Awesomeness

My roommate ordered a pair of Rainbow Sandals for herself online, and the company accidently sent her the sandals twice. Since there was no receipt on the second pair, she couldn't return them, so she gave them to me! Awesomeness!

Additionally, the boyfriend and I play against each other in Words With Friends. He is some sort of Words With Friends mastermind (I think he someone hacked the program to always give him the best letters), and therefore I have yet to beat him in a game, despite having played him in roughly 50 games. However, the other night - victory was all mine! I finally did it! So naturally I took a screenshot of my victory, and had to let everyone know.

And - the most important awesomeness is that we found a new roommate! Hooray! Stress over :)

Short Week Blues

This week is short due to having Monday off for Memorial Day, but it seems to be dragging on and on! After spending an amazingly fun and relaxing weekend at the beach, this week seems to be going as slow as possible.

View from our room at the beach

Today was my boss's last day at work, and my one of roommates decided that she wasn't going to re-sign the lease so now we have 30 days to find someone new. Also, tomorrow is the boyfriends birthday! It totally sneaked up on me, but I was able to come up with some birthday gift and surprises for him so hopefully it will all work out!

Adventures in Dog Sitting

A friend of a friend is getting married and then leaving for her honeymoon, and knowing that I love animals, she asked me if I could dog-sit for her while she was gone. Of course I said yes and am super excited. The dog's name is Poppy and she's a giant golden retriever. She is so pretty and one of the most well-behaved dogs I have ever known.

Poppy the (female) dog

Poppy the (male) dog

(Side note: Poppy was also the name of my lovely dog growing up. My Poppy was a male, and he passed away 2 years ago after living a very long and very happy life. So it's strange to be calling out the name "Poppy" again - in a good and bad way.)

When Poppy arrived last night, Moe-Moe (my roommates cat), was extremely curious as to who this new creature in the house was, while completely petrified at the same time. Moe-Moe stood back, observing from afar, a safe distance away. Poppy the dog could have cared less that there was another animal anywhere in the house and went about exploring the house and trying to get pets. Lucky for you, I was able to capture the whole scene with a quick snapshot on my phone. Notice Moe-Moe peering out from behind the doorway, so curiously.

A Shit-Show

Last night, I was at home making dinner with my roommate Emily, when she goes to the front window and says "come look, there's a shit-show happening outside our house". I run to the front window and see 4 firetrucks outside our front door, one of which is the Arlington County Hazmat Unit:

Firetrucks

Hazardous Response Unit

We weren't sure what was going on, but something had happened at our next door neighbors house. We thought it was some sort of fire, seeing as there was no ambulance or police, only firetrucks. We watched outside from our front porch, trying to figure out what had happened, and when we saw the crew putting on hazmat suits, we got concerned. Then another roommate came home.  We sent her out to chat up the firefighters, and she said they had said that there was an oil spill next door in their basement. 

Worst picture ever, but if you look really closely you can see a guy in an all white Hazmat suit

Then our final roommate and her boyfriend came home, and they went outside to talk to our next door neighbors. Apparently they had a 100 gallon oil drum in their basement from when the heat used to be oil. When the heat was converted over, the oil drum was never drained, and it started leaking last night. Since the oil is a hazardous material, the hazmat crew had to come clean it up.

Running wires through our yard to the neighbors basement to try and get the oil out

The trucks finally left around midnight, I'm not sure if they got it all cleaned up, but I haven't seen them back since, so I assume so. The neighbors also said that the county would pay for them to be put up in a hotel if they wanted (it smelled strongly of oil), so that's good to know if you ever have a hazardous material spill in your house.

Speaking of dinner, it was supposed to be the highlight of my post, but then the shit-show took over outside. I made steak and Emily made me pan-roasted potatoes and an avocado salad. It was delicious, healthy, and thanks again Emily for cooking for me!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

So I have been slacking and haven't posted anything all week! I have some updates - the roofers came out to look at the roof and determined that it needs to be replaced because it is so damaged. This is great except that they can't come back out for about 3 weeks. Did I mention it's raining out right now. Sigh.

I've been enjoying my break from soccer - it's between the Winter and Spring leagues right now, but my Sunday Spring league starts back up on Sunday. In the meantime I've been busy with kick-boxing and yoga. I've also started a diet - not an actual diet like no carbs or anything like that. Just a general, trying to eat healthier, diet. I'm also trying to stick to Bethenny's advice of "you can eat everything, just not at once", meaning if I want a Girl Scout Cookies, I will eat 1, instead of 4.

Not much else to report on, except work has been surprisingly busy this week, which has been nice. Not too busy where I'm stressed that I can't get everything done, but just busy enough where my days are full. This has been a nice change and I'm hoping it stays this way.

Besides that I just can't wait for the Spring weather to get here. So over this rain and cold weather. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to talk about next time!

