the Twilight saga, duh!" Ok, so I actually wish we could blame that on the 15 year old with us but we can't, she hasn't read any of the books yet. It was Angelo and I. Even though we had pre-ordered on Amazon we decided we wanted to go and get the book on opening night. (Angelo is as bad as I am.) So we braved the crowds and stood at the end of the twisting line that circled the entire perimeter of the store. Hundreds of people waited and at 12:01 AM the screaming began. I was doubting whether I wanted to stand in line forever to get the book, I was getting tired and was slightly embarrassed. Angelo convinced me to stay and then around the corner came one of my young women and her mom. (Most of our YW are hooked.) All I could do is laugh. So we stood in line and waited with them and watched as all the teenagers hollered as they got their copy of the book. We were at the end of the line pretty much and had a while to wait. That's when a toothless women walked by and stated that Walmart had the book on sale now and that it was cheaper. So we ventured over to Walmart and got our copy. Woohoo! So I had not planned on starting the book that night but the tweeners excitement was infectious and as soon as I got home I settled into my comfy chair and began. I didn't go to bed until 5AM! Then I took a 4 hour nap and started again. The book is good! I think one of my 13 year old young women described it best when I asked her what she thought on Sunday. The book is split up into 3 sections and she goes, "I read the first part and I was like, 'Oh my gosh!' and then I went on to the second part and I was like, 'OH MY GOSH!!' and then by the third part I was like, 'OH...MY...GOSHHHHHH!!!!" Yeah, she's right, I concur. Angelo got his Amazon copy on Monday and he concurs too. That's right we own TWO copies of Breaking Dawn and we're proud of it!

Angry Baby

2008-08-05T17:02:00.001-07:00

You know how most little kids are really cute and sweet and they will come up to you and say hi or wave? Yeah, that's really nice. Well, we have this one little toddler at our church that is more like this...
Angelo and I have named her The Angry Baby. Our first encounter was when we happened to sit next to Angry Baby and her parents in church. Most kids will approach you and wave or smile. Well not Angry Baby. She came over, looked at us, scowled and then shrieked. (Seriously, like the above picture, in the middle of our church meeting. Have you seen Galaxy Quest? It's just like the sweet little martians that turn out to be monsters.) We tried to give Angry Baby the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she missed nap time, maybe she's teething. Nope, the more we see of Angry Baby the more we're convinced she is just that - angry. Her parents look pretty nice but every time we see them they are chase Angry Baby or trying to coax her back from running around the room wreaking havoc. Last week Angry Baby was sitting behind us in church and we heard her yell and then there was a crash. Angelo and I just leaned into each other and whispered, "Angry Baby."

Crazy Clown Man

2008-07-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

My boss and I went to go pick up some cookies from a hotel today. (No this was not business related. She likes the cookies from the Doubletree Hotel so we went and bought a bunch.) We parked and as we were walking across the street Cathy stops dead in her tracks and goes, "OOOhh, be careful! Don't go over there, there's a crazy clown man over there!" As I looked across the street I saw a slight variation of this...

On any other week it might be scary to see a man dressed in a nurse costume with clown makeup and a red wig but this week is Comic-Con in San Diego so these jokers are a dime a dozen. I said, "Cathy, it's Comic-con remember? He's just dressed up like the Joker from The Dark Knight." Cathy responded, "Oh well, it's not every day you see a crazy clown man waiting for the bus."

Happy Birthday Laura!

2008-07-20T15:59:00.000-07:00

My sister Laura had a birthday earlier this month! We hope it was great. She is exactly 10 years older than me so I can always remember how old she is! It was so cool having older siblings. They could take me places and they were also really fun to embarrass. One time when Laura was getting ready for a formal dance she and my mom were trying to get her ready and she was having a problem with her dress and her bra. I remember sitting there watching them deal with this. When her date arrived everyone was taking pictures I blurted out in front of everyone - "Laura, are you wearing a bra???" I don't remember much after that,just her stunned face. She was pretty pissed. For some reason I have lots of pee stories associated with Laura - I don't know why. Once when I was about 6 I did something to her and she threaten to "tickle me until I peed!" I just laughed in her face and so she grabbed me, threw me on the floor, and sure enough, she made good on her word. All that was left on the family room floor was a little "W" wear my butt had been. She was very satisfied. I got her back though. Another time I was sitting on her lap and we were watching TV. I distinctly remember having to go pee but I was really comfortable. So I decided to just let it go... Once the warm moisture hit her, the next thing I remember is flying through the air! Laura has always been so much fun and I have lots of fun memories with her. Happy Birthday! We love you!

We put the FUN in dysFUNctional

2008-07-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

We recently had a hotel call us to try and help them with an event they are putting on. They were running into trouble with some permits. My boss had gotten the initial call for help and was describing the issues with the rest of us. She goes, "They are having an event on their rooftop pool deck and they are having a band play...he said something about a blowfish and a hootie?" The rest of us immediately burst out laughing and one of my co-workers goes, "Cathy, that's the band's name: Hootie and the Blowfish!"

BBQ

2008-07-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago the poor Kansas City BBQ burned down. What? You don't know what the Kansas City BBQ is? Well it was the bar featured in the movie "Top Gun" where Goose plays the piano and sings Great Balls of Fire. (I know , it's ironic.) The owner had acquired lots of memorabilia from the director when they shot the movie here almost 25 years ago. Their most prized piece of memorabilia was Tom Cruise's maverick fighter pilot helmet which they displayed in a big plexiglass box. Man, did we covet that piece! We found out the restaurant was burning when the local Fox News called to interview my boss about it. I went home and watched the news that night to see what they used of Cathy's interview. In the footage of the burned out building there was a pile of rubble which included a blackened helmet with burnt plastic melted around it. As Angelo and I watched the news story I yelled, "See! If we had had the maverick helmet it would still be safe!" Angelo looked and me and said, "Didn't you guys almost burn down your office last week with macaroni and cheese?" What else could I do but shut up?

Fire!

2008-06-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

"Something is on FIRE!" These frenzy inciting words were uttered by one of my co-workers today. At about noon my boss inadvertently tried to catch our office on fire. It was great! Recently Cathy has been on a diet kick which has been great for me because it has cut down on the amount of pie and carbs that were constantly being paraded around the office. Today she brought in a low carb mac and cheese microwave dinner for lunch. She mentioned that she had found it in the back of her freezer and it had lots of freezer burn on it but she was going to try it and see if it was still good. So she goes and puts it in the microwave and comes into my office to chat while it was “cooking.” That’s when the shouting started… “There’s something on fire!” Cathy and I looked wide-eyed at one another and then ran down to the kitchen. Cathy yells, “My lunch!” By then we could see smoke billowing out into the hallway and my co-worker Lynn trying to tame the smoke. Cathy beat me to the microwave and once it was open even more smoke filled the room. So the whole kitchen is smoky and I am doing my best to waft the smoke away from the smoke detector, flinging by body in the air and wind milling my arms about. (Ironically, we had had a building fire drill on Tuesday. We passed with flying colors. In a real fire I think we would all die.) So now Lynn has run into our boardroom to get the new fans we had just purchased for when the offices got hot. (Even with the air conditioning sometimes it gets stuffy in a high rise. We hadn't anticipated this kinda hot though.) Unfortunately, all three of them were still in the boxes and so while I’m jumping in the air Lynn is furiously dissecting the packaging to get to the standing fan. It turns out fans aren’t really an “out of the box” item. There were components to put together so Lynn just took the head of the fan, laid in on the floor and plugged it into an outlet near the kitchen. So while Lynn was battling the fan and I was jumping in the air, Cathy was standing at the microwave in the smoke filled kitchen. Her eyes were blinking vigorously trying to stand the stinging smoke and she was attempting to wipe up the charcoal mess with paper towels. So I’m shouting at her, “Cathy, get out of the kitchen! The smoke is bad for you, get out of the kitchen! Now is not the time to be cleaning the microwave!” So Lynn comes running down and starts yelling at her too. As soon as Cathy stopped cleaning the microwave, I started working on the other box of fans which ALSO required some assembling. So after we were able to blow most of the smoke out in the hallway we were able to assess the damage. There were piece of fan boxes, Styrofoam, plastic and fan parts strewn everywhere. The microwave was a mess and the mac and cheese – well, see for yourself…

We all stink too. We smell like a bonfire where the kindling was burnt microwave popcorn. I can’t believe the fire alarm didn’t go off. Apparently, my fire dance had helped. That's all we would have needed is a bunch of firefighters laughing at our blackened mac and cheese. (Ironically, their offices are in our building too!) There hadn’t been any real flames but the smoke had been pretty heavy. Later we presented the petrified lava rock (aka mac and cheese) to Cathy for lunch. Yummy!

