Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I love holidays, especially ones where I get to stay home from work, yet still get paid. It's the best of two worlds!

However this morning was one of those where I woke up way early naturally, even though I had the liberty to sleep in as late as I wanted. Oh well, the morning will be spent relaxing: catching up on tv shows online, maybe reading some of my book (Farworld), eating halfway decent cinnamon pull-aparts for breakfast, etc.

This afternoon/evening, I plan on doing laundry, finishing unpacking the kitchen, taking my car to get the carpets/seats cleaned (I may or may not have spilled some rotten milk on the passenger seat), and cleaning our room.

Hopefully there's room for some more relaxing after dinner.

New PET!

We got a new pet!

He is the cutest little puppy ever. He's a Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier. They're hypoallergenic, and they don't shed, and they're very smart. It took Dave a little convincing because it has to be a mostly indoor dog, especially during the winter, and he wanted to get a Husky Malamute mix.

Here's a picture of him in our bathroom. Isn't he so cute!?

JUST KIDDING!

I've decided when we do get a dog, though, I want to get one like this one. They're apparently very expensive though. Here's to dreaming.

Things that go "Bump" or "Honk" or "Rumble" in the Night

Confession: I am a very light sleeper, and it is very annoying.

At our old house, the only thing that would keep me awake were the upstairs neighbors clomping around. At our new place, there have been very odd sounds.

Granted, it is an old house, so it creaks and snaps even when no one is there. The other night as I was trying to fall asleep there were suddenly geese outside our window. The kind of geese that fly over in fall and spring. It was the strangest thing. It had to be geese, but it could have been someone's car with a weird engine problem. Then, this morning very very early the garbage truck came and idled outside our window for about 30 minutes. I think they were testing their brakes because it sounded like, "brubblbublbullbubbblbublbbbbbubbbbubbbbb stsssssst! Brublblelbbbblelblllublbbbbbbbbb Sssssttttsssssss clank brubbbllellbbbbubbbrubbblbbbb."

Then yesterday there was a firetruck and an ambulance right in front of our house. Of course, it was late evening, but I'll still consider it as a night sound. And then there's always Dave's sleep talking, stealing my covers and laughing, and shaking me awake (yes, still in his sleep).

Shoes and Cars, AGAIN!

So my boots came in the mail yesterday, and I got to try them on after work (Black and Pink, Green should be here next week). The black fit marvelously, and are very comfortable and warm. I'm wearing them right now! I may or may not have planned my whole outfit around them... :-D The pink ones are too small, alas. The left foot fits perfectly, but my toes meet the end on the right foot. Silly two sized feet. So I'm going to send them back and get the next size up. Maybe I throw the left shoe in the dryer briefly to shrink it.

As for car news, the Honda is running fine and dandy, and I've even been able to get the key out most of the time! Today at lunch I was running errands, and my car BIT ME! Ok, so I was rolling the window up, and the webbing between my thumb and forefinger got pinched and started bleeding. So watch out, Hondas bite.

Christmas Presents in January!

Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely LOVE shoes!

With my Christmas money this year, I decided to buy myself a pair of really good winter boots, since I do live in a state where it snows.

So I've been shopping around online and in stores. I don't really like the "Ugg" boots because they're just really plain and look like the inserts that are supposed to come out of boots. One day I get this advertisement email from amazon.com that mentions shoes, so I clicked on the link. Instead of getting one pair of nice boots, I'm getting 3!

Steve Madden Bonanza Green Suede. These are about half as much online as in the stores, plus they didn't have this beautiful green color in the stores either. But I did go into Nordstrom and try them on, just to make sure they felt good :) These should arrive early next week. Downside: probably not very warm, not waterproof, and slippery.

These, ok, I'll admit, look kinda like "Ugg" boots, but, I like them because they have the fluffy white trim. We'll see if I keep them. I'm kinda on the fence, but optimistic that I'll like them when they arrive...They should be waiting for me when I get home. And oh look! They have traction!

Now these...oh man...are my favorite of the three, I hope. There is a better picture on the site I ordered from (www.endless.com), but it's in a flash object, and I can't figure out how to save just the image to my computer in order to post it here. They've got the croc shoe with their patented rubber type material, and then a warm upper part. I don't like crocs by themselves, but with the boot, they are really appealing. I just got a text from Alex saying that the boots have arrived, so I'm going home to get them! :D

Oh, and the best part: free shipping! and free return shipping!

Catch up

So, this is why journals never last for me, I miss a few days, maybe even important days, like Christmas and new years, and before I feel like I can write about today, I want to make sure to cover what I did back on those other days, so i never get around to catching up and it becomes abandoned.

News flash, this is not a journal, so I'm not going back and catching up. Tough luck!

So it snowed all day Monday AND Tuesday. Not thick heavy packable snow. More like the kind of snow where if there's a gust of wind, all 2 feet of it will be gone into the air. It is a very dry snow, where even if there's just a slight dusting on the roads, cars slip and slide every which way, especially if they have bald tires.

My car, a 1991 Honda Civic, hates the cold. On Monday it wouldn't start until we hooked it up to the BMW via jumper cables and stomped on the gas quite a few times. Then, I got to work in the dark hours in the morning, and the darn key wouldn't come out of the ignition. So I left it in, and don't tell, but I left a door unlocked too. When the key is stuck, the car is also stuck in park, fyi. So it wasn't going anywhere. Then I went home for my lunch break, and the skies started dusting the roads with that horrible slippery stuff. I almost slid into about 3 people on my way back to work. But I did some hand-wash dishes while on my lunch break! :) (our dishwasher leaks and doesn't clean very well...we're working on getting it replaced) After work, the slippery white stuff was everywhere, coming down thick, but still dry and fluffy. So all the way home I didn't push the accelerator, just let the car drive its own speed, and I wasn't the slowest one out. I got stuck in traffic on 7th and all of a sudden, my car turns off! It didn't even have enough juice to turn on the flashers. Luckily, someone jumped the battery and I made it the 2 blocks home. Synopsis: The Reverse/Park Switch is going out, so it doesn't recognize it's in park, thus not allowing the key to come out or for one to shift out of park. The battery is on it's last life and thus hates the alternator, or maybe the alternator hates the battery. Either way.

We just replaced the alternator on the BMW. Why is it that cars don't just keep working?

New Place

We got a new place to live!

It's a cute old house near the library. We'll be renting the main floor (yay for no more basement!!!) which also includes the 2nd story as well. It's technically a 2 bedroom 1 ¾ bathroom place, but the shower upstairs doesn't work, so we'll say 1 ½, although I wouldn't use the toilet in that one either. It's got a living room with a wood burning fireplace, a dining room with a built in china cabinet, a kitchen with a dishwasher, and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the main floor. Upstairs there is a little hallway/room at the top of the stairs, and then the ½ bath and then another bedroom with a red ceiling. There's also tons of storage and a washer and dryer in a storage cellar. We will have to do a thorough cleaning, especially of the kitchen floor and cobwebs on ceilings, and then spray the whole place for spiders. Luckily we signed the lease for the 15th, which hurt a bit since we just paid rent on our current place last week. At least this way we can move in gradually instead of one giant exodus (I had to look that word up in the Bible for the spelling, how sad is that!?).

More awesomeness about the new place: Dave knows the landlord; it's right around the corner from Quinn and Brianne!; I can start walking to work to get my exercise and save gas; we can shop at Smith's and get the 5% student discount again.