Yackety Schmackety

Our house in Illinois closed today! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I feel so much… lighter.

Okay, so "lighter" is a metaphor.  Which reminds me of something completely unrelated…I have been doing well with the treadmill (get it?  Lighter?)- every day this week (so far!).  And TWICE on Monday!  What is the matter with me!?! 

We have big plans for this weekend.  Saturday morning I have a hot date for the movies.  It’s Simon, of course.  I’m taking him to his first real movie!  Our local theater has 2$ movies for kids (adults are free- anyone wanna come?) and they’re showing Elmo in Grouchland.  Can’t wait.  It’s only 70 minutes and I’m only out 2$ so if it doesn’t go well, no big deal.  Sunday we’re going to our 4th stop on the Tour de Churches.  It’s another Baptist church, and I’m actually looking forward to it because I’ve heard it’s a great place for kids.  So we shall see.  Of course, my friend that is taking us just found out she’s moving to Chicago in a couple of months.  Wah.

Anyway, that’s about all for now.  I could ramble on for hours about the house closing, but I’m just so glad that it’s done.  I won’t bore you all with details!  If I don’t get back before the holiday, have a spectacular 4th of July! 

Nothing spectacular.  But quite relaxing for a change.  The next few weekends are probably going to be pretty busy, so the rest was nice.

I added some pictures to Flickr- I discovered yet another crop of new flowers that have shown up all of a sudden.  The pink bushes are hibiscus and they are GORGEOUS!  These bushes were nothing but short twigs sticking out of the ground when we moved in 3 months ago.  They are on the side of a fence that I can’t see from any window, and I haven’t ventured out to that side of the house lately, so I was in shock when I saw them.  They are blooming out of control.

My poor husband…for probably more than a year, he has been dreaming of a new TV.  Our old one in Illinois was about to bite the dust and was left behind, with the promise of "we’ll get one after we sell the old house" (we close Thursday by the way!  Yee!).  We are currently using our old garage TV which works fine but is nothing fancy.

Well, after much research (aka, looking in the mirror and/or stepping on the scale), we took the plunge yesterday and bought…

A treadmill.

Yes, I know, I’m sure it might be used as a clothes hanger a year from now, but something has to be done to curb our sassiness.  And since the food down here is oh-so-good-and-not-in-a-healthy-kind-of-way, we’re working on exercise.  And it’s too damn hot to walk outside.  But we spent a chunk of money on a nice treadmill (by no means the top-of-the-line model, but not a cheapy either).  And had to walk right past the shiny new flat-screen TVs to get it.  He pouted the whole way home.

Of course, the treadmill sits, unused, as of now. Little did we know that getting the stupid thing up a flight of stairs would be enough workout to wear me out for two days.    Which is all the more reason why I need it. 

This was Phil’s birthday present this year:

It’s not a great image, but the print itself turned out great!  Yes, I could only afford an 8x10.  Maybe someday we will upgrade to the big wall-mural version.  Unfortunately, Phil has kidnapped this picture and it is gracing the walls of his office.  So I don’t get to enjoy it.  I knew I should have bought the country club membership for "his" birthday gift.  Rats.

Duh.  I just realized that non-Illinoisians might not realize the significance of Phil’s birthday gift.  It’s a Larry Kanfer print of Chief Illiniwek (symbol of the U of I, Fighting Illini, Orange and Blue, get it?).  NCAA be damned!  Long live the Chief!  

Not a whole lot going on here.  Phil’s gearing up for a lot of travel in the next few weeks- I don’t know how he does it.  All that time on the road would make me sleepy.  Speaking of which, I’m off to bed.  Good night! 

Happy Fathers’ Day to my favorite dads:  um, Cliff Huxtable, John, Alan, and Phil!  I hope you had a great day.

We had a great weekend!  Friday night we spent part of the evening in the yard, and met (again) the little boy who is going to be moving in next door.  Should be a couple more weeks- they are starting fixing the house up on Monday.  It looked like more than a couple of week process to me, but what do I know?

