I would never do that! Nope, Not Me!

So I got this idea from MckMama over at MyCharmingKids. It's called Not Me, Monday. As she puts it "I thought it was funny to 'fess up' about some embarrassing things I'd done that week...by pretending I totally did not actually do them!"

Although I have no kids, so my confessions might not be as funny, I thought it was a good way for me to remember to post something on here regularly. I know it's not Monday but I'm going to start today because thinking back about the events of this morning made me laugh at myself.

As I mentioned yesterday we put our house on the market about a month ago. It hasn't been so hard to keep physically clean but there is always some random clutter sitting out that doesn't have a specific place and that you have no idea what to do with, but has to be put somewhere before your showing later in the day (run on, I know)....Case in point...This morning as I was running out the door to work I:

Most certainly did not put a dirty cup that was sitting next to the sink into the dishwasher full of CLEAN dishes that I had run a few days ago and had still had not unloaded.

While walking down the hallway and finding a random slipper laying on the floor that Dakota must have taken from my closet I most certainly did not stick it in the kitchen cabinet instead of going all the way back to put it where it belonged. I know this sounds gross because don't think for one second that I haven't before worn my slippers outside but it was a bottom cabinet and all that's in there is dog treats and a few left over liquor bottles that we received at our stock the bar party so I figured it wouldn't hurt.

After one final check of the bathroom and seeing my pajamas strewn about I most certainly did not put them in the dirty clothes hamper where I retrieved them from the night before and fully intend to retrieve them from again tonight.

I also did not put magazines and the book I'm currently reading in my husband's underwear drawer or a basket of dry cleaning and dirty clothes in the trunk of my car.

And that was just in a span of 5 minutes...imagine what I will have to share after a whole week...this could be scary! Feel free to tell something funny you have done recently in the comments or start it on your blog!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth...

...although I have felt close. I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted something last! For those of you who actually read this and have had to put up with seeing the same post for the past 42 days, I apologize. So you ask, what have I been doing? Here's the short list of the events that have taken place in my life since March 25. I have:

1. Celebrated my BFF's 25th birthday- love her!
2. Decided to put our house on the market (I'll dedicate a whole post to this tomorrow)
3. Completed the odds and ends of home improvements to put our house on the market (new toilet installed, trim work completed, bathroom grout and tile steam cleaned, new light fixtures, new medicine cabinet, etc...)
4. Accomplished the major feat of cleaning and organizing my house as well as purging a lot, lot, lot of unused stuff (this was a big deal if you know the type of pack rate/procrastinator that I am!)
5. Spent 3 nights in Lexington serving on a committee for UK.
6. Stayed the weekend in Lexington for Keeneland and Redmons :-) 7. Celebrated Easter with our families
8. Attended a Charity Awards Banquet for the NFP that my dad serves on the board of.
9. Took a weekend trip to New York City to visit my amazing cousin
10. Had 15 house showings and an open house
11. Helped coordinate and participated in a photo shoot for my sorority's international headquarters
11. Completed 4 weeks of level 2 obediance training with Dakota
12. Celebrated my Mom's birthday (we won't reveal how young she is)

13. Went house hunting and met with a builder...just in case ours sells

That's on top of my full time job and all while Mr. L was out of town for work for 3 of those weeks. I am tired! The craziness that summer brings is just beginning though so I better gear up! Only 2 more days until the weekend :-)

2,438 miles from home

I know I've been a blog slacker lately but life happens. I've been meaning to write about my recent super-fun trip to the west coast but kept forgetting or putting it off. SO...today is the day my friends!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel (2,438 miles from home, I googled it) to Seattle...well Lacey, Washington really to visit my dear dear friend Lauren. (I blogged about her move out west back in the late fall for those of you who might happen to follow along. Mr. S- her soon to be hubs, was stationed out there with the Army and she went too) I had such a great time visiting with her, catching up, talking about wedding stuff, meeting her kitty and exploring cities I had never visited before. If you're a person that doesn't mind rain, this is such a beautiful place to live! The trees are amazing! Myself, I think I would have trouble adapting due to my tendency to get upper respiratory issues every time the weather changes, and thus the current cold I have been battling upon my return home.

