So since I had most of the day off from work today because I've been working to much on the weekends I thought it would be a good time to get the car registered. Ok, honestly, John asked me to go get it registered - I didn't really want to. But I just have to wonder if there is a better way to accomplish this task.
First, I have to get the car inspected, which I did today. But I had to sit in a line at the emissions place for an hour and a half. By the time I was out it was too late to go next door to the DMV to actually register the car because they stop doing visual inspections 2 hours before the office actually closes. So I have to go again later this week and get that inspection done. Then I'm going to have to wait in another line and when I finally do get to the window it's likely that I won't have all the right paperwork... I've done this a few times in the last couple of years.
In this world of technology and instant knowledge, there has just got to be a better way to register your car in a new state. I'm just venting here - I know many of you have had similar experiences. Some day, hopefully, it will change.
In the meantime I will spend another couple of hours at the DMV later this week to pay them a lot of money in exchange for a piece of paper that shows I own the car and have let the government know about it.
In other news: my first work event went really smoothly. We had a reception and dinner last Friday night and then our guests visited campus on Saturday for sample classes. It went great and I am so pleased. Even if I am exhausted, too.
3.10.2009
Happy Birthday Hubby!
Yep, it's John's birthday today and he's hanging out at home on Spring Break. Spring break so far hasn't been great; he spent a full day yesterday working on a project for one of his classes that is going to take him forever to finish. But today is his 28th birthday so I'm taking a half day of work so we can play and celebrate. And as much as he claims he's not a dessert person, I'm making brownies!
Happy Birthday, John - I love you, no matter how old you're getting!
Happy Birthday, John - I love you, no matter how old you're getting!
3.03.2009
Furcation
I've just been reading blogs and realized that I haven't posted on my own for quite a while. This is probably because there isn't much going on with us right now. John finished his second trimester and had a week break last week. I figured I would take some of my mandatory furlough days while he was off so we could hang out - thus the term 'furcation' which I snagged from my coworker Jen.
It is early March and the weather here in AZ already feels like summer. Since I had last Thursday and Friday off, we spent some time outside and actually got sunburned. We went to a spring training game with friends last Friday and sat on the lawn in the sunshine for over 3 hours. I think I'll be buying some sunscreen on the next trip to the store... and some aloe vera gel!
The down side of having so much time off is that John totally messed up his sleep schedule and then I got sucked into the craziness, too. So we've had a hard time adjusting to normal hours this week and we've both been really tired the last couple of days. It's probably not going to get much better, though, because John has Spring Break next week. And I'll have more furcation on Monday and Tuesday, too! Woot!
Other news:
My laptop died for good a few weeks ago and since it takes an emergency to pry John's from his lap I haven't had much computer time at home recently. Thus the lack of blogging, but I know it's no excuse.
I sang in a Relief Society program last Tuesday - I was really nervous for my solo, but it went ok and everyone was really impressed.
John won a competition and got a cash reward that finally showed up in our bank account last week. But it will probably just go to pay taxes since it looks like we owe quite a bit this year... boo taxes! And we won't even get into the horrible things that are going to happen on that front in the next few years...
We finally made it through all the seasons of Frasier we got for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad Zincke!) so we'll be starting over on those in a few weeks, I'm sure. I finished watching the second season of 24 and started on Heroes yesterday. It's a nice way to unwind after work and now I know what everyone's been talking about.
So that's life for now. Just chuggin' away and hangin' in there.
It is early March and the weather here in AZ already feels like summer. Since I had last Thursday and Friday off, we spent some time outside and actually got sunburned. We went to a spring training game with friends last Friday and sat on the lawn in the sunshine for over 3 hours. I think I'll be buying some sunscreen on the next trip to the store... and some aloe vera gel!
The down side of having so much time off is that John totally messed up his sleep schedule and then I got sucked into the craziness, too. So we've had a hard time adjusting to normal hours this week and we've both been really tired the last couple of days. It's probably not going to get much better, though, because John has Spring Break next week. And I'll have more furcation on Monday and Tuesday, too! Woot!
Other news:
My laptop died for good a few weeks ago and since it takes an emergency to pry John's from his lap I haven't had much computer time at home recently. Thus the lack of blogging, but I know it's no excuse.
I sang in a Relief Society program last Tuesday - I was really nervous for my solo, but it went ok and everyone was really impressed.
John won a competition and got a cash reward that finally showed up in our bank account last week. But it will probably just go to pay taxes since it looks like we owe quite a bit this year... boo taxes! And we won't even get into the horrible things that are going to happen on that front in the next few years...
We finally made it through all the seasons of Frasier we got for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad Zincke!) so we'll be starting over on those in a few weeks, I'm sure. I finished watching the second season of 24 and started on Heroes yesterday. It's a nice way to unwind after work and now I know what everyone's been talking about.
