This morning, I had to drag myself out of bed for a 9:00 dentist appointment, which I was late to because I set my alarm to ring at 9:30 instead of 8:30, so I woke up at 9:00 and ran out of the house.  I didn’t even brush my teeth!

And then we had a chiropractor appointment at 2:00 where I got to tell about falling down the stairs and get all the kinks twisted out of my neck.  So many kinks!!

Other than that, and picking up a bunch of stuff from the grocery store, we’ve been incredibly lazy.  Our luggage is still on the floor of the dining room — sprawling open because I dug through there to find my glasses at 9:00 and then pawed through there again to find my new tea infuser this afternoon.

I’m feeling miserable.  My tailbone is still kind of sore, especially after all that sitting on hard airplane seats.  But mostly my nose won’t stop dripping and I’m sneezing.  I keep getting chilled and my sinuses are raw.  It’s probably just a cold, but it’s not any fun at all.

Between the tailbone, the cold, the bruise I got from running into an armrest on the airplane, and the mild case of food poisoning I dealt with on Monday that’s still lingering a little bit, I’m just a mess.

I’m assuming that was food poisoning, anyway.  It lasted all Monday afternoon and evening, but I’m feeling mostly better now.  I got a little green in the grocery store for a while this afternoon, but I haven’t been having the stomach cramps since yesterday.  (Tim, Erica, Luke, and Krista, did any of you also eat the stuffed mushrooms at the Chinese buffet?  I’m trying to pin down what it might have been…)

I miss you all.  It was wonderful getting to see everybody!  And I am happy to be sleeping in my own bed and lounging on my own couch watching TV.  But I’ll be honest:  I almost started to cry several times between Sunday and yesterday evening, saying good-bye to everybody.  It sounds like everyone made it safely back to their destinations, even though several of us are still sick.  And I know we’re all ready to get back into our own routines and prepare for everything that 2012 is going to bring.  It’s going to be an exciting year!  And I can’t wait to see you all again in November!

I love you all!

Justin and I are lounging around in our pajamas, eating breakfast, and relaxing a little this morning.  Our church had a big service last night and no service this morning — most of the ministry staff travels to spend the holiday with family and they encourage the rest of us to do the same:  spend time with loved ones and enjoy!

We’re having people over this afternoon, and I’ll have to get up and shower here in a little bit and make sure that the house is presentable and there are enough clean plates for everybody to use later on.

I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to call later this afternoon, especially with guests in the house, but I wish you all the merriest of Christmases and I hope you’re having a fantastic day and I can’t wait to see you all soon!  (I texted as many of you as my phone would let me earlier and then realized that some of you were probably in church already — SORRY!)

God bless you all and be well!  I LOVE YOU!

I also mowed the back yard until I found the BIG SPIDER that had moved from where it was previously living near the trash bins to up in between two bushes along the side of the property. At that point I decided that Justin could do the weed whacking and I quickly cleaned up everything and went inside to shower. Where I tried not to imaging large spiders crawling up the shower curtain and failed.

And then had to read a book for Book Club and forgot to call Erica.

We didn’t go to Game Night because Justin wasn’t feeling well.

We did go to Book Club on Saturday where we once again disappointed our friend Elizabeth, the leader of the club, by not enjoying one of her favorite books. And we were the only ones who showed up. So when they told us they had double-booked the room, we introduced her to a burger at Five Guys and then invited her back to our house where we watched the new Star Trek movie and an episode of Sherlock and basically hung out chatting until it was almost 10:30 and she needed to head home.

And then she came over after church the following afternoon to watch the second episode of Sherlock with our friend Julie. Our friend Becky eventually made it over as well and we all ate pie and chatted for a while until it was time to decide whether they were going to stay for dinner or head home and do their jogging for the day – they went home. Elizabeth, however, fell asleep on the couch. She woke up around 9 and we fed her and made sure she was awake before sending her home.

Earlier in the afternoon on Sunday, Justin decided that since I’d done so much work on the yard while he wasn’t feeling well on Friday, he would tidy up the house for me.  And that made him the best husband ever because I could focus on paying the bills and then hang out with my friends in a clean house.