Earlier Cathy had told me the mac and cheese had been in her freezer since the last time she was on weight watchers. Lynn and I examined the burned up packaging and found a date from 1999. Um, yeah! I would not advise anyone to attempt to eat anything that is almost a decade old! Besides not tasting good it’s a fire hazard!

Do you need diapers?

2008-06-06T20:15:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Angelo's mom called to give us an important message. After chatting with Angelo for a few moments on the phone she added that she would be willing to pay for us to have a diaper service when we have a baby. This would seem like a normal conversation if, A) we had ever talked about wanting a diaper service, and B) WE WERE ACTUALLY PREGNANT! (Which we are not.) What does she think, "Well, maybe if I just talk as if there is a baby there will be one!" These occurrences are happening more and more frequently. This is almost as good as when she gave us a garden stake about 6 months ago that read "Grandpa's Garden." (It kinda looked like this one...) When I took it out of the brown bag it had been delivered in, Angelo explained that she got it for us so that when we got pregnant we could announce it by giving it to my father-in-law. As my eyes got bigger and bigger Angelo tried to diffuse the situation but to no avail. He got an earful of "We will announce we are pregnant the way we want to! Why doesn't she keep the %*@$ sign and give it to her husband when he finds out he's a grandpa?" I don't know, that one really got me going.

And just for the record I have no desire to use cloth diapers. Even if you (mother-in-law) used them, I will be filling up the landfill just like everyone else with poopy diapers.

(So this post had been taken down because someone had thought it was too mean. I edited it a bit and just for the record, I do love my mother-in-law, and this is just meant to be funny. So just shut your face Angelo. :) See, if you put a smiley face after something it makes it alright!)

Top 10 signs U R a n00b

2008-06-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

The other day Angelo and I were driving some of the young men from our church somewhere. One asked honestly, "Why are gas prices so high?" Before we could say anything another kid said, "Because they are n00bs." We can thank all the online gamers for this new gem added to our lexicon. My husband is an avid nerd, I mean, online gamer (World of Warcraft is his vice of choice at the moment.) I call him a n00b all the time. It's kinda like a term of endearment now.

So here are my Top Ten Signs that U R a n00b: (Husband - I'm looking at you.)

#10. You want a license plate frame for your car that reads, "My other mode of transportation is a flying Gryphon."
#9. Your wife asks you if your going to be playing WoW with your "online friends" tonight and you smile and answer in the affirmative.
#8. You are heard shouting, "Need more aggro!" while pounding on your computer keys pretty much every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night.
#7. You can decifer what the acronym MMORPG means. (For us non-n00bs it means: Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.)
#6. When someone asks where you're from you proudly state that you hail from the Eastern Kingdom of Azeroth.
#5. Your "friends" don't have real names. Instead you call them Scraggs or Beltor.
#4. You complain about setting up your online schedule and how hard it is to balance all the other players needs.
#3. You judge others by their class. No, not that class, but whether they are Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Warrior, or Warlock. Priests are sooo much cooler than mages.
#2. Your avatar just upgraded to some new armor and you are totally stoked about how cool it makes you look.
#1. You can't hear your wife grumbling about what a n00b you are because you have noise canceling headphones on.

So if you don't understand any of the above, be grateful - you are n00b-free. If any of that sounds familiar well...you're probably a n00b (or live with one.)

Twilighter

2008-06-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm officially in the club. I just finished the first Twilight book and I loved it! I'm hooked! I know I am late jumping on the bandwagon but I am soooo on it now. I was such a bad girl and I brought Twilight to work yesterday telling myself that I would just read it while I was eating lunch. Well I'm a liar. I couldn't resist the temptation and I ended up reading it for most of the day. I'd set it down after a chapter and then it would just call to me and I'd have to pick it up again. I know, worst employee ever. I finished it though and now I've got to get my hands on the second one. I'm now a vampire fan - vampires are hot! Mom, I'm coming over to get it today!

Shut your face!

2008-06-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

IMDB.com is reporting that Clint Eastwood told Spike Lee to "shut his face." How awesome is that??? There's a phrase that isn't used as much as it should be. It's offensive without being vulgar. It's a great come back..."oh yeah, well...why don't you just shut your face!!??" Love that!

Do you ever wonder what happens when you're not home?

2008-06-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently the cats are up to all kinds of shenanigans while the people are away. FYI - That is not me in my spot in the bed.

Catnip Bandit

2008-06-04T16:35:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I had bought a new scratching post for our cats. It had come with a packet of catnip. We had never given our cats any catnip before, mostly because my mom had always told me catnip was like drugs for cats. I had also gone through the D.A.R.E. program at school and I had learned that DRUGS ARE BAD. So we had maintained a drug free home up until the dang scratching post came home. Once the new post came out of it's package my cat Otto starting sniffing around and got a crazy look on his face: "Drugs! Where are the drugs!" So we showed him the little packet and he starting rubbing on it. So we put a little on a toy and he rubbed all over it. Our other cat Jasper was completely unaffected by the catnip but Otto was in love. We had initially set the packet of catnip on our desk in the kitchen but Otto kept jumping up to find it. We then put it high up on a shelf in the kitchen. Later on that night Angelo and I were watching TV. We kept hearing a rattling noise and just figured it was the cats playing with a toy. Angelo got up to get a drink and this is what he found in our kitchen. There was Otto laying happily drunk in the middle of the kitchen with the entire packet of catnip scattered all over the floor. Do you see the shame? This is what happened when I tried to grab the empty bag from under him. If you look carefully you can see specks of catnip flying about. So once we got the bag away from him I took him outside and shook all the catnip off of him. He was covered in it. See what happens when you get mixed up with drugs?

Do you hear that beeping?

2008-05-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

We have had to purchase a bunch of new equipment recently at work - new backup drives, replacement BlackBerrys, and some software. Too much money! I had spent a lot of the day getting the 3 new BlackBerrys up and running. (Actually we call them CrackBerrys in our office because anyone who gets one is from that point on always using it, they're addictive. I don't have one. I say NO to drugs.) The IT guy had been out setting up our new backup system and he had found an error in our server which he fixed. (It's always a perpetual snowball once one thing breaks, right?) The next morning when I got to work I was sitting in my office when I heard two distinctive beeps. A few minutes later they happened again. I got up and went to our server room which is right across the hall from my office. I waited...nothing. So I went back to my desk. Then a few moments later - beep, beep. It wasn't a loud noise - just muted beeps. It didn't seem to be very consistent either. It was a few minutes apart every time I heard it. If there is one thing that I've learned as an office manager it's that a beeping machine is never a happy machine. That usually is a precursor to a quick death. So thus the game began. I'd sit for a few minutes, I'd hear it again and I'd jump up and run to the hallway to see if I could tell which room it was coming from. (There are any number of machines in close proximity to my office.) I stood in the hall for a while and didn't hear it. I sat back down and then...there it was again. I was pretty sure it was in the server room so I went and sat in there for about 5 minutes determined to catch the culprit. Nothing happened. This was starting to make me really mad. Back to my office I went. Not 30 seconds later - beep, beep. So I darted out in the hall and one of my co-workers was in our mailroom. I asked if she heard any beeping. Nope. I went back and sat again...beep, beep. I ran back out shout, "That! Did you hear that??? That beeping noise??" Still no and this time I got a crazy look too. Ok so now I'm thinking I've finally gone batty AND I'm convincing my coworker that I'm crazy too. So I'm at my desk and the beeps go off. It must be somewhere in my office. I figured the only machine it could be was my computer which isn't even a year old yet. I'm thinking, "No! We can't afford any new equipment! Please don't be my computer!" So I get down on the floor (on all fours) and hold my head right up against the computer tower. If it's beeping, I'm going to find it. Nothing, only the faint buzz of radioactive rays going into my brain. So after sitting like that for a while I hear it but it doesn't really sound like it's the computer. So I'm crawling around on the floor like a bloodhound trying to find the incessant beeping. After a few minutes I end up at a box that the new BlackBerrys had come in. I had thrown all the new phone boxes and packaging materials in there. As I stood over the box - there it went! BEEP BEEP! Ah ha! So I dove into the box and at the bottom I found one of the old BlackBerry devices (that had been deactivated) with an alarm prompt on the screen! I told it off for a few minutes and then I violently took out the battery which was actually very satisfying. I held the device high in the air and yelled, "Curse you BlackBerry! You shall beep no more!" So here's a memo for all office machinery: Don't mess with me. I will find you and I will remove your batteries without any hesitation.

