Sue

I met my neighbor across the street today. For the last month or so I've seen him working with a lot of lumber in his driveway and I've been curious. Turns out he used to be an independent contractor who recently lost his job due to the economy. During his time of unemployment, he decided it was finally time to remodel his kitchen and put hardwood floors throughout the house. He was describing everything he was doing, and said that he was also doing odd jobs for people in the neighborhood.

He then asked if Lillian, the previous owner of my house, had ever done any updating in this place. I laughed and said that no, the place was very 70s and 80s. I mentioned that I'm planning to put hardwood foors in my dining room, but seeing as I got demoted right after buying the house, that project has been put on hold. Joe told me that he was getting close to being done with his kitchen soon and asked if I'd like to come over to see it when he's done to see if I like his work. He then said that if I liked it, he'd be happy to work on my dining room floors and see if there were any more affordable changes I could do to the kitchen.

Ok, so yeah, I complain a lot, but sometimes I think I'm the luckiest person I know. How great would it be to be able to help out a neighbor and get affordable changes to my house at the same time?! This combined with my friend Darrell, who said that he's willing to come over to fix anything I need fixing (within reason) and will only ask for dinner in exchange for labor...I'm a pretty lucky chick.

Ahhh, had a great hour run (wasn't expecting to run that long, but I reached the 45 minute point and couldn't justify stopping) and found my new Goggles Guy. So, he doesn't wear goggles, seems to be impressed with me, rather than the other way around, and looks pretty young, but I've got my new gym eye candy. He seems to be there every Tuesday night. He shoots hoops first and then lifts weights. I'll see him again.

Now it's time to enjoy a little snack and finally sit down and listen to the NPR interview that Juba sent me last week. I'm getting behind with all the articles he's sent me and I need to "study up" before I call him again. He will surely want to discuss these things. :)

It never fails. I make a big point to go grocery shopping and then just want to go out to eat as soon as I get all the groceries home. *sigh*

Oooooo, I haven't looked at LJ in 3 weeks. I'm so not going back.

It's kinda weird how moving into this house has changed me. I barely ever watch TV. I have no urge to sit in front of the computer anymore. In the apartment, I just sat in front of the TV with the computer on my lap and didn't move for hours. Now I find that I'm much happier reading a book in my living room. I've even gotten back to the point where I'm reading so much that I can't leave the house without a book. What if I find a place to stop and read? What if I have to wait for something while I'm out? What on earth do I do without a book?!

I'm so not going back.

Phat Phunktion is going to do their first show in 3 years on August 1 at the Memorial Union Terrace! Squeeeeeee!!!!!

Only in Wisconsin is one's default description for precipitation "snow". I woke up this morning and my first thought was,"I have to get up and mow the lawn before it starts to snow."

Clyde Stubblefield hospitalized for kidney failure

Nooooooo!!! :(

I realized today that I kinda screwed myself out of overtime for the writing of the reviews for my peers. I have vacation days both this week and next, and was planning to work on reviews this coming weekend. This means that I would have to work over 8 hours on reviews to get myself up to 40 hours of actual work time for the week to count for overtime. Boo! Quite frankly, having days off is worth more to me in the end, but the money certainly would have helped.

I have new couches. I loves them.

I had a really nice time in the twin cities this last weekend. I got grumpy a couple times, but that's what tired Sue does. I loved my time spent with Joe and Chris and was super-happy that my trip coincided with Chris's being in the US. Yay! Friday night was the shit. I have blisters on my feet from all the walking around uptown in heels, and I lost the tip of the heel on my most-awesome pair of shoes, but damn, that night really did rule.

My dog is adorable.

I spent today outside in the sun. The amazing god-knows-how-old bottle of SPF 4 did it's trick again and I have no additional color even though I was outside from 11-1:30. I have SPF 45, but I get burned every time. I'll stick with the magic bottle, thank you. When Puppers wasn't sitting by the fence waiting for her friends to come out to play, she found a nice stick to chew on. I sat on the patio with one of those water foot massager thingies. Ahhhhhh!!!!

So I've completed my self-evaluation for work for this last year. Turns out I kick ass.

Woodmans was amazingly crowded, as usual, but for some reason I was going into it with a good attitude today.

I was calmly dealing with the crazy people with their carts and the "I have to go first" attitude and I was just letting all of them go by. A very attractive man came up to me, put his hand on my back and said, "nicely done. You're the person who makes people's day better." Aww!

I continued my shopping and found coupons for things I wanted all over the store. Not the store-provided kind, but coupons that people had cut out and just left in front of the products.

