Yet another storm

And this time, it downed a tree and knocked the power lines down and I had to park in the neighbors' driveway because our whole half of the street was blocked by knee-level wires. I ducked under where it was five feet high to get in the house. The "guys," whoever they are, are working on it now. I heard chain saws about half an hour ago.

The dog was panicking during the enormous storm...and when I took him to the bedroom to snuggle and insulate ourselves from scary sounds, he quickly moved to this position:

He only poked his head to plead with me, "Make it stop!" The rest of the time, all I could see was a little black nose behind the bed skirt.

Job's still going great; I really enjoy it. Hubby comes back tomorrow--woohoo! I hate it when he's gone. I'll clean up tomorrow morning.

I've been watching My Big Fat Greek wedding and feel homesick for my own family. There won't be a big family event for awhile...well, my cousin's birthday is a shindig in September. He turns one. He's my first cousin once removed? Anyway, everybody's coming in town for that. If my mom goes I might ask if my parents would fly me to Cinci to go too. I hate being stuck away from everybody here in Boston.

Oops, hubby on the phone, gotta go.

My Boring Life

So, I realized today that I don't have much of an interesting life. I don't even have groups on livejournal that I can join except for the clucky board, of which I'm already a member! The clucky board is for women who want kids but have to wait...boy, that's me. I daydream about having an accident, I really do. I would curse my bank account but I realize I have it better than some do, so I should let it be. But really, sometimes I wish I could be the irresponsible one for once!!! Who cares about dumb ole debt? Right? Not quite. Since the hubby is gone, I can't shoot for an accident, which is probably for the best.

The hubby is only having a medium-fun time with his troop at camp. Since he's the only DE there (and he's not actually taking time off work--he's answering phone calls and such the entire week), he doesn't have the luxury of letting "someone else" handle problems. For example, the section of camp they were in became overcrowded so he had to pack up his tent and move across camp. But, like he said, it's better that he have to do this kind of stuff than a volunteer.

Work was pretty bland today; I spent the whole day looking at Excel spreadsheets and I feel like a zombie now. I didn't sleep well last night so I'm pretty exhausted now. I rented the new Pride and Prejudice over the weekend and I'll pop it in soon and snuggle the dog. I put french onion soup into the oven and it's starting to smell lovely.

Last night our softball team won our game and then we went out for pizza. It was really good and was fun. Tomorrow I'm going downtown for makeup shopping with a friend from work. It is so hard to meet people in Boston and I'm glad I have a friend in my coworker. And it's turning out that we're not going to be "work friends" but "hang out and do stuff and have lunch" friends. I think I'm going to have better luck making friends in the "real world" than I did at Harvard. I mean there, I would try to make friends, only to quit once I realized that the other person was flying in from Planet Militant Marxism. I think in business there are more capitalists, which is a great start for a friendship!

Incidentally, while I have been productive since the hubby has been gone, I haven't been half as productive as I planned because I've agreed to after-work activities simply so I wouldn't have to go to an empty house. I suppose that is the way things go.

My dad's pretty sick again, and no, I don't really want to talk about it. I just thought I'd give the update.

Oh, Nancy French's book is now available for pre-order! I can't wait to read it. Check out her blog (link to the side) for an entry on it. Woohoo!

I hate being alone for a week. Perhaps my Jane Austen movie will make the melancholy less acute.

Photos of the Front Steps and a Sunday Update

Well, it's Sunday, and I'm (gasp!) skipping church. The husband had to go to camp with his little troop so he was getting ready and leaving about the time church began. I didn't want to miss seeing him off.

I have been almost looking forward to his being gone--not because of *him*, but because there are all sorts of cleaning projects around the house I've been dying to do. This week I'll be so bored that I'll actually DO those projects! They're all fairly small but irritating--things like scrubbing the tub, hemming pants, tidying the laundry room, cleaning the kitchen table, organizing my clothes and putting the sweaters in the chest...very, very dull week ahead of me, but once it's over, it'll feel SO good!!! Last week we did a lot of work on the outside of the house and it made a huge difference. Here are the before and after pix:
BEFORE:















AFTER:















This week I want to do the inside, and since the hubby won't be around to distract me, I hope to get a lot done. I will miss him a lot though. I'm going to channel that energy into cleaning.

Yesterday we went to the Museum of Science downtown and had a good time. The OmniTheatre was showing a movie on ancient Greece and that was absolutely worth seeing! Hubby kept having to shut his eyes because of motion sickness but I thought it was great.

On the way home we were discussing how our lives have changed, and we realized that we've both had to streamline our lives significantly. This was not actually done from choice (at least originally)--we both tried to live more open lives with friends in and out all the time, but found that being young and married made us so different that that lifestyle wouldn't work. We simply don't fit in with the folks our age nor do we fit in with other marrieds (who are all older). So, our course of action has been to concentrate on our careers, our home, and our marriage while keeping in touch with true friends who live far away. On one hand, this disappoints me (not having loads of local friends to hang out with), but on the other hand, there have been unforeseen benefits. For example, we are pretty clear-headed about our long-term goals and we are intentional about our choices. Perhaps it's a toss-up. This entire conversation came about because I mentioned that I wished we were the type of couple who retired to the patio after a long day of work for a glass of wine with some friends. (Does any American really do that anyway? The Greeks in the movie made it look so easy...) I think in my imagination, getting a lot of these nagging chores done will make my return home after work more relaxing. When I don't have things hanging over my head, I feel so much more free. (Free to do what? Ummm, walk the dog? But that's not the point.)

