i'm back and i'm just as mediocre as ever

I started writing a long post but then I read it back to myself and it was the most boring thing I've ever read.  And that's saying something because I used to read the St. David School directory every single night from about ages 8 through 13 while I ate a bowl of ice cream before bed.  I'm not kidding.  I had the names, parents' names, emergency contacts, and addresses for every kid in our school memorized.

Sometimes I would even take it up to my bedroom to study it.  And then my mom would need to call a parent from school and because it was 1998 she didn't have the phone numbers programmed in the home phone and I can hear her voice in my head right now saying "Laura! Where the directory?!"

Anyway, I deleted the whole post and decided to steal an idea from Michelle and share the last 5 photos on my phone:

-1-

 I got this text from Matt as I was leaving my mom and dad's house on Saturday afternoon.  A cut that he thought could be cured with some band-aids and Neosporin on Saturday afternoon ended up to be a trip to Urgent Care for four stitches in his wrist and a two week prescription for an antibiotic by Sunday. 

-2- 

We had to go to Virginia for a funeral on Tuesday night, and due to Matt's aforementioned wrist injury, I drove.  Here is a charming aspect of Matt's personality: he cannot keep his unsolicited comments (of which there are MANY) to himself when I am behind the wheel of my very own car with my very own driver's license that I have had for sixteen years with no issue.  I drive too fast.  I drive too slow.  I change lanes without looking long enough.  I look too long before I change lanes.  I spend too much time looking in my rear view mirror.  I stay next to other cars for too long.  I brake too hard. I don't brake hard enough. I ease up on the gas when I pass.  I don't give it enough gas when I pass.  By the time we got on I-95 I had HAD IT with the Goldilocks in my passenger seat.

We finally arrived (safely, I might add, my compliments to the driver) to our hotel at about 10:30.  I'll just put it out there, we had a reservation at the Hawthorn Suites in Sterling, Virginia.  Travelers beware.  I'm pretty sure we witnessed a drug deal while we were waiting to check in, and when we got to our room, the air conditioner didn't work.  It was also a non-smoking room which smelled like an ashtray and my face started itching the moment we walked in.  ANYWAY after a ton of back and forth with the manager, who told us we couldn't check out and he also couldn't give us our money back or fix the air conditioner or give us another room because they were sold out, we informed him we would be fighting the charge on our credit card and leaving.   

We might not have high standards, but we have SOME standards.  

Or maybe we don't, because as we walked back to the car, I said to Matt, "Well, I guess it's a good thing I've watched some YouTube videos lately on how to sleep in your car."

He just looked at me, and I knew, we would not be sleeping in the car tonight with Matt on the case.

Which is good because I probably would have done it wrong anyway JUST KIDDING.

There was a Hyatt Place right down the road, so Matt ran in to see if they had any rooms and they did!  Except they were sold out of king beds so we got a room with two doubles.  By then it was past 11:00 and neither of us were in great moods so separate beds were probably for the best. 

Although Matt could not have been more thrilled with the Hyatt Place.  It was like a thirty year old man's version of Eloise in the Plaza.  He drank the free lemon water in the lobby by the cupful.  He rode the elevator.  He took the stairs.  He used the front door and the side door, spent over an hour at the breakfast buffet, and even checked out the outdoor swimming pool facility even though it's been closed for the season.  He sat on the couch and at the desk and stuck a candy bar in the fridge to keep it cold.  We were there for 10 hours and Matt got every single penny's worth.

-3- 

Kohl's has been having great sales lately and I officially bought my first kimono.  I wore it today and felt just adorable.  I took this photo to send to my sister and then I totally forgot I took it until I opened my phone just now.  So, I hope you're reading this Emily! I got a kimono!  And there's my vacuum! I don't know why I look surprised!

-4- 

Admittedly this photo is from a few weeks ago but I love it.  I saw Annie and Jack again this weekend because they came to stay at my parents.  I hung out there for a while and we went to the food store, and I had a major change of heart about a topic I've felt strongly about in the past.  And that is those tiny kid sized carts at the grocery store, more specifically kids using them on the weekend when the store is crowded. 

It's always kind of bugged me in the past because it turns out small children are terrible cart drivers (takes one to know one) but Annie got one this weekend, and it will go down as one of my top ten moments of the year.  She had the TIME OF HER LIFE.  I don't know that I've ever seen her so happy.  And you better believe she got in some people's way, but who the heck cares?  A lot of parents grocery shop on the weekends, and why should their kids not use those little carts because of grumpy people like me?  So, long live happy kids and tiny shopping carts on Saturdays.