Monday, which I know is past the weekend, but I didn’t get around to posting this yet, was a fairly easy day at work and then we started up our running again in the evening, making for a tired and cold Kylene for the rest of the evening with very little cogitating power.  One of these days I’ll figure out why I drop so fast after exercising.

And today was another pretty easy day — I’m just waiting for the shoe to drop at work.  I know it’s coming.  I just don’t know when.

And I finally went to the Christmas site and put up my votes.  Justin will, hopefully, vote on that tomorrow and we can get that moving again.

The entertaining thing about their trip is simply the fact that they’re traveling together.  Justin’s grandparents have been divorced for many years.  But they have houses next to each other.  When Justin’s grandma has been visiting us before, Justin’s grandfather would call at least once a day.  Seeing them together, I can understand sometimes why they are no longer married.  And yet, they still do a lot of things together, including travel across the country, although they are doing that each driving a separate vehicle.  The whole situation is just a little bit off kilter.

I’m not completely sure I’ve got this right, but this is how I’m remembering their travel plans to our house.  Originally, they were going to arrive in early to mid-August.  They were delayed on the way down by visiting different tourist sites and then by a problem with their refrigerator in the camper.  They changed their ETA to be sometime over Labor Day weekend, which was problematic for us because we’d already made plans to visit our friends up near Athens, GA.  We’d made the plans months ago and informed Justin’s grandparents of it before they left Vermont.  They were able to delay a couple more days, and told us they would get into town on the Wednesday after Labor Day.  We went to visit our friends, getting back into town on Monday.  I went to work on Tuesday and the grandparents arrived later that afternoon.

I’m kind of fuzzy on all that, but it seems pretty close.  I know that they were three weeks late and one day early.  But with all the other things that have been going on, the exact details of their travel times weren’t important enough to remember.

They’ve been here for about a week now.  They’ve parked the trailer at a park about 10 minutes from our place.  I can’t remember when we saw them between Tuesday and Friday, though I’m sure they stopped by the house, and we ate dinner together on Friday.  We went to Hunting Island on Saturday to go to the beach, and they went back again on Sunday morning – we stayed home, but they stopped by in the afternoon to drop off beach accessories.  We had dinner together Monday evening.  Yesterday, Justin and Grandma helped Jessi with her dorm room, but I didn’t see either of the grandparents at all.  Justin’s in Hilton Head with Grandma right now, and we’re going out to dinner together either tonight or tomorrow.  And I think they plan to head out of town on Friday, but plans are all very squishy.

It’s been nice visiting with them.  I’d met Justin’s grandma several times previously, but this was my first time meeting his grandfather.  It’s been enlightening, to say the least, getting the opportunity to see that far up on Justin’s family tree.  Justin’s grandpa helped me get the grill going on Friday when the coals wouldn’t start.  Justin and his grandma had a great discussion about the politics of laws regarding corporations over dinner on Monday.  Pies and pastries keep appearing in my kitchen.  Grandma and I wandered through shops in downtown Beaufort (I got a plate shaped like a turtle; she got Justin a book called “All my friends are dead”) while Justin and Grandpa took a hike on the trails on Hunting Island (at least I think that’s what they did – I was shopping).

It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable visit.  The only thing I could possibly complain about is that I’m never really sure of the plans in advance – for example, I’m not sure if we’re doing dinner together tonight or tomorrow.  And we have a friend who could use computer help and we keep telling her we’d love to help, just as soon as we know if we’re going to be home or not.  But as far as the unpredictability goes, they are certainly on the mild end of things.  They tend to just stay in their trailer or do things on their own.  We’re more likely to not see them for the evening than anything else.  It’s a huge difference compared to another branch on that tree.

It’s actually hard to believe that they’ve been here for a week already.  It’s been a very enjoyable visit with them so far.  I really have to remember to get a photograph with them and Justin before they leave town.

My sister-in-law got into town last Thursday.  Her arrival was pretty much indicative of the rest of her time here so far.  I was at work that day, but planned to meet up with Justin and his grandma and his sister and go out for lunch at Captain D’s, a seafood restaurant chain.  The understanding was that her plane arrived sometime between 11:45 and noon, but since her mother wouldn’t actually tell anyone the flight information, there was no way of knowing for sure.  Justin and his grandma went to the airport to wait.  I had to run an errand but planned to meet them at the restaurant after that.