Despite the rain (I don't know why I would have expected anything else...everyone knows it rains all the time in Seattle) we were able to have many adventures and do the touristy things that I'm sure Lauren is getting tired of doing with each group that comes to visit, and I loved ever minute of it, especially the wine tasting! We were even able to do a little shopping although I was put on strict budget by Mr. L before I left :-) For those of you Bachelor fans or recent non-fans, I did try to stalk down Jason but I think he's gone into hiding...haha

Overall though, the biggest thing I took away from this trip was how proud I was of my friend. It is so interesting to see someone close to you living life in a different place than what you both used to call home (although I hope she still calls NKY home) Finding new places to shop, making new friends, learning your way around or trusting Lady Garmin, getting a new job, all things that I can't imagine having to do and pretty much take for granted all the time. I realized what a stong woman Lauren is and I admire her courage so much! We'll get to see each other again in June when she's "home" for a few weeks and I'll be counting down until then!

Batwoman

…is among one of the new titles added to the long list of nicknames in which we affectionately refer to our dog. It ranks up there with Dakotie, Kota, Dakota-puss (courtesy of the IHOP Nanner-puss commercial), and now Batwoman. Why Batwoman you ask? Well let me give you a short run down of yesterday evening.

I was able to make it home a little early from work so that I could take Dakota to the dog park since it was SOOOO nice outside. (She ABSOLUTELY loves going there to run with the other dogs and Mr. L and I win out also because by the time we leave she is so exhausted that all she wants to do for the rest of the evening is lay around) I ran in the house, made sure to turn off the alarm, which we’ve been setting a lot more diligently lately due to the recent string of home break-ins in our area, and headed to the basement door. Our basement is mostly unfinished so this is where she stays while we are gone to work as an alternative to having to lay in her crate all day. Usually she is sitting at the top of the stairs after she hears me come in, so I just let her out and we go straight outside. On a rare occasion I might go downstairs to check on things but most of the time I try to avoid it like the plague because I think it’s creepy down there and there is really nothing she could get into… or so we thought.

We spent a good hour at the dog park before we came home so I could start dinner for Mr. L. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary when we walked in, I went in the kitchen and Dakota ran downstairs. This is a pretty typical occurrence for her in the evenings, she might be going down to get her football or her bone to bring up to play with in the family room, but when she came up carrying nothing, I should have been suspicious. A few minutes later Mr. L called to say that he wanted to run over to his parents’ house so that his Dad could check our taxes before we filed them and not to worry about cooking dinner; we’d just pick something up. So Dakota and I sat on the couch and waited for him to come home.

As we were getting ready to leave, I asked Mr. L to run downstairs (because obviously I didn’t want to) to grab Dakota’s bone to take with us to his parents’ so she would have something to keep her occupied for a while. He obliged and not two seconds after I heard his feet hit the basement floor did I also hear his voice yelling for me. “Have you been down here today!?” He screamed. “Uh…no” I politely yelled back…duh I was thinking to myself. What happens next could have been a real turning point in our married relationship. If he is anything like my father he may have chosen to hide what I’m about to tell you and use it as a practical joke or to scare me. However, I think he was just as grossed out as I would have been. After I didn’t hear anything from him, I yelled back down to him again thinking maybe she had chewed the nasty carpet down there again or pulled up some toe strip, all of which I care nothing about. “What is is?” I said. “Dakota got sick down here today…and I think she killed something”. Killed, that’s all it took, the word killed, to run chills up my spine. There was something alive in my house that my dog felt the need to kill. GROSS! “What was it” I said out of fear and disgust, not really wanting to know. “I think it’s a bat,” he yelled back up. For those of you who are puzzled, thinking to yourselves, a bat?...yes a flying bat, not to be confused with a baseball bat which is what the vet’s office receptionist thought I was talking about when I called there this morning. He proceeded to force me to come downstairs to help him clean “it” up and I did just like a good wife, holding the bag with eyes shut, teeth clenched and ants in my pants! Thank goodness the thing was really dead because had it moved when Mr. L went to scoop it up I think I would have had a heart attack.

