I just have one thing to say: PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES ARE THE 2008 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!
Woohoo!
It’s been 28 years since Philly has won anything. Granted, we aren’t the Red Sox but it still feels damn good.
I may live in Charleston now but my hometown will always be the good old City of Brotherly Love. I can only imagine what it’s like to be there.
So hats off to you guys and to my friends back home – make sure you don’t get into too much trouble celebrating.
And as an ending note: Eagles, I’m looking at you boys. If the Phillies can do it, so can you. They haven’t even been to a championship, you have. Let’s step up our game and maybe we can have two championship wins in one year/season.
Man, what a rush that would be!!!
I think part of my problem is I don’t make time to write. And then, when I finally do, I don’t know how to make the mundane sound interesting. Or how to make a month or two’s worth of information readable without it being a laundry list of this and that.
I always say, “I’m going to do it this month. I’m going to write about something, anything, every day”. Then I spend all day at work on the computer and little tasks at home get in the way and before I know it, the day is over and I can’t even remember half of the little things that sparked even the short thought of, “Maybe I could write about this”.
Sometimes, briefly, I thought about giving up this site but then my stubbornness kicks in. I’ve had this blog for eight years. At this site. And yes, interest has probably waned both on my part and my readers part but at the same time, I don’t like to think of life without it. Partly because I’m resistant to change and partly because this at least is my outlet, even if I only use it sporadically.
So I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon. I just need to give myself a swift kick in the pants to actually START being interesting again.
(Maybe that’s my problem – I’ve done grown up and bought a house and got a real job and just don’t FEEL interesting anymore! Somebody, validate me, please! LOL)
September and October have been rough though I couldn’t specifically tell you why. I feel like these weeks just blew by and thinking back, there are very few moments from them that stand out enough. I’m still working seventy hour weeks or so and have actually been really, really busy during my time at the office. I think that’s part of it all. Work kicks my ass lately and despite the fact that I never wanted to be that person, sometimes, it’s the only thing I’m thinking about, even when I’m not there. Because I want to do a good job. Because I need to be awesome, at everything I do! (All joking aside, I’m kind of serious – I want to rock at my job because it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my life away in a career I hate.)
Early in October, I got this brilliant idea to have a Halloween “gathering”. By deeming it a “gathering”, I figured I could get away with inviting people to my house, feeding them some candy, having them bring their own booze and letting them hang out and play my XBox. Well, I got kind of carried away and now that “gathering” has turned into a “party” of almost twenty-five confirmed guests. And since I seem to think I’m Superwoman or Martha Stewart (or just plain awesome!), I’ve already sailed away on that ship called Overboard and am a little bit knee-deep in a lot of work that I only hope will produce a fabulous celebration.
I made custom spooky wine bottle labels, ya’ll!
It’s a lot of work and I really don’t mind because I was going to put out that kind of effort to decorate our front yard (we like to be that scary house on the block) but the pain is in the details and my perfectionist person just has to learn to let some of the stuff go. Like putting caution tape over the doors in the hallway? Great idea – can’t find my caution tape – DO NOT NEED to go running back to Wal-Mart to get some more. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to Wal-Mart this month!)
Regardless, I’m sure it will go over well and since it’s in like two days, I can at least start to feel excited about it, instead of stressed about the fact that nothing’s done (trust me, there’s still a lot to do, but I have a LIST! A list always save the day!).
And yes, my floors were finally fixed which is why I’m ok with having the party. Three months later, the living room is back to normal. Now I just have to pay the guys and get MORE money from the insurance money (something about depreciation costs – God, being a grownup homeowner sucks! I would so get my mom to call for me if she could). They also finally fixed the couch, after two service calls. It still doesn’t feel right to me but I don’t think it ever will unless they replace it completely, which they seem adament about NOT doing. So for now, we’ll just delegate that one to company use only (though, come to think of it, it would make sense to use it every day since neither one of us ever sit in the middle – hmmmm, I guess I do get bright ideas when I finally sit down to write!).