At 12:15 or so, they determined that her flight wasn’t expected for at least another 30 minutes, so we decided to meet for lunch and then they’d pick her up after that.  I was already close to the restaurant, so I told them I’d meet them there.  Except when I got there, Captain D’s was closed and the building was up for lease.  So we went to Appleby’s instead.  They brought me the wrong salad and lost Justin’s order completely.  As he was finally taking the first bite of his food, Jessi called to let us know that she was waiting at the airport.

But her school has really been the interesting situation.  She arrived without any financial aid worked out for her semester.  I’m really not completely clear on the whole situation, but I know she kept asking Justin if an email had come in with information about an application that she put in after she arrived, when she could get her grandfather to co-sign on a loan.  That was submitted on Thursday, I think, and by Sunday morning we still hadn’t heard anything.  Meaning, there was no way she could pay for school.

At that point, she went to school and un-enrolled from all her classes.  We started to figure out all the details that would go into moving her into our house for the semester – clearing out space in the upstairs bathroom for her toiletries, clearing out my not-often-used office to make space for her to have a bedroom, finding a way to make space for her to park her car in front of the house, looking for job opportunities for her to make some money….  And she went to the beach for the 3rd day in a row.

Monday morning, I went to the office still working out the details to accommodate our unexpected roommate.  Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Justin called and told me that her loan application had gone through and she was heading back to school.  She was on campus, trying to enroll in classes and moving things from her storage unit into her dorm room.  Justin’s grandma made dinner and while the four of us (Justin, me, Grandma and Grandpa) sat down for dinner, she came back to the house, decided not to join us for dinner, packed up all her stuff from the house, and went back to her dorm.

Last night, because the grandparents are traveling via camper trailer, Justin and I actually had the house to ourselves.  This morning, Justin and his grandma were helping Jessi move things from her storage unit into her dorm.

And according to Justin’s calculations, she’s going to be paying more in school loans per month than we pay in rent and utilities…for the next 40 years.

I have decided that as long as she’s not staying in the house with me, then what she does is Not My Problem.  She’s 20 years old and an adult and she can make her own decisions.  When the plan was for her to stay with us, our plan was to treat her like an adult, let her come and go as she pleased, and let her make her own decisions.  Now that she’s not staying with us, that notion still stands – she can come and go as she pleases and make her own decisions.  The difference is that now that she’s in the dorm, none of those decisions will have any effect on me.

I’m happy for her – she’s back where she wanted to be, hanging out with her friends, and going to school.  And if she decided that she wanted to stay with us, I would do whatever needed to be done in order for that to happen – including boxing up all my books and buying a bed for her to sleep on.  But I admit, it is a relief for her not to be spending the semester with us.  And I think she probably agrees.

BUT!  I really do hope that your birthday was ABSOLUTELY OFF THE WALL FANTASTIC and I’m sorry I didn’t send you anything, but I hope Tim got you something AWESOME and we’ll totally have to catch up later this week.

I wasn’t even home on Friday, when I would normally call.  Friday, I got up and went to the church offices to do my monthly cleaning there, and then when I got home, Justin and I ran down to Savannah to run a couple errands and catch a showing of “Cowboys & Aliens” (really fun movie, by the way) and then drove straight from there up to Beaufort to go to a board games party at a friends house.  And we were there until after midnight so I started to fall asleep on their couch, which was why it wasn’t until we were nearly all the way home before we realized that I’d forgotten my purse, with our house keys, back at their house.  45 minutes away.  But luck!  I stuck a spare house key under the bumper of the car!  And fail — the key didn’t actually work.  We have no idea why it didn’t work, but the dang thing wouldn’t turn.  So at 1:30 in the morning, Justin borrowed our neighbor’s extension ladder and climbed in through a window on the second floor of our house.

Saturday, I was fighting off some bug because I slept a lot.  I tried to stay awake and managed a couple hours at a time, but then would fall back asleep again.  It was really annoying, actually.  I slept through most of Sunday morning, too, failing to go to church, and then took it pretty easy for the rest of the afternoon.  Friends came over in the evening to collect boxes from our attic for moving and we fed them dinner in exchange for ice cream and Justin fixed the power supply on one of their computers, too, and some other computer work.

