Sunday: one more unfair thing

Why is it that on Saturday, when I can sleep in as much as I want, I tend to wake up between 8:30-9:30. Then on Sunday, when I get up to an alarm at 9:45, I always sleep until the alarm and have a hard time waking up.

Why can't they be switched???

Thursday

Happy Thursday! Tomorrow's Friday! And then a long weekend! I worked quite a bit on my quilt tonight. Wow...two q words in a sentance. I quickly worked quite a bit on the Queen's quilt. Too bad I'm not quick or a queen.

Not much else is new. I have a ton of leftovers. Yesterday someone brought in bagels, so I had a bagel instead of my sandwich. Then Ben and I went to Chinese for dinner, and had tons of extras. Then tonight I didn't eat all my dinner and I still have an italian chicken in the fridge. That's like four lunches. Pretty exciting. We also have too much salsa in the fridge. We keep trying a new type and deciding we don't like it but then not getting rid of it.

Well, tonight's post is getting a little loopy, so maybe I'll go read. I finished my puzzle last night which was exciting. I thought I had lost a piece but it just got under the mat.

Monday: the things I dislike about laundry

1. If you don't take it out of the dryer fast enough, it wrinkles.

2. Folded laundry tends to stay in the living room for a while.

3. I regularly go to bed only to find my bed sheetless. It's the worst feeling. All I want to do is go to bed.

Sunday: church

Clay did announcements at church this morning...and they were some of the best ones ever. He got a little lost and so invited the children's message people up twice. Ah...I think it helped wake everyone up.

Then we had a church picnic after Church which was fun. I talked to old friends and met some new people and had good food. Yum.

Then I came home and took a three hour nap. I was exhausted. I finally woke up and did some chores and watched a movie, and I'm almost ready to go back to sleep. I hope I don't do anything to lose the feeling now, because I'm a bit scared I'll have a hard time getting to sleep.

Saturday:date

Ben and I went on a nice date tonight, first to Olive Garden and then to see Julie and Julia. The movie was pretty good and had some really funny lines.

Friday: dinner

Tonight we had some people over for dinner. We had italian chicken...yum. Then we played poker with just the four of us. I'm not sure I've ever played with such a small group, but it was fun because you got to play more. (You also had the chance to lose money a lot faster.) However, whenever Luke and I went head-to-head I always won. It got rather funny after a while.

Wednesday: midweek

Today is Wednesday. I don't really have much to say about today. Yesterday and today were both slightly better at work because I'm getting some stuff were I get to "lead" it. I think that's one of the things I've missed the most since switching projects. And I understand I have a lot to learn and such, but still...

Yesterday we played volleyball with Bible Study. It was fun. We've never been to that side of the park that we played at, and it is a really nice park. Then we went out for ice cream. Yay ice cream! It was just what I was in the mood for.

Monday: gutter 0, Amanda 1

The day started off by sending an e-mail to five people. Two seconds later I received five out-of-office replies. This is the first time I think I've ever gotten five, and definetly the only time everyone on the list has responded as such.

Tonight Ben mowed the lawn and I weeded, then planted my sunflower. Since Ben was still mowing I decided to tackle the gutter. You see, every time it rains the water overflows the gutter. A lot. The mulch has long since disappeared from under the gutter where the water falls out. So I took it all apart and found that there was a lot of stuff stuck at the downspout hole. So I poke at it with the screwdriver. WWoooosssshhhh...the water starts coming out. And keeps coming out. And keeps coming out. It turns out the gutters can hold a lot of water.

Here I am with the gutter. It's hard to tell but I'm soaked and a bit dirty. But smiling!! And Ben did a cool shot with the sunset.

Sunday: I win!

Today I soloed Onyxia. (To put it in perspective, this used to be a boss you needed 40 people to kill. It took me 30 minutes to kill.) I almost died twice, but managed not to. :)

Saturday: stuff

Hmm, well I woke up today not feeling great. I had gone to bed not feeling great and hoped when I woke up I would feel better. After a few hours I did feel better.

Good story, I know.

