Washington, Here I Come

Look out DC, I'm on a mission. At 9:55pm tonight I announced my new campaign. I will be flying to Washington D.C. to lobby for American Idol reform. Why you ask? Well, I find it very suspicious that someone who sings the last four songs of the show COMPLETELY FLAT would become the American Idol. I mean, really, what does this say about our country? "Yeah, she sings flat but she sure is pretty!" That would be the Miss America contest. I think some of the viewers are confused. This is about SINGING. Now, on one hand we have Bo Bice. The man can sing. Sure, he has long hair and looks like he should be in the Eagles.

For those of you who haven't seen these two, I'll give you a peek. Click here to see BO. Click here to see CARRIE. Just because he's not 21 and blonde doesn't mean he's not better. That's it. I quit American Idol. I should have watched "Lost".

Starbucks Name

Ok, so my dear friend Kyra was over tonight for a little going away barbecue. We were discussing the fact that I am a "regular" at the Starbucks near me. I had to break the news to my barista that I'm leaving on Saturday. She was very sad and said she'd miss me, one of her favorite regulars. It was at this point that Kyra revealed that she has a "Starbucks Name". Because no one can spell or pronounce her name (Ciara, Keyra, etc) she goes by a code name, Karen. I want one. The problem is that I can't do it at the Starbucks by me because they know me by name. So if I walk in and tell them the tall non-fat, no whip white chocolate mocha is for Svetlana they're going to look at me like I'm nuts. I guess after I move I'll have to try out a Starbucks Name. Does anyone besides Kyra do this? I seriously want one.

So today I packed some more. And more. We now have 22 boxes, a suitcase, a Speedo bag and a partridge in a pear tree. Plus the kitchen sink. Let me tell you, I'm tired of packing. In fact, right now, I'm just plain tired.

I hope that everyone voted for Bo on "American Idol" tonight. If Carrie the Country Chick wins I'm officially not watching the show anymore. And I swear, if I have to hear Paula Abdul tell one more person that they can't sing on key but they look beautiful I'm going to scream. I voted for Bo 30 times tonight. That was just barely enough to cover how much Mom and I want him to win. If I wasn't packing I would have called all night long. I'm not kidding. I might even skip the "Lost" finale tomorrow to watch "American Idol" (speaking of which, does anyone have Tivo or can someone record it for me? Please?).

Ok, I'm going to bed.

Smithson. Out.

Good It Was!

Ok, so I went to see "Star Wars" last night. Very good movie! Seriously, it's cool because you already know the basic story if you've seen the other movies, but this kind of tells you the detailed beginning. Like how Darth Vader becomes Darth Vader. Really cool. They had these people hired to wear the costumes and walk around the theatre lobby... Chewy was there and even made the sounds! So cool.

I leaned over during the movie and told Tim I wanted a Yoda. The little guy is even cuter when he's young and spry and doing flips. Yoda sure can handle a light saber...

We had a great weekend. On Friday night Tim and I went miniature golfing with our friends Kris and Christine. We lost, but Tim and I tied each other. Not that I'm competitive or anything. :)

On Saturday we went to two parties. The first was our friends Doug and Kim who did a potluck movie night. We had some amazing food there and then went over to our friends Howi and Donna's. Howi turned 50 on Friday and his wife was having a birthday party for him. At the last minute they decided to combine it with a going away party for me. My whole choir was there and we had a blast!

Sunday was my last day at church. At the end of mass, Father Nick pulled me up in front of the whole congregation and talked about how I did a great job and they would miss me. Then Alissa from my choir gave me a dozen beautiful multi-colored roses. Very touching. I promised myself I wouldn't cry until our last rehearsal on Thursday, and I didn't (barely). :)

I'll post some pictures tonight - I have to go through and take the red eye out. I'd love to hear about all of your weekends!

Friday!!!

First of all, a birthday shout out... Happy Birthday Shirley! (That's Tim's Mommy, for those of you who don't' know).

So I officially don't want to work anymore. Is that bad? They hired my replacement today - he starts on Tuesday. So I get a full four days to train him. Goody... just what I feel like doing. I learned in the proven "Trial by Fire" method. It worked for me, it can work for him. Oh well. So I'm spending my days trying to look busy. Which is actually much harder than it sounds. Yes, I'm doing what needs to get done, but I'm not going out of my way. No motivation what so ever.