And after they left, because the air conditioning unit refuses to blow cold air, we set up the bed in the living room and slept down there.  The a/c unit upstairs hasn’t been working right for the last week or so.  It was working in the evenings, like it was exhausted from the heat, too, and decided that it would just work its best overnight.  And then it stopped doing that, too.  The downstairs unit is working, so we’ve got a box fan at the bottom of the stairs, blowing air up to another fan that moves it closer to either Justin’s office or the bedroom, depending on where it’s turned, and a third fan that blows air up from the floor into faces.  But it’s just not quite cutting it.  So we’ll be camping out downstairs for a couple days.  We have an appointment set up for a guy to come look at it on Friday, which our landlady set up a couple weeks ago for regular maintenance.  So when he comes, hopefully he’ll take care of the problem.

And how’s that for about the most random post ever?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAE-MAE!!

I am SO EXCITED that my sister gave birth to her son yesterday!  I’m looking forward to lots more pictures of Josiah and eventually getting up there to smother him in kisses.  I don’t know when that’s going to happen, since our financial situation for the second half of the year isn’t looking optimistic, but when it happens, it’s going to be awesome.  Especially because it’ll mean smothering all the rest of my nieces and nephews in kisses, too.

We had a lot of fun over the weekend with our friends from out of town visiting.  It’s a pair of sisters, the boyfriend of one, and the two teenage sons of the other.  We had people ALL OVER in our house!  It was great!  We went down to Savannah one day and walked all over, stopping at the candy store on River Street and through the squares.  We had dinner at a Scottish pub and went on a terrible walking ghost tour that we skipped out of early.  By the time we left, everyone was exhausted, with sore feet, and irritated at the tour guide.  But dinner was excellent!

We took them to Hunting Island another day.  It was a beautiful day and we splashed in the waves some, sat in the shade and chatted some, and watched the boys with their boundless energy try again and again to catch a wave with the boogie boards.  The beach was strange, though, because the water was filled with floating wood debris that made it really uncomfortable.  The old foundations of buildings that had long washed away were exposed – the last time we came they were covered in sand.  I had no idea there was so much concrete buried on that beach!  The whole shoreline was changed.  Apparently a big storm came through a couple weeks ago, but I was astonished at how much it affected the island.

The rest of the time, we sat around chatting and playing cards and enjoying each other’s company.  We played a several hours long game of Munchkin, the boys played Halo, I taught the adults how to make bread in a breadmaker, one of the boys showed me some tips for the guitar, and the whole weekend was relaxed and fun and comfortable.  After they left yesterday, the house was too quiet.  I walked around looking at everything that’s not quite in the right places and the piles of bedding and Justin told me not to mope.  “But they’re gone!”  “No moping!”  “But I miss them!”

On the other hand, a couple of our other friends, who live in Beaufort right now, are moving closer to Bluffton.  They signed into an apartment over the weekend that’s 15 minutes or so from our place.  They’re moving at the end of August and that’s going to be awesome.  Okay, not the moving during a horribly hot time of year part because that’s going to suck.  But having them so much closer is going to seriously rock chickens.  Movie night!!

Meanwhile, have I mentioned that we’re not going to move?  We couldn’t find anything we liked in our price range.  So, that’ll hold off for another year, I guess.

My plans for this evening include cleaning our bedroom and the bathroom so they’re back the way they’re supposed to be, and maybe the kitchen because I’ll be in there making a loaf of banana bread anyway.  Maybe watching some television, or reading the book I’m supposed to finish before book club on Saturday.  Eating leftovers for dinner.  And going to bed at a decent hour.  It’s going to be exciting!

 Justin and I determined that we don’t really watch TV.  So what was the point in paying for it to be delivered to our house?  Justin did a bunch of work chatting with our cable provider and for an additional $5/month, removed about $70 from our monthly bill, cleared space in our media cabinets by taking out the cable boxes, and removed live TV from our lives entirely.

Yay!

We then turned around and put some of that money into Hulu Plus, which will satisfy most of our television wants, along with the websites for those actual shows.  So, TV?  Fixed.