For Janet...

2008-05-27T20:30:00.001-07:00

Finale Thoughts

2008-05-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

It's finally over - the American Idol juggernaut has left the building for another 6 months or so. What'd you think of the finale??? Here is my recap of the evening...

The opening number had all the idol contestants from this year and some dancers from my all time favorite show - So You Think You Can Dance. That made me excited to have that show coming back. Those sneaky producers.

I had totally forgotten about most of the early kick-offs which made me feel sorry for them. I hope they enjoyed singing in the finale because I fear that's the end for many of them. And where was Jessica Alba, I mean, Danny Noriega? He was one of the only ones I remembered from about cut 8 and below and he was nowhere in site. S/he is pregnant so s/he must be pretty busy.Another person I had totally forgotten about was the Janis Joplin chick, Amanda Overmeyer. Boy, was she phoning in her performances all night. She just didn't look happy to be there. And can't someone do something about her helmet hair? I felt bad for her.
American Idol wouldn't be American Idol if it didn't have some obligatory plug for a movie coming soon to a theater near you. Out comes Austin Powers, ah, I mean the Love Guru. Gag.

It was an interesting mix of singers that they had come on the show and sing with the contestants throughout the night. It was kinda weird. The show seemed to be timeline of pop music history - it got progressively younger as the show went on.

Which brings me to the Jonas Brothers. I knew who they were and that they are beloved by young children everywhere but I had never seen them perform before. Angelo put it best when he said, "They're Hanson - part deux." MmmBop for sure. Only shinier. They are cute though, like puppies.

Jordin Sparks is also a cute girl but holy cow, who is dressing her??? Did anyone else immediately think, "Oh my, it's Josey Grossey!" I felt bad. Hasn't anyone learned from the 80s? So I have to admit that one of my favorite parts of the whole show was Shiny Man! ...he got to perform with the USC marching band - hilarious. This kid had totally cracked me up during the audition shows. He's a classic. "I am your brother, your best friend forever, singing the songs, the music that you love-ohhhhh!" Come on that's a catchy tune. I thought it should have been the final winner's song. I enjoy torturing Angelo with that one because it gets stuck in your head for hours. I only have one thing to say about the whole Gladys Knight and the Pips thing - Gladys Knight isn't dead! She's just mormon. I didn't get it, but Robert Downey Jr. is hot.

Then it was Carrie Underwood's turn to validate the show. She is really pretty. I didn't really understand her song about a drunken wedding because the whole time she was singing I was concerned about her safety. With those connected sleeves I was sure she was going to get her heel caught and topple over. Despite that worry I did notice what nice legs she has...dang, I want those...do you think you can order a pair of those on Amazon?
Then came the George Michael tribute. He's not dead either. He didn't look good though. He looked old and creepy...and his song? ...and Paula crying during the song? I didn't get it. George, the sun is setting and not just on the jumbo screen behind you.

All in all I was entertained. I was really happy that David Cook won. He's been my favorite all season since he did a cool 80s cover during the top 24 shows. (Ok so 80s music - good, 80s fashion - bad.) His Billy Jean was really good too. I'm sad he didn't get to sing it again at the finale. The judges were pretty well behaved throughout the show but Paula couldn't just sit and look pretty. She left us with some final words to ponder, "You two are truly amazing. It's odd that it's called the finale when it's anything but the final — it's the beginning of the start of the destinies of your career. I'm so proud. And just remember sometimes you think it's all about winning but it's the things sometimes that we lose that remind us of how truly special we are as people." So here's to losing! (I guess.) Good thing we have 6 months to think that one over.

All that's left...

2008-05-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. Poof! and this is all that's left of Sybil. That of course is an over flowing pencil sharpener. Boy, how that woman loved her pencil.
How I'll miss the constant ZzzzZZZzzzZzzzZZZzzzzz coming from the mailroom on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To be honest I had never had to clean out our pencil sharpener before. Heck, before Sybil I had forgotten entirely that we even had an automatic pencil sharpener. So when I discovered the above after Sybil left for the last time I had to take a moment. As the sun sets on another semester all I will have is the memories. Keep your fingers crossed that we'll get another entertaining intern this summer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the overzealous ex-military kid that has shown up at our office 3 times in one week asking about our intern program.

Up yours!

2008-05-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

Last week was a very special week. Angelo got to get a colonoscopy on Tuesday! Yippee for him! For those of you who may be wondering what that is, it's when a doctor (hopefully a qualified one) shoves a giant hose with a camera on it up your rear to inspect your colon and intestines. Angelo is a very lucky man, this was his sixth one! He's a pro now. Angelo has ulcerative colitis which basically means his intestines are very angry and irritable and don't like anything around for very long. You know that song that goes, "when your sliding into first and you feel something burst! Diarrhea! Diarrhea!" Well, that's like Angelo's theme song. If you are ever wondering where a bathroom is just ask Angelo because he will have already scoped out the place for one. Because of his condition he has to get a camera tour every couple of years to make sure he doesn't have cancer. This year went well. The hardest part according to him is the "cleansing process" which began with a fast on Sunday starting at midnight. All day Monday all he could eat was beef broth and non-red jello. On Monday evening the real fun began. That's when he got to take some pills which began the free flow of anything that was left in his system. This process includes lots of "get outta my way" moments. It is also an excellent time for him to catch up on any reading because he basically gets to sit on his "special throne" for hours. Once we got the hospital on Tuesday morning things went pretty smoothly. It is always kinda funny because he is always the youngest person by decades in endoscopy so the nurses always like him. After they got him situated and his IV put in they wheeled him to his procedure room. I got to stand there with him and they began to sedate him and it was quit amusing. At first the sedation medicine didn't really do anything for him and so the nurse gave him another round. He didn't seem that affected still so she left to go get some more. As soon as she left the room Angelo face got real relaxed and then his eyes got really heavy and soon his mouth gaped open. When the nurse returned I laughed and said I think that last one worked. Soon after that I left for the waiting room and then they called me in after he was done. It's always kind of amusing when I go back in to see him cause he's still and drugged up and when Angelo is like that he just rambles on about weird stuff. After he woke up fully we were able to go. He was told to not operate machinery or sign legal papers that day. That was disappointing because we were so looking forward to taking a ride in our forklift.

Happy Birthday Galen!

2008-05-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

We hope you had a great Birthday Galen! This picture just about sums up my nephew Galen...(It's one of my favorites. It's from his baptism too which makes it all the more funny.)
Doesn't he look like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes? We thought so too so Angelo made this...
Galen is a sweet guy and a cool kid. He just turned 11 and loves sports and skateboarding. He recently had a skateboarding wreck and isn't going to be back on the board for a while. Watch that head, dude - you only get one brain! We love you and we miss you, ya crazy kid!

Pencil crisis averted

2008-05-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Angelo told me that he had a present for me. As usual I demanded to know what it was but he told me it was better to just see it. So when I got home from work he presented me with the following (which I thought was hilarious):Then he told me the present wasn't from him - it was from two of his co-workers! This of course was in response to this. See you never know who's reading your blog! So on Monday I presented Sybil with her new pencils; she was very happy. She laughed and said that she could write a lot today. (Sybil has a sense of humor!) Thanks girls! Your donations are much appreciated and you helped make a crazy lady very happy.

Scariest movie poster ever!

