Another month gone...

My new house-mate is all moved in, settled in, and things are working out extremely well. She works crazy mad hours, really long shifts, and is really quiet and hardly noticed. So, so far so good! Hey, I can definitely work with this. She has a really great boyfriend too that comes up a couple times a month. And she's tolerating my social life just fine, with all the people stopping by, making noise, etc, etc. And my kitten Shannon has completely fallen in love with her, and follows her around and sits outside her bedroom door.

A couple weeks ago, I went home to spend a quiet weekend with my family. It ended up being a whirlwind time, with a lot of backbreaking work, but I did end up relaxing a little bit and seeing some family for a short time. Picked about a million strawberries for my mother (to sell back in Rochester), and did a lot of gardening. Spring was definitely in the air. Sitting on a country porch, relaxing in a hottub at 1am, and just enjoying the slower pace of life outside the city can really catch on. But it's only a weekend thing, and all good things do end.

I had a very tragic accident happen recently. I decided to buy a couple goldfish to add to my tank, and about 2 days after, all of my fish died. Every one, even the very resilient placastumus fish, whom I've had for years. And it happened during a party in which I had a dozen people over. It was very sad, and these damn new goldfish caused it. So now I have a very empty tank. I haven't brought myself to rebuilding the empire. Still mourning the loss, I suppose! I feel bad. Some of those fish I've had for years and years.

Lately, it's been a lot of dinners and evenings out with the friends. Had a wonderful steak dinner with Nicole and Mark a couple weeks ago, went out to eat with my sisters to catch up and gossip, Marni and I have shared delicious meals after hard gardening, a couple bouts with TonyD's coal-fired pizza, Jines, Sticky Lips, goodbye parties at work, etc, etc. I've been very strict with my eating plan as of late. So balancing socializing (aka getting out of the house) and healthy eating has left me with limited options, but hey, I'm trying. I have an upcoming wedding I'm headed to in a couple weeks, and immediately following is my highschool reunion. So you'll forgive me if I work extra hard to lose the last few founds I want to lose! :)

Last weekend, I had the joy of going to the horse track with Marni and Jude (and a few others) to enjoy a day at the races, and a bit of gambling, awesome fatty foods, beautiful horses, and sunshine. I even won a bunch of money. Marni and I headed to Canandaigua to do some shopping and to get some lunch, but afterward, we spent the next few hours betting on the races, and coming out about even for the day. I've always enjoyed the races, and my luck followed me on the machines down stairs. It's definitely an activity I want to do again, soon.

So this weekend is camping in Big Flats, NY (up on a mountain), next weekend is a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, the next weekend/week is my trip to North Carolina, and then my 10yr HS reunion down where my mom lives. Gonna be a VERY busy July, with a lot of time off from work. I can't wait!

Not starving

I'm not starving, so don't worry about me. Just losing some weight.

Horse Races

Horse Races
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Enjoying a day gambling with the friends.

Cute

Cute
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

If I didn't know better I'd think she was sweet

Mulching

Mulching
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Spending the day working on Marni's garden.

Sitting on the fence...

Jake and Seth. Door apart.

Jake and Seth. Door apart.
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Waiting for the games to begin.

Lazy Katie

Lazy Katie
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

It's a dog's day. Full of rain and hanging out on the porch.

Picking Strawberries

Picking Strawberries
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

My fingers are bleeding from all this picking!

Mom's Farmer's market

Mom's Farmer's market
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

The illegals and their produce in the rain.

Happy birthday Marni!

Happy birthday Marni!
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Spending her birthday with great pizza. Great cake. Great people.

Driving off into the sunset...

My Ikea trip was hilarious this past weekend. What first seemed to be me misplacing my own passport (now that we need them for the border), turned out to be an errand of several hours. We've been pushing back this trip to Canada for weeks now, but Marni and I chose a Friday, I got it off, and it was set. Except, Thursday night I couldn't find my recently used passport (vacation in early May). I looked through EVERYTHING. And since I had recently decommissioned my office (for Lisay's room), I've pretty much touched every piece of paperwork I own. Where was it? I called my mother around 10pm to ask her if she saw it with her stuff. "Nope." But she promised to look for it once she got home at 12:30am. She called me around 1 with no luck, but promised to look again in the morning.

Well, 7am came bright and early, and I had an 8:30 work meeting (on my day off), and without a passport, I was ready to give the bad news to Marni. I had already borrowed Nola's SUV and I was driving, so this didn't look good. But mom called and said she found it in her camera bag, and that she'd bring it to the Farmer's Market that morning. Unfortunately, that was an hour away... in the wrong direction. I cancelled my meeting, convinced Marni to go with me (to save some time), and we headed down toward my mom's to visit and pick up my wayward passport. Getting there around 9, she hands me the passport and asks "Make sure it's yours." Of course it wasn't. It was hers! AArrrghh! Haha. But she went back home and got mine and came back. OK. 10am. So we were about an hour behind... plus an hour further away. This was gonna be a loooong day.