There is a new poll... make sure you take the time to vote and continue to check out "Box Watch 2005". I've been doing a pretty good job packing up. I have eight boxes done now - that's ALL of my candles (that's a lot), my pictures, and the shelves in my closet. This weekend I think I'll do the rest of it because SO many people want to hang out with me (Mom... read this in the voice we do "I'm so popular...") next week that I'm worried there won't be much time. That makes me feel good - that my friends want to hang out before I leave. :-D I had to break the news to my choir last night - they're the group I was dreading telling because they're such a wonderful group of people. One lady left rehearsal a little early because she was upset. They're having a birthday party for one of the guys tomorrow night, and they want to combine it into a going away/birthday party. So nice. It's going to be a busy weekend! I'm feeling better about everything today - I was sad about it last night, but I'm back to being excited now!

I went running this morning. Outside. In the park. It was so nice. Seriously cleared my head. Then I went and cancelled it out with a white chocolate mocha. :)

Anyone else have fun weekend plans?

Star Wars

Ok, so last night I get home (it's about 7pm) and I hear chanting. I walk out onto my balcony, and lo and behold, "Star Wars", in my backyard. I'm not kidding. People were lined up FIVE HOURS early for this movie. And they were dressed up. Hard core. As I'm surveying the scene, these two guys start fighting with light sabers in the parking lot. These are grown men, dressed in brown capes fighting with plastic light sabers. So scary. The best part was when some guy walked by dressed up like Yoda. I swear, he must have bought the costume... it looked exactly like the costume from the movie. He had a little cane and hobbled along, just like Yoda would do. There were also Storm Troopers (the guys in the plastic white suits) everywhere. Absolutely crazy.

So, thanks to Eva, we have a new song of the day feature. Perhaps not all of you have my musical taste or have heard of all of the songs I post. When possible, I'm going to include a link so that you can sample the song. They're not always available, but when they are, you just click on the link and click "sample the song". Thanks for the idea Eva!

The packing is coming along quite nicely. I've now packed six boxes. I'm trying to get going so that next Thursday and Friday I'm not frantically throwing things into boxes. A special shout out to Tim for "acquiring" boxes for me. I could definitely use more, but what you've "acquired" so far is really helping! I'm a little worried about moving the fish... well, not really worried, but I just know that it's going to be a pain in the butt. Twenty-nine gallons of fishiness is a lot to move!

Hope you're all having a great day!

Wanted: Bad Pet Owner

Ok, so I'm officially the worst pet parent ever. I have banned myself from having anything that can't stay submerged under water for longer than 10 minutes. At least for now. Last night I made the trip to Petco to "donate" the finches. I know now it was the right choice, but it was very hard. Yes, I know they're just finches. But if you know me, you know how attached I get. So I plopped them all in one cage (I took a picture but can't bear to post it) and put them in the car. The whole time I was driving little Louise was sitting there just looking at me. All skinny and scared looking. Then when I get to Petco I asked the manager (a manager has to sign off on donations) what they do with them. I was afraid they'd kill them or just release them. He looked at me like I was nuts and said they'd be adopted out. Then I had to sign these forms "relinquishing" custody. Then I burst into tears and walked out. Yeah. Not going back to that Petco. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a wanted poster with my picture on it telling people not to let me have any more pets.

In all seriousness, I think it was a good choice. They were pretty riled up by the 10 minute car ride (they were panting which is bad for birds), so I don't think another 500 mile trip would have been good. *sigh*

In happier news, I took my drug test today. Gotta love peeing in that cup. Boys, you have no idea how lucky you are. Apparently God forgot to install the "point and click" feature in women.

That's about all from here. Started the packing process which I'll continue for the next week. Hope you're all having a great day!

Announcement

Hello everyone!

Drumroll please...

*Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

Today I resigned from my job.

Why?

I've accepted a position back home with Intel. I'm so excited! I'll be moving back home in two weeks and will begin shortly after that! Yeah!!!! This is a wonderful opportunity with a great company! I'm sad to leave here, but I definitely think it's for the best!

That means tonight I must do what the poll tells me and box up the birds. Gonna be hard. Gonna shed some tears. But they absolutely can't make the trip and my mama said no. So Petco, here I come.

I'm so excited I could explode!

omg omg omg

What a Wonderful Weekend!

Hi all!

So this weekend was awesome.

On Friday night I sang at a confirmation mass. Nice to get paid to do what I love and always nice to see young people getting confirmed. Then I went to Longs and got some nail polish and did that French manicure thing on my toes and fingers. It actually looks pretty good! It's supposed to be idiot-proof, but I did manage to screw up a couple of nails. It's one of the Sally Hanson kits (they're also the makers of my cuticle cream that I featured in "Products I Love") that has the two nail polishes and the little strips. You stick the strip on and paint the tip white, let it dry, and then paint over the whole thing with nude. Fabulous.

