Shrimpies Are Tasty

So tonight we went for dinner at Red Lobster. This is one of a series of birthday dinners with various members of my family (after birthday week is over I will tell everything I got and ate, etc.).

We walked in and sat down for a few minutes while they got us a table. While we were sitting there, another man across from us PUT HIS FEET ON THE TABLE. IN A RESTAURANT. Ugh.

Then, we were seated in one of those little alcoves that are really echoey. We were also seated to two different tables with SCREAMING BABIES.

Pet peeve: If your child is too young to behave and be quiet at a nice restaurant, LEAVE THE LITTLE BUGGER HOME WITH A FREAKING BABYSITTER.

So I asked to be moved (I actually can't believe I had the guts to do that!). Apparently if you ask for something early on the manager will make sure to come take special care of you and make sure you get everything you want. Awesome.

So once we were seated in a quieter place and got our food it was wonderful and relaxing and I had three kinds of shrimp.

I had been having a really bad day because I missed some meds TWICE last week and my body is still trying to balance itself again, so even though everything at work went perfectly smoothly and I had a great day, I just got home after work and felt...well, I couldn't really figure out how I felt. I felt sad, but content, but tired, but restless. I felt like I was craving something, but it wasn't food or sleep or something to do...I wanted to get out of the house and do something but at the same time I just wanted to veg in front of the TV (I'm loving Stargate all over again). I hate when I feel like this because I feel like no matter what I do I will still feel unsettled.

So, when Scott got home we decided to go out and run a bunch of errands before getting dinner and once we were out and about and getting things done I felt a bit better, and at dinner I had a daquiri so I felt a little more relaxed and hopefully tonight I will sleep better and tomorrow maybe my brain chemicals will decide to behave. Maybe.

Either way, WHO PUTS THEIR FEET ON THE TABLE AT A RESTAURANT?

It was a grown man, for crying out loud.

Gross.

Phones Galore!

So a while ago Scott wanted a new phone, so he decided to look around in Hong Kong and see what he could find. Electronics are often less expensive over there, so we figured maybe we could get a good deal on a good phone. He looked around though, and they were comparable in price to what they have here, so he decided to look on the internet and see if he could get a good deal.

eBay is a beautiful thing.

Most of the time.

Scott found a decent deal on a G1. It was used, and the ad said it had a little cosmetic damage but that it worked perfectly, so we bought it for $130.

It arrived in the mail and it was WAY scratched up. This was not "a little" bit of cosmetic damage; this thing was thrashed. Scott put him SIM card in anyway, to see if it worked all right. The speakers didn't work at all, and the whole time he was using it (two or three days) he received no calls...which was a little suspect. It turns out people were trying to get ahold of him all weekend and no calls were going through, but he was able to place calls just fine.

Obviously this was not acceptable, so Scott tried to contact the seller to send it back and get a refund. Several times. The seller never responded, so he had to open up a case with eBay to get a refund through them. This took another week or two, but in the end eBay decided to refund Scott's money and told him to ship the phone back to the seller.

Scott sent it out, but when it got back to the seller, she never claimed it, so the post office just sent it back to Scott. When he asked eBay about it, they said just to keep the phone.

So, we ended up with a free phone...that didn't really work.

Scott put his SIM card back into his old phone and we waited for a while. Soon, Scott's contract with the phone people was up, so he could get an upgrade for a reduced price. He decided he wanted to get a new G1, and try to sell the old one (with a posted ad that said it didn't work well, because, well, we're honest).

All was well. We got the new phone, and Scott loves it!

However.

The phone comes with the original version of the software, and then in a few days after activating it it is supposed to (all by itself) update to the latest version. We waited...and waited...and then we went in to the store where we bought the phone to find out what was going on. The people in the store said it might take up to a month to get the update, which we thought was ridiculous, but what were we supposed to do?

So we waited.

A month.

No update.

So, Scott called tech support, and they were all like "Um, the store lied, you were supposed to get it already, I will open a ticket and make sure you get the update soon!" We were very happy that someone in the company was actually helping, and sure enough, in a day, the update came.

Which would have been awesome, if it hadn't FROZEN Scott's phone. It was stuck on the startup screen. Scott called tech support again and they tried everything, and apparently it was hopeless so they shipped a new phone. So while we waited for that phone to arrive, Scott put his SIM card back in his old phone.