I was finally able to get Sammy’s haircut (hey, you talk about your children, I talk about my dog – just put me in the doggyblogger category). I figured it was probably time when he jumped up and ended up scratching my face with his claws. I could have also gauged it around the fact that he was scooting in circles around the rug in my living room but he does that all the time, especially when company comes over, so perhaps not (“Hey Mom, Sammy learned a new trick!”). Poor thing had to go through the stress of the haircut then the very next day had to deal with the workers sawing and hammering the new floors. I’m sure he needed a Valium or something because Steve said he was so nervous he threw up like five times the day the workers were there. I swear, only we would get the dog that is terrified of loud noises but will bite the shit out of you if you look at him wrong!
The big accomplishment with Sammy though has been that I was able to teach him “Paw!” and “Roll Over!” in the past month. Those were the last two he needed to learn and they were difficult because both required him to do something he didn’t want to do, i.e. submit to us and let us touch his paws. But a good bribe, persistence and praise will make them do anything! Granted, when he gives paw now, even without a treat, he kind of claws at our hands like he’s trying to pull them close to get a treat, but hey, before he growled whenever we even held our hand out. So it’s a step in the right direction!
We really need to take him out of the backyard more. A few weeks ago, we took him to dog park and he seemed to enjoy it. He’s definitely intimidated by dogs bigger than him and I don’t think he understands the “play” signals that the little dogs give off, particularly the ones with high energy. He’s definitely a loner and would prefer to just wander in and out of groups and sniff the grass.
I’ll tell you, we love him to death, but sometimes we just shake our heads and wish we had gotten a normal, overly-friendly goofy dog that we can do almost anything with.
We’ve tossed around the idea of getting another one. To be honest, if we had the room and unlimited funds, I’d adopt every animal I could. I would love to have a few cats and wouldn’t mind taking one of them on because they’re much easier than dogs. Losing Scamper this month was especially hard on me but Steve is really allergic to them and it’s definitely not fair to bring an animal into the house that’s going to make him miserable.
Even Sammy gets to be too much for him sometimes!
So we’re still grooving along! Tonight, my parents are coming over to carve pumpkins and tomorrow we have Tyler’s football game then Friday is the party. So I hope to be back this weekend with some pictures to share because you better believe I’m documenting all this hard party work with photos so I can remember how awesome I really am!
How do you take a picture of humble? Because I should probably do that to!
Have a Happy Halloween everyone and if you’re in the area, feel free to stop by! What’s one more person, right?
I remember when we found Scamper on the street as a kitten. She was just big enough to fit in the palm of your hand. She was about four weeks old at the time and we took her in to give her a better life.
And a better life is what she had. She was there through most of my childhood, making the moves with us across country and up North.
We would pick her up to cuddle and she’d lick our nose then give us a little love bite. She loved chicken and would wind herself around your legs if you were cooking it. If you crumpled paper, she’d come running and would chase it. Many times, we found her walking in the room, her entire face hidden behind a dollar bill that she was carrying in her mouth. She curl in a ball at the foot of our beds and purr like crazy when we petted her, kneading the comforter but not opening her eyes. When she walked, she curled her tail, as if she knew she was cute. She had an odd affliction for the smell of nicotine and would like your fingers raw if you had just smoked a cigarette.
She was our kitten, our baby, and she lived a good life. She had slowly been deteriorating for the past few months and this past week, Mom realized she had no more fight left in her. Even as she took her last breath, she was loved dearly. She was a part of family and even now, it doesn’t feel right that she’s not around.
Tonight, we held a sort of memorial for her and my mom handed me the bag with her ashes in it and it was all I could do not to break down and cry. That wasn’t right. My sweet kitty was supposed to be rubbing against my leg and purring.
But she lived a good life and she was loved. And I hope she knew that. She will be missed.
I love you, Scamper-doo! Tell Baby we said hello!!
1993-2008
The good thing about Autumn: being able to open your windows and have the crisp 60 degree blow into your bedroom at night.
The bad thing: hearing the neighbors kids scream BLOODY MURDER about EVERYTHING all NIGHT while their father intersperses “SHUT UPS!” into the mix.