On Saturday Tim and I had a crazy day. We dropped my car off to have the oil changed (I was like 1500 miles over... oops!) and then ran around doing errands. Target, Ralphs, etc. Then picked up my car and dropped his. We were invited to a crawfish boil at the beach by a couple in my choir, so we drove down for that. The husband is from New Orleans, so he knows how to cook a crawfish. They flew in 250 pounds of LIVE crawfish and boiled them. Everyone there seemed to love it (no, I didn't try it) and it was pretty neat to watch. It smelled yummy... not really like fish, but more like the spices that you smell in all the restaurants in New Orleans. After that we rented "Racing Stripes" and "Finding Neverland". We watched "Racing Stripes" last night. HILARIOUS. My favorite line: "Better to burp and taste it than fart and waste it". ROFL... yeah, so not really a serious movie. Funny though, with a lot of celebrity voices! I kept telling Tim I wanted a zebra, but for some reason he didn't seem to into having one. I wonder why...

Today we went to church and then just sort of vegged. Did some minor gift shopping (a graduation and SOMEONE'S birthday) and then laid by the pool. It was so nice out today and the pool finally warmed up enough to get in. It was nice a refreshing and felt so good to get back out and lay in the sun again. Sometimes my pasty white skin just feels like it craves sun. Today was one of those days. Then we came back and watched "Finding Neverland". Can I just say that I love Johnny Depp? Too bad he's living in France with that chick. No really, it was a great movie... a little deeper than I had expected and very moving. I was expecting it to be a little more about the Peter Pan stuff, but it was more about the inspiration. I definitely recommend it. I finished the day off with some laundry and am now going to read until I fall asleep. I have a little headache (too much sun?) but want to get up early to work out (I slipped and didn't really go this week).

HOPEFULLY TOMORROW IS THE DAY! It's killing me! lol... no really, I'm excited and just want to know for sure. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll have to wait and find out! :-D

Hope you all had a good weekend... I'd love to have some of you post your weekend stories in the comments section - I know we have a biker babe out there who put some serious miles on her bike!

Friday the 13th

So do you believe that today is a "bad" day? Not me. Not yet at least. lol... that could change at any minute. But, I haven't broken any mirrors or walked under ladders or seen a black cat. So I think I'm safe. I am supposed to get paid today... that could always backfire...

Let me just say, I definitely have no patience. I thought I had worked on this, practiced, gotten better. Nope. I'm nowhere NEAR being patient. *sigh*

I'm sad to say that I don't have much to report right now. I'm just hanging out, waiting. This weekend should be a lot of fun. Tim and I are biking to a crawfish boil tomorrow. Yes, I know that I don't eat seafood (My mantra: I won't eat anything that swims, slithers, crawls, hops, eats poop, or grows in poop). I'm going armed with hot dogs. :) Then I have to get my oil changed (1000 miles past... oops).

My new favorite song? "For The Love of Money". No idea why. Well, that's a lie, I do know why... Bo sang it on American Idol and it's the theme song for the Apprentice. Very catchy. And I'm hooked.... take a listen if you have iTunes and can download it!

Hope you're all having a wonderful day! TGIF!

Massacre at 1 Birdie Lane

That's it. I'm done. Gedaan. Fait. Getan. γίνοντας. Fatto. Feito. сделано. One-Day.

(For those of you who don't speak languages, that's "done" in Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Pig Latin.)

Today, there was a massacre. All of the baby birds have been murdered. Tossed from their nests. Starved. Left in the cold. I can't take it. No more. I have imposed a celibacy rule. Well, maybe not, but I've removed all nests, nesting materials and anything that could make finches horny. All eggs that are laid will be properly disposed of. I cannot allow this to continue.

Last night I had two babies left. Louise, Brad and John Paul kept throwing one out of the nest. Yet he continued to live. I couldn't let him be tossed a 4th time, so I placed him in the empty nest of Mac and Louise. Bless their tiny finch hearts, they just didn't know what to do. First they stared at the baby for a few hours. Then, sometime today they pulled all of the cotton out of the nest. They left the baby. I guess they just couldn't handle the pressures of surrogate parenthood.

I mean it. I'm done. No more babies.

Maybe my fish will have some more...

P.S. There is a new poll about this topic. Please note that I will not flush, release or freeze my animals.

Weekend Update

Hi everyone!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post again. This weekend was very busy!

