that rosebud girl

may will be nuts!

ugh….bored at work…sorta….it’s a pretty slow night….well, at least until 10:00 rolls around….

it’s been raining the last couple of days….which means i don’t have to water my lawn…quite a break for me. i had planted some new grass seed on friday and i knew i had to keep watering the lawn, but at least all the work is being done for me. i hope the seed hasn’t been too flooded, though. i hope it grows. i have all these grand plans for our front lawn and a garden, but well, the weather isn’t cooperating with me. blah.

may will probably be pretty busy. i can’t believe it’s may already. sheesh. edgar should be visiting us later in the month. mark is also coming down from albany for a weekend and will stay with pete. i’m hoping to see him too. i keep meaning to go up to albany, but i can never find the time. he’s good people. maybe we’ll all catch a baseball game or something.

ugh…i am hungry still….and i already had dinner….and i want donuts….and our parking lot is probably flooded outside….

*sigh*

sooooo bored….

philly is cool.

so now we are guest-less. it’s kinda sad, really.

kim left this afternoon to go back to L.A…..but not before we had a kick-ass time in philly on friday. in short, here is the theme, in photos:

a bell….

(the liberty bell)

a hall….

(independence hall)

and….a prison?!

(yes, it was once a real working prison. now it’s in ruins for people to see.)

the prison was by far the coolest thing we looked at all day. and we kind of stumbled upon it.

of course, we took kim out to see all the major historical things, like the liberty bell and independence hall. but we headed to the independence visitor center to poke around in the gift shop and to walk through so we could go to the constitution center on the other side of the building when kim saw the sign on an easel….eastern state penitentiary….tours every day until 5 p.m….and man, she got excited. apparently, she had done some research a long time ago about things to do in philly for a race program…and she had read about the penitentiary then….and now that she saw this sign, she totally wanted to see it.

so we hopped a bus, got there with about an hour to spare, and went poking around. the first part was an audio tour, which was cool. then, you were left to your own devices to explore this prison. it’s a really old building, probably close to 175 years old. and man, is it in ruins. it’s kinda creepy too.but i like creepy things. it was fascinating. and to think i never even knew it existed in philly. and it’s right down the street from where matt and elisa live. crazy. it’s like, prison ruins in the middle of a nice neighborhood. so, it was fun poking around and taking pictures…..

a prison hallway.

ruins of an actual prison cell. those tables have to be about 50 years old or something!

death row at eastern state pen.

no, i’m not really behind bars. but it made for a cool silhouette.

so this prison was the highlight of our day. and after we went there, i just had to go to this spot (hey, it was five minutes away!):

yes, these are those famous steps from the movie “rocky.” it’s really the philadelphia museum of art. no, i did not run up like an idiot and raise my fists in the air like rocky did in the movie. but there were a few imitators there, definitely.

in all, a totally fun day. we ended it with lobsters at downey’s with elisa. yum. i had sore feet, but it wasn’t too bad.

kim is here … and it’s busy.

it’s been a little hectic…a little busy…and very rainy….

kim came in on monday morning….rather uneventful….though we went to waffle house for breakfast. woohoo! i love waffle house. except i think this particular trip wreaked havoc on my stomach…which continued to affect me the next few days after that…ugh…more on that later….

but we did some shopping on monday, hung out, stuff like that. lots of fun. i hadn’t been shopping in a while.

tuesday was much the same….more shopping….and lunch at caffe gelato….mmm….gelato….the only bad thing was that i still felt sick to my stomach….and i kept hacking up a lung at work. blah. wednesday was even worse at work for me and i just wanted to shrivel up. ugh again. i couldn’t sleep, either, because i felt ill.

at least i felt a little better today, even though i didn’t get out of bed until 1 p.m. blah. but at least it was actually sunny today, unlike the previous three days. i’m supposed to pick kim up from the train station later tonight. just waiting for her to call. we’re all supposed to head up to philly tomorrow, which will be fun. and eat at downey’s with elisa. mmmm…..lobster…..oh, all this food and no workout in sight. oh well.

finally, today was tax day. but i already had my fed taxes done weeks ago (and paid off too). stupid government. taking away all my money. i filed state tax online too (only because tax cut was being a bitch and didn’t want to cooperate with me)….though those taxes aren’t actually due until april 30. oh, the quirks of living in delaware. but i figured i’d get that crap out of the way anyway. although i am broke now. stupid state government.