Then we went and ended our relationship with Verizon and started new terms with Sprint.  So far, it’s been a rocky relationship.  I haven’t been able to get access to the information I want on their website and their customer service has been *really* annoying.

On the other hand, I spent my whole weekend playing around with my very shiny new smart phone.  It’s an LG Optiumus S.  It’s purple.  It has things on there that tell me the weather and what movies are showing nearby and where to find cheap gas and MY CALENDAR and my to do list (though that one’s still a work in progress) and oh, my gosh, it’s SO AWESOME.  *cue the kid at the end of The Incredibles movie there*

Unfortunately, it turns out we don’t actually have cell service at our house.  So we’re looking at what we can do about that because phones that don’t actually work, while they’re very pretty, are kind of pointless.  And, since there’s no service, I haven’t set up my voicemail yet, so if you call and get a weird answer, that’d be why.

But it was fun and terribly distracting sitting there with my brand new phone going “Oh!  What does THAT do?!”  Plus, I couldn’t get my contacts list to transfer over so I had to do that all by hand.  The bonus there is that my whole physical address book just became obsolete because it’s all stored electronically now.

Oh!  Our phone numbers stayed the same, by the way.  So you don’t have to worry about that.

And my podcasts upload automatically!  I have so many stories to listen to now!!

Anyway, it’s my first Android phone, so I’m still stumbling my way though stuff.  If any of you more experienced users have any advice, I’d love to hear it.

We went to see the new X-Man movie over the weekend, too!  It was very good.  I enjoyed it a whole lot.  You have to ignore some continuity problems, if you’re the kind of person who notices that type of thing, but I thought it was a lot of fun.  It made me gasp in surprise and alarm and made me really sad in some spots and made me laugh at points and I thought it was an entirely enjoyable experience.

A very happy belated birthday to Amy and Isaac and belated happy anniversary to Mom and Dad!  I’m sorry I didn’t call any of you (or you, Erica, for our regular chat) but I figured you’d mostly be busy, plus, like I said, no cell service.  But I hope you all had a delightful day!!

Edited to add:  I just wanted to say how tickled I am right now about how my phone has improved my outlook for this afternoon.  This morning, while getting ready for work, I checked the weather on my phone.  And it told me that it would rain this afternoon.  So I brought my umbrella into the office, even though there were clear blue skies.  It’s been thundering for the last 30 minutes (I can’t see outside to know what else is happening) and I am SO HAPPY that I have my big umbrella for what sounds like a wet walk out to my car.

Last night for dinner, we had honey mustard chicken.

• Take 2 breasts of chicken, salted and peppered to taste
• Mix together:
  • ¼ cup of honey
  • ¼ cup of spicy mustard
  • ½ teaspoon of paprika
  • ½ teaspoon of parsley
  • ½ teaspoon of basil
• Put the chicken in a small, lightly greased baking dish and spoon half the mixture over the chicken.
• Bake it at 350* for 30 minutes.
• Turn the chicken over and spoon the rest of the mix over that side.
• Bake it for another 15 minutes or so, until the juices run clear and you’re sure the chicken is done.

I ate it over spaghetti squash.  Next time I do this, I’ll remember that the squash will need to cook hotter and longer than the chicken because it was still a little crunchy when I took it out.

Yesterday the VP over my area had his monthly performance review meeting and I had to give a quick presentation on the 5S status in the area.  To give you an idea of how out of my depth I was in that company, let me quickly explain my organizational chart.  First there’s me.  I report to A. He reports to B.  B is the group head for my department.  B. reports up to C, who’s the director of several departments.  There are several level B guys under C.  C. is one of several directors who report up to D.  D. is one of several VPs who report up to the president of the company.  I’m pretty sure that broadly covers how we’re organized.  So yesterday, I gave a presentation to the level D. guy for my area.  I don’t do a lot of public speaking and especially not to people who get paid that much.  Hopefully I didn’t stumble around too much and I hope I answered all his questions adequately.  The director (level C) came over afterward and thanked me for doing my part at the meeting, which was really surprising.  He’s not a man who gives out positive feedback very often.  So that was nice.

