Recent happenings

So Emily always says that my blog entries are boring. No promises that this one will be any different.
Last night I came home from work and Emily had made dinner. We ate and then figured out the plans for the weekend. She was planning on going to Cary for a friends party and then her interview today. We all wanted to go, however, with the dogs and no place to stay she had to go by herself. I quickly changed the oil in the Scion since it was long overdue and she was on her way. I spent the night by myself (with the dogs.) I watched some TV and was generally lazy. I fell asleep around ten, yeah I know, that's sad. Emily then called me at 2am to tell me she was leaving the party and heading back to CH. I moved into the bedroom and went back to sleep. It was not good sleep. I woke up at 5 and 6 am. I think this is because I am used to waking up then and haven't slept in in a while. I did try to sleep in but woke up a few more times before finally getting up. It was weird to be in the bed alone. Today I went to the Toyota dealership to finally get our flat tire taken care of (there is a whole nother story there.) Tried to go to the bank but since this is Boone the banks don't have Saturday hours. After that I came home and changed the oil in the tank and did dishes and washed clothes. Now I am being lazy again and waiting for Emily to come home.

sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

that's a sad title now that i think of it... but i'm not sad, it's just that i'm sitting here in my parents' living room listening to a james taylor RECORD with the record playing system we gave my dad last christmas. yay for james taylor, BEAUTIFUL fall days in durham, and my parents' house. it's so nice to come home sometimes. there really is no place like home and that feeling when you're sitting in the living room you grew up in, listening to music you grew up to, with your parents just hanging out.

last night was kim's joint birthday party. i have to say that it was weird to be at a college-y party without andrew. not only did i feel old, but i felt old and married hahaha. there was copious groping, and i was very uncomfortable with it. i actually b*tch-slapped someone, and not on purpose, but as a reflex! it's a good story, ask and i'll tell you about it. it was weird to be identified as "the married one". on more than one occasion i heard "SHE'S MARRIED!!" i guess drunk guys were being dared to do something inappropriate to me or something, i don't know. but i did do my first ever keg-stand. i didn't know if i should be proud or weirded out that the first keg-stand i've ever done is when i've been out of college for over two years, i've been a teacher, and i'm married, but it was kinda fun to be held upside-down anyway. there are incriminating pictures going around somehwere. i'll link to them when i find them haha. no shame. [this photo is tagged "emily's butt" in john's album]

this morning i met regina for coffee. it's always good to hang out with her and hear how stuff at smith is going. she's definitely a co-worker that became a real friend and somewhat of a mentor. i really appreciate her friendship.

then, i rushed back home to change clothes and get to my interview for east wake academy. it went well. without going into pages of detail, it sounds like a cool opportunity. it could either be great, and i'll love it forever, or it could be terrible and i'll suffer through the rest of the year. with some wiggle-room in the salary area (since it's a charter school), i think i will probably take it. i'm going in on the 8th to meet the other teachers on the team, so that will be the deciding factor i think.

that's about it. i think i'll eat a LATE lunch and then probably head on back to boone to spend the rest of the weekend with my hubby. peace out.

poor lillie

last night andrew and i came home to lillie having pooped in her crate. now, if you don't know my dog, you would have no idea how absurd this is. but this dog has made it an unfortunate 17 hours one time (due to a miscommunication between me and my roommate at the time) without being let out of the crate. no accident. not even a dribble of pee. so when andrew said she'd pooped in her crate, i knew it was a problem. he took her out to the bathroom and she had (sorry for the grossness) bloody diarrhea. of course, this is after all normal vets are closed, so we called the emergency after hours place. i knew that diarrhea could wait, but the blood part bothered me. lillie has a tendancy towards skin and ear infections due to her allergies, and she has had limping issues in the past due to the fact that she's crazy hyper sometimes, but this particular issue is a new one.

we decided not to wait until this morning to take her in, and headed to the emergency clinic. there were tons of people there, and it seemed, not many people working were in much of a hurry. there was one yellow lab that had gotten a puncture wound in her side while her owner was at work - she was fixed up relatively soon after we got in, but her owner and the tech spent literally 20 mins trying to figure out how to work the e-collar. ::sigh:: then there was an owner of two rhodesian ridgebacks who were his self proclaimed spoiled pets. the male had attacked the female for the third time (why this didn't seem to be a problem to him, i do not understand). his assistance was required to hold the dog to be able to suture her up. lillie, since being attacked by gus, andrew's father's dog who is part ridgeback (and a mean son of a gun), hates - i mean HATES ridgebacks. though she is friendly to everyone and all other dogs, she began growling the second she saw the ridgeback. while sad because of how traumatized she is, we both had to laugh at how smart she is to distinguish the breed. the next dog that came into the clinic while we were still waiting to be let into our room was a small doodley-mix-of-a-something with a recurring skin problem. why you would take this to an emergency clinic, i have no idea. the people were strange and informed me that they had been feeding "hills prescription diet c/d"... c/d isn't for allergies. z/d is, so i thought maybe i didn't hear her correctly, but she snobbily spit out once again that he was on c/d... perhaps that's the reason the dog still had the allergies! but what do i know?

then we went into the exam room - success! no. waited in there for so long, lillie tried to poop on the floor. we told them she had to go, and they sent us out with a bowl for collection. i was pretty disgusted at the time because that, as i recall from working at a vet, is the technician's job, not the customer's job. but we complied. after waiting another 20 mins or so, the doctor came in, gave us metro (an antibiotic that i knew we'd get) and we were on our way. $130 poorer and about 2 hrs after we came in. now, that's not too bad of a bill for an emergency place, but i really could have just done everything myself a lot faster if only i had access to a microscope... float solution... dye... and of course access to doctor-prescribed drugs. i seriously just need to go ahead and get a vet degree or something.