okay, back to work…it’s just kinda slow right now….

not a bad friday …

i got to go out with pete on friday night….i hadn’t been out in a while, either, so it was cool. we went to the balloon. it was the usual crowd…me, pete and bill….and we met up with one of pete’s friends….this chick named steph who’s a strength trainer at UD….and a damn fine dancer. reminded me of rizza a lot, except this chick was blonde and looked like a dead-on Britney Spears….but she was cool. she’s probably the coolest chick friend of pete’s i’ve met so far. she’s from idaho too. and she lived in california and worked at arizona state. so we had a fair amount in common.

but yeah, it was cool. the balloon was totally dead when we got there, but filled up nicely after about an hour. i also went 3-for-3….i didn’t have to pay for a single drink all night. awwwwyeah. the advantages of being female. ha! we also went to waffle house afterward…nothing like greasy food at 1 a.m. to straighten you out!

in all, it was a pretty productive friday. i raked and bagged some leaves in our front yard. damn, there were tons of leaves. i filled up seven bags. and i wasn’t even done bagging yet because i was tired. and my back started to hurt. it still hurts now. i need one of those heat pads. but i also managed to clean up some stuff and do a little sweeping. so at least i’m making progress. hopefully more stuff gets done over the weekend. i have until monday to clean up anyway and then kim gets here.

edgar IMed me yesterday and i think he’s coming out here for real….may 23-29….that would be cool. we’ll hang out and stuff. maybe we’ll go up to philly and i’ll take him to that black club i keep telling him about….and i told pete he needed to go to that club too just so everyone could laugh at his dancing….so now that’s two people i’ve told i would take to the club. but at least edgar can dance (or so i’ve heard). it must be that latino thing. pete’s just a hopeless white guy. ha!

anyway, back to cleaning….i have bathrooms to clean….ew….but someone’s gotta do it….

more weddings!

yes, we’re all at the marrying age, it seems….

i just got an email from my old high school friend gail today….she’s getting married this year too! yay! we had actually talked on MSN a little while ago and i did know she was planning on getting married…she was trying to straighten out some church stuff and whatnot. but she’s getting married on nov. 27. which makes me sad because it probably means she can’t come to my wedding, which is the week before. and it means i can’t go to hers either, even though technically i’ll be in the same region…but just on my honeymoon in vancouver. such a bummer. i’ll send her an invite anyway, though. and a gift probably. damn. i know she thought of having the wedding in july originally, but i guess that didn’t work out. i’m happy for her, though. and our weddings are one week apart. cool. i think if we’d known this would happen when we were in high school we would have laughed our asses off.

wow….four friends’ weddings after august. and two weddings that have already happened to friends of mine. wild. we’re all grown up! *sniff*

awww, kids.

sometimes, the little things in life make us smile…

i was having a soccer practice today….actually, it was a scrimmage with the team that we were supposed to play on sunday but didn’t because of the snow/rainout. but when we were done, i had a bunch of kids help me take the goals back to the trailer so we could put them away. as we were walking across the fields, i told everyone to stay in the middle so we wouldn’t disturb two other practices going on. as we passed one team, a girl came running up to me, calling me name. it was this girl named kristen who’d been on my team last spring. i immediately recognized her. she had broken away from her practice to say hello. after i put the goals back and sent the other kids on their way, i stopped by to talk to kristen’s mom. she said she was so mad that kristen wasn’t able to be on my team. they had requested to be on my team, but it had filled up already. i remember being told that one girl got turned away. i was so sad that it was her. i loved kristen. she was an awesome player, even for a first-year kid. but i chatted up her mom for a while. i’m glad kristen stuck with soccer. and her mom told me that she’d be first in line to sign up next time so kristen could be on my team.

nice to know that parents like me. and their kids like me. i didn’t know i had built up such a reputation. hahaha. but it was cool seeing one of my former players. hopefully i’ll get her back sometime.

on birthdays …

today is my cousin dianne’s birthday. she’s 17 now. wow. everyone grows up so fast! i keep losing track of how old all my cousins are. i just remember them as little kids.

