living in chaos

WHEW. if all goes as planned and at the same speed we've been going this week, we'll be completely out of the old apartment tonight. which means we'll have all of wednesday, thursday and friday to CLEAN IT UP. i'm seriously considering entering this old apartment in the guiness book of world records for the amount of dust bunnies it currently houses. it's really quite gross.

and have i mentioned the giant holes that i made in the plaster wall? i thought i could hang a shelf with those springing-screws (to which someone replied to me one day "oh, you mean those ones that don't work on plaster walls?" yes, thanks. those.) they're both about 1/2 inch across, and i'm nervous about trying to fix them myself. i mean, i thought i could hang the shelf. if i think i can fix the holes, will i just wind up with as big a mess or bigger than i have now?!?!? *sigh* we'll see...

and since we're still getting CRAP out of the old apartment, we haven't taken any time or energy to arrange or put away things in the new apartment. so we're living in madness, but it's really fun!

oh and to update the previous post, i said that the den is slightly smaller than our old one, which may be true, but the way it's laid out, it seems bigger with more space. go figure. this new place is truly amazing!

remember to pray for jency! they're well into their 4-weeks in india. tomorrow (which tonight starts around 10pm est - india is 9.5 hours ahead of us) is when they start going into the brothels to meet with/love on/pray with and for the women who "work" there. big stuff. God is much, much bigger.

a mighty announcement!

in case the subject scares you, i will clarify right out: to the best of my knowledge, no, i am NOT pregnant.

but i hope you will be just as excited when i blare the trumpets and announce that we are indeed MOVING!!! and no, it is not into our very own house, but into another apartment!! just a few blocks away!!! allow me to paste from an email i sent to a friend a few days ago, in hopes of saving my fingers a bit...

what's wrong with the apartment we're in: 1) window-unit air conditioners. it makes it so hot in our apartment that i don't want to cook b/c the oven makes it TOTALLY MISERABLY HOT. not wanting to cook makes us eat out. eating out makes us unhealthy. unhealthy people die early. our apartment is killing us!!!!!!!!!!! 2) no closets. i mean, there's my one tiny closet that's barely enough for my hang-up clothes. chris has a little cupboard thing that's NOT big enough for his hang-up clothes, and that's it. we don't even have a place to put extra toilet paper or sheets!!! and there's certainly no extra space for a bike or something bigger like that...3) no dishwasher. you know how quickly dishes pile up. it's fine, for a while. but after a year, we're tired of it...4) old, leaky windows. even though they're ALL painted shut, they still leak air. go figure. 5) bugs. remember last summer when i had all those nightmares about spiders? they haven't started yet, but they're about to. i can feel it. there's spider webs EVERYWHERE and holes where they come out at night and crawl on my face.....i just KNOW they do!!! 6) no parking. we have one car by choice, but we have full access and permission to use chris' nana's car whenever we say "go". one of the reasons we "choose" not to use it is because we have no place to park it!! 7) the bedroom isn't big enough to put my new queen bed, so we're sleeping on chris' double. it's old and caves in the middle. i bought the queen bed just a couple years ago TO SLEEP ON when we got married, and i toss and turn every night in the double and wake up stiff every morning. and every time we housesit the slatens (and therefore sleep in the queen) i sleep beautifully and wake up rested. *sigh* 8) it's not big enough for the FREE AND AMAZING FURNITURE we got from chris' mom's friend. it seriously won't fit up the stairs... 9) tiny, tiny kitchen with absolutely no counter space. and since we have no dishwasher, half of our no-counter-space is taken up by our ginormous drying rack...

what's right with the one we're in: 1) it's "charming" with the color of the walls, layout, doorframes, and "phone nook". 2) the location is perfect.

what's right about the one we are moving to: 1) central heat and air. enough said. 2) GIANT (seriously - it is giant!!) closet in the "master" bedroom and another good sized one in the 2nd bedroom. and there's an "under the house" basement that could easily take a bike or something of the like. 3) DISHWASHER. 4) brand new windows. (brand new everything, really - appliances, cabinets, floors, air unit, ceiling fans, etc...) 5) no sign of bugs ANYWHERE. 6) good sized parking lot behind the building similar to the one, but not quite as big as, that i had in my old apartment with jay are, so we could use nana's car if we decide we need it. 7) bigger bedroom that can fit a queen bed. GLORIA!! 8) it could EASILY fit all the good furniture we got. 9) great big kitchen with plenty of counter space!! bonus #10) it's on the exact same street that we're on now, so we don't lose the location. bonus #11) it's barely more expensive than what we're currently paying.

what's wrong with the one we looked at: 1) the den is slightly smaller than the one we're in now.

the fun part about it is that we're trying desparately (and told our current landlord) to get out by july 1. WHEW! crazy packing weekend, HERE WE COME!!!

i must go retrieve the husband from work and then run errands. hooray!!