2008-05-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found the creepiest movie poster ever. It's for a new movie called The Strangers. Do you see it? Do you??? What the freak is this???
So a creepy scarecrow looking figure standing in the doorway has to be a pretty worst-case scenario, don't you think? So I was intrigued and starting watching the trailer and I couldn't make it through it. I don't have a very high tolerance for scary anymore. I watched one too many scary movies.

It was a dark and stormy night...Seriously, it was. I was going to school in Utah and I went to hang out on Halloween with one of my friends. She was living in a basement apartment on a residential street. We decided it would be fun to watch the original Halloween movie. We managed to get ourselves good and scared which seemed fun until I figured out that I was going to have go outside and drive home eventually. So it's 1am and we're arguing with each other for about 10 minutes because I am trying to convince her to walk me out to my car and she is not going to do that because she's convinced she'll get grabbed by the same person I'm afraid of getting grabbed by. (I can't say I blame her. I mean why should we both die?) So I tell her to listen for my screams and decide to make a run for it. My car was parked out on the dark, quiet street and it's cold and windy. Perfect. So I run for my car with my keys in my hands and I jump in and pray that my 1982 Toyota Tercel actually starts. For once it starts up on the first try and and I speed off. The whole time I'm freaking out trying to make sure a freaky station wagon with a crazy man isn't following me. I get back to my apartment complex and of course the entire parking lot is full. So I am going to have to go find street parking, who knows how far away, and WALK back, alone in the dark, to my complex. So I find a spot, park the car, and count to three. I throw my door open and and just start running down the street. (Thinking back if anyone was watching me they probably would have been scared of me and left me alone - I looked like the crazy person.) I finally get to my complex and and as I'm running towards it I notice something I've never noticed before. The entire complex had these hedges all around the perimeter which look just like the hedges that freaking Michael Myers looks around when he's stalking Jamie Lee Curtis! You know like this... So all of the sudden I'm an even faster runner. I make it past the hedges and fly up the stairs and fling open my apartment door. Phew, I made it! I figured it was just a lucky break that I wasn't caught by a psychopathic, mask-wearing, crazy person that night. So after that I figured I was done with the scaries. So I won't be seeing The Strangers because the stupid trailer already made me look carefully around the corners in my house for a night.

Happy Birthday Janet!

2008-05-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Today is my sister Janet's birthday! We hope it was a happy one! Even though she is 12 years older than me I have lots of fun memories with her. She is really creative and taught me how to sew and helped me make my first outfit. She's always fun to hang out with. Here's a funny picture that I found. Do you remember this Joe? I like these ones with Sherise too. Hope your day was great! We love ya!

Elevator Ettiquette

2008-05-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a word of advice...when you get into an elevator it is not necessary to point out something someone is holding or doing and comment about it. You just look stupid and you are annoying. The other day I got in the elevator at work to go downstairs. On the way down, the elevator stopped on another floor and the janitor came on with a rolling trash can. The next time the elevator stopped two women got on and as they entered one said, "hey you've got trash!" and pointed to the trash bin. The other woman just kinda giggled and then they just stood there. The janitor just looked at her blankly. Poor guy, I'm sure he gets dumb comments a lot. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. (I was especially irritable that day.) What is the response she wanted back? "Yeah, can you believe it? Imagine that, there is trash in a trash can!" I have had this happen to me on a number of occasions. Whenever I have had a lot of mail or a dolly full of stuff people always seem to look at it and then make some dumb remark like, "Look! Mail!" If you are so insistent to start up a conversation then say something nice like, "How are you today?" or talk about the weather but don't dumbly point at an object and shout its name like Frankenstein. (Me stupid!) Elevator passengers have the same trouble as airplane passengers. You just want to peacefully enjoy the ride but there always has to be that one person who insists on chatting even though you are trying your best to look busy by reading the mail or looking intently at the ceiling. It's one thing to be friendly and nice but few people appreciate idiotic comments about inanimate objects.

For my husband...You forfeit!

2008-05-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

HA HA! I told you! It is spelled F-O-R-F-E-I-T not F-O-R-E-F-I-T! HA HA! Do not question my spelling authorita!

The great pencil shortage of '08

2008-04-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Monday I was furiously trying to finish up some reports for our board meeting at work when Sybil the intern decided to drop by my office. I've got papers strewn across my desk and I'm punching away at my trusty calculator. So she comes wandering into my office and goes, "Um, Katie, I just wanted to make you aware of something. It appears that there aren't any pencils in this office. I've looked around and there just aren't very many." By this time, I've paused, looked up and I'm trying to comprehend what the heck she's talking about...So I say, "You're looking for a pencil? Did you look in the mail room. There are some in the drawer." To this she replies, "No, no, I have one. I hide it so I can always find it but it appears that there is a shortage of them in this office." I probably stared at her a little too long before I explained that, "You know, we don't really use many pencils around here..." (While inside I continued, "Because we have these big things called COMPUTERS all over this office!") ..."I'm sure I can find you some more in a drawer somewhere." Then she left and I had to sit in disbelief for a few moments. I had no idea there were people still so passionate about using a regular old #2 pencil. I can only stand to use mechanical pencils because they stay sharp continuously. Sybil apparently is still a big fan of the old school pencil. Now I just got to go figure out where she's hiding this one pencil.

Medievaaaaaal Times!

2008-04-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

When we were up at Knott's we found the most cheese-tastic thing to do. We have seen pretty much everything up there - the Movieland Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It or Not, etc. But there was a place we had yet to visit and that was a place called...
(When you say it you have to draw it out like they do...Medievaaaaal Tiiiiimes!) It's a dinner show. I couldn't stop laughing the whole time we were in there. Basically it's this place that looks like a giant castle and all the employees are dressed up like knights, jesters, princesses, wenches, etc. When you go inside they immediately put these crowns on your head which kinda levels the playing field because now you look just as stupid as they do. They whisk you into a room where you take a picture with the KING! (Seriously, I think I had this look on my face the whole night - it was hilarious.) After your picture you get to mill around their gift shop area for a while. You can also look at the butts of the horse they use in the show. (The horse holding cells are glass at the back and so you can see them but basically they ignore all the human looking at them.) While you wait to get into the dining area they make funny announcements and knight people and stuff. Once your allowed into the dinner area they arrange you by the color of your crown. We got to sit in the blue section and we were assigned a knight to cheer for during the show. So they have all the knights running around doing knightly things like jousting and sword fighting and stuff like that. During all this you are served dinner by your serving wench (not my label) and you are not given any utensils so you have to eat with your hands. It was really fun and the crowd gets very into the show. I mean look how much fun we were having! It seems like a really fun place to have a kid's birthday party and unbelievably there were a lot of people there celebrating anniversaries and stuff. I would not advise that though.

Tar Pits

2008-04-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

During our weekend away we went and visited the La Brea Tar Pits which are located in the middle of Los Angeles. It's this big park that has this huge lake of tar. There's a cool museum there where you can see fossils from sabertooth cats and mammoths. All these ice age animals got caught in the tar which actually preserved them really well and they are able to find whole skeletons all over the place there. It was a fun place to visit. The only problem is that the place stinks like asphault, I couldn't quite put my finger on why. :) Here's a picture of Sid the Sloth and his friend Dippy.

Fabulous Fords Forever Show

2008-04-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago we got go up to Knott's Berry Farm for the annual Fabulous Fords Forever Show. This is a weekend that Angelo gets to drive his mustang around and I get to relax and read books so it works out for everyone. We got to our hotel late Thursday night but it was nice to just be able to relax the next morning. On Friday we ventured into LA to go visit the La Brea Tar Pits. On Saturday we got together with some of Angelo's "online friends" to go on a mustang cruise. This is the car club that he belongs to online. Now that my parents have a mustang they come up too. This year we had 23 cars on the cruise which was pretty cool. We basically go driving around for a few hours. Here's pictures from our pit stop. From there we drove down to Long Beach and went to dinner. The actual show has hundreds of old ford cars in the Knott's parking lot. During the show you park your car, put your hood up and then everyone wanders around looking at each other's cars. It's kinda funny. We had lots of fun this year and it is such a nice get away weekend.

Happy Birthday Whitney!