I cured the dishwasher rack of some rust stains today. Most were from our cookie sheets on the plastic, so it hadn't actually got to the metal yet. But I removed the rust anyway and put on some "special" paint which I think was just white-out.

I read a lot and worked on my new puzzle quite a bit today. It was a rather relaxing day for both Ben and I but definetly needed...it's been a while since we've had a day were we got to stay home all day.

Friday: dinner

Well, I decided that I wanted to go to a local restaruant for dinner last night. We used to go there quite a bit, so the owner recognizes us and we know that the service isn't always very speedy.

Except I forgot that the service isn't very speedy.

We all got normal dinners and it took us about 1.5 hours to get out of there. But at least the food was good and it was with good friends.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Birthday!

I had a wonderful birthday this year. Tuesday our Bible study got together and someone brought donuts! Yay donuts! We also played games and that was fun.

Wednesday was pretty much a normal day, but Ben was extra nice to me and I got lots of phone calls. And a few presents! Even Flurry sent me a card.

Sunday and Monday: hot!

Well, it is hot out now! I'm glad for our deck, but that is about the only reason. It is supposed to start raining again tomorrow, which will be nice.

Yesterday was really too hot to do anything, although we did get some groceries. Then we went swimming with some friends...it was very nice to cool off in the water. We continued keeping cool by playing a game in the basement (and the boys won for the first time). By evening it had cooled down enough outside that we stopped by a bonfire for a bit.

This was a very fun day, but of course meant that none of the "normal" chores got done. We aren't quite out of socks yet though, so I have a few days to get it done. :)

Today I had a hard time getting motivated. The morning was rather frustrating, although went by quickly.

Saturday: my busy day with pictures!

First I went to Jess' baby shower.

Jess opening the gifts from Heidi and I.

Then Ben and I stained the deck. Please note that about 30 minutes into the project (when we were working on the vertical slats but hadn't done any horizontal surfaces) it started sprinkling. We put drop cloths on the deck hoping it would blow over quickly. Then it started sprinkling hard and it almost got called off. Luckily, the rain then stopped. The next two days still look rain free.

In the evening, Ben and I made some Dungeons and Dragons characters. (We're both blue Dragonborn, but we can't fly. I'm a sorcerer and Ben is a Warlord.) That took about three hours, so than we played just a quick round against some skeletons. We won! Phew.


The people helping us with D&D had some cat mint in their backyard, so we brought some home for Flurry.

And then we crashed into bed, exhausted. It was a great day, but I didn't get my nap in. :)

Thursday!

Nothing special happened today. We hoping for another 5 days without rain, so Ben cleaned the deck again. I finished watching "So you think you can dance" (thanks to Dusty for the recording). I'm happy that Jeanine won. She ended up being one of my favorites.

Oh, my toes are doing much better. I've started taking the band-aids off whenever I don't have to wear shoes. Even when they're in shoes they don't leak too much, but if they did the sock would just soak it up and that's rather gross.

Weekend: Niagra!

This past weekend we went to Niagra with some friends. Here are the highlights...

We went on the Maid of the Mist and all got blue ponchos. It is a short boat tour that brings you around to both of the falls and gets you in the spray. It was kind of a rainy weekend, so the ponchos came in handy after the boat ride too.

The view from Canada...

A quick stop at the Hershey store

The next day we went to the American side to go to the cave of the winds. It was by far the best part of the trip. It (again) started raining while we were by the falls, which made them even wilder. Here is the bottom of the falls.

And here the falls are coming over the deck, so Ben and I stood in them a bit. After this we went to the "Hurricane Deck" where we got to stand under the falls and where water was pouring over the deck. The yellow ponchos did not hold up as well as the blue ones and almost everyone's got at least a little tear by the end. (I.e., we all got wet.)

Some people were smart enough to have kept the blue ponchos, so some of those were put on and some of us double bagged.

Friday: friends

Some out-of-town friends are here for a long weekend, so there's been lots of laughter since last night! Last night Laura made a delicious dinner and we all got caught up and played a bit of rock band. Ben and I took today off which was wonderful. Everyone was coming to our house, so the house got almost completely cleaned. It's nice to have people come over so that it does get cleaned well. After lunch we played ultimate/hit a ball around/played a quick round of frisbee golf. We wanted to go for a swim, but the pool was closed for constuction. Then a good dinner, poker, and some delicious pie.

