Oh, So Much TV!

I am going to have a TV heavy night, and I'm going to almost love it. (I would love it completely, but J is going to be at work, so I'm going to be solo watching all of this TV. Sigh.) Thanks to the fact that NBC is airing episodes of their series online after they've aired on TV, I am going to watch the following online tonight: Chuck, Journeyman and Heroes. And I'm going to record on my DVR the following: Bones, House, Law & Order: SVU and The Reaper. Ahh, I love having that much TV to watch. Some of the new ones may suck, but I'm hoping to find some good new shoes to watch.

I did find a good one last night. I watch CBS on Monday nights, because I love How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men. And sandwiched between those shows was Big Bang Theory, which could have been horrible, but instead was charming and funny! I think Johnny Galecki needs to get more into his character, but the show itself was surprisingly good. I'll be watching next week for sure.

And that's all I have for now. I just wanted to write about all of the good TV I'm looking forward to tonight. And just think, it's only Tuesday! There are quite a few more shows to look forward to. Oh how I love the new fall TV season. :)

Anniversary and Fall!

One year ago today, I got an e-mail from eHarmony that J from (his hometown) wanted to communicate with me. After a short time debating on whether or not I wanted to spend the money to sign up, I got an offer for three months for $60, so I paid it and started writing J back. And I'm so glad I did. One year later, we're living together, our dogs are almost fully integrated (Willow still has issues with Rosebud, but we're getting there), and I couldn't be happier. That was the best $60 I ever spent. I love you, J.

And now it's fall, which has always been my favorite time of the year. The evenings are getting cooler, the leaves are starting to turn, and ambition is starting to return. After a summer of sitting around not wanting to do anything because of the great potental for sweat if I moved at all, I am now finding myself not wanting to sit still. If I'm at work, I'm wanting to walk around campus. And at home, I'm taking down curtains and washing them and cleaning the filthy windows behind them. And also? I'm kind of getting the urge to crochet. I want to make something with my hands. I happen to have another great-niece or nephew on the way, so something tells me I'll be making up a little sweater or blanket sometime soon. The baby is due on December 31st, so I have plenty of time to make up my mind and start working on it. (Although I really should have it done before the baby shower, which is next month. Hmm.)

And TV season has started! Last night were J's shows' premieres - The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy. He had a great time. Shark also started last night - we recorded that. And tonight is all of the CBS shows, plus Heroes, which I don't watch, but now that Kristen Bell (formerly of Veronica Mars) has joined the cast, I just might have to check out the previous season (seasons? I'm not sure how long it's been on the air) to catch up. Maybe. I haven't heard too much about any of the new shows, but I look forward to finding out about them and giving some of them a chance to catch my interest. I love TV.

And now it's almost time for me to go to my sister's house for dinner. Our brother showed up at my house with his new girlfriend yesterday, and he was headed to her house after he left, so I'm interested to get her opinion. :) I hope you all are having a great Monday!

ZZ Top!

Last night J took me to see ZZ Top in concert. And it was so amazing! I had seen them in about 1986 or thereabouts, and loved them then, but that was so long ago that I didn't really remember too much about the concert, and wondered if I would still love them so much. Well, the decision is in. I still love them just as much.

We got to the venue a bit early, so we sat down before too many people got there, and watched them come in while we talked to each other. People watching is great at concerts. Of course, different bands draw different types of crowds, and ZZ Top had some grizzled, bearded biker types there, to be sure. But what kind of surprised me is that the majority of the people who attended the show were middle aged couples. There were lots of polo shirts and bald spots and men and women alike who looked like they probably worked in offices all day. The last time I saw them, the crowd was almost all teenagers, so it was a bit bizarre, like I had landed in a twilight zone land.