2008-04-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

My niece Whitney turned 17! Goodness, it seems like only yesterday she was running around dressed as Disney characters. I think she thought she was Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" for almost 10 years. She's so cute! She is now a die hard New England Patriots fan and nearly died when Tom Brady & team lost the Super Bowl this year. She has lots of funny stories about her obsessions with different boys. I think her motto is "a little drama never hurt anyone." Happy Birthday Whit!

Happy Birthday Mom!

2008-04-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

My mom's birthday was on the 13th and I never got to post about it so......Happy Birthday Mom! My mom is so wonderful! She is one of the most encouraging people I know. One of the best things I've learned from my mom is you can usually figure anything out if you try hard enough. My mom has also taught me to be easy going and to take things in stride. My mom has a great sense of humor and doesn't really mind that we always make fun of the way she says some things. For instance the word condominium. She can't ever pronounce that word...she says condo-MIM-ium. Why? I don't know. I have sat for long periods of time trying to get her to say it right but it never helps. Those sessions always end with me laughing at her. We love you mom and thanks for all you do for us! You're the best!

Classic

2008-04-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

One of my co-workers is in LA today and I had emailed her asking where her written notes were from our last board meeting. I had looked all over her office for the notes but hadn't found them. This is the response I got back from her this afternoon:

"Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 3:20pm
To: Katie Outlaw
Subject: RE: question about minutes

Hi
I think all the notes are in a pile on the floor in the corner at the tall bookcase behind the desk......I hope you can find them"

Oh how I love a good treasure hunt! The crazy thing is that I was able to find what I was looking for in a huge stack of notes sitting right there on the floor. At least she knew where they were. Some filing system we've got here, eh?! We're state of the art I tell you! This is so classic film commission. We know we have stuff and we can even usually find it!

The other highlight of the day was the script a co-worker shared with me for a commercial that featured a ditzy blond hooter girl sitting on a witness stand that included the typo: "...she giggles her boobs." They wanted to shoot this in an actually courtroom! Something told us a judge wasn't going to let that happen so he told them to look for something that could play as a courtroom. Ahh, never a dull moment...you stay classy San Diego.

Deep Thoughts

2008-04-10T13:52:00.001-07:00

The other night I had finished off a bottle of cream soda and had an amazingly rip-tastic burp come out! I turned to my husband and said, "You know, that Simpson guy really gets it right when he draws his characters burping - with the lips wiggling and stuff? That's exactly what it feels like!" Angelo just looked at me and winced while he waved his hand in front of his face.

Getting back on the proverbial horse...

2008-04-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

I am back in the saddle again. This week marks my sixth week of consistent exercising! Yippee! I didn't really have a choice. I get tension headaches all the time. February was especially bad because I was stressed out all the time. Before February I would get a headache about once a week that would put me out of commission for a night. In February I was getting them every couple days and I was getting dizzy too which was new for me. That scared me so bad that I decided I had to start exercising again. I have made some futile attempt over the last few years to get back into it but my weighty behind allowed me to continue sitting on the couch. One day I went to deliver a report to the County and I was unable to walk up the 4 flights of stairs to get to the office without being totally winded by the time I reached the top. I had to stand there for a minute to catch my breathe before I could go up and talk to the girl at the desk. I was so embarrassed! All I could think was I am in my twenties and I know some old ladies that can walk faster than me. So I have to thank my fear of getting a brain aneurysm and the County Administration Building for getting me active again! So since March 3rd I have worked out with my TV for 4 to 5 days a week. (Most weeks have been for 5 days!) I am really proud of myself and I have only had two headaches in that 6 week period - it's a miracle!

Great moments in presidential speeches?

2008-04-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

David Letterman has a great segment on his show called "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" which will unfortunately (or fortunately) be coming to an end in January. YouTube has a great compilation of the bit posted here. Come January it will be a end of an era. I don't know if the U.S. will ever have another president quite like Bushy. I haven't decided who I am voting for in November, as of now we don't even know who will race against McCain but I will say that I was very inspired by Obama's speech on race. I think that what he said was right on point and I have found myself thinking about some of the things he said in his speech weeks after I first heard them. If you haven't seen or read the speech you can see it here. (It's long but worth it.) Whomever wins in November, I hope that they will be able to inspire the American people instead of making them wince every time they stutter while talking about our plans in Iraq.

PJ Day

2008-04-07T14:05:00.001-07:00

I so look forward to conference weekends! Twice a year we get to watch church on TV! It's awesome. Sometimes I think Sundays are my busiest days of the week. It was so nice not to have to worry about anything church related this weekend. Last night as Angelo and I were falling asleep I said, "You know what? I never changed my cloths today!!!" Angelo said, "You're wearing the same thing you woke up in?" I said, "Yep, I didn't shower or anything, isn't that awesome??? I haven't been able to do that in a while and I wasn't even sick!" Angelo just laughed and me.

New (to us) car

2008-04-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

We were able to get Angelo a more masculine car (although I don't know how masculine this picture is?) It's a '05 Toyota Tacoma. They are suppose to last forever. He likes it so much I haven't been able to drive it yet and we've had it for 2 weeks.

Happy belated birthday to Seth & Luke!

2008-04-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

In all my non-blogging I missed wishing the babies a happy birthday! They aren't babies anymore since they turned five! We hope they had a happy birthday. This is a really funny video featuring Seth and Luke as leprechauns. Don't make the leprechauns mad! They are so funny!

Bee Careful!

2008-04-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

Another funny thing that happened to Angelo this last month was he ate a bee! What?! How does one eat a bee? Only Angelo could figure that one out. One Saturday we were eating lunch on our back patio. I had noticed a bee flying around because it made me get up out of my seat. If the bee wants my seat he can have it! I starting playing with our cats and when I went back to the table Angelo had spit out a bunch of chewed up pizza onto his plate complaining that that bite hadn't tasted good. A few minutes later he said his throat hurt. We went inside and over the next 5 hours he continued to complain that he hurt. He swished some salt water around in his mouth which made him feel a little better. Later that night he kept talking about his throat. I asked if it was like he got bit or something and the light bulb finally turned on. I said, "That bee! I bet you ate that bee!" So we went to the kitchen and found the plate with the chewed up pizza on it. He dug around a bit in it and, low and behold! - we found the butt of a bee. The bee had unsuspectingly landed on Angelo's pizza and Angelo had chomped the thing in half but the sucker stung him before he was finally done in! We took a picture of the disgusting chewed up bee but I can't bring myself to post it. During our discovery I almost ralphed so I don't want to subject anyone else to it. After figuring out what had happened we went to the bathroom to check out his mouth. I looked in there and towards the back of his mouth, sure enough, there was a little stinger still embedded in his cheek. I pulled it out with some tweezers. It was really weird. How lucky he is that he isn't allergic to bees.

Bye Irma

2008-04-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

Have I become a manic blogger or what? The end of March was eventful but not so eventful that I should have stopped blogging. I don't know what happen. Angelo had a lot of weird stuff happen to him which was sort of amusing (now that we're over it.) First he chipped his back molar and had to go to the dentist to get it filed down. Once he was done at the dentist he went to start his car but it just made a horrible noise and then it caught fire. Not in the billowing flames sort of way, just some black smoke coming through the vents. Our little Irma had finally kicked the bucket. She had held on for a long time though. (We called our silver Taurus that because 1) the license plate number had "RMA" as part of it and 2) the car also looked like a grandma's car.) So I had to go pick him up and we called a tow truck. The tow truck driver drug Irma onto the back of his flat bed and kinda laughed because he said he picks up a lot of Taurus'. The good thing was that our insurance covered the tow. So I left Angelo to ride home with the tow truck driver and went off to work. When I came home I found that they had deposited Irma on our side of the street but she was facing the wrong way and was more than 18 inches from the curb. I noticed this only because a meter maid was kind enough to point this out to us with a friendly yellow ticket afixed to Irma's windshield. Lovely. $47. I guess this sort of balanced out with not having to pay for the tow. Does insurance cover stupid tow truck drivers too? I guess not. This was on a Tuesday night and Angelo and I both had busy night's with our mutual groups. (Have I told you Angelo is our new Young Men's President? Well he is. It makes coordination meetings a lot easier.) So we couldn't deal with our "backwards too far away from the curb" car until about 9:30 at night. Irma's engine would not turn over so Angelo and I were reduced to pushing the car around our street in a 20 point turn to get it facing the right way and close enough to the curb. It kinda looked like a circus routine. You know where the clowns try to maneuver a car around and wave their arms around a lot? Whenever a car would come down the street we would pause and act like we were normal. It was pretty funny now that I think back on it. Irma was donated to Father Joe's on Friday. Bye Irma!