I’ve been wearing makeup to work the last couple of days.  Yesterday, obviously, I had the important meeting.  But I read some articles that said studies show that women in business who wear makeup and skirts are more likely to be respected and advance in their careers than women who don’t.  Also, people who smile a lot are more likely to be trusted.  So, I already like to wear skirts more than pants, so I’m good there.  And I’m pretty good at smiling a lot.  So I’ve started wearing a little makeup, not because I feel like my face needs it but because it’s a tool to try to get more respect at work.  It’s taking some getting used to.  I’ve got to schedule more time into my prep time in the morning.

One of the things that’s really frustrating me at work right now is the amount of perceived self-importance.  I get really tired of dealing with people who think that they’re more important than anyone else around them or that their little piece of paper is more important than whatever else I’m working on right now.  I understand that I’m a small duck on the totem pole, but I’m really tired of hearing the squawking from the rest of the puffed up geese around here.

Justin and I have been playing a video game together that’s got a lot of “go out into the woods and find these items” or “go out into the woods and kill these birds” and stuff like that.  It’s a lot of fun!  My brain is a strange place, though.  Driving into work this morning, I saw a bird land on a wire and thought “What kind of bird is that?  Is that one I need for that quest?  Target the bird to see what kind of bird that is.  Tab.  Click.  Wait, I can’t actually do that!  Dang it!”

Happy birthday, Tim!  I know he doesn’t read my blog, but let him know that I remembered, Erica?  He probably doesn’t care, but I wish him a happy birthday anyway.

I tried my first pistachio on Tuesday.  It was yummy!  Very salty, even though the sodium count wasn’t too bad.  I had a handful of them and enjoyed them.  So I threw some in my lunch bag yesterday for snacking on during the day.  When I went to eat them, I got through 4 of them before my throat started itching and swelling up.  It’s so annoying.  I took a children’s strength allergy medication and felt fine a little while later.

On a slightly related note, if anyone knows where I can get Emerald’s Sweet and Salty Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter mixed nuts for cheap, let me know.  I have a serious addiction to those nuts and, besides the addiction, they haven’t effected me poorly at all.

I’m also really enjoying sugar free Peppermint Patties.

If you don’t hear from me again for a couple days, we have plans with friends for most of the Memorial Day weekend.  I expect that our days will be filled and our evenings exhausted.  But I’ll try to post pictures later.

I’m feeling better this morning.  Well enough that I came into work, albeit a little bit late, and I don’t anticipate going home early, though I am feeling less and less well as the day goes on.  I’m apparently fighting off a bug of some kind.  Either that or stress is catching up with me.

Justin’s mom and grandma flew out yesterday.  It was a bit of a whirlwind visit.  As the pictures show, we went into Savannah on Saturday for the sidewalk art festival and parent’s weekend.  We saw the art in Forsyth Park and then went downtown to River Street to catch a photography show.  After that we went to Huey’s for dinner and I got a delicious slab of salmon on wilted spinach and a house salad without cheese or dressing, and didn’t eat the cornbread or grits that came with my order and watched as the others ate beignets. 

This diet sucks.  On the other hand, though, I can’t complain about the results.  I had my weigh-in yesterday before I went home and I was down 3.5 pounds from last week.  And I haven’t been exercising yet because of having company over.  That was a goal for last night, but I ended up sleeping instead.

We went to the beach on Sunday.  Justin’s family laughed at me as we covered every inch of my exposed skin with 85-SPF sunscreen.  And then they stretched out in the sun while I curled up in the shade of our umbrella.  They wandered around the beach while I sat in the shade and chatted with Justin’s grandma and read a book.  They splashed in the water, but I only waded for a couple minutes (there’s jellyfish in there and riptides!).  And I still burned a stretch of my back brighter than a tomato.  It hurts.  I woke up in the middle of the night Monday night because I’d rolled over, rubbing the burn against the sheet, and my nightgown was pressing against it and it hurt so badly I thought I might scream.  I got up, put Dermoplast on it and slept the rest of the night on my stomach.  It might be part of why I wasn’t feeling well yesterday.  I got Justin to put more lotion on my back several times yesterday and spent the afternoon and night on my stomach again.  It’s finally faded to pink in some places today, but it’s still very red in spots. Stupid sun. 

Anybody wanna buy me this?