-5-

Matt's best friend turned thirty last weekend and we went to a surprise birthday brunch for him.  I had to laugh because the two of them talked about stocks and 401ks and mortgages and so much grown up stuff, and then Matt snuck up on Bob from behind and put a temporary tattoo of Bob's face right in the middle of his forehead.  Some things never change.  You can't make old friends.

mirty and mixty

Well, I had in my head that tomorrow was the second Tuesday of the month and therefore, Show Us Your Books day.  I was all set to write about what I have been reading, and even stayed up late last night trying to finish "Educated" so that I could share my thoughts.  I felt like I was cramming for a final.  

Unfortunately, it turns out tomorrow is actually the third Tuesday, not the second, so, whoops.  Meet you back here in September to talk books!

In other news, and in case anyone is wondering, (no one is wondering) Old Blue passed inspection on round two.  I picked her up and did the drive of shame back home the day she failed due to her front brakes and rotors being completely shot.   

Matt bought new brakes and rotors and headed outside bright and early the next morning to change them.  He had asked me if I had noticed any unusual noises while driving and I said no, but when he went out to change them, he pulled my car into the street and backed it into the driveway. He came back into the kitchen and said "Come outside, I will show you what bad brakes sound like so you know for the future."

He pulled the car forward in the driveway and when he applied the brakes he said, "Do you hear that noise?" as we listened to a sound I can only describe as slow, airy pressure.

"Oh that noise? Yeah," I said, "I've been hearing that for months."

Turns out this was a case of the boy who cried wolf, or the girl who cried strange car noise. 

And the husband who dismissed the complaint until said car failed inspection.

Anyway, Matt changed the brakes and rotors in my car.  And then he mowed the lawn, put some finished touches on a concrete step he poured himself, and then came inside and made a cheesecake from scratch for my mom's birthday dinner.  We had my parents and my uncle for dinner on Saturday night.  We kept it easy and just did cheese steaks (which Matt cooked because he is a SHOWOFF) and we had such a nice time.

I have been working on my mom's present for months and months.  I won't share her age but it rhymes with "mixty" so I thought I would make her a special gift.  I made her a cross stitch, and each stitch represents a day on her life, and the color corresponds to the high temperature that day.  For example, the nineties are red, the eighties are orange, the seventies are peach, etc.  I used the archives on the Weather Underground website to find the temperatures, and worked on a year at a time.  It took me eight months and I've been burning the midnight oil the last few weeks to finish it.  I considered quitting somewhere around 1981, but I stuck with it and I am so glad I did.


I think she loved it.

This past weekend was my birthday and Matt and I went to the beach.  We both left work at lunch on Friday so we were at the beach house by 3:30.  Matt decided to take a bike ride and I headed for the ocean.  I was all by myself in my beach chair with my feet in the sand, reading my book by 4:00 Friday afternoon.  I cannot even tell you the last time I felt so relaxed.  I was so happy I could have cried.



I won't share how old I turned either, but it rhymes with "mirty" and I had some mixed feelings about it if I'm being honest.  But, we went out to dinner on Saturday night and I ordered a pina colada and the waitress carded me.  When she saw my license she was shocked that it was my mirthieth birthday.  Or at least she pretended to be shocked.

 


Either way, she got a good tip.

And I got another jar of Olay Regenerist.

unfortunately this blog post took an unexpected turn

Well, I'm here to report that no car windows have broken this week, but my car Old Blue is currently at the mechanic for her annual inspection and I am about as nervous as I could be.  It's ridiculous really.  I just hope she passes.  I hope they are nice to her.  I parked on a hill so I hope they remember to release the parking brake before driving her into the garage.  I hope they know sometimes the turn signal skips a beat but it always gets back into rhythm after a few seconds.

It's that time of year when all of these moms are talking about dropping their kids off to school and how a little piece of their heart is walking away from them and through those school doors and I'm over here thinking 

(PAUSE.  HOLD PLEASE. THIS IS A TEST OF THE EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM.)

As I was typing the sentence above, my phone rang and it was the mechanic calling to tell me that Old Blue needs front brakes and rotors to pass inspection.  

