time flies

I didn't realize just how long it had been since I posted last. This week was the official start of our busy season at work. I worked 58.75 hours, if you pretend that I took half an hour for lunch every day, which I certainly did not. I spent one night at one of my employee's houses, just to save the almost 2 hours of driving. Wednesday we actually set a record in the store, which is pretty neat. But, in case you couldn't tell, it also means I have a lot less time for posting. So, sorry about that.

This weekend we've done a whole lot of not much. Well, Alfred did a bunch of stuff for work yesterday, but I did not. I did a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and we hung up some pictures. Other than that, I've been sitting on the couch, watching TV. And I slept in both mornings. It's been fantastic.

Last of all, this past Thursday was a really big day: it was Katie's 21st birthday! Happy birthday, Katie!

go Big Red!

Cornell's basketball team is in the NCAA tournament! And they won their first round game today! Against Temple, who was totally supposed to win! (at least, that's what I'm guessing, since they were ranked higher, plus who really expects an Ivy League school to be any good at sports? I went there and I don't expect it. Except hockey. But I digress.) They're even playing here in Florida, though today's game was in the middle of a work day so obviously we couldn't go, but I think their second game will be on Sunday which means that MAYBE we could go! Alfred totally hates basketball, but really, how often does something like this happen? I really want to go, but we'll see if he's willing to. Although I could totally go by myself. I'm not a huge basketball fan, but I did go to some games back in high school so I can sort of follow it at least. It's definitely better than baseball, although that's not saying much. And I bought a Cornell t-shirt and visor this summer that I could wear to the game! Oh man, I totally needed an excuse to wear my visor again! Obviously it will extend its magical properties to cover the team and help them towards another win! That's it, I'm going!

(p.s.: On this blog, I have purposely remained vague about where we live, except to say that it's in Florida, and I realize that this post sort of gives away that we live within a reasonable driving distance of Jacksonville, but I would appreciate if no one that knows specifically where we live mention it in the comments. Can't have all my millions of fans figuring it out and mobbing my car when I leave for work or anything. Thank you!)

meet the neighbors

So I'm watching this little drama unfolding outside my house. Our neighborhood is a dog neighborhood. As in, dogs next door, dogs across the street, dogs down the road, dogs everywhere. Dogs that bark when you go outside, dogs that bark when you get into or out of your car, dogs that bark when they hear other dogs barking. It's pretty damn annoying. Well, apparently a few got loose from a house down the street, because about 10 minutes ago I heard a bunch of barking and thundering animal running sounds in my front lawn. I looked outside to see 3 big dogs running across our lawn. 2 minutes later, along comes some lady yelling at them. The dogs run back her way. 2 minutes later, more barking and running, and the dogs are running away again. This happens several times, until she finally gets one of the on a leash. The rest sort of trail along with her, stopping to bark at and harass dogs in fenced in yards along the way. Just now she was back out front yelling for another dog to come back. It's kind of hilarious. She's wearing black stretch pants. Not the stylish kind, though.

Most of our neighbors are white, it seems, though a lot of the people in surrounding neighborhoods seem to be black. In the Publix supermarket closest to us, for example, we're generally the only white people there. I texted Alfred all excited the other day because there was another white couple in there. The other supermarket by us is usually pretty evenly split between white and black people. It's an interesting area. Luckily, I'm often in my work costume when I go to the supermarket around here, so everyone's equally staring at me. I bring the races together in my 16th century garb.

In other news, I had the day off today! I have to work all day Saturday, but let's not talk about that. I made strawberry cupcakes for Lucy, who came to see our house and joined us for lunch. The frosting was better than the cupcakes, although they looked pretty cute with a little strawberry slice on top. We drank a bottle of wine while she was here. Because really, what better time for a bottle of white wine than at 1:30 in the afternoon?

In closing, I'd like to share this link to a collection of the Celebrity Jeopardy skits from SNL. We used to sit in the hallway/ghetto my sophomore year in college and listen to the audio on our computers. They still crack me up. Enjoy!

Victory!

I just found the iron, coasters, AND video clue! The day is mine!

Remember the award I won last month for customer service for a NE FL tourist attraction? About a week ago my boss printed out a picture from the event, wrote a little note on it about the award, and posted it in the break room at the museum. Yesterday I noticed it was gone. So either one of my bosses decided I had had enough glory, or someone else there got jealous. I have my suspicions. I should have checked the trash or something, but by the time I noticed it was gone I think it had been gone for at least a day already. By the way, here's the picture. Not the most flattering, but you can see my award. There was one more of me on the official website, and it's hideous. It's of me walking to the stage. I have an extremely unattractive profile.

Last night Alfred had some super important big shot meeting that went until pretty late, so I was home alone for awhile. Not all that long, actually, because I had a funeral to go to after work (the husband of one of my coworkers passed away, cancer, very sad), then I had to go run errands for work, so by the time I got home it was almost 9:00. However, I was finally successful in my search for a bathroom rug yesterday, so I decided to surprise Alfred and finish unpacking and setting up the bathroom. It looks really nice in there now. No more boxes! Alfred still needs to put up the towel rack and toilet paper holder this weekend, but then it's totally done. Finally. This weekend I have big plans to work on the kitchen and find the iron. I have the ironing board, but no iron yet. It's becoming a problem, because I need wash my work clothes and they then need to be ironed. I'm running out of clothes. I want to go buy a window shade for the front door, too. But really, as long as I find that damn iron, I'll be happy.