Anyway, Saturday we spent getting ready for Saturday night- we had one of Phil’s friends from work and his girlfriend over for dinner.  They’re 24 and 22.  We had a good time but I think we both agreed (probably not until this morning) that we just can’t drink like we used to.  Darn.  You would think we’d learn.

Today, we did make it to church and actually went in this time.  Oh, this is funny…Phil is not a Catholic and has no intention of becoming Catholic, but he was kind enough to accompany us to the Catholic church in Greenville today.  Our friend Maxie knew that I was raised Catholic, and told the pastor there (Fr. Somers) a long time ago that we had moved to town, where we worked, etc.  Phil’s reaction was "Great- Maxie had to go and sic the Catholics on us."  Well, this was several months ago, so I didn’t think anything of it.  We dropped Simon off at the nursery (he did much better this week!) and we were waiting outside of church to meet our friends, and here comes Fr. Somers.  He came up and shook our hands and asked us our names.  He said right away, "Oh, you (me) work in Cleveland, right?  I’ve heard about you."  Greaaaaat.  Well, he was very friendly and welcoming, and even introduced us to another young family who was waiting out front.  End of story, right?  Wrong.  We sat through Mass and at the very end, wouldn’t you know he CALLED US OUT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!  And he called me Michelle (why why WHY are people always calling me Michelle!!?!).  But he asked us to stand (we didn’t, Phil kind of waved, I wanted to crawl under the pew), everyone CLAPPED.  Oh how embarrassing.  It would be one thing if we knew we would be going there all the time, but we’re still trying to decide where we’re going to go.  Oh well.

As soon as we got home from church, I got a call from Maxie herself (who was quite amused at the events at church today) inviting Simon and I to go swimming with her at the country club.  So we went for a couple of hours, leaving Phil to enjoy his Fathers’ Day by watching his own TV shows!  We had a pretty good time, had lunch, went swimming, and came home.  Then Simon and his dad took a nap and I got to do two more scrapbook pages.  ha HA!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend too.  Later.  

But we had to cut his hair.  But here is a song to make you feel better!

 I can’t figure out how to embed it, here’s a link!

It just wasn’t meant to be.  Simon wanted no part of staying in the nursery at church this morning, so we both left.  It was such a scene, I was embarrassed and mad and in tears when we left.  Bad morning.  I was a little irritated at the nursery "teacher", she was not very helpful with the whole thing.  So yeah, I don’t think we’ll be returning to the Episcopal church anytime soon.  I’m getting the feeling that whatever church we end up with will be the one whose nursery Simon likes the best.

Not much else to report from this weekend.  I did get a LOT of scrapbooking done (there’s your scrapbooking news, Nathan!) at my handy new "scrapbook station" which is a good thing.  Never mind the older photos that just came up on Flickr- I just had to place an order to print.

To anyone who might be so inclined, a certain someone’s 30th birthday (certainly not me, I’m not *that* old) is Wednesday, so give him a holler.  I’ll post pictures of his fantabulous birthday gift after it arrives.

At eating lunch in a bait shop. 

The food down here is damn good, but it’s a lot different for a Yankee to get used to.  I never noticed it until I moved here, but when we used to go out to eat up north, everything is so…sterile, for lack of a better word.  Yeah, that’s not the case down here.  Better food, maybe a little riskier?  Plate lunches are really popular.  Plate lunches contribute to the fact that I have had a hard time losing weight since we moved.  For about 7 dollars, you get to choose one meat item, two vegetables (yams and green beans, great- but they’re candied yams and green beans cooked with a big fat side of pig- kind of detracts from the fact that it’s a vegetable), AND dessert, and a drink.  So they’re a good deal too.  The time’s I’ve thought I would turn dessert down, the little frugal voice in my head says "but, it IS included…"  and the sassiness continues.

Anyway, back to my original point, when Simon and I were driving to the state park this morning, I passed a bait shop that was offering plate lunches.  Ew.

 We did have a nice time at the park.  We got to see one gator, and he didn’t move the entire time we were there.  Yes, we were up on an observation deck, and yes, there were two fences, but I couldn’t help but think "this is how ‘When Animals Attack’ videos get started."  There are some pictures up on Flickr if you’d like to see, I’m too lazy to post one here now.  Have a good rest of the weekend!