House Blues

I was enjoying my relaxing working from home day, when I walked into my bathroom and noticed the ground was wet. At first I thought it was just still wet from when I had showered, but then I realized that it was the roof that was leaking. This is not the first time this has happened, but last time it leaked it was during a torrential downpour. Although it has been raining today, it has been more of a light drizzle type of rain. It's supposed to keep raining for the next 6 hours, which worries me. Hopefully my landlord will bring in a roofer very very soon to come out and look at this.

This is where the water is coming in from - this is the door frame between my bathroom and bedroom.


These are the buckets that are down. Look at the clear bucket at the top and you can see that the water isn't clear - so gross:

Productive Day at Work

So it's Friday afternoon and I'm sitting here counting down the hours and minutes until I can leave work and have the glorious weekend begin. My sister is out of town and she let me borrow her car, so now I have all this freedom at my fingertips!

First, let me start with some celebratory news - I got a raise at work! They love me so much over here! Hooray! It was effective Jan 1, so this paycheck included all my retro-active pay so my paycheck was extra happy this time!

Speaking of paychecks, I was thinking about how much money I pay in rent, and I calculated it out that I pay about 32% of my take-home pay to rent. Now, this number is skewed a lot because I am basing it off of my paycheck amount, which includes my deductions for things like flexible spending and my 401k - which I try to put a lot into, but more on that later.

Anyways, I got to thinking - what is a normal percentage of my take-home pay to spend on rent for a 20something? I think 50% is way too much, especially if you are one of those people who are never home. I also think it's always a good thing to live well below your means, but what is the norm?

No Heat

Yesterday my roommate was home and smelled gas in the house. She called our gas company and they came out to inspect. They found that there was nothing wrong with our gas, but that our furnace was emitting high levels of carbon monoxide. The technician placed a "Danger- Hazardous Condition" tag on the unit and said that the heat may absolutely not be used until someone comes out to fix it. This means that since yesterday afternoon we have had no heat.



After not getting back to us all day yesterday, our landlord finally got in touch with us today and had the heating people come out to the house to look at the furnace. Apparently now the entire furnace needs to be replaced, meaning it will be at least a few days before we get our heat back on. Thankfully it is not freezing like it was last week, and despite the highs being in the 50s this week, it still is getting down to the 30s at night.

I have never been so happy to go to work before, seeing as our heat actually works there. Hopefully this will get taken care of soon, otherwise I will be staying at the boyfriends place for a few days.

De-Cluttering

After working from home the other day, I was feeling very energized and motivated to de-clutter my bathroom. It all started because I purchased the jumbo pack of toilet paper. I usually like to buy the jumbo sized pack because it's cheaper and if I buy the 4-pack, I feel like I ran out too quickly. I usually just kept the jumbo pack of toilet paper right next to the toilet, but was getting tired of having stuff out everywhere, so I decided to store it under the bathroom sink. This sounded like a great plan, except that under my bathroom sink looked like this:


Thus began the great de-cluttering! I realized that I had a lot of stuff hidden back there that I didn't even know I had, and pulled out things that I either don't use anymore or didn't want anymore. This is what I had left (after my one of my roommates took a few things):


Next, I re-organized how I was storing things, and made the things that I use most often in the front. I was able to put ALL of the toilet paper underneath, and not only does everything fit, it is now neater and more organized:


Now I just have to keep it looking like this...

All Fired Up (Update)

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting, my awesome roommate picked up my Elephant Bank yesterday for me from All Fired Up (thanks again). She informed me after she picked it up that I made the prestigious "Wall of Fame" at the store, which is where they put the pieces out on display for everyone to see. I was so excited, this totally made my day! Below are "after" pictures of the piece and the "award".

Christmas Plans Shake-Up

I leave for Chicago on Thursday December 23rd to celebrate Christmas with the family. This year there will be different, mainly because there have been snafus along the way so far:

- Not a snafu, in fact quite the opposite, but I found out last night my roommate Emily and I are randomly on the same flight out there!
- My sister and my mom are on their way back from India today, where they went for my sister's friends' wedding. They are stuck in Frankfurt, Germany for the next 3 days due to weather, so they won't be arriving home until Christmas Eve
- Another sister isn't coming home at all for Christmas. She has to work (didn't really understand the whole story on why she couldn't come), but will be spending Christmas with her boyfriend's family in Pennsylvania. She also didn't make it home for Thanksgiving due to her friends wedding.

This is the 1st year ever that we will all not be together for Christmas. It will be the start, I think, of us not all being together for the Holidays, something I am not yet prepared for.

Birthday Weekend Recap

I have so much to update on, but I was so busy last week. I had the most fabulous rest of my birthday week!