I called Matt to give him the news.  He wondered aloud when he last changed my brakes.  Since I just so happened to have my blog open, I searched the word "brakes" and found that they were changed in March of 2013 because I had written a blog post about it.

Every cent I've made off of this blog is now worth it.

That would be zero cents.

(throwback photo!)

Anyway.  I dropped the car off after work yesterday.  I had to stop at the grocery store first and bought a few things, including a lemon. It had been a long day on top of a long week and when I got to the self-checkout and it was time to pay for my lemon, I clicked the "unpackaged produce button"  on the self-checkout screen, then the "vegetable" button, and then the "L-N" button. 

I couldn't believe it, but it seemed that they had forgotten to add lemon to the options for L vegetables.  I scrolled and scrolled, and not a lemon to be found.  

There were leeks.  Several varieties of lettuce.  Something called a loquat.

But no lemon.

I stared at the screen for so long that the supervising cashier came over to assist me, and when I told her there was no option for lemon, she said, "That's because you're in the vegetable section.  A lemon is a fruit."

Of course a lemon is a fruit.  I know that.  But here is my proposal for grocery stores far and wide.  Put all produce in the same category.  Just lump it all together.  By the time I get to the self-checkout screen, I usually don't have enough brain power left to remember what produce is a fruit, and what is a vegetable, and that some stores call sweet potatoes yams, and I don't know 47 varieties of onions, I know yellow and red.  I don't know the difference between white and yellow, or what constitutes a sweet onion, or a vidalia, and that a tomato is technically a fruit but is commonly accepted as a vegetable and is therefore in the vegetable category.

Let's get back to basics.

I got myself checked out so it all worked out in the end, and now the only lemon I have to worry about is my car.

Just kidding.  My car isn't a lemon, it's just getting old.  

But with all of these lemons in my life, maybe I should make lemonade as the old saying goes.  I certainly know where to find the sugar in the grocery store.

well nothing is set in stone, and it's all gone out the window

When we moved into this house, our back steps were covered in old, rotting wood.  We removed the wood when we moved in, and underneath were concrete steps that weren't perfect, but were fine.

Earlier this summer Matt noticed that the bottom step was separating from the rest of the stairs, and they were all sloped towards the house which meant that when it rained, water was seeping into the foundation.  We proceeded to have 4372 conversations about what to do about these steps, including many technical details about water flow and slope and the mechanics of stairs and many other things I don't necessarily understand.

All I know is that at one point Matt threw out the idea of removing the whole staircase, and then instead of putting in a new one, creating a "gently rolling hill" out the back door and down to the patio/lawn.  I told my mom that idea and she said, "Did you remind him that he has a mother-in-lawn, and she isn't going to be rolling out the door and down to the patio?"

So, back to the drawing board.

In the end Matt decided to caulk the cracks and just replace the bottom base step.  A few weeks ago he took a sledgehammer to it, and then meticulously built a base for the new bottom step while I said encouraging things like, "Don't you think we should just hire someone?"

You know how people say you never use math in real life?  They've never lived at our house.

Matt dubbed this weekend concrete weekend.  He watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials about how to pour concrete, and then hit Home Depot as it opened on Saturday and came home with a concrete mixer and the last of eighteen eighty pound bags of concrete.  He'd been buying it at little at time so he didn't overload the bed of his truck, because for those of you playing along with the math at home, that's 1440 pounds of concrete.

(I just said to Matt, "How much concrete did the step take? Eighty pounds?")

I knew there were eights involved.

Here's what you need to know about concrete mixing.  It is no easy task.  Especially when it is 85 degrees and 97% humidity and you have no shade, and oh, you've never done it before. 

After a few hours the base was poured.  The concrete mixer had to go back to Home Depot but the concrete needed to be "floated."  I drove the mixer back to HD in Matt's truck while he stayed back and floated.  Matt has an old F-150 and while I do love being up high, it is really large and much heavier than my tiny Ford Focus, which can stop on a dime.  

Especially when you're hauling a concrete mixer in the back.

Anyway I got it there and home and parked in the road because ain't nobody got time to park that big old boat in the driveway.  We were going to grill for dinner but decided at the last minute to go out.  We couldn't decided what restaurant to go to so we settled on my personal favorite, Bertucci's.  I have very sophisticated culinary taste.