thank-you notes, mandolins, and giggles

THEY'RE DONE!! thank-you notes have been hanging over our heads for so long, we don't really know what to do now that we're finished with them. but truth be told, there's still a little cloud left b/c we have a handful of unknown addresses left - people won't get back in touch with us!!!!! GRR! well fine then. you just won't get a thank you note...not that it would change your life anyway....

and i wanted to give a fat THANK YOU to allison for her awesome comment on the post below that totally made me feel better. *sigh* we're not the only crazy-late ones.

well i, of course, wasn't going to post about this, but seeing that EVERYONE knows the secret, i might as well tell the world. i was going to get chris a mandolin for our anniversary. (the specific one pictured, actually, which may have wound up going for too much on ebay anyway....but ain't it perty??)
so a few months before, i asked him if we were going to exchange presents. now, whether or not i misunderstood (highly likely) or he mis-spoke, i thought he said we were not going to do it. (just returning from a ski trip, saving for a house down-payment, saving for an october disney trip, etc) so i put the idea on hold. well, a week before our anniversary, he came to the car with a pretty big box and i was like "WHAT'S THAT???" after a lot of prodding, i finally got a "maybe..." out of him when i asked if it was for me for our anniversary. *sigh* so i had a little over a week to research and find a good deal on a good instrument. after lots of ebay searching, review hunting, running around town during lunch breaks and confiding in knowledgeable friends who will remain un-named, i gave it up. the main reason is that selecting an instrument is such a personal thing (some people have to play different ones multiple times to decide...) that he should probably pick one out himself, plus chris had been urging me that his gift to me was simple, easy and inexpensive (he noticed me running around and secretively checking the internet a little bit too much...) and then jency also told me that it would be too much (she knew what he had gotten me). but even after i gave it up, i found myself in a music store holding one, considering doing it anyway...but i didn't. even after the guy ran around trying to find a tuner. i thanked him and walked away. until christmas!! patience is so hard for me, especially with "good" presents. but i was going to let it go and wait 6 months.

BUT. the other day one of our dear friends, who will remain nameless, BLEW IT!!! chris talked to him and told him what i wound up getting him (Haunted Mansion CLUE - awesome game! and don't laugh - it's actually something he wanted back at christmas, and it was a good "match" for what he got me, which is this gorgeous bird-filled-tree metal wall hanging from World Next Door (formerly Canvas Canoe) - the COOLEST store in town!) and our dear friend said "oh, so that's what she got you after that whole mandolin fiasco...." chris told me this while we were walking around the mall looking for him some clothes. before he even finished the sentence, i was crying. i wasn't quite bawling, but it was close. and i could NOT stop. we were in public!! people were staring! i know they thought we were fighting. *sigh* every time chris tried to bring it up again throughout the evening, i would just shake my head and change the subject. why don't memory erasers exist? *sigh* oh well. no worries really. in fact, i'm pretty sure that we'll all still be friends - maybe...hah! just kidding. it's just a gift. nothing to lose sleep over. and i guess the mandolin will either be something we save up for and buy together, or something we don't ever get. i felt like it was one of those things that he wouldn't really want if he was asked, but would be glad to have if he was given one, you know? *sigh* shoot. maybe i'll just get him one anyway...when he's least expecting it...like for flag day!! (it's today, people - DUH!)

in more comical news is the following story. tuesday night at riverbend was the grammy award winners jars of clay. jeremiah (friend from college who become one of chris' co-workers) went, and said when "the opener" came on, he sighed and said to himself "who are these terrible openers?!" he left and went to get a smoothie a few blocks away. when he came back 45 minutes later, "the openers" were still playing, and he realized to his horror that they weren't the openers...it goes without saying that he didn't like them very much!

to add to the story, i talked to my mom wednesday morning who was also there that night - we didn't know they were going! i asked her what she thought, and she said "oh, i gave up. i don't usually give up, but i just couldn't stay any longer..." thinking she meant that they left before they started. she said "i got tired of listening to the marine-american idol guy sing..." i said "mom, all he did was sing the national anthem..." to which she replied, "well, yeah. but then he sang for a good hour after that too..." i said, "uh, mom? that was jars of clay..." there was a long pause which she broke by saying in disbelief, "nooooo....." and we proceeded to laugh and laugh and laugh. i'm still laughing about it!!! i mean, i can't blame her. they were dressed just a little bit...um, strangely? they were all wearing 70s looking work-out clothes - very short shorts, colorful and too-small polo shirts with headbands and stiped knee socks....silly, silly boys!!! but i actually LIKED that part! i need to post a picture or two...

i honestly didn't think they were that bad. i mean, we only stayed for 4 songs, but that was mainly because we're old and had to work the next day and we had to walk forever to get back to our car. but to have two people in my immediate life think they were so bad that they thought they were the opener....that's just sad. or hilarious...depending on how you look at it.