One thing I'm becoming more and more clear-headed about is that I will likely apply to business school in a year. We've done a lot of thinking about how we want our lives to go--and what lifestyle we want to live--and it looks like I'll have a lot more freedom with an MBA than without one. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering "what happened to having a baby?," I'm going to be shamelessly honest and say we realized we can't afford it right now. With our student loans, every month I don't work we'd go in the hole at least 1k--not counting baby expenses. We have some savings but not that much. When the hubby said he was up for having a baby now, I thought he meant for me to stay home permanently, and he meant that I could stay home for the paid maternity leave and then go back to work. Well, we all know how expensive day care can be, and even if I did continue working, we'd likely be living paycheck to paycheck after baby and daycare expenses. By waiting a bit and getting some things paid off, we'll be in a much better place when we have a baby. This was not an easy or fun realization but I'm going with it for now.

In terms of the house, we have some upcoming large expenses we didn't expect, and we're a little frustrated about a few of them. However, they must be done, and we're grateful we both have steady work to pay for them.

Oh, goodness gracious, I JUST remembered that I have an important meeting today at 4:30. Good thing I didn't forget that!!!! Whew!

Well, I'd better throw on some work clothes and get a move on.

Friday Morning

I've been told I need to update, but I don't have much to say. This week I've not been sleeping well and thus have been uncharacteristically tired every day. Last night I played in my company's softball game (a playoff game!) and we won by a run at the end. I am *terrible* at softball, so of course I embarrassed myself sufficiently during the course of the game. I also made a couple of good plays--as in two decent throws at important times--and my quick little legs got a run. I was on second and the batter got a ground hit, and as I was running to third base, the third base coach saw my speed and said, "If you hurry I think you can make it!" And I did make it by a good four feet. High fives all around!

Nothing much else is happening. I feel like I'm behind on absolutely everything, but I hope to fix that next week when the husband will be at camp. These are really boring things like hemming pants, taking suits to the cleaners, doing laundry...fun, I know.

Okay, we have an office-wide meeting in 8 minutes and I want to get a good seat. I wish Matt's girlfriend would bake cookies for him to bring again.

Saturday Morning

Is there anything better than a reasonably-clean house and a newly-stocked fridge? Well, yes, I'm sure there are better things, but for the time being, I'm enjoying the feeling. It really reminds me how blessed we are; so many people don't have the option of going to the grocery and bringing home a wide array of nutritious foods. We have friends who just moved back to South Africa to do AIDs Christian ministry, and I know that many of the folks they minister to will not have a house and a stocked fridge like we get to enjoy today. Perhaps this is a small blessing in life--and you might think it's meaningless--but I am grateful for it.

Today I'm going to be doing yard work. My husband will be at the camp in NH for a meeting and will come back around 3. Then it'll be time for our friends' housewarming party--how exciting! This is probably the best friend I have in Boston, and a little over a year ago she met the man she is marrying in a few weeks and immediately fell madly in love. A week into it, she knew--and, given our history, I understood! I had the sorrow of watching her move to NH to be with him, but the joy of knowing how happy she was. I'm singing in their wedding, and I get to sing the song that was "our song" to which we danced our first dance as husband and wife.

I've been keeping up with dieting pretty well, and I feel better. Go me! Today's weeding should burn some calories. I'm going to take a before picture so that the after will look that much better. It's pretty awful right now, as you might guess. All this Boston rain has led to a jungle instead of a front porch. I'll fix that!

Well, time to surf others' blogs. Hope your Saturdays are great too!

Thanks, Renee

Thanks for alerting me, Renee. I don't know what to do about the photo except acknowledge that some people are just jerks and use slander instead of discussion.
Let me know if you have other suggestions.

It's Been Awhile

I've been told I need to update, and I agree that it has been awhile since I've written. Last week I was in Colorado on vacation, woohoo! I went hiking and fishing and even went skeet shooting. Nothing much happened while I was there; I got a sunburn on my knees and watched a great parade on July 4. Other than that...ate a lot of food, read books, relaxed...yep, that's about it.

And that brings me to this: today is the day of my new Get in Shape Girl program. I tried to begin before vacation but didn't keep it up during vacation so I'm trying again. I have joined the Presidential Fitness thing and I have to work out at least 30 minutes, 5 times a week for 6-8 weeks and I'll get a medal (probably an e-medal). Go me! I ran on the treadmill tonight, 2.2 miles, and did lots of situps, pushups, and leg lifts. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't pretty, but I feel good that I can still do it. I wonder how long it'll take me before I'm actually back in shape. I'm also setting a goal of eating salad every day this week for lunch. We don't own a scale so I'll just have to go on how my pants fit. Speaking of that, I need to hem a pair tonight to wear tomorrow.

It has just occured to me that this blog post is terribly uninteresting. Sorry.

I got a new computer at work. TWO monitors! Woohoo! I love it. Work was pretty slow today but eh, oh well. It was just slow beause I was waiting on other people.

I have been off coffee for nearly a month now, and every day is still a struggle. Will it ever get easier? I guess old habits are hard to break. I still love the smell of coffee in the mornings and every Starbucks I pass is a tempting stop-off.

Well, I'm off to hem my pants. Sorry this isn't more interesting; I'll write more stuff later.