anyway, that was our adventure last night. we came home and i made lillie some rice and andrew some blueberry muffins, we watched the recorded season premier of grey's anatomy (which wasn't all that great, especially since some of its most interesting cast members have been dropped from the show), and went to bed. this morning lillie is still not up to snuff, but i think she'll be fine soon. [pictured here is last season's cast of grey's... still with all the cool characters]

pro/con list

so i have been thinking about what i might blog about today, and there really isn't much new stuff going on. mostly just more of the same, the waiting game. hoping andrew will find a job in raleigh, being excited and still apprehensive about moving, etc. that led me to begin a little pro/con list in my head about things i'll miss and things i definitely will not miss about living up here.

things i'll miss
the sun peeking through the trees in the morning
the ridgeline illuminated by the moon as i fall asleep
the clean mountain air
the VIEW
having a yard, a really freaking big yard
feeling like, while we don't own it, we have a little piece of the world no one invades
the little goat across the street
the al paca farm
having bouldering in your back yard (not quite literally)


things i will not miss
the rooster
the howling dog
the barking dog
the lack of good produce (odd, doesn't it seem?)
the lack of exotic food
the lack of high-paying jobs
feeling alone when andrew's not home because all my friends and family live so far away

for now that's it... mostly cause it's almost time to leave work and go home, but i'll probably add more later.

not much to report

yesterday i left work, went home, and curled up on the couch. andrew came home late again because his boss has no concept of time as it relates to the gregorian calendar or something. by the time he got home, i was grumpy and feeling yucky and had eaten way more than is necessary for any human, especially one who was feeling blobby beforehand. we watched several episodes of law and order (as is characteristic of us), i took a shower, and we went to bed.

this morning i am feeling more optimistic about life and hoping this feeling lasts through the afternoon. maybe andrew and i will do something fun this evening worth blogging about. stay tuned for exciting updates... or something.

Ponderings:

i have decided there is a correct shape for women.

that shape is curvy. curvy and soft.

women should not be jaggedy nor sharp, not bony and angular. they shouldn't be blubbery or lose-your-hand-in-fat-rolls-squishy mind you, but curvy and soft. there's a reason we have a higher percentage of body fat and a reason we aren't the same shape as men.

if size 14 was sexy when marilyn monroe was around, what says it isn't now? (besides the fact that clothing sizes have changed some)

this culture of embracing stick-people is not only unhealthy, it's disgusting. i don't want to see anyone's hip bones or spine or ribs acutely protruding from beneath their skin. i don't want to see a face, so lacking in substance, that the person looks like they're in a concentration camp. it's not appealing, and it's certainly not sexy.

i feel passionately that obsessing over appearance is not what we need to be doing with our lives.

yes, eat healthy meals; yes, exercise to stay in shape; yes, take time to wash your body and hair and clothes so you don't go around looking slovenly, but what kind of life is one filled with guilt from eating one m&m, or denying yourself the occasional basket of nachos with disgustingly processed (but oh so tasty) nacho cheese and grease dripping everywhere??

i say, not the kind of life i want to live.

i'm taking a firm stand on this.

... and that is all.

pie from scratch

yesterday afternoon i left work and felt productive (and felt bad for andrew for being up so late before going to work early), so i went grocery shopping and picked up stuff for dinner. i made rainbow trout in a lemon/butter/dill/chardonnay sauce, butternut squash risotto, flavored wilted spinach, and a key lime pie from scratch. i do not eat much pie, and i've never made key lime pie from scratch or otherwise, so doing so without a real recipe was to be an adventure. i made real whipped cream (which needed more vanilla) and combined all of my ingredients with half a bag of key limes. apparently one needs a whole bag of key limes though, because upon tasting, andrew informed me that the pie was not lime-y enough. the rest of the food was good and tasted nice with the pinot grigio we brought from the biltmore. (there are pictures, but my camera's having issues, so it might be a few days before i get any up here) i decided rather than letting the key lime pie sit around our fridge for days, i'd just bring it in to work. it seems that not many people here like pie, or key lime pie, so i might just take it home, but regardless of what anyone says, i'm still proud of myself for going outside the box in the kitchen - literally! (pictured is the piece i made for andrew)

today i'm trying not to die from cramps and a stuffy nose (though that's probably more than you want to know) and i'm just waiting on 4pm so i can go home and curl up in a ball.

success!

after much stressing and searching, we have found not only a place to live, but i'll have employment! i called the vet where i worked before we moved, and they were happy to let me come back to work, so although i'll still probably be searching for a job at a school so that i can fulfill my teaching fellows obligation, i'll have somewhere to work in the interim. also, i think i will go "part time" which doesn't really mean part time, it just means not saturdays or after hours, and i don't get benefits. but that way, i'll have a weekend, and i won't feel bad if i quit to go work at a school. i haven't talked to debbie about this yet, but since i volunteered to work at glenwood, and i know she needs people right now, i think it should be ok.

one of these days, i'll get the pics off my camera to put on here, but we have found a place to live! it's not a house like we'd hoped, but it is a very VERY nice condo, two stories with a loft, and best of all, the landlord is awesome. he was cool with the dogs, he's getting us new appliances, he's removing his junky washer and dryer so we can put our nice new ones in, and he's giving us flexible leasing terms so that when we get the money saved up and find a house, we'll be able to buy it and not be stuck in a long lease. AND WE GET TO PAINT! we couldn't have been happier, and we agreed to rent it within 5 mins of being in the place. we're allowed to start moving in on oct 6th, and we have to be out of our place up here on oct 15, so that gives us a week's cushion, which is great. i told the vet i'd start there the third week in october, so i should be able to get the place set up and livable by the time i go back to work.

i'm pretty excited!