My skin is glowing

I had my first facial ever today.  And a massage.  It was a very nice afternoon.  John got me a Massage Envy gift certificate for those services for my birthday (WAY back in February).  I don’t know why it took me so long to use it.  It was wonderful.  I am seriously considering making this a regular thing. (I like being pampered.)

I had a really annoying song stuck in my head earlier today, and a friend of mine at work asked me which one.  It was “I Love You Like a Love Song” by I don’t know who, and I told him that the part where she goes “beep beep beep beep beep beep” wouldn’t get out of my brain.  I got corrected immediately.  He said it’s by Selena Gomez, and she’s actually saying “repeat repeat repeat” there.  We had a minor battle over who was more embarrassed: me for not knowing the words or him for knowing them AND being able to name the teenybopper who sings them.  I let him win that one (he’s around my age).

Roxy just came over to say hello and would I please give her the crumbs from my sandwich.  At least she said please.  She also told me that I have no unifying theme today, so I should quit now.  Smart dog.

It’s not Cinderella’s Castle, but I guess it’ll have to do

I’m of two minds about being home.  On one hand, there’s my bed, my shower, my clothes, my DOGS – I’m SO tired, and it’s SO nice to be home.  On the other hand, DISNEY WORLD.  It’s the happiest place on earth, and I LOVE IT.

Some pictures before I collapse.  Details at some later date.

Molly, Emily, and me in line for the It’s A Small World ride.

 

Our first five minutes in the park.

 

Happy to finally be in the air-conditioned line for Pirates of the Caribbean.

 

Hey! You can totally see my new house. It’s right there behind John’s head.

 

Losing track of the point

John is working on his blog software, I’m cataloguing (Really, spellcheck?  That looks SO wrong.  I want to pronounce it cat-uh-log-YOO-ing.  I might from now on.) our books because I’ve noticed that many are missing from my spreadsheets (Yes, plural.  Don’t you talk about me and my spreadsheets.), and I’m finishing a bottle of wine I wasn’t really crazy about.  (Yes, there is such a thing.  Let’s all forget that I’m drinking it anyway.)  This one was described as “herbaceous” at the store.  I’m not getting anything herb-y out of it.

Leaving the not-so-great wine out of the equation – no, even including the not-so-great wine, this is a pretty great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  I got my nails done earlier (at a place I will NOT be going back to – I don’t know why I keep trying out new places.  I love my normal place.  I should just keep going there.), and John painted the trim between the library (that used to be the dining room and has no furniture other than my desk (where I am not sitting) and the bookshelves) and the family room, and yesterday we went to Home Depot to start pricing hardwood floors because we’re going to do the whole upstairs ourselves, and I feel like this weekend we’ve reached a nice balance of productive (painting, estimates, laundry, etc.) and relaxing (blog software, book organizing, wine, etc.).

The other thing I did while I was out today was ask around about this GPS watch I’m thinking about getting.  I wanted to ask some real runners what they use, so I went to the one of our local running stores (I went to another one last week) to talk to someone.  I’m thinking about the Garmin Forerunner 210, and the only decision I have left to make is whether I want that one or the 610.  I’m leaning towards the 210.

Man, I am very much over this wine.  And I’m going back to my books.  And thinking about dinner.  Because I’m hungry.

Leaky brain syndrome

I had a couple of half-formed ideas of things to write about today, but they’re pretty much gone.  Or far enough away that I don’t have more than a sentence.  You know, like how Jess’s phone called me without her knowledge this afternoon, and how I can’t get enough avocado lately, so I was terribly disappointed when I asked to have avocado added to my sandwich from Panera this evening and they left it off and I didn’t realize until I got home and then it was too late and I was sad.  I had avocado in my salad for lunch (Au Bon Pain – spinach, egg, bacon, avocado, chicken, black beans, honey mustard, and a little more avocado – oh wow good), so it’s not like I had to get through the whole day avocado-less.  Just dinner.