Parenting fail!
(Seriously, it’s not like they’re beating them over there – they’re just one of those families who expresses themselves by SCREAMING AND YELLING at each other ALL THE TIME! The only time that house is quiet is when they’re not there.)
Oh, and we get to hear the frogs and birds singing – shame they’re overshadowed by “NO! SPONGEBOB!” *insert high pitched toddler scream*
So it’s Autumn and I guess that officially means Summer is over.
Ninety-percent of me wants to jump and shout but there’s that other ten that’s always sad that the carefree days and lazy nights are gone.
But with Autumn comes crisp evenings (yes, we’ve actually had these in Charleston the past few days! See the grin from ear to ear?), football, Halloween, sweatshirts, fuzzy socks, and things like this (that’s not a paid endorsement – that’s me telling you to go buy the Leaves stuff now!).
Some days I look at the date and am still amazed at how quickly the days pass. It is already the end of September. That means Halloween is right around the corner and pretty soon it’ll be Thanksgiving then Christmas.
I’m excited for Halloween this year. Since I moved out of my parents house, I’ve always lived in apartments, where the demographic didn’t involve small people who would be knocking on my door for candy. This year though, we are in a house, in a NEIGHBORHOOD! With a driveway and a porch and an entire yard that I can do up for the trick-or-treating event. Last year, I went to my parents, and we cajoled the little beggars up the yard to where my brother would jump out of a coffin and scare the daylights out of them. It was always in good fun as the older ones would come back grinning and exhilarated. We refrained from scaring the younger ones because that would just be in bad taste. But it’s a fun night, when the streets are filled with laughter and mysterious faces of people who you see everyday but are hidden behind the mask of whatever creature they have cloaked themselves with that evening.
We have slowly been trying to get back into the swing of a life that doesn’t involve visitors and it’s kind of working. I had a tendency to shun daily tasks this summer because hanging out with our friends and family and showing them the sights was more important (and infinitely more fun) than going through my closets or weeding my garden. But now that the weekends stretch ahead of us, I can accomplish things, like weeding that garden because lord, that thing was sorely, soreley neglected. We were THAT house for awhile. All we needed was some discarded broken toys and a car on cinderblocks and you could slap a big ol’ WT on our front door.
And you’re probably thinking, wow, that’s awfully boring of you to look forward to weeding your garden on a weekend. And it is, because that’s one of the tasks I hate. But at the same time, the sense of accomplishment I get when I can stand in the street (that’s how I roll) and gaze upon my lovely garden and manicured lawn IS something to look forward to. And I don’t feel as guilty when we finally do go out and do something because I’m shirking responsibility for fun.
Overall, I’m just a freak who gets a weird satisfication from crossing things off our to-do list.
Our floors are STILL not fixed. I guess this is just the pain of dealing with homeowner’s insurance companies. We are going on two months of an exposed conrete slab right in the middle of the main room because nobody could completely get their shit together and just cut one damn check within a week of the guys coming out for estimates. Nooo! We had to wait for the adjuster’s estimate to come in and he had to wait for the contractor’s estimate and then we had to wait for the contractor to get his actual estimate to the insurnace company since the adjuster left out some things the contractor had included resulting in us getting a check for half of what it was going to cost to fix it. And now we’ve just been waiting and waiting and waiting for the second check. And I’m going a little crazy because there is a huge chunk of floor missing in my house and damn it, the place is supposed to NOT look like a construction site.
Seriously, god forbid we ever remodel!
Aside from that, the contractor has had our supplies ordered for over month. Sammy desperately needs to be groomed and have his nails clipped but I’ve been putting that off so I can just send him off to the groomer the day that they’re replacing everything (otherwise, I have to pay for another day for him to be in daycare – whatever, yes, my dog goes to daycare if need be!). And I would like to have a Halloween party but don’t want to if the place still looks like crap.