i remember when birthdays used to count. now they don’t really mean anything. i only care about when i turn 25 because it means my car insurance goes down (hopefully) and i won’t get gouged by those stupid extra fees when i rent a car….

lazy, lazy, lazy!

i have no motivation whatsoever. how sad is that? i got out of bed, knew i had fifteen billion things to do….and didn’t do a whole lot of them. sure, some of my dirty dishes have been washed, and there’s laundry going, and some things in the living room have been squared away, but well, that’s just a tiny fraction of the cleaning i have to do. i have less than a week to make this house look halfway decent. and i sort of don’t care. oh well. i can’t really work without a deadline. so maybe i will get cracking….eventually.

once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator. what can i say? it’s my way of life. i am a slacker. *sigh*

i ordered a new phone from sprint and just called them today to see what my order status was. it was shipped today. i should get it by the end of the week. wheee! i will finally be able to go online on my palm pilot. sweeeeeeeeeeet. technology is cool. and expensive, too, unfortunately. blah.

i also stumbled upon a website for alums of the review, the UD student paper. and they had a link for people interested in mentoring students. sweet. i shot them an email last night at work. and i got a reply this morning that they would love having a non-UD grad volunteer. super sweet. so i filled out a form and was told to expect a response within a week. cool. i’ve always wanted to corrupt, er, mentor college kids. because sadly, many of them have no clue what the biz is all about. we were lucky at USC. so, share the wealth, eh? i still want to be an adjunct professor one day. like scott howard-cooper was at USC. i want to teach a sports reporting class. too bad we’re not in LA. i would totally work as a journalism advisor there in my spare time. i’d be like jabari. ha. except i’d be pulling in two salaries. but this is a start, i suppose. i think it’ll be fun.

and maybe 20 years from now, i will be an adjuct prof somewhere. preferably at USC. and then i’ll have staff privileges when it comes to football tickets. sweet.

a good dinner … and i didn’t cook.

ugh, i feel a little bloated….but the good news is, i only gained one pound after the delicious dinner we had last night….

matt and elisa made french onion soup. and some grouper with mashed potatoes. mmmmmmmm! the fish was awesome. and my brownies were a hit. i got to make fresh whipped cream in elisa’s shiny new kitchenaid mixer. i totally want one. someone has to buy it for me on the registry. damn. i really, really, really wish i had one.

but all that food made me want to throw a dinner party again. hmmm. i’ll have to do it. or maybe i’ll throw a brunch when kim is here. we’ll see.

weather is crappy again. and it snowed lightly this morning. ugh. just as well that our soccer games got cancelled.

ed is leaving on a jet plane again. *sigh* another week alone….and a week of home repair all by myself….

lots of people-related things.

it’s been a busy week or so…then again, when isn’t it busy?

ed came back from florida on friday…woohoo! but he has to leave again on sunday for a week….but at least he’s home again. cool. only a semi-empty house now. and i at least have someone to help me clean. hehehe.

the intern girl from kansas emailed me a few days ago….so i called her….and we will officially have a boarder this summer. i’m stoked. she sounds really nice. and she said she likes to travel. maybe there will be a few impromptu trips to nyc…or baltimore…or d.c….and it’ll be nice to have someone to hang out with when we’re not working.

i think kim also figured out her vacation plans….she’s supposed to come here next week….but i’m not sure if she booked her flight yet or straightened all that stuff out. but i think she’s coming. woohoo! our first visitor! of course, it means i have less than seven days to make this place look halfway decent…and i still need to re-caulk the shower door in the downstairs bathroom…and make other random minor repairs….arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh……

the weather has been crappy, crappy, crappy. i am freezing. this is not spring. it’s also raining like hell. so i haven’t gotten to my yard yet. *sigh* rain also wiped out my team’s first soccer game (supposed to be sunday). how sad. our picture day was supposed to be today too, but oh well.

ed and i are supposed to go to matt’s today for a dinner party he and elisa are throwing…i have to make brownies….and shower….and do this all fast! arghhhhhh. tap made me hungry and sweaty. and i’ve been frittering my afternoon away on my computer and trying to fix ed’s computer….so i guess i better get cracking…..and i hope my brownies turn out okay…