How a bat got into our house I do not know, and the thought of other bats still hanging around makes me nauseous and wanting to move into a hotel for a few days until we can get an exterminator over to check things out. It does seem odd to me that it was in our basement (don’t bats usually hang out in attics?) especially since the windows are glass block and the door to the outside hasn’t been opened down there in probably six months. For now I guess it will remain a mystery and at least we have batwoman to scare off anymore bats that might think about showing themselves. Let it be a lesson to them…she will find you and then it’s CURTAINS! No more doggie kisses for us for a while, that’s for sure! I’ll keep you updated on the development of any fangs….HA!

PS. I was going to add an image of a real bat...but after I googled photos of bats and hundres of creepy bat photos popped up I got the heeby geebies so bad that I had to close the page. So cartoon photos of batwoman it is!

Fun Gadgets

When I was a kid I loved getting new toys! There was nothing better than ripping open the packaging to reveal the current must-have being talked about in the elementary school cafeteria. Even now as an adult I still get an exhilarating feeling much like I did when I was a child when I buy something new and exciting although I’ve cut back significantly on my Shopaholic ways since getting married…and sharing a bank account. That being said we recently got two new gadgets around our house that I have been slightly obsessed with, a steamer and a webcam!

The steamer was a Christmas gift that I have been wanting for a long time but just never got around to purchasing. Don’t tell my mom but it has been sitting in the box in our office for the past two months and I just got it out and put it together last weekend. It is AMAZING! I’m kind of annoyed with myself that I let it sit there and collect dust as long as I did when I could have been using it to steam everything in sight. There are some things that the iron still works better for but if you just have a few little spots on a work shirt it definitely does the trick and cuts down on my time in the morning!

Since Lauren moved out west I’ve been wanting to get a webcam so we could chat online and I could see her beautiful face rather than just hearing her voice. I nosed around on Amazon.com one day and found the perfect one to meet my needs. I couldn’t wait for it to come in the mail and now that it has arrived, I get so excited when I get to use it! Who knew video chatting could be so much fun and easy! The camera just plugs into my USB port and clips on to the top of my laptop. It amazes me the things we can do with technology these days. If you have friends or family that live far away I highly recommend getting one and the added bonus is that chatting through Skype is FREE (as long as you’re calling another computer that is)!

Things have been pretty boring around our house these days other than that. I can’t wait for Spring to get here! Happy Friday!

Friday the 13th on Thursday the 12th??

I’m not a superstitious person to say the least. I have no problems with black cats, breaking a mirror, opening an umbrella in the house, walking under a ladder, etc. and I don’t really believe that Friday the 13th is supposed to be a horrid day filled with bad luck. However…yesterday after I told you about how I was having “one of those days” it quickly escalated to the level of a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”. Could it be possible that the Universe got confused and I had my Friday the 13th on Thursday the 12th?

I won’t bore you with all the details but here’s a quick run down of how my evening progressed after I left work. I was rushing home to do a quick change and puppy potty break because I was supposed to be somewhere at 6:00. First there was the traffic, which I deal with almost every day, yet it still gets on my stinkin nerves! I chose to get off the expressway one exit early as to try and avoid a major bottleneck area. As I’m waiting patiently at a stop light in the far right lane of the exit ramp, some jerk comes whizzing up the median and proceeds to stop right next to my car and then expects me to let him over. I felt my blood pressure starting to rise! Why can’t people just follow the rules? I inched my car forward as to communicate with him that I was not putting up with such behavior and he would not be getting in front of me. Apparently this was not the reaction he was looking for because not only did he then cut me off but rolled down his window and stuck his head out looking back at me with this psycho stare. Fine…whatever…clearly HE is above the law so I let it go.