Tuesday was the birthday, and Wednesday night I went to my 1st kick-boxing class. They told me to come in for an intro class, where I would learn the proper techniques, but then surprised me when I got there by saying that I would attending the hour long class, which I was totally mentally unprepared for. The class itself was awesome - a nice mix of pushing you, but not pushing you too hard where you just want to give up. And learning some awesome self-defense while getting a good workout is an added bonus. The only drawback was I was so sore. My thighs were burning after the workout, and it hurt to bend over all week. But I plan on going again this Wednesday, so wish me luck!

Thursday was my company's Holiday Party. We left work a bit early to attend a cooking class. We had a demonstration, and then broke up into teams of 4 (randomly assigned), and then cooked 6 different dishes (Trout Deviled Eggs, Phyllo Samosas, Veggie Pot-stickers, Warm Potato Salad (made with sweet potatoes), Bread Pudding, and Tiramisu). It was such a fun time. Then we went to the hotel next door for drinks, and then my co-worker Heather and I had enough food and drinks, so we headed home. It was such a fun time, and a great bonding experience for the group. And, best of all, we got snazzy aprons with our company's name on them.

Friday was my company's 1st Annual Day of Service, and by "day" of service, they actually meant 2 hours. We got to choose between 3 preojcts: cleaning up a stream we adopted, throwing a Holiday Party at a daycare for 4 year olds, or making care packages for the troops. The stream clean-up sounded like fun, but it was a high of 39 that day so that was out. The care packages sounded like fun, but it meant staying back at the office, and I love little kids, so I signed up for the daycare. The daycare was for under-privileged kids whose parents couldn't afford regular day care. Not only the kids but the teachers were so happy to see us! We had them color pictures, create snowflakes which they decorated, and had a pizza party. It was so much fun, but kids are so exhausting to be around. We were only there for 2 hours, but I was wiped afterward. We came back to the office and my boss treated our group to lunch. Then I did a bit of work, and was off for the rest of the afternoon. Every Friday should be like that!

Friday night I wanted to watch Miami University play in the MAC Championship game, so I invited a few friends over. After a few cancellations and the boyfriend having to work late, it ended up being me and my roommate Emily for the majority of the night, which was super fun. Thanks again for celebrating with me Emily. And Miami won, which was awesome! Hooray!

Saturday I was supposed to go watch the boyfriend play in his soccer team's Championship Tournament, but it was way too cold to sit outside, so I opted to just sleep all day and not get out of bed until 2pm. The boyfriend's team is always in 1st place in their division. They always make it to the championships, but can never win to take home all the glory. I thought this would be their year, but it wasn't (they got 2nd). Maybe if I had been there....

The boyfriend planned on taking me ice skating on Saturday night for a romantic date to celebrate my birthday. But, I said it was too cold, so we ended up staying in and watching movies all night, which was a great time.

For my presents, I received a Browns jersey, and the red mittens from the Vancouver Olympics. However, I ruined his gift giving surprises, because he had planned on giving me the Jersey Thursday morning, because Thursday is jersey day in the office. I told him I wasn't wearing a jersey that day because it was our Holiday Party, so I wanted to look a little nicer. He had also planned on giving me the mittens before we went ice skating on Saturday.

Sunday was my soccer teams playoff game. It was about 25 degrees outside with the wind chill, and I cannot begin to explain how cold and strong the wind was. We got our butts kicked in the game, but it was still fun, and was glad to have the boyfriend cheering me on! After the game, we unthawed at home and just watched football the rest of the day (yay Browns and Rams!)

Almost the Weekend

When I got home yesterday, I had a furry little friend chilling in my bed. What a cutie!


Speaking of furry friends, the other morning I was awoken to scurrying sounds by the window. It sounded like an animal was burrowing his way into my room, but it turns out it was just some squirrels climbing on my window screen.

Massive Reorganization

I decided that I had too much stuff and I needed to reorganize all the stuff that I do have. So I hit up the Container Store and bought a bunch of storage containers that all arrived yesterday.
I also bought a over the door shoe rack (that is me assembling it), and thanks to the help of my wonderful (and patient) boyfriend, it is now assembled and hanging over one of my closet doors. The closet doors were too short for the full length of the shoe rack, so we trimmed a bit of it off, which was surprisingly easier than I thought. Now I just need to decide what to get rid off...


When I started assembling the shoe rack, I saw that I would need a hammer, so I asked my roommate when she got home if she had one that I could borrow. She said she didn't have one, but knew where one was. This is what she gave to me to use:

As the boyfriend so eloquently put it, "I didn't know a hammer could be girly". In case you can't see the picture very well, the top of the hammer is covered in a floral print, and it's hard to tell from the picture but the hammer is miniature sized. But it did get the job done, so I guess it did serve it's purpose, even if it is "pretty".

Oh, Nicole

Yesterday Tropical Storm Nicole hit, and the roof over my bedroom was a casualty. Last night I discovered that my ceiling was leaking water. But hey, the rent is cheap, I like my roommates, and have an awesome room and bathroom, so I can't complain too much about "living in an old house" with a sucky landlord. And....it's Friday! Woohoo!!!