I’ve been doing some tinkering and I think the comments are working.  So comment away.  Yes, that means you.  No, go ahead.  Say something.

It has been a long week at work and not the greatest, so I am SO glad it’s Friday.   Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot planned for the weekend.  Phil has to work tomorrow and I am thinking of taking Simon here tomorrow if we can get out of the house early enough (meaning, before it hits the high of 97 with about 1500% humidity).  If you don’t hear from us in a couple of days, it means the gators have gotten us. 

We are also continuing on our church journey this weekend.  I think we’re going Episcopal this time.  I think it will be interesting because the priest (is it a priest or a minister?  I dunno.) is a woman.  I haven’t really blogged about this yet, but since we haven’t gone to a church together in, oh, EVER, and since in the south, apparently it’s what all the cool kids are doing, we are trying to find a church.  Seriously.  If you tell someone here you don’t go to church, you get the same expression of "OH MY GOD" as we did back home if you said you don’t drink. 

The first church I went to here was the Catholic church.  It was very familiar, no different than what I’m used to, really.  We have a couple of friends who go to that church here.  I went on a weekend when Phil was out of town because I knew he wouldn’t go.  The second church we went to was a Baptist church.  I have never been to a Baptist church before, let alone one in the south.  It wasn’t terrible, just different.  I actually somewhat liked it until the pastor just got a leeeetle bit too talky and that was that.  However, I’ve been told by my coworkers (who are Pentecostal) that the length of time I spent in the Baptist church was NOTHING.  We are going to try another Baptist church at some point in time because a friend belongs there are they have SO much stuff going on for kids- it might be worth going just for that.  It just blows my mind how different people are down here about religion.  It’s not good or bad, necessarily, just different.  I have met several girl friends since I’ve been here and I feel like I’m "in the closet" about having a beer every now and then.  And now again.    Maybe it’s just because we don’t know each other all that well yet, or maybe it’s just because I really am a heathen.

To our new home. I think. Our old site is acting up and I have, for once, been dying to update.  So to heck with ya, blog*ger.com. 

Well…

We accepted an offer on our house!  I am not as excited as I should be because I’m nervous.  I’m nervous that it will fall through, nervous that the home inspection will turn up something unexpected, you know what I mean.  But we are supposed to close on the 29th of this month, so I don’t have too long to fret over it.    

This past weekend I took Simon swimming in a real pool for the first time.  He LOVED it!  It was not so much a good thing for the ol’ ticker, though, because the child has no fear.  He loved to jump in the water, which was fun and all, but not so much when he jumped in without me being there to catch him.  He also thought a jump into the deep end would be a good idea.  He’s trying to dig me an early grave.  I try with everything else to not be too hover-y and to give him his space and all, but water is a different story.  One of my coworkers said the number of drownings you hear about every summer down here is outrageous.  It’s scary.  And now that I’ve killed the mood…where was I?  Oh yeah, Simon did have a ball in the pool.  He kept calling it "the beach".  And he probably drove the other pool-goers crazy because he would scream bloody murder every time he jumped.  Happy screams, mind you, but very ear-piercing screams nonetheless.

I went with a group of girls to see The Break Up on Monday.  I wasn’t necessarily wanting to see it because it got pretty bad reviews, but it was a social opportunity so I went.  I LOVED it!  First of all, anyone who likes Chicago should see this movie because of the scenery.  I’m not very attached to Chicago, but I know the Wrigley scene would have brought a tear to the eye of many people I know.  Anyway, I thought it was a great movie.  Like being in the fraternity house again, ha ha.  And I will do all of you a favor and tell you this now, because I didn’t know until the end credits when it was too late, but the husband of the girl with the annoying voice (Joey Lauren Adams) is RALPHIE!  Yes, "you’ll shoot your eye out" Ralphie! 

Well, that’s all for now.  I hope this site is better for me.  Can’t say I’ll update much more often, but you never know.