Fred Flintstone day

That's how one of my employees described it, and that fits so many of my days perfectly. I was busy all day, but feel like I accomplished so little. Like I was running in place all day. Suddenly it's March, and our busy season is upon me. One of my employees is out of town for a family emergency, one is scheduled for surgery later this month and will be out for 5 weeks, and another went into the hospital suddenly this weekend. And so, once again, I am short staffed as we go into our busiest 10 weeks of the year. This happened last year, too: half of my guides had sudden illnesses, or deaths in the family, or other emergencies that kept them out of work. And then i'm stuck redoing and redoing the schedule and doing tours myself and basically doing 3 or 4 jobs at a time. And then my boss will come in and suddenly take away some of the things I'm doing and delegate them on my behalf. I compared it the other day to a juggling act. I'm juggling 3 or 4 balls, doing fine, then some throws in another 3 balls for me to juggle. Then just as I get the gang of it and am getting comfortable with my new act, someone comes in and takes away 2 of the balls and messes me all up again. It gets a little frustrating.

Well, now that I got all that bitching out of my system, let me end with an amusing little story from today. We sell these little wooden pop guns in our store. They are both incredibly obnoxious and incredibly popular. This afternoon we had a group shop and as usual, many kids bought pop guns, opened them, and popped them like crazy both inside and outside the store. Well, apparently someone aimed one at a passing car with a paranoid driver, and the driver called the police. So a cop came to check out what kind of guns we sell and to give us a friendly warning about kids "shooting" at innocent cars. Those corks can be pretty dangerous, after all. Especially when they're attached to the gun with a string.

Milestones

Lots of landmarks this week! First, a couple of days ago (not sure exactly what day to be honest) marked my second anniversary of blogging. Thanks to all of you crazy people who keep coming here to read this insanity. Second, yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. It makes me feel old. Yesterday we had exactly the kind of weather I was afraid of for our wedding: cold, windy, generally miserable for Florida in March. Alfred and I went out to dinner. Pizza and beer, nothing fancy, but it was somewhere I had been wanting to go and it was really good so that's all that matters. Third, today is Ella's seventh birthday! Talk about feeling old! We sent her a couple of sundresses for her gift. She's definitely old enough now to have her own opinions on clothing and stuff, so I hope she likes them. Happy birthday Ella!

We've been house/dog sitting for Max and Robyn the past couple of days. They're in Milan for about 5 days, Max went with a friend of theirs for work and invited Robyn to come. Lucky stiffs. Really, we're just keeping Ellery company while he takes care of everything. Although I have walked the dog a couple times, so I've been mildly useful. It's a whole different traffic situation going to work from here, but at least I had to go to work really early yesterday (yeah, that's really a great thing) so I beat most of the traffic. I get to go in today too, but the weekend should be fine traffic wise too. Oh, and speaking of traffic, I thought of something yesterday that I definitely do not miss about our old house: all the motorcycle traffic from Bike Week! They're loud and go too slow and band together so you can't pass them. But I don't have to deal with them this year!

in with the new!

Here's an exciting treat: a virtual tour of our new house! I just went around and took pictures of each room, without doing anything to them first to make them look any different/nicer than they actually do in real life. So here we go. The tour begins with the living room. That's the front door at the left side of the picture. That's Alfred on the couch. He's on the phone with his dad and stirring the goat milk we're making yogurt with.

Next to the living room we have the office. The dresser and TV that are in the middle of the room were against the wall and set up until this morning, when we moved them to get the satellite cable run over to the wall.

On the other side of the living room is what we're apparently calling the sitting room. This is the second least unpacked room. Eventually I think the chaise lounge, the bookshelf, and the wine fridge are going to end up in here. Probably some other stuff too, but I don't know what yet. The washer and dryer, along with the new shelf Alfred installed this weekend, are in a little closeted off area to the right of this picture.

Beyond the sitting room is the kitchen. Pretty self explanatory. This room is proving the most difficult to unpack and set up. We have a lot of kitchen stuff and are going from a lot of cabinet and counter space to a little. We also don't have a working dishwasher yet, hence all the dishes drying on the counter.

Through the sitting room in the other direction is the hallway, which leads you to the other bedrooms and the bathroom. First, our bedroom. Alfred's closet is just out of this picture on the right. He gets that closet because the hanging bar is lower and my work dresses were touching the ground when I hung them in there.

Next is the bathroom. I'm still not convinced I love this shower curtain, but I guess it's a little late now. This is probably the room we're buying the most new stuff for. The shower curtain, for one, but we still need a towel rod, toilet paper holder, rug, and some shelves or something to put all of our crap on. Most of our toiletries are still in boxes, one of which is at the bottom left of this picture. Oh, actually, when I said before I didn't touch anything before I took these pictures, I lied. I opened the shower curtain a little so you could see the shelves I put in the shower. I originally bought one of those things you hang on the shower head to hold your stuff, but then I found this shelving unit that you can set up in the corner instead. It's awesome.

And last of all, the guest room. A complete and total disaster area. When we were moving, whenever we had no idea where to put something we put it in this room. We have big plans to make this a guest room at some point. Hopefully before we have any guests. I think we should put a lot of this stuff up in the attic, but we'll see.

The biggest thing we did this weekend was landscaping. Unfortunately I got home after dark, since I had to make a detour to do some birthday shopping, so no pictures of the new landscaping yet. At least this way there's still something for everyone to look forward to!