But, in a couple of days, the new phone came and everything is working fine now.

So, before Scott sent the frozen phone back, we took a picture, so we could remember this moment forever.

Decisions, Decisions

So I've made a few decisions lately. One involving yarn and one involving food.

We'll see if they hold...

On the yarn front, I've looked through my yarn and I have quite a stash (not nearly as much as some people do, but for me this is a lot) and I think I should not buy more yarn unless 1. It is my birthday (next Thursday) or 2. I need it to make a specific project and don't have anything suitable to sub with in the stash. I know I have enough sock yarn for at least ten pairs, so that's something.

The food decision comes from my learning about myself. Over the past year and a half I have been dieting and trying to figure out why I eat the way I eat and trying desperately to eat more vegetables and less...well, less CRAP.

Aside: Something like ten years ago Mim realized she had an addiction to chocolate. She realized she was eating it all the time, and it was stressing her out that she wasn't as fit as she would like and she felt bad for eating so much of it (looking back, I can definitely say she had a problem. It wasn't like, "Oh, I shouldn't eat some chocolate every day", it was more like, "Oh, I should not eat a ten pound bag of chocolate chips"). She decided to just never eat chocolate again. And she did. Well, I mean she didn't. She went through with her decision, and she has been healthier and slimmer since. And it's amazing! She just says no and that's that.

I think I am going to take this approach with some foods. I've learned about myself that I can't portion. I like eating, and I like eating a lot. I start eating something and sometimes I can't stop myself, even if I feel sick. Something about feeling totally full makes me feel better (while feeling worse at the same time...it's complicated) and I need to get past the need to feel like that (I should probably start seeing a therapist again, but THAT'S EXPENSIVE).

So my first order of business?

I am never going to eat french fries again.

Never.

I am determined.

I think that since I usually have fries while I am eating a burger, it would he helpful for me to not eat burgers anymore either.

So, no burgers and no fries.

Eventually maybe I will add more to that list but I think this is a good starting point.

They're Squooshy

I had a lot to do at work today, so I had a lot of downtime (that sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it?) so I finished my socks!

These aren't my favorites in terms of the color, but I love the yarn fiber! It has elastic in it so it's a big hug on my feet!

Now back to working on the baby blanket for the Kwiddens.

The Learning Curve

So when I decided to make Scott a Jayne hat (ok, more like when Scott begged me to make him one) I read up on how to knit hats, and found a pattern online, and dove right in. I didn't make a gauge swatch because I never learn. I never learn. Ever.

I do this all the time. I just start knitting and I don't even try it on or measure it and then when it's almost done it occurs to me that it might not fit and then when I finally do try it on it's too small...yeah.

So I decided, at this point, to just finish the hat and consider it practice. So I finished it, and then I made another one, in the correct size, for my Scott.

So, I had two...one of them quite a bit smaller than the other...perhaps dog size?

Oh yes I did.


My two boys:

Best. Project. Ever.

The Man They Call Jayne!

Have you seen the series Firefly?


If not, you're missing out.


Either way, in the series, one of the characters, Jayne Cobb, gets a package from his mother with a hideous hat in it. But, it's from Mom, so he wears it anyway. And he looks like an idiot.


Well, this hat struck a chord with legions of science fiction fans, and a lot of those fans are knitters, and so a pattern was born.


Enter: The Jayne Hat


I love my Scott SO MUCH that I spent TWO HOURS learning how to make a pom pom.

And I've never knitted a hat before, and it actually LOOKS LIKE A HAT.


I call this one a win.

Oh Food, My Love

I have had a love affair with food my entire life. I don't know why. Ok, well I do know why, psychologically, but that is a story for another day.

But seriously! How in the world do people stay thin when there are so many tasties all around you?

Last month was heavy on cravings for me. I wanted tacos and donuts at the same time.

Last week I was craving green beans. I would cook like half a pound of fresh green beans and eat them all.

Today, I don't want anything at all, because my throat is so freaking sore!

I've been feeling a bit under the weather for a while now. It wasn't too bad, though, until Sunday night, when BAM it hit me hard. It's the same thing Scott had last week. He had been asking if I would amputate his face, and now I know what he meant because my whole face is stuffed with nasties. I'm blowing my nose every five minutes. I ran out of tissues at home; hopefully I will have enough here at work to last the day!