Sybil

2008-03-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

Today my co-worker popped into my office and said, "Hey did you hear that they are making two movies out of the last Harry Potter book?" I go, "yeah, I heard that." Then he smiled real big and says, "Maybe she'll have a part!" Of course he was referencing our new intern which I have talked about before. I immediately burst out laughing. As he walked down the hall he yelled, "hocus pocus!" Which made me laugh even harder. Then a few seconds later he buzzed through to my phone and yelled, "Abracadabra!" She has proven to be quite interesting. (Sometimes the book matches the cover.) I have taken to referring to her as Sybil to my co-workers. I am bound and determined for someone to accidentally call her Sybil - especially this co-worker. My plan has almost worked a few times. I don't even thinks he knows what her real name is so he just never calls her by name. My brainwashing is working. I have a few more months to make it happen.

Daylight Complaining Time

2008-03-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

I hate the time change! I can not seem to wake up all day long. Everyone at work is complaining about it too. It takes two weeks to get used to it...why does the time change again? Whatever the reason - it's stupid.

Happy Birthday Karyn!

2008-03-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

My little sister Karyn turned 27 today! Whoohoo! Here a few pictures to take us back down memory lane... What are we doing? And who's car are we doing it in??? Sorry Janet. Remember when the cat gave birth to her kittens in our bed??? (We were asleep in it at the time!) We woke up and there they were. Here a picture of the kittens when they were a little older.
Halloween pictures are always fun. What are we the Easter bunny and tooth fairy?
Here's another Halloween classic...I am a cowgirl (Sweet moon boots!) and Karyn chose to be an Ewok! We were watching this too much at the time. This wasn't as bad as the Halloween when I made her be Sandi the dog to my little orphan Annie. (I was a bit obsessive with Annie for a while there.) Karyn, I hope you have a great birthday. There's no one else I'd rather be in embarrassing pictures with! Happy birthday, we love you!

Stupid Politicians

2008-03-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

My boss had some funny stories about a particularly stupid elected official that held office in San Diego a while back. Once this councilman showed up at a garage sale she was having at her house. She got into a conversation about how many cats she had (she has 8 cats!) with him and he mentioned that he had a bunch of rabbits. He explained that his neighbor was going to give these two rabbits they had to the shelter so he took them instead. He said that for some odd reason more and more rabbits were showing up in the cage. Cathy mentioned that he must have had both a girl rabbit and a boy rabbit. To this he seriously said, "No, no, they are brother and sister, that couldn't be it."

This same politician had been in a meeting with her husband who worked for the financial management office at the time. They were discussing finances at the city and how the old fire engines needed to be replaced. The councilman came up with an ingenious idea- "Why don't we just send the old trucks out to the false alarms?" Her husband had to politely explain that if they knew the calls were false alarms they wouldn't be sending anyone out to the calls!

In another meeting they had the councilman had to take a call in the middle of their discussion. The phone conversation started running on and on and on and the councilman had turned his swivel chair around while he was talking. Once the conversation finally ended he turned back around and was visibly startled that my boss's husband was sitting there - he totally jumped! He had forgotten he had someone in his office.

Can you believe anyone this stupid can be elected to office??? Ok, I guess it's not that big of a surprise.

Visually Embarrassing

2008-03-05T16:29:00.001-08:00

Today at our staff meeting my boss was describing a phone conversation she had with someone. She was trying to tactfully tell the person to not give much credibility to this idiot that we have to work with sometimes. She said that this person was "visually embarrassing" which I thought was a hilarious way to describe someone who doesn't present themselves very well and at one time (and I am not joking about this) had been mistaken as a homeless person in our office. So I am going to start using this. I turned to a co-worker immediately and said, "you better not ever visually embarrass us!" and we began to giggle. Ah, Cathy - always the source of such merriment. The other day the whole staff went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant and at the end of the meal Cathy asked if anyone wanted any desert, "perhaps some phlegm?" At which point I burst out laughing responding, "Cathy, it's called flan." It was another memorable Cathy moment - not at all visually embarrassing. Anyone want some phlegm?

My emergency laser surgery

2008-03-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

So I have to tell you about my emergency laser surgery that I had to have last month. It wasn't really an emergency and I guess I shouldn't really classify it as a surgery either. It was more like a procedure but there was definitely a LASER involved. I had gone in for my regular teeth cleaning at the dentist. During my examination the hygenist was checking out my tongue and called the dentist in to see something. Apparently under one side of my tongue I had grown an abnormally large flappy thingy. At least that's how they described it to me. It was way at the back down where my tongue connects to...well, where ever your tongue connect to. Is that classified as your throat? Anyway, it was way in the back there under my tongue. So the dentist thought it was a good idea that I visit an oral surgeon. I don't think it's ever good when your at one doctor's office and they send you to another one. It just doesn't give me warm and fuzzy feelings inside. So the desk lady called and got me an appointment at the oral surgeon's office that same day. So I get to the office about 2:15pm. I immediately got put in a cold, sterile, white room by myself. You know the kind where you can't help but say "hello?" just to see if there's an echo. The nurse had asked if I wanted a magazine but I had declined. Stupid! If a nurse asks you if you want a magazine it's usually a good indication that you're going to be there a while. I got to sit there alone with only my thoughts for about forty minutes. I swear I almost feel asleep about 5 times but the sound of my shoes rubbing against the plastic lining kept waking me up.

The doctor finally came in, greeted me, then asked me to stick out my tongue. As I did he grabbed my tongue and pulled it out a little further than is physically possible and then pulled it to my left cheek (the one on my face.) It looked like this...But it felt like this...

He looked in my mouth for a while and then said, "Yep, you appear to have an enlarged lingual tonsil back there." He then checked the other side to see the difference. He said that it was abnormally large (something I don't enjoy hearing about myself) and that it was probably nothing but that it would be a good idea to remove it and make sure. So I agreed, signed my life away and they wheeled in the mobile laser center. Soon my big sterile room was filled with a bunch of equipment. They just wheeled all this stuff in and I didn't even have to move! My favorite part was the nurse testing out the laser right in front of me. She put a tongue depressor in front of the laser beam and moved it around to make sure everything was operational. For a second I thought maybe she was going to write my name in the wood and give it to me as a keepsake. They fitted me with some sweet shades and the doctor came in and gave me a numbing shot which hurt really bad. Then once that had taken effect he began the "laser procedure." The nurse's job during this was two fold - 1) grabbed my tongue and pulled it out and to the side again and 2) use that suction tool to suck up the smoke from my burning flesh. Boy is that a pleasant smell! It was a pretty quick operation. The doctor just zapped the back of my mouth with the laser beam and pulled the flappy thing out. To his credit he didn't have much room to work with and he managed to not remove my whole tongue so it was pretty successful. He showed me the said "flap" and it was kinda big - about the size of a molar. So they put the "specimen" (ew, yuck I hate that word) in a jar and said they would send it out for a "bobopsy." I was hoping that they did not find teeth and a spinal cord in my flap. Perhaps, inside the flap, was my twin. Hopefully not though.

So I returned a week later armed with a magazine this time to wait for my biopsy results. I was in the room for about 2.4 seconds before the doctor came in and told me the results. It had come back as (and I quote) a "Right postero-lateral tongue-squamous epithelial-lined lymphoid" which apparently was non-life threatening. Just abnormally large. I think I might go back and have them take a look at my thighs and see what the laser can do with those.

Debit or credit?