Insert Homer Simpson drooling noise

Mom has made some really good book choices lately.  The last two books I read (well, the one I’m reading now and the one I just read) were her recommendations, and I am very happy with them.  That’s not to say that her recommendations aren’t normally trustworthy – they very much are – but sometimes I need more persuading.  Maybe I’m just being stubborn for no reason.  Or for the same reason John gets stubborn he’s looking for his next book and I send a continuous stream of suggestions his way.  Suggestion overload!  Anyway, I think the best thing – okay, best things about these latest two are a) I knew almost nothing about them before I read them, and 2) they are not at all similar to each other but are both really good.  And good to read back to back, for reasons I have not yet thought out.  And I really like that I hardly knew anything about them.  Mom told me the premise of The Age of Miracles, but she told me absolutely nothing about Gone Girl, and I think I kind of prefer it that way.  John and I work pretty hard to avoid spoilers for movies and TV shows, avoiding just about anything that mentions them.  We really like going into these things with no preconceptions.  With books, you’ve usually got the cover, the blurb on the back, some expectation based on the genre or author or something.  With Gone Girl, since I’m reading it on the Kindle, I don’t have anything but the title and the author’s name.  In the long run, I can see how that might make it difficult to decide what to read next since I often decide based on what genre I’m in the mood for, but once in a while starting a book completely in the dark about it is fun.

Speaking of my book, I’d really like to read it now, so, you know.  Bye.

What sadistic bastard invented stairs?

You know what’s hard?  Biking uphill after yoga and squats.  I’m not sure I can get up the stairs.  I might have to crawl.  Or maybe I’ll sleep on the couch.

There are videos on The Daily What today that I’d like to watch, but they’ll have to wait.  I’d rather listen to John practice playing his banjo.  (Oh, yeah.  John got a banjo.)  Then I’ll figure out how I’m going to make it to bed.  Later, but soon.  Like maybe now.  No…almost.  Now.

 

Being geeky

This weekend was just about perfect.  I made a list of things to do and got nearly all of them done and still had time to sit on the porch and watch the rain.  Among my things to do were backing up my blog database, updating WordPress, and installing Linux.  Okay, so John did the actual installation for me and then solved my wireless problem, but still.  Now I have the latest version of Ubuntu (the Linux distribution I decided to go with after conferring with a couple of people).  Huh.  That makes it sound like I gathered opinions and did some research before deciding.  It didn’t go exactly like that.

“Hey, Randy, what version of Linux should I install?”

“Hey, John, Randy suggests Ubuntu.  What do you think?”

“Great, let’s do it.”

Thanks, guys.  🙂  Anyway, now that it’s installed, I have do some configuring.  It looks….different.  Cool, though.

Alien, but pretty. Customizing is underway.

Must go.  Time for pie.

They were right!

Riding a bike (after 4 or 5 years of not riding) really is just like riding a bike!  Who knew?  I was a little nervous.  Corey laughed at me when I told him this the other day, but I’m afraid of going downhill.  Because our hill is steep, and it’ll be fast.  And what if I use the front brake instead of the rear brake and go sailing over the front of the bike and die?  I mean, really.  Last night, though, it was either walk or ride.  John needed my car to go to Home Depot, and I had a yoga class at the gym.  How else was I going to get there?  Besides the aforementioned option of walking.  John pulled my bike out of the garage, put air in the tires, and adjusted the front brake so it wasn’t messing with the front tire (See?  My fears weren’t groundless!), and I couldn’t very well back out then.  He even took it on a test ride for me.

The hardest part was uphill (because duh), and I just rode the brake on the downhill.  I wasn’t exactly graceful getting off the bike, but nobody was around to see.  Yay bikes!

SO late

I have a feeling that nothing this weekend is going to happen on time.  That’s not really a problem, since we only have one activity planned that runs on a schedule we don’t have any control over (we’re seeing The Pirates of Penzance at Wolf Trap tomorrow night – yay!), but it did affect my day today.  My plan (like every weekend) was to do my long run early Saturday morning, but John pointed out (and I applaud his foresight) that tonight isn’t likely to be an early night and we’re going to want to get a relatively early start tomorrow morning, so there is no way I’m going to run five miles before we get in the car to go to Annapolis.

Instead, I did my five miles this morning.  Of course, I didn’t start quite early enough, so I didn’t get back to the house until 7:45.  Very late for a work morning.  It took me a lot longer than usual to cool down and stop sweating (because it’s so crazy hot right now), and I was puttering around the house doing last-minute cleaning things, and then I cleaned my bathroom, and then I got in the shower.  At 8:45.  When on a normal work morning, I’m at work by 9.  It’s not a big deal – work is flexible as long as I put the hours in, but it messes up my whole day.

*Several hours later*

Well, it didn’t mess up my entire day, but it did continue.  I waited until just about the last minute to get to the store this afternoon, making it home only minutes before Corey and Gaby arrived.  Because – yay! – Corey and Gaby are visiting for a few days!