I sped home, screeched to a stop in my driveway and ran inside. Got Dakota, chained her outside and went to change. Not 5 minutes later I hear a yelping, semi-distressed sounding bark coming from outside. Dakota is not much of a barker so I knew something had to be wrong. I buttoned my jeans and ran back to the front door to look out only to see my spacy neighbor, 3 children in tow and her HUGE dog that she could barely control in my yard. I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be doing so I ran outside. She tells me that she thought she would “introduce” our dogs. Seriously? I really wanted to respond that our dogs had already been introduced the MANY times hers had gotten loose and tried to clobber Dakota and if she knew anything about actually introducing dogs she would know that you should never do it while one is chained up without it’s owner and can’t get away!! I kept thinking to myself as I stood in my wet yard with no shoes on and a fake smile on my face, trying my best to get Dakota back in the house as she had tangled the lady and her 3 year old little boy up in her lead, “I do not have time for this!”

Fast forward about 3 hours. It’s about 9:00. I am getting ready to leave to head home from being out for the evening. I get in my car, turn the key…NOTHING. Again I say to myself…Seriously? It’s dark out, I’m about 20 minutes away from my house, my husband is out of town, and I just had this darn battery replaced back in August …Seriously? This hasn’t been the first time that my trusty old car hasn’t started so I head to the trunk to get my jumper cables. A very nice man with a big truck gave me a jump start and 10 minutes later I was on the road. Whew! Not thinking…I pull into my one car driveway, let the engine run for a few more minutes (because in my mind, driving home should have been plenty of time to charge the battery) and then decide to turn the car off. Since I had to drive to work in the morning I thought to myself, I’ll just turn it back on once to make sure it will start…NOTHING. Now I’m really up a creek without a paddle! So, I call my Daddy who is always there to get me out of situations like this. I was able to find the receipt for the battery which was still under warranty, so we call AAA to come replace it. 45 minutes goes by and the guy shows up, tinkers around for 30 minutes (are you doing the math?) and comes to my door to tell me that my battery is bad (clearly) and that it needs to be replaced (clearly) but…he doesn’t have any of the kind I have in my car because it is a really popular battery and neither does anyone else in their entire fleet. FABULOUS! He tells me he will check with their sister company and let me know. 10 more minutes later he comes back to the door with the good news, Road Rangers has a battery and they are north of town so they’ll be to my house within the next 2 hours….WHAT?? Current time check when he tells me this…11:45. What other choice did I have though? So I sit and wait, watch my DVR’d Grey’s and Private Practice and hope the guy arrives sooner rather than later. Finally whole ordeal was over, I was in bed, with a new battery installed about 1:30am. I am SO TIRED today!

I think that was enough to go through in one day that I should be exempt from any bad luck today on the actual Friday the 13th ! Mr. L and I are celebrating our first married Valentine’s Day tonight by going to the Melting Pot for dinner…YUM, so I am optimistic and happy for the weekend to be here! I hope everyone has a day filled with better luck than I’ve had and nice Valentine’s Day!

Tomorrow

Do you ever just have one of those days?? Days where you don't feel like doing anything, getting anything accomplished or putting forth any kind of effort in general?? I'm having one of those days!

If you read my previous post you will know that I am a procrastinator. I'll be the first to admit that I can procrastinate with the best of em'. When I don't feel like doing something I can find at LEAST 5-10 other things to occupy my time. When this trait is mixed with having "one of those days" I find myself saying- Oh, I can do it tomorrow, and putting off the majority of the things I had on my list to do that day and why piles start to form. Piles. Piles. Piles of procrastination. Procrastination would be why I have piles of mail on the counter/my desk/the dining room table, why there are piles of laundry (dirty and clean) in just about every room of my house, piles of Mr. L's shirts that need to go to the dry cleaners, and why there is a pile of work next to me right now. I also used to mutter this phrase to a very wise woman known as my mother a lot growing up, and this was her response, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, creeps it's petty pace from day to day". As I keep getting older I realize how true this is and how little I get accomplished sometimes.

So...this is my pep talk to myself. Stop putting stuff off self! Why put off to tomorrow, what I can get accomplished today! I feel so proud of myself when I can cross things off my list so I'm going to suck it up and get er' done. Maybe tonight I'll get a wild hair and clean my house so my husband can come home to neat surroundings after traveling all week and not to a tornado of STUFF! Happy Thursday...only one more day until the weekend!!