I'm not in charge of taking pictures (so I don't have any), but I'll probably have some up in a few days.

Tuesday: Bible study / ultimate

Tonight we celebrated Aaron and Heather, as they will only be with us for about another week. Julie made a wonderful cake with lots of fun and meaningful things on it.

We also played more ultimate Frisbee. I think we're getting quite a bit better because the time between TDs is getting longer and longer. Although we've also been adding interesting challenges such as the dark.

Monday: slightly discouraged and 501st post

Ah ha! This is my 501st post! I'm a bit sad to have missed number 500, but here's hoping to another 501!

House stuff has gotten me a little discouraged today though. It is supposed to rain tomorrow night, which means no deck staining (although the deck does look really nice and clean). We got quotes on the driveway top-coat, only to learn that we need to deal with the little sidewalks first (which we have no quotes for.) And one of the gutters is being problematic, although I think that it is at least the gutter and not the piping that runs under ground.

But then I took a nap and as always, that improved my mood a lot.

Sunday: deck

Well, we may have just found 4-5 days without any rain, if you can believe it. Ben washed the deck tonight...the difference between the unwashed part and the washed part was amazing!! There was a ton of dirt on the deck, and you couldn't even tell. Anyway, hopefully it will be dry tomorrow so we can stain it. And hopefully the weather forecast doesn't change, because the deck really needs to be stained.

Saturday: colors and cloths

Ben: Woah, look at this! The gatorade turns ... ... ... clear when cold?

Ben: Really? What else could it be?

Amanda: keep thinking

Ben: oh! you put water in the bottles! Because of the orange nalgene behind two of them it looked like it turned clearer as it got colder

Amanda: That would be really cool.

I also finally figured out a good way to dust the bedroom furniture...a microfibre terry clothe. Still not perfect, but it picked up the dust better than anything else I've used so far.

Thursday: my get well kit

Well, my intestines had a good day. and I saw Jess's comment from yesterday, and figured we had gotten some sort of food poisoning. My guess is the beans, although Clay had those too and I don't know if he had any problems. But then I got home. And I suddenly had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. :(

We threw out all the expired medicine about a month ago, which meant there wasn't any pepto. So Ben lovingly went and got me some, along with a few other things to make up my "get well kit."

On a funnier note, I received this e-mail at work today. I think it's hilarious because it is one of those out-of-office e-mails that you get only AFTER you send an e-mail. I guess I kind-of understand what he's trying to do, but I kind of doubt that it will work...

"I will be Out of the facility, returning Monday (August 3rd). Please send me only essential E-mails."

Wednesday: misc

This week has been going pretty well. However, I've also been rather tired. I don't think I've quite recovered from last weekend. It was a ton of fun, but I was a little short on sleep. I also had another toe appointment yesterday. I was there for way too long compared to when my appointment was and how long I was with the doctor, but he was apparently really excited about how well my toes are doing. We also went to play mini-golf last night with our Bible Study which was fun.

Today I had some intestine problems all day, which was weird because having such problems usually happens once and then goes away.

Weekend: camping

We went camping this weekend with people from our Bible Study. It was tons of fun! The weather was nice. The first night was a nice campfire and talk. Then we ended up getting up rather early (thanks Aaron) so after a delicious breakfast (thanks Luke) we headed to the beach area.


We played some ultimate frisbee in the sand, built some sand castles, played some volleyball, played some more ultimate, and then people went swimming. On our way home we realized that all of us were very burnt, even though we were only on the beach in the morning.

After lunch we played a frisbee golf course in the woods, which was probably one of my favorite things of the trip. It helped that Luke and I won. After that some people left, so I grabbed a nap. During dinner it started to sprinkle, so when we were done eating we packed everything up and played phase 10. The rain didn't really last long, so we didn't have to worry much about stuff getting too wet.

We played another round of frisbee golf before heading back (Ben and Heidi beat Luke and I by 1 point this time).

Overall, a great weekend.

