6 days

Thanksgiving was fun; we drove a long way, had a blast hanging out with the family (lots of food, drinking, and Mario Kart on the wii), and then drove a long way again. My mom got us some 4 loko (3 cases, actually), so we've got those to enjoy now. We've got enough to last the rest of our lives, probably. Though I've heard that kids have been selling them at parties for $5 a can, so I'm thinking about selling them to the kids in the neighborhood behind the museum. No one would believe the lady in the historical costume was selling booze to underage kids. It's the perfect crime.

Only 6 more days till my birthday! It's a big one this year, I'm turning 30. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Sometimes I'm super pumped and look forward to my new decade, but other times it freaks me out to be leaving my 20s behind. I'm trying to be positive about it. Alfred and I went out for my birthday dinner on Friday, and I'm having a party next Saturday. We're doing a dessert buffet, so I'm pretty excited. I haven't really had a big birthday party in a long time. I kind of invited a mix of people, from Alfred's family to our friends to friends from work, so it will be an interesting bunch. As long as there's lots of chocolate (which there will be), plenty of booze is flowing (which there will also be), and there's good music for me to dance to in the living room (which I expect there to be), it will be all good. I'm going to hit up the dollar store for some fun decorations and party favors this week. Think glow in the dark necklaces for the living room dance party. It's been stressing Alfred out, trying to get the house done in time to have all these people over. We've made really great progress though, it's really almost done! And just now we put up our Christmas lights outside.

This afternoon I got a massage at Lucy's birthday spa day (happy birthday, Lucy!) My shoulders and back had lots of knots, I was getting pretty sore from all the work we've been doing around the house, so it felt so good to have those worked out. I'm actually a bit sore now, which he said would probably happen. It just means I need another massage!

In other news, I was looking through my blog last week, trying to find a picture, and I realized that this blog used to be way better. I used to post so much more often, I used to have lots more fun pictures. For awhile now it's just not been as much fun, I guess. I don't have as much time to do it, it's become more of a chore. So I'm thinking about stopping. We'll see. Right now I have 10 minutes to get ready to go to dinner, so I'd better get moving!

happy birthday, Louisa!

Exciting news for a Monday morning - Katie and Ingo's baby girl has arrived! Head over to Mein deutsches Leben to meet little Louisa and congratulate the new parents! (There's no baby post yet, but you can go congratulate them anyway!)

Guess where we are??

in case you wondered

I gave the guide all $20 of the tip. Mainly because yesterday a parent found a $20 bill on the ground and gave it to me in case someone came looking for it, and no one ever claimed it, so I kept it. So I figure that's my tip, and I shouldn't get greedy.

Moral dilemma

One of the groups at work today left a $20 tip for each of the 4 guides who did their programs. 3 of those guides were still here at that point (it was a few hours after they had left, the administrator came back) so I gave those 3 guides their tips, but the 4th was gone and will not be back until next Tuesday. My question: do I give her all $20, give her maybe $10 and keep $10 for myself, or keep it all? Obviously the correct answer is to give her all $20, but what would you do?

there's always money in the banana stand

The title of this post has nothing to do with the content. Sorry.

I got home from work today (a very long, busy day) and had all sorts of surprises waiting for me! My bathroom has a new mirror, light, and toilet paper holder, a ton of trash was out of the garage and waiting by the curb to be picked up tomorrow, we had groceries in the fridge, the laundry was done, and dinner was in the works! It was awesome! It's quite nice having a pseudo house husband. At least he's holding up his end of the bargain to keep getting things done around the house now that we're moved in, because I haven't been doing so well with that. We did a bunch this weekend, but in the evenings after work I haven't been very productive. Partly because we've been busy - we had/are having dinner with Alfred's family on Monday, with Gara yesterday, and with Ilya and Mercedes tomorrow - but also because, let's face it, I'm kind of lazy. And it's hard. And I don't wanna!

So I kind of hurt my wrist a few weeks ago with all this house stuff, so I've been wearing an ace bandage to work for the past few days. I came up with this great story about how I hurt myself while hunting pigs on horseback, nice and period appropriate and all. I was telling one of my employees this story, complete with Southern accent and ending with "we caught 3 pigs, which will feed my family through the winter," and she totally believed me. None of the gullible little kids I told even believed me, but she did. It was kind of awesome. Apparently it's totally believable that I'm that much of a bad ass. I told some little kid the other day that life wasn't fair. I was also asked this morning if the houses behind the museum were real. When I said yes she seemed surprised. She thought they were just models. Ha! Kids are dumb. And funny. I've really turned up the threats with them lately, which is fun. I have to entertain myself somehow. Anyway, dinner's ready, and I'm on my second Kahlua, so I'm out like a deaf kid in musical chairs.

Growler the Turtle

Dang, how does an entire week go by so quickly without a post? Apparently I don't remember as often without Mike here to harass me about it. It's been a quiet week, it's been nice to relax a bit after the past couple of weeks. We've gotten some more work done around the house, gotten some more stuff unpacked. Today we got a bunch done, although it doesn't seem like it to look at the house now. I keep unpacking and putting stuff away in the kitchen, yet somehow the counter tops are still full. But you didn't come here to hear about house stuff, you came to hear about Growler!

So last weekend we went to K-Mart to buy some important Halloween supplies: colored hair spray (Gara and I sprayed our hair and Mister's tail pink and blue), Twizzlers, and a net to try to catch some wildlife in the pool. Mike spent a lot of time outside during the day, trying to catch various animals as they surfaced in the pool, but he wasn't having much luck. So he headed back out after it was dark and hit the jackpot: an alligator snapping turtle, and a Florida bullfrog! We put them in an aquarium and left it outside for Gara and Kevin to pick up the next morning so she could take them to school (she's a high school biology teacher). She has since let the frog go, because he wasn't eating, but the turtle is doing well and has been named Growler, since he was caught on Growler Day. Growler Day was a resounding success, by the way. Everyone accomplished the goal, and no one fell in the pool. We fully intend to repeat the holiday many, many more times.