So that's life for now. Just chuggin' away and hangin' in there.
2.06.2009
Crazy Happenings in Tempe
It has been a long week and it started off kind of rocky.
We went to bed at a decent time on Sunday night but I woke up to strange noises at about 2am. There was someone yelling outside our window. I wasn't worried at first - we live on the second floor and it was Super Bowl weekend so I figured it was just some late-night party people wrapping things up. So I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Then I heard gunfire.
I started listening closer and it was a guy yelling to someone to let him in. He was pounding on a door pretty hard but I couldn't tell which apartment he was harassing. He shot his gun again and by this time John was awake, too. I'm so glad he was there because I was pretty scared. We laid in bed listening to what was going on and hoping that he wouldn't feel inclined to come upstairs and knock on our door. He shot his gun a couple more times and kept yelling at someone to 'answer the door.' Then we heard the police sirens and the guy got really upset. He yelled some threats about hunting someone down then we heard him take off running.
The police showed up a couple of minutes later and we heard our downstairs neighbors filing the report. An officer knocked on our door a little while later to make sure we were okay and then everything quieted down. Except my stomach which was still in knots.
There hasn't been any follow up incidents this week so we're hoping the problem was resolved. It's strange how just a few minutes can strip you of your feeling of safety for days afterward. But I'm so grateful that the police showed up.
So that was the most exciting part of our week. We have a pretty open weekend with not too many plans and it will be nice to relax.
We went to bed at a decent time on Sunday night but I woke up to strange noises at about 2am. There was someone yelling outside our window. I wasn't worried at first - we live on the second floor and it was Super Bowl weekend so I figured it was just some late-night party people wrapping things up. So I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Then I heard gunfire.
I started listening closer and it was a guy yelling to someone to let him in. He was pounding on a door pretty hard but I couldn't tell which apartment he was harassing. He shot his gun again and by this time John was awake, too. I'm so glad he was there because I was pretty scared. We laid in bed listening to what was going on and hoping that he wouldn't feel inclined to come upstairs and knock on our door. He shot his gun a couple more times and kept yelling at someone to 'answer the door.' Then we heard the police sirens and the guy got really upset. He yelled some threats about hunting someone down then we heard him take off running.
The police showed up a couple of minutes later and we heard our downstairs neighbors filing the report. An officer knocked on our door a little while later to make sure we were okay and then everything quieted down. Except my stomach which was still in knots.
There hasn't been any follow up incidents this week so we're hoping the problem was resolved. It's strange how just a few minutes can strip you of your feeling of safety for days afterward. But I'm so grateful that the police showed up.
So that was the most exciting part of our week. We have a pretty open weekend with not too many plans and it will be nice to relax.
1.29.2009
2 New Discoveries
I have recently made two new discoveries that I have been having a lot of fun with: Twitter and iGoogle. As you can guess, I've been spending a lot of time online...
I've heard of Twitter before but wasn't sure exactly what it was. I've finally been catching up on all my blog reading since the holidays (not that it really needs catching up on) and Neil Gaiman (author) mentioned it numerous times. I absolutely adore his blog, by the way. So I decided to check it out and I think I'm being sucked in to the world that is online communication. It's basically a simplified version of facebook and focuses on the "what are you doing now" part combined with blogging. You have your homepage where you can post your entries and your friends can 'follow' you. You can also sign up to 'follow' other people. You can post from the web or from your phone via text messaging. My thread isn't that exciting, but I'm following Neil Gaiman and it's pretty entertaining. He's just won the Newberry Medal award for his recent publication The Graveyard Book and he's also involved in all the hype over the movie Coraline coming out next month (he wrote the original book the movie is based on). So he's been doing lots of interviews and phone calls, all of which are documented on his Twitter posts. Kinda fun and a little addictive.
My second discovery is iGoogle which is not so new but I've just finally got on board with my google account. You basically customize your own homepage with links and windows to your gmail, blogger and other google products as well as news feeds from various organizations, games, animations, pictures, etc. I like it because I can now easily access most of the websites I visit everyday all from one page and it gives me other important information like the weather forecast, top headlines in the news, quotes of the day, and even a gadget for Twitter. If you have a google account you should check it out and if you don't maybe it's time to think about joining everyone else on Google. They are going to take over the world, just accept it as inevitable.
I've heard of Twitter before but wasn't sure exactly what it was. I've finally been catching up on all my blog reading since the holidays (not that it really needs catching up on) and Neil Gaiman (author) mentioned it numerous times. I absolutely adore his blog, by the way. So I decided to check it out and I think I'm being sucked in to the world that is online communication. It's basically a simplified version of facebook and focuses on the "what are you doing now" part combined with blogging. You have your homepage where you can post your entries and your friends can 'follow' you. You can also sign up to 'follow' other people. You can post from the web or from your phone via text messaging. My thread isn't that exciting, but I'm following Neil Gaiman and it's pretty entertaining. He's just won the Newberry Medal award for his recent publication The Graveyard Book and he's also involved in all the hype over the movie Coraline coming out next month (he wrote the original book the movie is based on). So he's been doing lots of interviews and phone calls, all of which are documented on his Twitter posts. Kinda fun and a little addictive.