speaking of riverbend, we are SO over it. we both used to go EVERY night just to be there. we were there for hardly over an hour and were like "ready to go?" it's weird. maybe it's just a teenage and adults-who-drink-alcohol thing. we probably wouldn't be going back at all this week except that we have a friend coming to sleep on our futon tonight who's not showing up until around midnight - about 2.5 hours past our bedtime! but it's way worth it - he's a good friend. so we're gonna go dance and enjoy the steve miller band tonight. they sing awesome songs!! Take the Money and Run, Fly Like an Eagle, The Joker, Swingtown (you know - "come on and dance, come on and dance - let's make some romance...whoa OOOOOH oh oh ohoo oooh ooooh .....") i'm actually pretty excited. we've got some tokens left over and will probably get a funnel cake or something. mmm. so good for me.

even more comical news is that chris called me the other day from work and said that he went to the restroom (sorry - this isn't too graphic) and there was a man in the stall SNORING. actually snoring. that's all i have to say about that!

one more. man. i'm just full of funny stories. the other morning while i was taking chris in (he's working 730-415 since i'm working 830-4 so we can have the early afternoon together) we saw a lady in front of us with a flaaaaaaat tire. i mean, it was so flat that the rims were almost touching the ground. we were laughing and, not really making fun of her, but almost. and the thought briefly ran through my mind that i wasn't entirely (no pun intended) sure of the state of our tires, and made a mental note to check them when we got home. well, before i even got to our road, chris called and said "according to a guy i work with, our back passenger tire is dead flat!!" HAHA!!!and it was perfect timing for me to be able to turn into the gas station and fill her up with air. dude - it was completely flat. the pressure guage didn't even MOVE when i put it on there. amazing! it seems to be doing okay so far...but we might need 4 new tires....sheesh. they look pretty cracked...

enough rambling!!

just keeps going, and going, and going...

guess what we're doing in this picture....writing thank you notes!!! still. yes, we have broken the rule of finishing thank you notes within the year. we wrote a TON right after the wedding, and then we sort of went, "eh, the rest are close friends and family...we'll do 'em later...." well, now we're panicking. as of today, we have 18 left and have divided them between us. and the funny part is that we forced ourselves to say that we would take them to the cabin with us (going up this weekend!!) if we didn't finish them this week...so we're going to attempt to write them all during lunch today. and quite frankly, i'm pretty sure i can write 9 in an hour while eating lunch, but chris is a bit slower than i am...so i'll probably drive to the mountain so he can write. or something.

in other news, i'm going back to the chiropractor. thank you to everyone who gave me advice and your experiences and tips and prayers - i really think it's going to "fix" me. it's bizarre - to have constant pain and to be unable to lift things (even not-heavy ones) wihout being in pain, and suddenly being able to carry the groceries in. i walked in the other day with some groceries and chris jumped up to help me and i said "no thanks. i'm busy carrying heavy things!!!" then i cried....anyway, they have all these pamphlets for different symptoms and how/why chiropractic will repair the damage that has caused those symptoms. the one on arm/shoulder/neck pain is ME. entirely, totally and completely me and my symptoms...amazing. i'm hopeful! (even though last night and today have been super painful - which he says is normal, and even common, since things are moving around that haven't moved in quite a while...) some other symptoms that can be caused by a "subluxated" spine (that just means the vertebrae are out of line) are allergies, digestive problems, sciatica, migraines - all stuff that a lot of my friends and family have!! BAH! everyone should go to the chiropractor!! (hah! i've gone from running the opposite direction to telling everyone to go!!)

must go finish packing!! happy weekend!

quote of the week: "yes you do, my little golden robot princess!" -chris to lyndsay when she asked if the way she was walking made her look like C3PO.

1 year

happy one year anniversary to us!! neither of us can believe it's been A YEAR!!! if you're bored, go back and reminisce about what was happening a year ago. it's fun!! we got a random couple to take our picture on the bridge - where our wedding pictures were taken. FUN!

plus we joined our church today - finally! we have to take an "inquirers class" which is marvelous b/c you get to learn all about the church and its deep beliefs and what their mission is - more so than just attending on sunday mornings. anyway, they offered the classes on saturdays for about 6 weeks in a row a couple of times, and we would always wind up missing too many classes b/c we're so busy and constantly out of town. but a few months ago, they finally offered all the classes in one weekend, so we did it! it took us long enough...:)

some people

i really don't want to take away from yesterday's post about jency's trip to india, but i absolutely must rant about what i saw today. as i was running errands during my lunch break and approaching the tunnel beside where i work, i noticed a really big back-up similar to the one that happens at 5:00. i was amazed that the lunch hour was producing the same amount of traffic! or maybe there was a wreck! but as i drew closer to the tunnel, i realized what was happening. a man in an old truck was stalled inside the tunnel. ah. i see....no wait...he isn't stalled, he's moving. BACKWARDS! he was in the right hand lane, literally backing up. on purpose. i didn't stick around to see what his motives were. i was absolutely appalled. this one literally takes the cake.

i hope you enjoy my rendition of what happened today. the grayness around the truck is the darkness of the tunnel. obviously.

in other news, it's 3:30 and i only have 30 minutes of work left to go. dadgumit i love summer hours!!!