As we pulled into the Bertucci's parking lot, I pressed the button to close my window and heard what can only be described as the terrible sound of glass falling and a loud crunch.  We parked and Matt inspected at the window and quickly determined that some sort of internal mechanism was busted.

That's a technical term.

We enjoyed our dinner along with added suspense of whether or not someone was going to steal our car, then drove home with the wind in our hair.

I asked Matt if he wanted to cover the window in plastic overnight but he said no.  I had a terrible coughing fit around 5:00 this morning and went downstairs to get a drink of water.  When I got back to bed Matt asked me if it was raining.  I said no, but I guess he didn't believe me because he peeked out the window, and then I could not believe what he said.  Matt does not curse, ever.  

If he is really, really, REALLY mad he says "rat's patootie."

But what came out of his mouth at 5:00 this morning would make a sailor blush.  He leaped out of bed only to return a minute later and report back that it wasn't raining, it was just condensation on the window.

He watched some more YouTube tutorials and then removed the door panel of his truck, only to discover the window regulator was all knotted.  Or something.  All I know is that it needed a new regulator and now it has one.

This weekend was brought to you by YouTube tutorials.

And math.

august is my birthday month, but i'm only turning 30, not 87

I talk to my friend Rose almost every weekday.  She is a stay at home mom with four kids, three of whom are under age 4, so we pretty much talk for ten or fifteen minutes here and there, and when we do she has to spell half of her words because she always has an audience with miniature, impressionable, and nosy ears.

We talked a few days ago while Rose was on her way to the podiatrist for her first appointment.  I've been to the podiatrist myself a time or twelve (shout-out to my orthotics!) so I told her what to expect and then to keep me posted on what the doctor said.

Rose called me twice yesterday and I missed her calls because I was with my niece and nephew in New Jersey, so I called her back this morning.  We caught up on the last few days and then hung up so I could get back to work and she could pick the kids up from story time.  About fifteen minutes later my phone rang again, and it was Rose.

I answered and she said, "I completely forgot to tell you how my podiatrist appointment went!"

So she filled me in, and then told me she had to go to the store after the appointment to get some new sneakers.  She went to a little local shoe store, and asked the woman working there for some recommendations on sturdy, sensible shoes, and the woman was no help at all!

And then she went to the produce market and put a ton of onions and apples and peppers and potatoes in her cart, and the guy at the checkout counter asked her if she wanted a bag.

OF COURSE SHE WANTED A BAG! IS SHE JUST SUPPOSED TO CARRY ALL OF THAT WITH HER TWO BARE HANDS?

We lamented that customer service just ain't what it used to be and then talked about the recipes she was going to make with all of the onions and peppers.

I told her I have a produce problem of my own, which is the fact that I have an overabundance of zucchini.  I mentioned I planned to make a recipe where you slice the zucchini into very thin strips, but it's tricky to do with a knife, but the vegetable peeler is too thin.  Rose said, "Oh you need one of those WIDE MOUTHED vegetable peelers" and we both burst out laughing.

Because we met when we were 22, we were both starting our new paralegal jobs at the same time and our desks were next to each other.  We were basically babies and knew nothing about anything, but we walked around that courthouse like we had been there for years.  We would also cover for one another in the courtroom periodically so that the other could go reapply her lip gloss.  We were very serious.

About makeup.

And I could never have predicted the day I met Rose, that together we would talk about our boyfriends who became our fiances who became our husbands, and go to each other's bachelorette parties and weddings and kids' birthday parties, and have our own birthday dinners and fall bonfires and "please tell me you can meet for coffee tomorrows" and talk to each other about the most mundane things in life, and also the really hard things that you can only talk to a best friend about.

My 22 year old, perfectly lip glossed self would not have predicted that that seven years later Rose and I would be having a serious conversation about vegetable peelers.

Anyway Rose laughed and said that when she was a little girl, she remembers sitting under her grandmother's kitchen table eavesdropping while her grandmother and her best friend sat at the table and talked.  One day she heard them discussing the best kind of strawberry for a particular recipe, and she vividly remembers saying to herself that she would never get so old that she would have conversations about produce.

And then in the span of 15 minutes, the two of us talked about the podiatrist, poor customer service, zucchini recipes, and vegetable peelers.

And we're only 29.

Imagine what we will talk about at 80.

Whatever it is, I can assure you we will be doing it wearing sturdy, sensible shoes.

the current view out my window is not nearly as beautiful

I took a bunch of photos when I was in Denver last week, so I thought I would put them here because I love to read old posts and look at old photos and I know I'll look back on these in the future. 