When checking out I allowed a couple people with small amounts of stuff go in front of me in line. They kept thanking me, which brightened my day even more.

Gonna take a happy nap now.

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Got home from work and changed and went out to play fetch with Dracena. This is one of the highlights of every single day. I was all ready to go to the gym. I went out to get the mail and noticed that the front hedges are so insane that they are covering up the address on the house. I made a mental note to do something about that sometime. I went back inside and chatted on the phone.

I got off the phone and realized I had 15 minutes before I was going to leave for the gym, so perhaps I would attack those hedges. I chopped the hell out of one and it turned out really well. Well, I couldn't leave the other one looking like crap so I attacked that one too. Well, then there's that one behind that, so that had to be done too. I took a break to chat with my neighbors for a while.

So then the front door slammed shut after a big gust of wind and locked itself. Hmmmmm, that's a bummer. Locked out of the house. Racked the brain and remembered the combination for the garage door. Well, then there's that hedge next to the garage. Gotta do that one too, and perhaps I should weed the front flower bed.

Ok, so it's too late to go to the gym. Had another phone conversation. Hung up...phone rang. Another conversation. Suddenly I'm popular! Got off the phone and decided to vacuum. (never spell that right) Decided that I needed music and started looking for my external harddrive and discovered the sandpaper in the process and decided to sand down some rough spots on the wall downstairs. Well, now that I'm working on that I should probably fill in a few more holes.

Dude! It's 9:10! How the hell did that happen?! I should find something to eat, and where the hell is that external harddrive anyway?

I'm kinda entertained by the fact that I need to give myself pep talks to get through the steepest part of my back yard while mowing the lawn. The soccer cleats are digging into the ground and I'm doing everything I can to keep the mower in an upright position, and after I was done with the hardest part, I found myself saying out loud, "Yeah, that was the shit!"

I put solar lights around my patio, planted some flowers, mowed the lawn, yelled at A1 Furniture for taking too long to get my stuff to me, trimmed some bushes, talked to my parents, and then put the compost bin together and put some leaves in it. I may just take a nap now. :)

I'm going to be in the twin cities sometime between June 11-14. I look forward to seeing people!!

I don't post here much these days. I got a bad attitude this last week and it's going to take some time to get over what caused it.

Today was beautiful. Yes, I should have tried out the lawnmower that I got from telsin yesterday, but turns out I just wanted to hang out in the backyard with Dracena and drink some coffee. I sat out there wishing that my patio furniture would arrive, and I took my shoes off and soaked up the sun while Puppers ran up and down the area by the fence with the dogs next door. I also got to meet another neighbor down the street when I took Dracena for a walk. It was far too beautiful of a day to mow the lawn. I'll make a dent in that tomorrow after work.

One good thing about having the house is that I won't go out as much. Now that my budget is forced to be tighter than I am comfortable with, I would much rather stay at home and be productive with the house than go out and waste my money on drinks in a bar. Yes, I'll still go out, but just not as often, and I'll be drinking less. People are more than welcome to come over and hang out with me here, and I'll be getting patio furniture at the beginning of next month which will allow for some nice weekends or nights outside.

I'll be spending the rest of my evening testing out some paint samples on the wall in my family room. I'd rather spend $3.50 on each sample than buy a whole can only to find out it's not quite what I want. Besides, testing these things out is helping me get ideas for the rest of the house.

Hope all is well out there...

Dracena just gave every item on the coffee table one little lick and now she's back to watching TV. Odd.

Took the dog to the vet at 7:00 this morning. The carpet installer showed up at 8:00 on the dot. The cable guy showed up at 9:50 (10 minutes early). I have raked leaves and taken a nap and am waiting for the carpet guy to leave so I can go and get Dracena.

It occurs to me that all I've had to "eat" today is coffee.

One last night of moving by myself and tomorrow Derek, Frank and Daniel help, and then...DONE! I will be sleeping in my bed in my house tomorrow night! My parents are stopping by to bring me an Easter carserole on Sunday. I have warned them that I don't have a table, but they understand. Makes me wish I would have bought a table today.

The main reason I looked at the house in the first place was for Dracena. The backyard is amazing. The last couple times I've brought her over she's been happy in the backyard, but still timid. Today we got into the garage and she ran for the door to the house. Once I opened that she ran in, tore up the stairs, ran into the kitchen and started whining to go into the backyard. Guess I chose wisely. :)

Who wants to help me move on April 11? Awwww, you know you want to!

Standing in my living room. Car is parked in the garage.

This is my house!!

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