August 2008 – akaemi.com
 

Month: August 2008

when I grow up?

| Leave a comment

Today in my sunday school class, my nine-year-olds decided they wanted to discuss what they wanted to be when they grew up.  Turns out, I have a future video game programmer, lawyer and composer in my class.  (In his defense, li’l g wants to be a lawyer because that’s what his dad is – and since he’s only 9, his dad is his hero.  It’ll be interesting to see what he wants to be when he’s 13 …)

I know it shouldn’t catch me off guard, but one of the kids asked me what I wanted to be.  You know, when I grow up.

Instead of telling them I wanted to be a travel-writer (which would be so totally awesome – but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t actually pay any sort of bills), I informed them that I was grown up and I was a software engineer.  (A SENIOR software engineer at that!  I apparently just made the jump with years of experience, that’s my new job title at my new job!)

Ironically, the programmer-to-be wrinkled his nose and asked what that was.  Li’l g informed him that it had to do with computers, and I said that yes, I write computer software.  I think it caught the kids by surprise – both that I was really a grown-up AND that I had such a serious-sounding job.

Hopefully now they’ll remember that I’m a real-live grown up.  Old enough, even, to be their mother.

The husband and I signed a contract for a new bathroom in June.  Work started in July.  It is now August.

I realize it takes time to get stuff done, but the work crews only spend about 12 hours a week at my house.  And lately when I call the bathroom man (who has never actually been in my house …) to ask when things will be done, he always reassures me that everything will be wrapped up ‘tomorrow’.

And every time I get such a promise, I come home to find little or no progress on the bathroom.

At the beginning of the work, he told me they’d be in the house for 2 weeks, then they’d special order the glass which would take 2 weeks, and then it could be installed and everything would be done in a month.  And so I was expecting a complete bathroom right about, oh, last week.

Instead, I have a dusty half-bath, still waiting on touch-up patching and painting and some grouting in the shower.  While I am glad I can at least use the bathroom for part of its intended purpose, I really would like to enjoy my gloriously large shower.  Which is still at least 2 weeks away seeing as they only just ordered the glass last week.

I just wish my bathroom man would be honest with me; filling me with false hope just turns me into li’l miss cranky-I-want-my-shower-pants.  And nobody likes her.  Especially my facebook buddies who are sick of seeing my status complain about my bathroom man …

success!

| 1 Comment

The husband hates shopping for clothing.  With a passion.  He has never had to do it for himself; luckily, there have always been women in his life (grandmother, mother, girlfriends and now wife) who care deeply for him and want him to be clothed.

I have found a system that generally works – I buy 20 things online, they arrive at the house, the husband tries them on and picks what he likes, and then I return 15 things to the brick and mortar store.

But that doesn’t work so well with shoes.  Not only are 20 pairs of shoes more expensive than 20 t-shirts, but you often have to try on more than 20 pairs to find the one you like.  (Unless you’re me … then you try on 20 pairs of shoes and find 20 you like …)

So today I convinced the husband it would be a good day for shoe-shopping.  We are headed to the beach, and, well, he doesn’t have any beach-appropriate shoes.  His favorite pair is high-top hiking boots that involve a serious time-commitment to get on and off.  His other pair of shoes are black dress shoes that he only breaks out when he has to wear his suit. 

We went to several stores, with his mood souring at every one.  Everything was too expensive, or too uncomfortable, or took too long to get on and off.  He found a style he liked, but there were none in his size, so I made a mental note and decided I’d spend the next few weeks looking for a size 13 manly slide.

On our way out of the last store, however, he stumbled across the perfect beach shoe.  The size and color combination of his dreams wasn’t available, but that’s what the internet is for.

And so I have ordered his beach shoes, and they will arrive in plenty of time for our trip.

Now I just have to order 20 pairs of shorts, and we’ll be all set! 

I just got the confirmation letter for my week in the outer banks!  And for those of you not privy the east coast wonder known as ‘obx,’ it’s just a region of the coast in north carolina.

I’ve never been to the outer banks, even though it seems everyone else in northern virginia has, and they have the ‘obx’ bumper sticker to prove it.  Now I will finally get my chance to visit this mysteriously superior beach.

I love beach towns!  I’m actually not really a swimmer, but I do enjoy dodging the waves as they hit my knees.  Or maybe waist, if the husband has convinced me to live on the edge.  🙂

Beach towns are always so relaxed.  And they have the best food!  Candy shops full of fudge and salt water taffy, ice cream shops, corn dogs, funnel cakes  – there’s a tasty surprise around every corner. 

And the fun little stores! Where else can you buy crazy hats, $2 t-shirts, voo-doo magic palm-reading crystals, kites, shotglasses with your name on them (well, not my name …) and 28 varieties of salt water taffy? 

OBX offers dolphin cruises, something you don’t find in the chilly waters of the Pacific Northwest.  As well as the Wright Brothers Memorial, and the tallest lighthouse in North America.

Now I just need to get busy on my spray-on tan!

Is really kind of awesome!  At my new job, we get to work from home as long as we don’t abuse the privilege (i.e., when you have to sit at home during a 6-hour window for a 3-minute service call).