2008-03-04T15:22:00.000-08:00

I was at the grocery store Friday night picking up some groceries when I went to pay for my stuff, opened my wallet and noticed the empty slot. Oh crap, where's my debit card! Of course my mind began to race - where could it be? Did it get stolen? Is it in one of my pockets? Did I mistakenly eat it when I was hungry this afternoon? While this inner turmoil was carrying on I calmly took out one of my credit cards and swiped it through the machine. As I rushed home my mind was racing - where did I use it last? I got home and dumped my purse out on the coffee table and emptied my wallet. Nope, not there. Then I went to the internet to make sure we still had money in the account. Phew. Then I went and looked at where I last used it and it all came back to me. The last time I had used it was at the post office on Monday. Curse you post office! They always set the card down on the counter instead of handing it back to you. (Notice how I accept no blame for losing my own property!) I immediately wanted to rush to the post office and get my card, hoping that it had been found and would be waiting for me. By this time it was almost 7pm and that wasn't going to happen. So I had not missed the card all week long and then once I had finally figured out it was gone I was all in a rush to get it back. Seeing as no one had charge anything to the card in a week's time seemed to be a good indication that the card had been safely thrown into some post office drawer where they keep all the hundreds of cards they don't hand back to people. We took a special trip downtown on Saturday to retrieve the card. The postal worker just asked for my ID, went in the back and fished around in the drawer for the right card. I feel much better now that the card is safe and sound in its proper slot.

Do U love U2 2?

2008-03-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight we went to see U23D. I have been waiting to see this forever. It's a 3D movie concert from U2's Vertigo tour from a few years ago. You have to wear 3D glasses and everything. Of course there was the obligatory close up of Bono reaching out and it looked like you were able to touch him. Once it started I had a perma-smile which lasted the whole 120 minutes. I almost cried. (Ok, so I kinda did for a second but just like one tear.) Can I just say that I HEART BONO!This has been a long time obsession for me. There are not many things that I go bonkers for. I'm pretty mellow about most things but U2 is my one thing. In college me and one of my strange roommates rented all the U2 concert movies and watched them all in one night. I own "U2: Rattle and Hum" and have seen it about a million times. (Even though Bono was in a sort of pirate phase during that time I still think he was awesome.) Whenever Bono is on TV I have to pause and rewatch it. My husband is very understanding about this. Sometimes he'll even point out a "Bono sighting" for me. Tonight I realized that there are at least 2 pictures of him hanging in my house. Once I realized that I thought it was kinda weird but then I got over it - Bono stays! My first live U2 concert was in 2001. I flew home the week before finals week from BYU to see U2 at the Sports Arena, oh, and also to get engaged. It was the best week of my life! I got to see Bono in person and I was going to get married! The second time seeing them was during the Vertigo tour in 2005. Angelo and I went the first night they were here in San Diego and then I surprisingly got to go the second night they were in San Diego too! A friend from work had acquired some tickets and invited me to go with her and I almost died! Bono twice in one week!? It was awesome. So it was fun to see the concert again tonight. They closed with "With or Without You" which is all anyone can really ask for.

Fine Amish Craftmanship

2008-02-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

So this is the newspaper "article" which made my dad make his most recent purchase. Note that the word "advertisement" appears in fine print at the top. Notice the headline - "Amish man's new miracle idea helps home heat bills hit rock bottom." The "miracle idea" is to create a electric heater that looks like a real fireplace but this one rolls around on casters. That's right folks, a fireplace you can put in the middle of your room! The Amish part of the product is the handmade cherry mantle that surrounds the faux fireplace. Now to be fair my dad didn't really care about the Amish part of the product, he just thought it was kind of a cool idea. So this is what arrived on the doorstep one day... And this is what this fine, handcrafted beauty looks like in person...Tah dah! Isn't your heart just warmed by the sight of it!? (Don't you love these pictures? We tried to to get pictures that the Amish could use in their next ad. Paul and Martha are visiting this week and got to enjoy the hearth as well. Paul's caption for this picture was "Another Satisfied Customer!") Look at the realistic looking burning coals (they flicker!) You can hardly tell it isn't a real, working fireplace! I mean except for the fact that it is in the middle of the room and that it is just about 2 feet tall. And feel the heat!!! Actually it doesn't put out much heat which is kind of a problem since it proclaimed to be an economical heating device. So sadly, my dad is going to return it. Although the burning question is how do you return a product to the Amish - they don't use phones! It will be hard to part with the faux fireplace. (Does anyone else see a similarity to the "Christmas Story" leg lamp??? Maybe this fireplace is actually Italian too. It does say on the box Fra-gee-lay!)

Stressed

2008-02-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

Work has just been all consuming the last few weeks and I will be glad to see February go. Too many huge projects all at once. When your life has been too busy to blog your life is just too busy! Today when I was creating on my 10+ page spreadsheet I mindlessly named it "Total Breakdown." When I opened it later the title seemed quite ironic and it made me laugh which was actually kind of therapeutic.

Happy Birthday Tom!

2008-02-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

Today is my brother Tom's birthday! I hope it was a fun one! He's a big Charger fan and he does a great wookie impression. We love ya!

Hail Cesar!

2008-02-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

Today on my way into work I was stopped at a traffic light just outside my building when I spotted the cutest gray and white pit bull puppy coming around the corner. He was being walked by what I thought was his owner. He was so cute with his floppy ears and big feet! The next thing I noticed was an adult pit bull walking with them but he wasn't on a leash. I thought it was strange to have a pit bull off a leash in the middle of downtown. The next thing I noticed was the dog walker - I knew that I knew him but it took me a second to figure it out. It was none other than the Dog Whisperer!!!
Have you ever seen that show on the National Geographic Channel? Cesar Millan is like the Supernanny for dogs! He's a dog behavior specialist who goes around the country helping people with their dog problems. It's a funny show. I don't watch it very often but one holiday they were having a "Dog Whisperer" marathon and I watched it all day long. There weren't any cameras around him this morning but it was just a funny moment.

Happy Belated Birthday to Joe!

2008-02-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a BIG birthday shout out to my brother-in-law Joe! Happy Birthday! Now a key part of a birthday shout out is a silly picture of you posted on the internet. You asked for it, so here it is...

Buddies

2008-02-12T23:22:00.000-08:00

I have a buddy for each of my favorite pastimes. Otto is my TV watching buddy. Jasper likes to sit with me when I'm scrapbooking. He is a very good companion cat. He keeps a good eye on his humans.

Happy Birthday Carson!

2008-02-11T23:41:00.000-08:00

We hope Carson had a great birthday! He is the funniest kid. The following picture just about sums it up...
He turned 14 today! How'd that happen? We hope he got everything he wished for. Here's another good picture of him and grandpa.

Inappropriate

2008-02-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went to ANOTHER baby shower. Tis the season I guess. Anyway, this was a shower for one of my friend's from high school and so our moms always come to these things too. I had put my new red Coach purse with the rest of the purses in the living room. At one point my friend's mom picked it up and said, "Who's purse is this!!??" I happily replied that it was mine and she went on and on how pretty it was and how she wanted it, blah, blah, blah. She asked where I got it from and I told her my boss had given it to me for my birthday. She then asked where I worked and said how lucky I was. I then replied, "Yeah, I am very lucky, me and my boss are very close." She then looked sideways at me and gave me an "oh really???" sort of a look which took me a few seconds to process. When I was in elementary school I remember some teacher doing the "what do you picture when I say the word firefighter or nurse?" quiz. Once you had a mental picture in your head they would show you a picture of a woman firefighter or a male nurse just to show how sometimes we think of jobs as gender specific. On Saturday I learned that apparently when you say the word "boss" a person usually pictures an older man in an expensive suit. Once I picked up what she was putting down I blurted out, "NO! My boss is a woman!" She started laughing and I was very glad I was able to clear that up before it was too late.

By the way, here's a picture of my new fabulous purse - which I love. I have NEVER paid over $50 for a purse and I was firmly committed to the notion that it was a waste to spend so much money on a stupid purse but I am beginning to understand the appeal of a great purse. I am truly developing real feelings for this accessory - not my boss, the purse.

IT Support

2008-02-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

This is what I heard this morning coming from our computer room...

Husband: "Oh yeah, well kiss my a**!"
Computer: "bewwwwww" (powering down)
(Husband comes out of room looking content...)

Me: "What was going on in there?"
Husband: "Oh, I'm just doing some troubleshooting."