And then the couch broke. The other original couch that had not broken yet. And that was one more thing to add to MY list, despite trying to push it off on the Baron, who just never did it, after me asking him numerous times if he could do that ONE THING, PLEASE, I’M TIRED OF CALLING ALL THESE PEOPLE! So now I have to be at home for someone to come out and say, “Yep, it’s broken, we’ll send you a new one, be at home for that too”.
Then there’s the trash pickup, or lack thereof. Come to find out, we apparently have to pay a trash bill. The old owner tended to pay his in full because he was always traveling and I guess it’s come due. I would have never known had the neighbor not informed me. I just assumed that trash was part of the property taxes you pay. Guess I was clearly wrong.
I think overall, the point I’m getting at, is that I’m tired of shit breaking or messing up because then I have to go about fixing it. And fixing things these days are getting harder and harder. I cannot stand having to make constant phone calls because someone who supposed to provide me with a service or information does not bother to call me back or keep me updated. I can’t stand have to make numerous phone calls because someone on another end messed something up. It just feels like a constant circle that just never stops and sometimes, I really feel like I need to be a lot meaner than I am. Because this catching flies with honey thing just isn’t working.
But I guess, in the overall scheme of things, it could be worse.
Steve and I are getting along well and actually trying to make a point to go out somewhere, anywhere, on weekends so we don’t sit around like sloths and then wonder where the days off went as Sunday night approaches. Sammy is grooving – now that the weather is cooler, he prefers to just plop down on his little booty in the backyard and hang out, sniffing the breeze and watching the birds and squirrels zoom by. He has become rather affectionate the past few weeks, particularly with me, and I don’t know if that’s him just warming up to us more or craving attention. Steve has dubbed him the “cockblocker” because when I crawl in bed at night, he scoots right up underneath my left arm, directly between Steve and I. It’s amusing but awful at the same time.
Work is still there. We’re going to have a rough season because there are tons of projects that need to be completed before year-end. We just went through a live Disaster Recovery test during Tropical Storm Hanna (what better time to test, right?) and are doing some extensive upgrades. So we’re always, always busy. And they’re working on automating the nightly process that I’ve been running three nights a week for almost two years which is dual-edge sword. On one side, I loose extensive overtime that I’ve come to live off of. On the other, I get my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights free to go wherever and do whatever instead of being tied to some place with a constant Internet connection, usually home.
And family is hanging in there. My little brother, Tyler, who is in middle school, made the high school B (freshman) team and we’re all really proud of him for that. We’ve been going to the games on Thursdays and I’ll tell you, they are much more entertaining than watching the rec football he was playing last year. Hopefully, he will stick with it all the way to varsity because those Friday night high school games are some serious business here. Regardless, we’re really proud of him for doing this! (Love you kiddo!)
Sad news is that our cat, Scamper, who we’ve had since I was like twelve, isn’t doing to well. She is very old and blind and the vet said she is renal failure. I guess her system is just shutting down and they’re giving her weeks, if that. It’s a sad, sad thing for me because she has been around since I was a kid and I’ve never lost a pet before. And truthfully, I don’t remember life without her being underfoot or just coming out to see us when we visit my mom. We had a dog, Baby, that we had got a bit before Scamper but she went when I was still in Pennsylvania and my parents were here – so by the time I got down to visit, it wasn’t as fresh of a memory. But with Scamper, she’ll be there and the next day be gone.
My parents are going back and forth on what to do. She’s going in for treatments for the vet and when she comes back, she is her normal self, albeit a bit slower. And mom doesn’t know what’s best – does she put her down despite her seeming normal and fairly happy? Or does she wait until it gets worse and worse and take the possibility of her having a heart attack or stroke and going in pain or alone, while they’re out, or both? It is a very tough decision and when it’s finally made, it’s going to be rough on all of us.
But enough of that depressing stuff. Life goes on, right? As soon as one thing is done or finished or decided, another steps up. I long for downtime and for quiet but I think, as an adult, you truly never get it because there are always things to be done, phone calls to be made, bills to be paid, etc.
I want to go back and slap my teenage self for all she took for granted and for wanting to grow up now, right now.
It was so much easier when people did stuff for me!