While we were sitting there, a couple came in who seemed to think we were in one of their seats, but it turned out they were in the wrong row - they were supposed to be in the row ahead of us. Well, imagine my surprise when the woman turned out to be someone who I used to work with at Syracuse University, and hadn't seen since I left there in 2003. This is a woman in her 50s, I would guess, and is a typical wife and Mom of children who have all grown up and moved out of the house. She is NOT the type of woman you would expect to see at a ZZ Top concert. But there she was, and really, given the type of person the crowd was composed of, she fit right in. She didn't recognize me at first, so I said hi and we talked about the old office while J talked to her husband about musicians. She caught me up on all of the goings on, and I told her to say hi to everyone who was still around. It was nice to see her. It's strange - when you work in an office day after day for years, you get to be almost friends with everyone who works with you (or most of them, anyway). You get involved with their lives, and you hear all of the stories, and you tell them all of yours. And then you leave, and you try to keep in touch, but if they're people you only really saw at the office, then the friendship eventually fades away, and before long they're just memories. It's too bad in some cases. But then you run into one of them somewhere, and you catch up and suddenly you miss all of those people. That's what happened to me last night. I don't miss some of the people there at all, and I still see the woman I shared my office with from time to time, but there are a few of those people who I would really love to see and catch up with.

Anyway. So we talked until too many people sat in the seats around us, and then they turned to the front and we waited for the band to come on. Which they did at about 8:20, and oh man did they ever rock. Everyone stood up when they first came out, but partway through the first song everyone sat down again, and can I ask when this started to happen? I don't know if it's because the groups I've gone to see recently have been older groups who don't draw the teenagers, and have those audiences filled with middle-aged people, or if it's unique to the venue we've gone to for these concerts or what, but everyone sits down after the first song has started, and stays seated for most of the rest of the concert. In a way that's good, because when everyone was standing, I couldn't see over their heads to see the band, and when we were sitting, I could see them fine. But it just felt wrong to be sitting down while ZZ Top was on stage playing. We should have been on our feet and dancing! So instead we danced in our seats. Which is fine, but it's just not the same. And the crowd did stand back up for the last couple of numbers, so at least that was good.

So they played through their set, including a bunch of their popular songs and a couple of older ones. They played a blues number, and they played a Jimi Hendrix song which they frankly blew me away with, they were so good. And all too soon they played their last song (Tush), and left the stage, and we fought our way out of the building and walked to our car and drove home. Although it didn't seem right to go home - I wanted to go back and watch another concert! I didn't want it to end, it was so much fun. And J had a great time, too. He liked ZZ, but was never as much of a fan as I am, but he said last night that they were great, and he wants to go see them again if they come back around. So I was happy about that. Of course, I knew he was having a good time when he was playing the air guitar (or bass, since that's what he plays) on my leg for most of the songs. :)

And then before I knew it we were home, and climbing into bed, because we both had to work today. And I had a bad dream and didn't feel like I slept well, and I woke up this morning exhausted and wanting only to sleep for another four hours, but I don't even care. The concert was so much fun that it's worth every second of exhaustion I feel today. I loved it.

Thank you, J. I had a great time. And I love the t-shirt you bought me. :)

(Side note - for some reason blogger isn't wanting to add spaces between my paragraphs under the pictures, so I apologize if the entry is hard to read. And now that I've said that, it'll probably add extra spaces and you'll wonder what in the heck I'm talking about and why there are two spaces between each paragraph. Sigh. Just know that I tried to get it to look right, and it wasn't working, and that blogger sucks sometimes when you're doing entries with pictures in them.)

Why I Love Pepsi

You already know that over the summer I won $50 (not to mention quite a few free sodas) in Pepsi's Transform Your Summer promotion. Now they have a football promotion going, and even though there isn't the chance to win money with that one, I've been entering codes online anyway. And last night, when J and I were sitting there "calling our play," we won! J will soon be the proud owner of a free NFL knit cap (they called it a beanie, I think)! We put in the Dolphins as his first choice and the Jets as his second choice, so depending on availability, probably, he'll be receiving his hat, bearing the logo of one of those teams, in the mail soon.

I love these Pepsi promotions! (And the Diet Pepsi isn't bad, either. :)

Apology and repairs and fall and J :)

Wow, sorry it's been so long since I updated last. I didn't mean to make anyone worry about me or anything. Life just got a little crazy.

Since I wrote last, the water pump at our house died, or started to die, and we had to have it replaced, and then there was a broken pipe between the house and the well, which ended up meaning replacing all of the pipes between the house and the well, which further meant rerouting them around the garage, instead of under it, which put them under the front of the driveway (close to the garage - would that be the front or the back?). And of course it all meant lots of money, and lots of freaking out and worrying and me not wanting to write because I didn't know how to write without freaking out more. Stupid house repairs.