Before Super Tuesday...

2008-02-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

...there is Annoying Monday! When we got home from work today we found over 10 messages waiting for us on our answering machine encouraging us to "get out and vote" tomorrow. Angelo and I are registered with different parties so we always get the junk mail and phone calls from both the democrats and republicans. (Which is actually kind of interesting.) We got calls today from all kinds of people including Cindy McCain (John McCain's wife) who called us twice just for good measure and also a POW friend of McCain's. We also heard from volunteers from Mitt Romney's camp as well as Scarlett Johansson who called to encourage us to vote for Barack Obama tomorrow. (We didn't hear anything from Hillary. She must have sensed we weren't interested.) The phone continued to ring all night with more exuberant callers with more voting advice. I am actually kinda upset that Oprah didn't call, I would have liked to have heard from her. The sad thing is these phone calls must work to some degree or else they wouldn't do it. I will be glad when this supposed "super" Tuesday is over with. Then we can just go back to our regular evening telemarketing phone calls that just want us to increase the services on our credit cards, not "rock the vote!"

Scarlett helps us decide between blue or red...

Have you ever...

2008-02-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

sat in your car furiously looking in your purse for your keys and then discover that they were actually in the ignition? Oh, and your car was already on? Yeah...I've never done that either. Or how about trying to squeak out a silent one while in Target but instead create a thunderous rumble that seems to reverberate throughout the whole store? Nope, never. I swear neither of these things happened to me tonight.

Happy Birthday Jake!

2008-01-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

My nephew Jake turns 16 today! That is so weird! Now he can drive! I was staying with his parents in Utah when my sister went into labor. It was really fun to be around when he was born. He was such a cute baby. I totally remember going with them to the hospital and on the way stopping at a store to get magazines for Janet. (I don't know why I remember that.) One of my favorite things about Jake is his sarcastic wit. He is super funny. Be sure to wear your seat belt Jake! :)

President Hinckley

2008-01-27T21:12:00.000-08:00

President Hinckley died tonight in Salt Lake City at the age of 97. What an amazing man. He was not just the leader of the Mormon Church but a prophet of God. While it is extremely sad that he is gone in a way I am happy for him. He gets to be with his wife again and he lived such an impressive life. I always loved hearing him speak - he always had a way of stating things so simply. He always spoke with such kindness and love. He is such a great example and touched so many lives including my own. I got to hear him speak in person once when he came down to speak to all the youth in the San Diego area about 12 years ago. When he walked in the room everyone began singing "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet." There was no denying the spirit that was there and that this man was a prophet of God. He will be greatly missed.

Valentine Avalanche

2008-01-22T13:31:00.000-08:00

Here's my Haiku poem contribution to the Valentine Avalanche poem contest...

Ready? Here it comes...
A valentine avalanche
See's and Hallmark win.

Thanks guys!

2008-01-18T22:54:00.000-08:00

I got the coolest package in the mail this week! I opened it up and found tons of movies! Yippee! Each movie was individually wrapped and was from a member of the Famme family. One of the packages said H.B.K. - what could that mean!!?? J/k - ha ha! Each movie sort of reminded me of the giver. Especially the Terminator/Robocop combo which was from my 4 year old twin nephews. (I don't believe that was a coincidence. I think Seth is Robocop (with the broken arm thing) and Luke is the Terminator.) I love all these movies and we didn't have any of them! Sleeping with the Enemy is one of my favorite thrillers! Janet, how'd you know that?
I also got a white kitty and a battle scarred (he's missing and arm and a hand) dragon man from Luke. I will let dragon man watch Robocop with me.

Gladiators Ready?!

2008-01-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

So I am totally enjoying the new American Gladiators series. It is pretty similar to the old one and all the new gladiators are pretty cool. My favorite gladiator, I have to say, is Titan. He reminds me of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

He's so pretty and plastic-y. I am totally entertained by him.

Christmas is finally done!

2008-01-18T22:07:00.000-08:00

So last week I finally got the rest of my Christmas presents finished and mailed off! How sad is that!? I did a few Stampin' Up journals this Christmas (or post-Christmas if you wanna get technical) and I really liked them. These were my first go with books but I think they turned out cute.

This one was my first attempt and I put it together without opening the coils and removing the covers off the books which was dumb! That made it really hard to glue the paper around the coils and it took forever. This one was for my niece who loves Pirates of the Caribbean.
I decided to use my brain on these others and it was a lot easier. This one was for my niece whose favorite subject is BOYS. It's my favorite.
For my nephew who is a major Charger fan.
I wanted to keep this one for myself. I really liked the paper.

New intern

2008-01-18T21:51:00.000-08:00

It's a new semester so this week we got a new intern at work. I want you to know that I totally support the adage of not judging a book by its cover but at the same time I also believe that you need to present yourself a certain way if you want to be taken seriously. Our new intern seems very nice but she looks like this... (I am not exaggerating!)
This is Emma Thompson as Professor Sybil Trelawney from the Harry Potter movies but as soon as our new intern stepped foot into my office I instantly thought of Sybil. While my co-worker was introducing her to me I didn't really hear anything she said because I was so distracted by her appearance and personality. Here are my thoughts as she stood in my office. (Internal me) "She's gotta be at least 40 years old. She's got foofy hair, round glasses, she looks like... Wow and that outfit, a black lacey camisole bra thing under a jean button up tank with a green and white skirt...wait a sec! I'm wearing that exact same skirt! Ahhh!" (I proceeded to roll myself closer to my desk so I could hide the fact that we were matchy-matchy!)

For a while I tried to remain in my office to avoid the obvious "oh my, we're dressed the same" conversation. I couldn't stay there forever though and I eventually had to have the discussion with her. "Wow, we're like twins!"

She is a very nice lady but she just seems a little nutty. That's not a judgment, more like a characterization. (Listen to the justification! I am a mean person.) So since I didn't hear any of the introduction for the new intern I totally don't know what her name is. I think I will call her Sybil.

I miss old Intern already.

Funny Message...

2008-01-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

When I got home from work the other day I found the greatest message on our answering machine. It went like this...

"Ahhh...Hey Katie, you know what??!! ( giggling) I just read your blog and I read about my birthday and...thank yooooooou. And...YOU KNOW WHAT?! I have an animated story for you! (More giggling) Talk to you later, hope you had a great birthday. BYE!"

Mercedes Out!

2008-01-14T23:24:00.000-08:00

So just to clarify...

This is the symbol for Peace:

and this is the sign for the Mercedes car company:

That center line down the middle is sort of important. Without it your whole message is kinda different. Please know that I am not making fun of anyone who might have made this mistake in the last week but it totally cracks me up when this happens. All I can think of is replacing the word "peace" with "Mercedes." It's like saying, "All we are saying is give Mercedes a chance" or "Mercedes, Love and Joy to you this holiday season" or even "Mercedes is patriotic!" So can everyone try to be a Mercedes-maker this week?

They say it's your birthday...

2008-01-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

As I have discussed with a few people this past week you don't just have a birth day you have more like a birth week. My official birthday was last Thursday but I have had the best week. My favorite part of my birthday has been all the fun phone calls, outings, and cards from people that I love. My BOGs took me out to dinner last Monday and it was so yummy! Thanks girls! We went to the Gulf Coast Grill and had the best clam chowder and I even ate fried green tomatoes! (I actually thought they were good too! That just proves I'll like anything that is battered and fried.) I also got to talk to all of my siblings this past week too which was so great. For my birthday Angelo and I went to lunch but for dinner we just decided to order a pizza and watch a Ghosthunters (our new favorite show) marathon from our DVR. Angelo did good too - he got me a gift certificate for a massage! I am way excited for that. Then at work the next day we had Birthday Friday. We have 3 birthdays all in one week so we always group them together. We gorged ourselves on more pizza and cake. (Tightpantsuary is looking even tighter now!) My parents took us out to dinner on Saturday which was really fun. They are always entertaining and funny. I also loved getting cards from my dear friends that I don't get to see very often but I miss very much - you guys are the best! So my birthday week has finally wound down but it was a great one. Thanks everyone! Next year is the big 3-0 and thank goodness I have a year to get used to that.