If I lived within view of the Rocky Mountains, I would never get anything done because I would always be staring out the window.

Also, my hotel room was directly across from this rooftop bar, which didn't open until the evening.  One afternoon when I got back from my conference I looked across to see a bunch of naked mannequins out there, that the staff then dressed in parkas and winter clothes.  The mannequins stayed out at the bar all night and were gone when I woke up in the morning.

I remain bewildered.

Anyway, on to the photos.

the more things change, the more they stay the same

Last year, I saw an idea on Instagram about taking a photo in the same spot every single month for a year.  I decided to try it, and I started last August.  I chose a spot on the little walking trail in my neighborhood, because I walk there nearly every night anyway in the nice weather, and took a photo on the 28th (or pretty close) of every month.   I took my twelfth photo this weekend, and it's so cool to look back on the entire year.

August 2017

September 2017

October 2017

November 2017

December 2017

January 2018

February 2018

March 2018

April 2018

May 2018

June 2018

July 2018

if you're wondering if i sang john denver songs to myself all week, the answer is yes

**I wrote this post while sitting in the airport on Wednesday night.  My laptop died before I could publish it, so SPOILER ALERT I made it home early this morning and am now clicking publish from my home sweet home.**

Well, last we talked I had a freshly injured eye and animpending trip to Denver. 

I tried to go to bed early on Saturday night, but I had trouble falling asleep and then at 1 a.m., our power went out, which woke me up because it meant the fans shut off and the temperature immediately rose eight thousand degrees.  It came back on a few minutes later, only to go off again at 3 a.m.  It was out much longer that time, and at about 3:03 on July 22nd I discovered that Matt and I are vastly different when it comes to how we handle middle of the night power outages.  I laid there thinking of cool things like glaciers and popsicles and willed myself to fall asleep.  Matt leaped out of bed, looked out all of the windows to see if he could see if a fallen tree or downed line had caused the outage, and then got back in bed and asked me what I thought about the stocks that we currently own and the status of our retirement accounts.

I can't even talk about those things during daytime hours after eight solid hours of sleep, there is no way I can make a middle of the night analysis of such topics.

Before I knew it, it was the crack of 4:45 and my alarm was going off.  I got ready and was at the airport by 6:15.  I parked in economy parking, and what I didn’t account for was having to take a shuttle to actually drive me from the lot to the airport.  I got there, checked in, and then rode the escalator upstairs only to see the security line stretched back as far as the eye could see and hear the TSA agent yell to everyone about being short staffed.

It was about 7:05 by then, but I got in line and there was a sign on the wall that said from that point, it would take one hour to get through security.

My plane was boarding at 7:55 and taking off at 8:25, so I was cutting it about three hours closer than I really preferred.  But I tried not to panic and it ended up all working out, and I walked right up to my gate with literally ONE minute to spare.

I’ve never flown by myself before, which was something I didn’t think too much about until it came time to hoist my carry on suitcase into the overhead compartment.  I may have over packed by about 35 pounds.  It took two tries and I am not kidding when I say that people in the seats below me actually covered their heads.

I was in a middle seat, and the man to my left was wearing a GIGANTIC championship ring.  I could tell it was a baseball ring because it had a baseball diamond on it, and he was wearing a hat that said World Series 2017.  All signs pointed to a World Series champ being in my midst, and my hypothesis was confirmed when the drink cart came by and Mr. Baseball ordered a cocktail, and the flight attended told him the drink was on the house and gave him a fist bump.

I spent the rest of the flight concocting this story in my head about how he was so famous and when we landed I would ask him about the ring and then for his autograph, and I couldn’t wait for Matt’s reaction when I told him I flew to Denver next to a World Series champion.  Never mind the fact that we are smack in the middle of baseball season, or it's probably unusual for a World Series winner to be flying in coach.

So, we finally landed and I asked him about his ring and my dreams were immediately crushed because the ring was actually from a college baseball tournament.

He could have just told me he had been in the World Series because I totally would have believed him.

I managed to get my carry on out of the overheard compartment without dislocating my shoulder, and headed off to the hotel.  Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best, which limited our exploring a bit, but we decided to explore downtown for dinner. 

After a bad night, a 4:45 wake up call, and a two hour time change, I almost fell asleep in my pork tacos.