But I do have to say that J was great throughout the whole thing, and I owe my current ability to shower and do laundry and have water for the animals to him, and by the way? I fall more in love with him every single day. He's the greatest.

So anyway, drama aside, life has been good. This weekend I didn't do too much, really. Just the normal household chores like laundry and vacuuming and things like that. And J and I took a couple of trips to Lowe's yesterday to get stones to fill in the strip of driveway that was removed, so that we could park in the garage, which J completely cleaned out! It looks fantastic in there. And football season has started, so we're settling into a new routine of him watching or listening to his football games while I Sim and watch DVDs on my laptop with the headphones on. It's a companiable way to spend time, even if we aren't doing anything active together, so I like it. He gets his football, I get my Sims, and we still get time together, so it's all win.

Also, fall has officially hit central New York. I wore a long sleeve t-shirt on Saturday and a sweatshirt yesterday, and needed them. Of course, now it's going to get warmer every day for the rest of the week, but the chill has hit the air, the leaves are turning and the fall/Halloween decorations are coming out at our house, so yeah, it's fall. And that's fine with me, because I always did love fall the most. Even if it is followed a little too closely by winter.

Oh, and one more thing - J has turned out to be a fantastic cook. He has made a few different dishes now, and they've all been fantastic. I don't know how it happened, but I found my perfect man - he loves me for who I am, he finds all of my little quirks to be adorable, AND he cooks! And even does dishes! I'm lucky to have him.

And I guess that's all I have to say for now. I'm sorry about the long break between updates - I'll try to be better about that from now on.

Great Holiday Weekend

An open letter to employers everywhere:

Do you have problems with employee morale? Do you want to have the happiest, most motivated employees around? I have the secret for you - four day weekends. Seriously, that gives them two days to get things done and two days to have fun, and they'll be very happy to work hard for you on the remaining three days of the week.

Think about it - it can't fail.

Yours truly,

A very happy person who is on day four of a four day weekend.


So. Yup, four day weekend, because here in the US, yesterday was Labor Day, so I had the weekend plus that. Oh, that's only three days? Yeah, I took today off, too. Not for fun, but because we're getting a new water pump after our old one finally broke down, and I had to be here to let the plumber into the basement and find out how to reset it if necessary and, well, to play the Sims while he's outside doing his thing. :)

I really did have a great weekend, though. Saturday J had to work, so I was home alone most of the day. I played the Sims and did laundry and mostly relaxed. Which is a good thing, because on Sunday J and I both kicked into high gear. After we got groceries, we came back and he worked on cleaning out the garage and I mowed the lawn. Then it was pizza time, baby! Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks, which I love.

And then he wanted to move his desk into our bedroom, and his dresser out into the living room (that sounds backward, but believe me, it makes sense for him with his work schedule and all), and in order to do that, we had to move my bookcase in the bedroom. Which we did and we put his desk where it needed to be, and then I dusted my books and the shelf and rearranged them and made it all pretty. I sorted the books by color, like I've seen people doing online, and it came out nicely, I think.

Then, well, I couldn't have a clean bookshelf and a dirty room, so I dusted the furniture and put away clothes and vacuumed and made the room all pretty. Then it was bedtime, and I was exhausted, so I collapsed. Whew, that was a lot of work for a Sunday night.

Monday I woke up and had a little trouble walking - I think I broke something in my butt doing all of that cleaning. Ha! No, really, I pulled a muscle or something. It was fine once I moved around a bit, but seriously - who hurts their butt cleaning a bookshelf? Sigh.

Once J got up and around, we ended up doing even more work during the day. He fixed up his desk and worked in his room upstairs and cleaned out the mudroom, and I cleaned and rearranged the living room. And now the house looks so nice! Wow, it was totally worth all of that work.

And somehow in the middle of doing all of that work, we managed to have some good time together, too. It was a nice weekend.

And today he's back to work, and I would be, but instead I'm sitting here babysitting the house while we get a new water pump. Woo! I can't wait to take a shower without having to shut the water off in the middle because the pressure has dropped so low that I can't even rinse the conditioner out of my hair.

Oh, and I got chapter 13 of my Sims story online, for anyone who's following along. :)

Okay, I'm going back to enjoying my day at home and watching for the plumber to need to come inside. Have a great Tuesday!