Tuesday: where's the bathroom?

(It was tighter than it looks)
(It's a complicated story)

Monday:

Sometimes I annoy myself. It's the worst.

Sunday: socks

Well, I can tell you that toe socks are no longer a cool item. I am wearing them now because they work well with flip-flops and I don't want to go sockless to work. I scoured the mall today looking for some, and I think I found the only two in the whole place. They were, of course, in the last place I was going to look and I was about to go to plan B.

However, they're rather ugly. Why would I want pom-poms on my socks? Luckily, they'll be easy to take out. They were also about 70% off (probably due to the pom-poms) which was perfect too.

Thursday

Hello again! Not much else is new. It is still somewhat awkward around work, but it really depends on the people too I've found. The last friend that we were waiting to find out about did keep his job, so that is exciting.

It's finally warming up over here, but it still seems to be raining quite a bit.

Tuesday: bittersweet

Layoffs were today. Ben and I still have our jobs (yay). However, a lot of people that we know and one person that we would consider an outside of work friend were laid off. I expect both of us will end up doing a lot of interacting with these people over the next few weeks which could be awkward.

I'm sure in a few days we'll be back to our normal selves, but in the meantime we're a bit bummed. We're still anxiously awaiting news on one more friend too, but he was on vacation so we haven't heard anything.

Monday

Monday, Monday.

I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow.

My toes are cold. The low tonight is supposed to be 49ºF.

Sunday

Nothing very exciting to report today. It was a nice day.

Saturday

It was a nice Saturday. I did some chores, trimmed some trees, napped, watched a movie, played some games. A pretty normal Saturday, but they sure are nice.

Wednesday: work and toes

I got more work today! I expect it'll keep me busy for a few (W-F) weeks. Yay! Ben and I proceeded to have a fairly long discussion about code and how it shouldn't be stream of consciousness (like it is currently). I plied him with questions and might try fixing it M-T if my manager thinks it is non-work related enough. (It doesn't have to be fixed, but it would help to increase my skills.) (I know that second to last sentence is weird, but it is what I meant).

I also took the wrappings off my toes. They look a lot like they did, except redder and lower. I had to wash my hair in the kitchen sink because I can't get them wet yet. It was rather awkard, but my hair is clean now.

Tuesday: rounding and toes

9:30am

Today I found myself with rounding problems. I got into work at 7:45. At 8:24 I thought to myself, it’s almost been an hour! Then I calculated the amount of time I’ve actually been here, which is 39 minutes…not even close to an hour.

It’s almost snack time! And I get to leave early!

1:15pm

Then later in the day it was 1:03. I was leaving at 3:45.

“Alright! Only two more hours!”

Or not.

4:30pm

I got my two large toenails removed. I was going to take a picture, but waited too long and now the bandages don't look so good. Both are well wrapped though :)

7:00pm

Last week I wanted to play ultimate Frisbee, and everyone was in for that since we hadn't played for a while. Then I realized that I wouldn't really be able to run because of my toes. Then it started downpouring so I couldn't even stand outside. Which ended up being ok because no one else wanted to play in the rain. We ended up going to Friendlies for ice cream. :)

Sunday: sadness

Aaron and Heather announced today that they are going to be taking a job at another church. I'm excited for their new opportunity, but will miss them a lot.

Saturday: take 2

Well, yesterday felt like a Saturday and so did today. It was nice having two Saturdays. I finished sealing the kitchen counters. It meant Flurry was stuck in our bedroom for a long time.

My first sunflower also poked it's head out over night!

Friday: no work!

Today we didn't have to work, which was wonderful. During the day, we got some chores done. Ben fixed one of the cold air returns that had been previously blocked.
At night we grilled with Dusty, Laura, Nathan, and Kate. The food was delicious! After dinner we played poker which was a lot of fun too. It was Kate's first time, which made it hard to read her but also gave the game an interesting twist.

Thursday: to-do

A to-do list showed up for Flurry today. I wish my to do list looked that fun.

Wednesday: work

Today I had enough work to do! W00t! And I know what I'm going to do tomorrow. And I get to leave work early tomorrow! It should be great!