I had to wait for the not-blind blind man to come measure the basement sliding glass door so we can get new vertical blinds put up – which took him all of 37 seconds.  So I left work early this afternoon – which meant I was 2 hours behind on my workday.

But, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to vpn into my work network and remote desktop to my machine.  And work for two hours! 

My tiny little laptop screen isn’t the best thing for juggling a java ide, two web browsers (gotta make my web app work in IE and FF …), an oracle ide, notepad++, and my services manager, but it works well enough.  Especially since now I’ll be able to have a regular-ol’ 8-hour friday tomorrow. 

6 quirky things

| 2 Comments

One of my favorite people ever did a ‘6 quirky things’ post a few days back, and it seemed like so much fun, here I am doing it.  🙂

It’s really one of those blog-chain-letter things, and if you’d like to carry on the tradition, here are the rules:

1) Link to the person who tagged me
2) Mention the rules
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about myself
4) Tag 6 other bloggers by linking to them
5) Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they’ve been tagged

So here’s my list:

1) I like to jump on hotel beds.

2) I like to stomp in puddles after a good, warm rain.  I picked up this habit after I moved out of the perpetually wet Pacific Northwest – I think because they don’t ever get good, warm rains.

3) I was a devourer of books until I went to college.  It seems that reading college texts sucked all the fun out of reading.  Now I only read on airplanes.

4) I love legos.  Like a lot.  Like more than any grown woman should.  And I have the lego collection to prove it.

5) I require as many calories as the husband.  And thanks to wonder of fabulously lucky genetics, I am less than half his size.

6) I often buy the wrong thing at the grocery store.  Like fat-free, low-sodium, or sugar-free when my goal is to buy the regular version.  This week’s snafu?  I bought regular sprite instead of sprite zero.  I can feel my teeth eroding already.

Because I like to tempt the fate of chain letter superstitions, I’m not going to tag anybody.  But, um, if you are reading my blog AND have a blog of your own – well, you’re one of the 6 people on the planet that fit that criteria … so consider yourself tagged.  🙂

The husband and I recently joined a gym (yay for us!!) and we went in this week for our free fitness profile.  They asked us bunches of questions (them: how active are your jobs?  us:  um, we sit in front of computers all day.  but we move our arms!  and hands and fingers!), pinched our skin fats, took our weights and measurements, and then it was time for the physical tests.

hahahahahaha!

I’m proud to say, we survived it!  And I have to say, I think we did quite well, considering the fact that we have done little more than sit for the last 6 years.  Sure, sometimes I vacuum or walk through the grocery store – but that’s about all the physical activity my life demands these days.

I survived 15 minutes on the treadmill, did 28 sit-ups in a minute, and did 20 (girl) push-ups before my arms started shaking so much I feared I might find myself square on my face.

But then there was the flexibility test.

I have never, in my life, been able to touch my toes.  When I’ve worked on it for months, I can get kinda close – like the lower part of my shin.  When I was 8 and working on my presidential fitness stuff – I could do the mile, the sit-ups, more pull-ups than any of the other girls – but the darn flexibility test was just impossible.  I remember being met with disbelief when I stretched as far as I could go, when my legs were trembling with the strain, my knees begging to bend, and my fingertips were still nowhere near my toes.

So I failed the flexibility test miserably.  Couldn’t even register on their little measurement device, I think I only made it just past my knees.

I’ve never believed much in the whole touch-your-toes test, I guess because I’ve never been able to.  I don’t think it’s kept me from accomplishing anything physical that I’ve ever wanted to.  I’ve hiked up and down mountains, done round-house kicks, managed to get 80-pound boxes into my house.  The only thing I’ve missed out on is, well, the satisfaction of touching my toes.

What to do when you accidentally buy completely unsweetened cranberry juice?  Sprite zero to the rescue! 

With a ratio of about 10 to 1 (with the Sprite on the heavy side) sprite-cranberry is actually kinda good.  The cranberries suck the sweet right out, and you get a tangy cranberry-lemon-lime drink – very reminiscent of apple slice.  If you’re, um, old enough to remember apple slice.

My ten year reunion was this last weekend, I just got a report from my ‘spy’ that there was some serious drunkenness and the cops were called in.

That’s right, R.A. Long class of ’98 … ten years later and still not sober …

So, last night I picked up some bookcases at ikea.  Bookcases that get packaged in nice, neat flat boxes.  Nice, neat 65 and 80 pound flat boxes.

I got them into the baja ok (which, turns out, is kind of pretty awesome – with the pass-thru open and the bed extender down, the 7 ft boxes were no problem), by lifting one end at a time and sliding, it wasn’t too difficult.

But then the task of getting them into the house: up a curb and then three steps.  An 80-pound bookshelf and two 65-pounders.  Being your average girl, I can’t really carry half my body weight – I’m good for a quick burst (i.e., get the 70-pound luggage into the back of a car), but into the house isn’t really a quick burst.

Luckily we have a dolly, and none of the neighbors were out to watch me attempt things way beyond my ability.  I managed to get the boxes into the house without doing major damage to myself (or the bookcases).

But it sure woulda been easier with a husband … I guess they are good for something.  🙂

akaemi.com ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Theme by Phoenix Web Solutions