The next two days were honestly a blur.  I was attending a conference about juvenile law and our sessions were one hour long and went from 8 am to 5:30 pm.  I was on information overload. 

I was at the conference with three coworkers, and we did manage to explore downtown Denver both nights and I just loved it.  Here are my main takeaways:

1 – People are SO NICE.  And happy.  They make eye contact and conversation and smile and hold the door and are just so polite and friendly.

2 – I did not see one piece of trash on the street or sidewalk or anywhere other than a trashcan the entire time.  That's not the case in Philly, and Matt said it was because Denver is so much smaller than Philadelphia is, but I think it's because people who live in Denver don't mind walking three feet to put their trash in a trashcan instead of just dropping it wherever they happen to be when they're finished with it or tossing it out their car window.

3 – You can park your car for an entire day in downtown Denver for $8.  EIGHT. DOLLARS.

With this morning came the monumental task of repacking my bag.  I texted this photo to my sister and asked her if she thought it would close.

She said there wasn't a chance, but she underestimated my zipping abilities and willingness to abandon a pair of giant, heavy brown wedges that never fit me right in a Denver hotel room.

(Now that I'm thinking about these photos, it is disgusting that I put that suitcase on the bed.  Gross.)

I'm waiting at the airport now with another colleague who is flying back to Philly.  It’s 4:49 p.m., and we have been here since about lunchtime.  Our flight leaves at 6, and with the time change, arrives in Philly at 11:49 PM, if it doesn’t get delayed.  That's a big IF, because Matt keeps sending me videos of the storms at home.

I just hope we don't lose power when I finally get there.

But just in case we do, maybe I should use this airport time to brush up the status of our stocks and retirement fund.

when it rains, it pours

Well, I know the saying goes "if you don't laugh, you'll cry."

But what happens if you've already laughed, but it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week and the laughing didn't work and so then you cried?  Maybe even more than once?  And also maybe you're spending Friday night holding a bag of frozen broccoli normandy on your face because you officially have the worst luck in all the world and inadvertently slammed your eye into a table?

This week has kicked my butt and while the details of Monday through Wednesday aren't necessary, let me tell you what happened on Thursday.  I had interviews in one office in the morning, and meetings in another office in the afternoon.  I normally pack my lunch, but I decided I'd stop for a special treat and get myself lunch on my way from one office to the next.

I can't explain what came over me and my appetite at lunch time, but I decided to make a little run for the border.  AKA, I wanted Taco Bell.  Here is where it's important to tell you that I have not had Taco Bell in YEARS.  I'm fairly certain the last time I've had it was college, and below is photographic evidence that I enjoyed it on January 28, 2007.

I pulled into the drive through line and could not get over how busy it was! Who knew Taco Bell was so popular with the lunchtime crowd?  It was hot out so I had my AC running full blast and was listening to a podcast.  When I (finally) got to the menu, I studied it carefully and decided on a number 9 (a Crunchwrap Supreme), entree only.  I slowly pulled forward, and forward again, until I finally rounded the corner towards the window.  And as the car in front of me pulled up to the window to pay, it suddenly dawned on me that I HAD NOT ORDERED ANYTHING.

I sat in front of that menu for a good four minutes and studied it like I was cramming for a final back in 2007, but do you know what I did not do? Roll my window down and ACTUALLY PLACE MY ORDER.  Between the AC and my podcast, I couldn't even hear if someone was asking, "May I take your order?!"

I decided I had one of two options.  I could just floor it and speed past the window, but I figured that might look a little shady.  Or, I could tell the lady at the window I didn't place an order. 

I ended up going with option two, and sheepishly informed her that I'd "changed my mind" once I got in line and didn't order anything.

I've officially never felt dumber.

Today wasn't much better, and when I got home I definitely wanted to put my PJs on, and possibly lay on the couch and feel sorry for myself. 

But Matt's brother and his wife bought a house today, so instead we went over there to see it and then Matt's parents took us all out for pizza.  We laughed a lot and when we got home, it hit me that the house was a total mess and I had 87,00 things to do before leaving for Denver early Sunday morning.  But Matt said he was going to make a fire out back, so I ignored the mess, poured a glass of wine, and met him by the fire.

And it was SO relaxing.  I'm no medical professional but I'm pretty sure my blood pressure went down by the second as I sat out there.  I laid in the hammock, we listened to the Phillies game, I read my book, and it was seventy two degrees with a slight breeze, aka perfection.