My second discovery is iGoogle which is not so new but I've just finally got on board with my google account. You basically customize your own homepage with links and windows to your gmail, blogger and other google products as well as news feeds from various organizations, games, animations, pictures, etc. I like it because I can now easily access most of the websites I visit everyday all from one page and it gives me other important information like the weather forecast, top headlines in the news, quotes of the day, and even a gadget for Twitter. If you have a google account you should check it out and if you don't maybe it's time to think about joining everyone else on Google. They are going to take over the world, just accept it as inevitable.
1.26.2009
Just Breathe
John and I had a laid back weekend, which was so nice after all the hustle and bustle. Our holidays were wonderful and we so enjoyed visiting family and friends. But this weekend was much needed.
Friday night we went bowling with some friends. I am the first to admit that I am awful at the much-loved pastime of rolling a ball down a wooden lane to knock over the pins, so I did not play. I figured it would be silly to pay for me to do something I probably wouldn't enjoy, especially since I was only there for the socializing anyway. So I did a lot of visiting and I got to hold Jocelyn who is almost 3 months old now. After the game, I don't have the slightest idea of who won, we went to Chipotle for a late dinner. And late it was... they politely let us know it was time to leave by putting all the chairs on the tables. When we got home we watched a few episodes of Frasier (we're on Season 7 of 11 now) then went to bed.
Sleeping in on Saturday was absolutely glorious. We didn't get up until about 10:30. Of course, staying in bed that long came with the usual dose of guilt over being lazy on a beautiful sunny day, bit I managed to push the feelings aside as I argued with myself that a lazy morning was long overdue. And the day ended up being mostly productive anyway - we ran a few errands, did some grocery shopping, tidied up the house, and made a lovely dinner. We also managed to get more Frasier in (I know, big surprise) and some 24. I did spend a few hours reading, too. I've started on a new fantasy book and I had forgotten how much I like being immersed in a fun adventure.
Sunday was also pretty relaxed so it was a lazy and enjoyable weekend all around. One thing of note: John was persuaded to buy fish at the store on Saturday and we had it for dinner last night with rice and acorn squash. Yes, John ate fish... willingly. This health kick of his must be serious indeed!
Friday night we went bowling with some friends. I am the first to admit that I am awful at the much-loved pastime of rolling a ball down a wooden lane to knock over the pins, so I did not play. I figured it would be silly to pay for me to do something I probably wouldn't enjoy, especially since I was only there for the socializing anyway. So I did a lot of visiting and I got to hold Jocelyn who is almost 3 months old now. After the game, I don't have the slightest idea of who won, we went to Chipotle for a late dinner. And late it was... they politely let us know it was time to leave by putting all the chairs on the tables. When we got home we watched a few episodes of Frasier (we're on Season 7 of 11 now) then went to bed.
Sleeping in on Saturday was absolutely glorious. We didn't get up until about 10:30. Of course, staying in bed that long came with the usual dose of guilt over being lazy on a beautiful sunny day, bit I managed to push the feelings aside as I argued with myself that a lazy morning was long overdue. And the day ended up being mostly productive anyway - we ran a few errands, did some grocery shopping, tidied up the house, and made a lovely dinner. We also managed to get more Frasier in (I know, big surprise) and some 24. I did spend a few hours reading, too. I've started on a new fantasy book and I had forgotten how much I like being immersed in a fun adventure.
Sunday was also pretty relaxed so it was a lazy and enjoyable weekend all around. One thing of note: John was persuaded to buy fish at the store on Saturday and we had it for dinner last night with rice and acorn squash. Yes, John ate fish... willingly. This health kick of his must be serious indeed!
1.20.2009
Go AZ Cardinals!!
Phoenix is all a buzz about the Arizona Cardinals football team - they're going to the Super Bowl! Last week was pretty exciting as everyone jumped on the bandwagon and became instant fans when the Cardinals made it to the NFC and played on Sunday. Everyone has something to say about it and everyone I've talked to watched the game on Sunday - even the lady at the department store who claimed she doesn't like football. John and I were in Tucson visiting Dave and Charity this weekend so we had someone to watch the game with and then celebrate with when our team won. It looks like John and I bring the sports luck with us wherever we go - the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team won the World Series when we moved to St. Louis and now the AZ Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. Maybe it just has something to do with Cardinals...
This will be one of only a couple years that I watch the Super Bowl for the both the game and the commercials!
This will be one of only a couple years that I watch the Super Bowl for the both the game and the commercials!
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