But we got on the road, through the border, and up to Ikea by 1pm, did some clearance shopping, had an amazing meatball, soup, salad lunch, and shopped for a couple hours. I love Ikea! I never end up buying anything fun, but I love Ikea! And their clearance aisle is simply amazing... unfortunately, I forgot some measurements, so my bathroom purchases were put on hold. For next time! But Marni got her full supply of tables, desks, laterns, etc, etc, and the car got filled up quite nicely. We got back on the road and made quick time back to Rochester. Getting back to Marni's house around 6pm, we unloaded as quickly as possible, as people were heading to my house for an evening of fun by 6:30p. An amazing day. A LOT of driving. And now I have my passport back. Haha, oh such is life.

Six by Six

Six by Six
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

At the six by six art show at RoCo.

Fancy Lunch

Fancy Lunch
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

The whole office is sitting down to a fancy meal today in the Brown Room.

Decent

Mom just sent me a nice little picture of the two of us from the cruise... not too bad.

Vegetable Garden

Vegetable Garden
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Just got everything planted in my little vege garden.

End to a busy ass week

Let me first start by saying I am so extremely exhausted, I very much need this upcoming weekend to recover.

This week has been so busy, I haven't had more than the 10 or so minutes in the morning watching the weather/news to even watch tv. Which I suppose is good, but that means I've been on the move.

Lisay moved in yesterday, and in preparation for her for the last few weeks, I've been moving/cleaning/fixing things. For one, I fixed my bathroom toilet flapper, which was no small task. This is also why I put it off for almost six months. My water bill in April was a definite wake-up call that I needed to install the new flapper set, and get everything finalized. It was quite a mess, and I was all very dirty by the end, but everything is working and all is well in the world.

But the bedroom Lisay is staying in was the former living space to my sister's 3 cats, and they sorta made a mess of the walls/carpet. Plus there were holes in the wall from my stuff and the painting was never completed (my own sheer laziness). So that was my project on Wednesday night. I cleaned out the room, moved out all the office furniture, removed the disgusting cat pee stained rug, washed the hardwood floor, repainted all the marks on the wall, finished the trim, and cleaned everything once over, including the windows. Now the room smells great, and I got a new rug, new bed and such all placed and ready. It's a cute bedroom now, and I'm hoping she'll be pleased. But boy was I exhausted by the end! I started at 5:30 and it was past 11 when I got done.

Unfortunately, in the last week, my laptop finally bit the dust, which didn't upset me as much as I thought it might. I knew it was coming. The keyboard wasn't working 100%, the bootup process was struggling, I've already lost a hard drive in the past year, and my screen was being flakey. Well, bringing the laptop home this past weekend was what ended up doing her in. But the great news is, while I figure out what I want to do next for a laptop, work has GIVEN me a PC to have at home. So after cleaning up that bedroom on Wednesday, I set up the PC in my bedroom and got it all hooked up to my wireless and such and in a state of great use. VERY happy with this turn of events, and it gives me some time to figure out a laptop. I'm so very picky on big purchases, and part of me doesn't want to spend another two grand when I just bought a new roof.

What I WILL pay for is all the new plants for my gardens, and all the red mulch that comes with it. I've been working pretty diligently getting the front gardens into a respectable state, and I've been very pleased with all my recent purchases, and all my new acquisitions from my mothers/aunts houses. I even got 2 dozen plants for a vegetable garden. Everything is fitting in well, and with all the recent rain, stuff is starting to look lush. May is great for gardening. I have big plans for redoing the plant beds in my front, but that may have to wait until next year. It won't be cheap, and I have a few other priorities right now.

Speaking of rain. My god. Ever since the trees exploded with their seeds, my basement drain has been backflooding a little bit every time is rained. Well, we got BUCKETS of rain last night, and when I got home, the basement had about 2 inches of water all the way up to my boilet/hotwater heater. Yikes! I called an emergency plumber with no response. So with my jeans rolled up, in my barefeet, I got into a foot of water by the drain and plunged the hell out of it. Well, good god, that did it. And the whirlpool of water drained right out. Now I just have a damp basement that is slowly drying. Take THAT house. Toilet. Roof. Drain. Windows. No job too BIG for me.

I was gonna say something about our recent family visit from Theresa and Alan, and also about Nicole's awesome graduation party, and even about my damned cat using my tropical plant as a litter box, but this is getting long, and I have to run Deb to the airport. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Work work work

Work work work
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Moving Lisay in!

Taking a Walk

Taking a Walk
Sent via camera phone by lukeawol.

Nice day in Rochester

More about the curtains

Marni sewed, I ironed hems.. it was a group effort, and I love them! Straight, tight curtains on the front door and my two inside glass doors. They came out great!