Until our neighbor and her crew decided to go for a 10:00 swim, complete with flood lights and Broadway show tunes on a loud speaker.  We ended up going inside shortly after the swim team showed up.  Matt went to bed because he and his dad are going on an early morning "recon mission" to find a hunting spot for this fall, so I decided to get a jump start on my Denver packing.  I knew we had a brand new laptop carrying case up in our top bedroom. 

We don't have a light up there but I knew where the box was, so I ran up, bent down to pick it up, and in the process smacked my eye, full force, into the old kitchen table we have stored up there, leaning against the wall above the laptop bag.

I saw stars.

And then, I looked in the mirror and saw blood coming from my eyelid. 

Which is not ideal.

I'm leaving for the fancy conference in Denver on Sunday morning.  Four people from my company are going, and we had a conference call this afternoon about networking expectations.

I'm naturally super awkward in networking situations, and I'm not so sure that a giant black eye is going to work in my favor.

The good news is I've done extensive research on things to do in Denver so I'll plenty of activity options in lieu of networking.

And I can wear sunglasses to all of them.

my life has literally gone to the birds

Well, greetings from the aviary.

Did anyone else ever look around one day and realize you're in charge of five birds? 

No? 

Just me?

My mom is a teacher, and she has two classroom parakeets.  I'm taking care of them this week for her, so the two parakeets plus our three chickens mean there are currently five fowl depending on us.

Which in my opinion, is five too many.  

I had a meeting today at my company's home office, which is 100 miles away.  I arrived at Enterprise promptly at 7:30 to pick up my rental car, and they upgraded me to a brand new Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk.  It was dark gray with black wheels which is my dream car color combo, and the Trailhawk, as the name suggests, is very sporty and rugged.  Which are two qualities I do not personally possess, but enjoy in a vehicle.  

Never know when you might need to ford a creek.

Anyway, I plugged the office address into my GPS.  It normally takes 1 hour and 40 minutes door to door, so imagine my surprise when my GPS said it would take THREE HOURS.  I turned on the traffic report and it turns out there had been an accident on the turnpike in the middle of the night, and the whole highway was closed for miles.

I decided to just get started and see what happened, and things went fine at first.  Eventually I got to the area near the accident and had to exit.  My GPS told me to turn right and follow that road for 5 miles through a little central Pennsylvania town called Plowville.

Even though it was out of my way, it was quite enjoyable to drive down the county road while the world woke up on either side.  It was a tiny little farming town, with beautiful barns and pastures and rolling hills.  There was a little main drag with a busy diner and a church and a market and a post office.  It looked like the setting for a Hallmark movie.

As I was making a mental note to myself to look up houses in this town on Zillow when I got home, it occurred to me that I may have been driving more than five miles.  I have a terrible sense of distance and direction, but sure enough when I glanced at my GPS, all I saw was the swirling circle of uncertainty and the word REROUTING.

Apparently Plowville has a lot of lovely perks, but good cell service is not necessarily one of them.  

I knew that the general direction I needed to head was west, so I fought my natural instinct, which was to turn left (because in my head left = west), and kept driving until I saw a sign that actually said the word WEST.  

Eventually, I made it to the office, by way of Plowville and Blue Ball, Pennsylvania.

Cross that off my bucket list.

My next work trip is coming up and I'm going to DENVER, COLORADO.  The farthest west I have been is Detroit, so this is a big deal.  I asked Matt if he thought I'd be able to see the mountains from Denver.  He said, "Yes, because Denver is IN the mountains.  It is called the Mile High City."

Well. I thought it was called the Mile High City because of their lax marijuana laws.

But I'm also the girl who thinks north is straight ahead and west is to my left, so take my knowledge of geography with a grain of salt.

Matt will be in charge of the parakeets for a few days while I'm gone, which I think will be fine since tonight when we were in the kitchen, I thought I heard the parakeets chirping.  Their birdcage is downstairs, so the chirping sounded way too close.  For a brief second I wondered if they had flown the coop  birdcage, but I quickly realized Matt was in the living room playing clips of birds chirping on Youtube, and imitating them himself.

I'll be in Denver for four days, which is longer than my normal trips, but I won't have to worry about Matt being lonely.

He will be able to communicate with the parakeets.

*Linking up with Cup of Tea for High Five for Friday.*