The best part? Life is ironic, and has one mischievous sense of humor. The one week I would like to stay home and rest and get better is the one week when HUNDREDS OF SAMPLES come into the lab and my boss has too much to do to cover my shift when there is that much work. I worked 11 hours yesterday!

So the game plan is:
Take Afrin and Nyquil every night before bed
Take Sudafed and Tylenol and Mucinex all day
Drink lots of water
Eat my cinnamon bears (they're helping to clear my nose, so they're medicinal, right? Right?)
Make Scott do things for me (because he's the best AWESOME husband ever)

If I can just make it through today and tomorrow, then I can sleep all weekend and be totally fresh and bright and chipper for Monday morning!

Kitchen Plans

So Scott and I recently went to Home Depot and walked around almost the whole store and started making plans for when we renovate our kitchen. We want to start when we have enough cash to pay for half of all the costs up front, put the other half on credit, and still have lots of moneys in the bank.

So we looked at so many different things, it was almost dizzying, but we decided we want to do a darker color for our countertops, probably black or dark gray. I saw some granite that was almost black with little silver flecks in it and I LOVED it.

We want very simplistic cabinets with simple hardware. Less is more. We saw some cabinet handles that match the handles on the appliances we want perfectly. We can't agree on a type/color of wood yet, but we both agree that it should match the laminate wood floors we end up putting in. We're leaning toward a darker wood. I like cherryish woods, with a little bit of a red tone in them, but Scott doesn't like those at all. We have to be careful. We're opening up the whole room, making it look much bigger, but if the wood we choose is too dark it will make everything look smaller. I think we will have to find a good balance between paint colors and wood colors as well.

We want to put an island in where the wall used to be. We will move the pantry (well, build a new one that matches everything) where the door to the backyard is, and instead put a large double door in the back leading out onto a deck. It will be so nice to have a deck. Right now we have a teeny tiny little one with a teeny tiny little barbecue...it's sad, and pretty useless.

The best part?

We're going to do a lot of the work ourselves. Lots of quality AnnaScott time. Saves a zillion dollars on labor costs, too. We got a quote for a simple deck in the backyard, and it was going to be $5000! We figure we can do it ourselves for just the cost of materials, probably under $1000.

We want all new stainless steel appliances. I want one of those stoves where the coils are under glass so it's a completely smooth top-so much easier to keep clean! Also, no knobs. I hate cleaning knobs on the stove! Also a must is a refrigerator with a water filter.

I know I've said some of this more than once, but I'm just so excited!

Destruction!

So we started the home renovation! We have everything laid out and budgeted in stages so that as we have the cash, we can complete another phase.

First phase was starting the demolition. We didn't demo everything yet, since we're not getting to the point yet where we need to rip out the floor or cabinets, but we figured something we could do for cheap in the middle of winter was rip out the wall between the living room and kitchen. It was super amazing to open the room up and see just how much room we actually had. When we finish everything it's all going to look great!

So here are some pictures and videos, in no particular order, about the demo process.

Here's where we had gotten quite far, and only had a little bit of the framework left:

Here's more toward the beginning, where we were ripping up all the stuff on the outside, like drywall and trim and the weird subfloor that was installed on top of the wall...we couldn't figure out why they would put subfloor somewhere that people weren't going to walk. Oh well.

The ceremonial picture of the first slice in the drywall. We needed to move the thermostat from the wall we were hacking down, so we needed to open up some holes so we could thread cables through. This hole has since been patched.

Here are some videos. Most of them show me trying to be handy but it doesn't really work. So far, I have made a very good assistant, and later on I will be the one to pick out paint colors, etc. But Scott is teaching me little things as we go. He does most of the work though, because he's a LOT stronger than I am.

BTW, I hate the way I look in these videos. I don't photograph well. Photos and videos make me look like I have a HUGE double chin. So just pretend that isn't there.

Buster's New Tricks

So Buster's latest two tricks are High Five and Hold.

High Five looks like this:



(Pretend my kitchen is pristine. Which it will be once we finish our renovations. In like a year.)


Hold means he holds still and we put something ridiculous on his head and take a picture of it:

Like Scott's dinner.

Our dog is so smart!