Tuesday: cookout

Tonight we combined Bible studies and had a cookout. Unfortunately, it rained almost the whole time, but there was a least a covered deck. The cool part about it was that the sun shown through the rain for quite a while, which made the backyard look really pretty.

Other than that, I'm in a weird mood.

Monday: work

I had to go to work today. :(

The exciting thing about this week is that we get eight hours of vacation on Friday. Usually I've been working 4-5 hours on Friday, so I should be able to leave early on Thursday!

Sunday: misc

I had two dreams last night about packing. The first was packing up a dorm room...Nathan and I were going to put all our stuff in the car and go somewhere. But then I had way too much stuff and it was taking much longer than anticipated. In the second Ben and I were married, but living with another couple and we had all just graduated. It was a speedy move-out, so I was putting things in boxes and not even caring if the tops would close.

I also got a new pet in Warcraft! I'm the big tree, and I got the little tree as a pet.

Don't touch that button - Science musuem

Saturday: Eragon

We watched Eragon tonight. It was disappointing. If it hadn't been connected to a book it might have been ok (although no better than ok), but since I was expecting certain things that didn't happen it was disappointing.

Friday: girl's night

Some girls from my Bible Study got together last night for a girl's night. We had Chinese, did manicures/pedicures, and watched a movie. And talked a lot. It was great fun.

Thursday: work and texts

Wednesday was a really good day at work. I had something to do pretty much the whole day. Today, however, was much slower. I'm wondering if part of it is because I'm only at a given place for part of the week...no one can give me anything that is really time sensitive. I am considering exploring the option of working a half day at one place and a half at the other. Traveling would be a little more annoying, but maybe I could get a little more work. The thing is that I'm not sure if there is more work and if my idea would really make a difference. All that I want (right now) is to know what I'm doing the next day and know that it is enough to keep me busy. Or mostly busy. Oh well. I still have a job. (Speaking of which, layoffs will now be announced mid-July).

Now for the funny part of the post. This actually happened a while ago, but shows my incompetence with text messaging. Someone asked "When is Ben's birthday?"

This is how far I got before I accidentally pushed send (and then cancel) while I was trying to find a "2".

Since that didn't work at all, I thought I would try spelling twenty six. That word turned out to be too long.

I ended up with an e-mail. I still haven't figured out numbers, so please don't text me a question that requires a big number answer.

Tuesday: headache

Around 4:30 I started to get a headache. Sigh. Well, maybe it won't be too bad. Ben is ready to go a bit earlier than I expected, so I start walking out. Oh bother, my head is really starting to hurt. I happen to see Laura for the second time that day (we rarely see each other) and I almost missed her as I try to keep my head still. I make it home doing ok, but not great. Then it exploded. But since it is my normal headache, as long as I am still it stays away. When I got up about 20 min later it wasn't completely gone, but it was good enough to move to movie night. By the time we reached there it was gone. Phew.

Ben and I are also doing a pushup challenge...1oo pushups within about 10 minutes after 6 weeks. I do mine against the wall because I'm not strong enough to do them on the floor. Anyway, both of our arms are now feeling funny.

Sunday: sunflowers

I received a sunflower starter kit from my secret sister at church today. So I put it together tonight. I also added a bit of protection from Flurry...I might put it outside tomorrow without the protection.

Saturday: science museum

Today we went to the science museum in Syracuse. It was a lot of fun and a very good museum.

There was a jungle gym type thing which didn't really have anything to do with science but was a lot of fun to explore


There were buildings, with intricate detail, made of toothpicks...
(and heavy machenery building the buildings...also made from toothpicks).
And a seashell climbing wall

We were going to go to a recommended restaruant, but at 4pm the wait was 1.5 hours. So we went to Buffalo Wild Wings instead.

All in all, a great indoor day. And we were all glad we weren't camping since it was a steady rain all day.

Friday: dice

We were supposed to go camping this weekend with some friends, but it had a high chance of rain all weekend. I am bummed, but we managed to do some fun inside things instead.

Friday we went out to eat, played a new dice game, played a dice riddle, and then played bounce the dice into the cup. It was actually a lot of fun.