Best news I’ve heard all day

We do NOT have a bug problem.  The bug guy came over this morning and walked around the entire house with John.  He found no evidence of a bug problem aside from the porch columns, and he said those were mostly water damage.  Once the wood started to rot, the carpenter ants moved in to eat it.  We’ve already taken care of the ants, so all we have to do is replace the columns with properly-treated wood.  Yay!

John told me a joke just now, one he saw on Reddit today in a thread full of jokes people found funny when they were ten. Or six.  Pick your favorite immature age.  Yes, I laughed.

Why did Sally fall out of the tree?

Because she had no arms.

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Not Sally.

Infestation

About a month ago, John noticed that the corners of one of the columns on the front porch was rotting.  The wood was all spongy.  Things were busy, so we didn’t get around to doing anything about it, but today was finally the day for John to take a closer look.  I went for a run this morning, and as I came back up the hill to the house, I could see the ladder leaning up against the porch, part of the drain pipe in the yard, and a giant gaping HOLE in the column at the corner.

Not what I expected to come home to.  He was able to just peel away parts of the column BY HAND – it was that bad.  So anyway, it seems we have carpenter ants (and that may or may not also mean termites, since according to the great and powerful internet, carpenter ants eat termites), and the pest guy is coming out on Tuesday.  Cross your fingers that the house doesn’t fall apart around our heads.

Did I mention that our vacation was beyond fantastic?

One week ago tonight (plus 5 hours), John and I were in the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon watching a Shakespeare play performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.  (That should probably be Royal Shakespeare Theatre…)  It was a last-minute decision.  Mom and Dad spent the day in the cottage and around the village.  John and I took the car to see the ruins of Hailes Abbey (beautiful), and when we realized it was a little too late (nearing 5pm) to see anything else, we decided to head to Stratford-upon-Avon.  We knew we’d get there too late to get into any of the touristy stuff, but we could still go see stuff.  And have tea.  I love having afternoon tea.  We got there right at 5pm (when the attractions were closing), so aside from a quick glance into a gift shop, we only got to see the outside of the birthplace of Shakespeare and that stuff.  We had our tea (a light cream tea – we planned to find dinner somewhere before we headed back to Chipping Campden and Mom and Dad), and we took a walk down Henley Street (with all its closed shops) and eventually found the Avon.  We dawdled there for a while and then noticed the Royal Shakespeare Theatre as we walked by.  The doors were open, we saw books on shelves, and all of a sudden we found ourselves in the gift shop.  Amazing how that works.  We browsed for 20 minutes or so and were on our way out when I suggested we check the box office.  What’s on tonight?  Who cares?  If there are seats available and they’re somewhat reasonably priced, we should stay, right?  Of course right.  So we asked.  Hey, it’s King John.  How much are the tickets?  Only £16 each?  Hey, it starts at 7:30.  What time is it now?  Oh, 7:06?  And we have to move the car?  We can get the car moved in time if we run.  So we ran.  Well, we walked really fast.  Turns out we didn’t have to move the car (just put more money in), so we rushed back, bought our tickets, and sat down just in time for the play to start.

It was really good.  Really good.  And interestingly staged, if that’s the word.  Shakespearean language, contemporary costumes and setting.  And music.  The wedding scene made my whole week.  (“I Say A Little Prayer For You” segued into “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” with the choreography from the end of Dirty Dancing.  SO.  MUCH.  FUN.)

One of many pictures of Hailes Abbey. Also, proof of the beautiful weather we had most of the week.

Hamlet says hello. Or, you know, "Alas, poor Yorick."

I didn't have the foresight to get a picture of the whole building...

...but I did get a shot of the books that lured us in.

Yay John!

I’m not sure it’s possible to cram more things into one weekend.  They were all good things, all fun things, but – what happened to my weekend?  We got up Saturday morning and met Erik and Margaret (and Corinne) for brunch.  Totally fun and very good to see them.  We got home Saturday afternoon, cleaned up after the dogs, and mowed the lawn.  Then we went out to see The Avengers (SO much awesome) with Will and Christina, and then, since we hadn’t seen them in a while (we’ve seen Will pretty regularly, but I haven’t seen Christina in nearly two years), we stayed out with them until nearly 1am.  This morning, we got up at a reasonable hour and headed to the George Mason campus for John’s graduation (from Virginia Tech, not George Mason).  Finally, it’s official.  John has an M.S. in Computer Science.  (I failed big time in the photo department.  Too blurry, too dark, too late – missed him.)  We met John’s parents and sisters there (they drove down for the ceremony and dinner after), so we had a very pleasant afternoon and evening with them.  Now we’re home, thoroughly exhausted, with dogs that wonder where the hell we went all weekend.  I only wonder where the hell all these ants came from.  We leave town in four days.  It’s be nice to solve this ant problem before then.

Happy Derby Day!

I feel like a slacker when Derby Day comes up and I haven’t planned any sort of Derby party.  Oops.  But I’m watching (of course).

I had a very successful shoe-shopping day, and once the Derby is over and we’ve eaten, John and I are going to go to our local comic book store for Free Comic Book Day and then hit up the Haagen Dazs around the corner for a sundae.

It’s been a very nice Saturday.

Idiocy

I had a hard time getting moving today.  I needed to do laundry.  I thought about it several times throughout the day.  All I had to do was get up and do it, but my butt stayed in the chair.  It’s not hard.  It takes very little effort on my part.  I just didn’t make the effort.  (I did eventually get the laundry started.)

I’ve had a headache for the last, oh…3 hours.  Have I taken anything?  No.  Because that would be the smart thing to do.  And it would mean I’d have to move.  Get up, get water, get pills.  Put the laptop down…eh, my headache’s not so bad.

Riley is going to get stung one of these days.  Every time a bee or a wasp gets near him, he leaps for it and snaps at it.  I keep telling him he’s got it all backwards (“Buddy, it’s not a good idea to antagonize flying insects with stingers.  Trust me.”), but he’s not listening to me.

Maybe Riley can fight our battles for us.  He can wrestle with the developers who leave me hanging.  He can argue with the administrators who are running John’s paperwork in circles, and he can twist the arms of John’s committee members so they’ll show up for meetings.  Maybe all that fighting for us will take his (tiny crazy little) mind off trying to catch bumblebees in his mouth, and he can be spared the sting he’s heading toward.

Hey, I think my headache is going away.

Not paying attention

John and I are sitting on the couch together, laptops on our laps, mostly ignoring a TV show.  We started watching MI-5 the other day, and we’re enjoying it, but for some reason neither of us is interested enough to put the laptops aside and actually watch it.  But we don’t want to admit it, so it’s still on.

Hilarious (and terrifying).  The last 10 seconds are the best part.

Hey, Min, remember that time geese chased us at the zoo?

I have never seen a Marilyn Monroe movie

Are you watching Smash?  I started it today and I’m three episodes in (yay Hulu Plus).  So fun!  And right up my alley.  I mean, come on.  It’s a show about a new Broadway musical.  Singing, dancing, backstage drama, singing, dancing…  Did I mention there’s singing and dancing?  I love singing and dancing.  I didn’t even bother to ask John if he was interested in watching this one with me.  Singing and dancing!  The only thing I’m wondering is how it’s going to keep going for a whole season.  I’m three episodes in, and it seems like we’ve already seen half the musical.  There seems to be plenty of plot to keep it going, but not enough show.

I went for a run this morning (unusual lately).  I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it could have been SO much harder.  It was also SLOW (no singing and dancing).  I didn’t take my watch (just as well – the details would have been depressing), so all I know is it took me less than 40 minutes.  How much less?  NO idea.  That time included a short warm-up, some stretching, and a walk back to the house to cool down (not included in the mileage). And for today, I guess I don’t really care.  I’ll try again on Thursday.  DC for work tomorrow, so unless I get up at 5, I’m not running tomorrow.  Nope, not even if I get up at 5.  I don’t like to run in the dark.

Meanwhile, catty backstage drama is catty.

Happy (late) birthday to me!

Late because it was yesterday, not late because it was forgotten.  I had a great birthday weekend.  A long birthday weekend.  (Those are the best kind.)  Mom and Dad came to visit, and we had delicious dinners out, walked all over DC, hung out at home, stayed up late, drank some wine, and talked and talked and talked.  I am thoroughly exhausted, but very happy.  And I have LOTS of flowers in the house.  John came home from work yesterday (I had the day off and spent it working on homework) with sushi and two bouquets of flowers.  He said he was trying to decide between them and then realized he didn’t have to choose.  Then, right after he got home and gave them to me, the doorbell rang.  More flowers!  Mom and Dad sent some from the road.  I love it.

Work today tried to undo my wonderful weekend, but it won’t succeed.  Work stays at work, and I’m going home.  Where I have homework to do.  You know what will make me feel better?  Indian food for dinner!  Because you can’t have too many birthday dinners.