Kati's graduation was awesome. Tim and I drove up to her school on Friday and managed to make it for the end of mass and a really cool reception. On Saturday we all sat through 6 hours of intense sunshine. Let me just say that I have a definite sunburn on my head. Yes, Mom, I know that I should have worn a hat. I was so proud of Kati when she walked across that stage! We all screamed really loud but (of course) she couldn't hear us. We went out to a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate. We then had a wonderful Mother's Day on Sunday. I love my Mama! :-D

In other news, I came home to more baby birds. Some were tossed out of the nest and died. Two were still alive this morning, so I put them back in. When I got home from work, both were tossed out again and one was dead. So now I have two baby birds (in addition to little John Paul aka Demon Bird). One of the babies keeps getting tossed out. Like a lot. Yet he still lives, so I have to put him back. I swear, this is turning into a nightmare. All I wanted was the pretty little birds that I remember Oma having during my childhood. They made soft "beep beep" sounds and flitted gently around the cage. No. I'm in bird hell. MY finches try to eat each other, won't stop reproducing and make demon sounds. They're the nightmare birds.

Stay tuned to the blog for a major update. I can't talk about it now, but believe me, it's a good one!

Ok, off to watch "American Idol". Go Bo!

I'm So Excited!

First things first - the picture below is of the three birdies. They've been doing the cutest thing lately - they all pile into the nest. It can't possibly be comfortable, but they do it anyway. I have to tell you, I am getting sick of the little squawker. God bless Joanna. I can't believe she hasn't tossed him in the freezer yet. I don't know how something so little can make so much noise!

I am so excited about going to LA this weekend. I can't wait to get off work! My mom landed there this morning and Daddy has been there for a few days. We're gonna party it up and make lotsa noise for Kati!

Has anyone else (besides Tim) been watching "ER" lately? I'm so hooked on that show. It's been on for like 8 or 9 years now and I absolutely love it. Like if I don't watch it, I have to tape it. It's crazy. Some cool stuff has been going on lately... if you don't watch it, you should! The one downfall is that it's on at 10pm. Kinda late for early birds like me. But definitely worth it!

And here's your Friday giggle, courtesy of Tim:

Three Little Pigs went out to dinner one night. The waiter comes and takes their drink order.
"I would like a Sprite," said the first little piggy.
"I would like a Coke," said the second little piggy.
"I want water, lots and lots of water," said the third little piggy.
The drinks are brought out and the waiter takes their orders for dinner.
"I want a nice big steak," said the first piggy.
"I would like the salad plate," said the second piggy.
"I want water, lots and lots of water," said the third little piggy.
The meals were brought out, and a while later the waiter approached the table and asked if the piggies would like any dessert.
"I want a banana split," said the first piggy.
"I want a root beer float," said the second piggy.
"I want water, lots and lots of water," exclaimed the third little piggy.
"Pardon me for asking," said the waiter to the third little piggy, "but why have you only ordered water all evening?”
The third piggy responded, “Well, somebody has to go 'Wee, wee, wee, all the way home!’"


Happy Friday and have a great weekend! :-D

Picture - Three's a Crowd 

¡Cinco de Mayo!

¡Hola y feliz cinco de mayo! (Translation: Hello and happy Cinco de Mayo!).

So I caved today. I went to Starbucks. Haven't been there since Sunday, so it was a good run. I decided to go in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Most people drink booze, I drink mochas.

Let it rain. I have no clue how this is going to work with Kati's graduation. She says wear a sundress. Now, I'm screwed either way. If I wear a sundress and it rains, I'll be cold and wet. If I wear a sundress and it doesn't rain I'll be sunburnt. Lose-lose situation. Oh well... it will still be a blast! I can't believe my little sister is graduating from college!

Finally all is right in the world. Scott (aka Evil Shrek) has finally been voted off of American Idol. I can sleep well at night now. I really don't know how he's lasted this long, but thank God for small miracles.

The country radio station down here is doing something really cool. Tony and Kris (the dj's) are embedded with our Marines in Iraq. They've been broadcasting from there all week - talking to the Marines, giving them messages from family back here and letting them send messages home. It's really cool to hear their stories and sacrifices. They interviewed one of the generals on the base that they're staying at and he said the average age of the Marines over there is 24. That's my age! I can't even imagine doing that. I seriously have so much respect for our Marines! I can't believe that my boy was over there either! Then they interviewed this lady about the camel spiders. Now, we all know that I have a little case of arachnophobia, but these things are just freaky. She said she's seen ones the size of her hand and that if/when they bite you, it requires STITCHES. Yuck!

That's about it from here. Today is going to be pretty busy with the packing I have to do. Plus I have to run rehearsal and make sure my choir is all set to go without me on Sunday. And, of course, "ER" is on tonight! Yeah!!!

Have a wonderful day!

Trust

So, I had a very interesting thought on my drive home from work yesterday. Trust. Think about how much you trust other people on the road. I was getting off at my exit when I had this deep thought. My exit has two lanes that get off the freeway - I was in the left hand lane. Well, for one instant, the car next to me looked like it was going to go straight, cutting me off and possibly causing an accident. That got me thinking how many times you just assume that other drivers are going to do the right thing. Now, there are some pretty incompetent people in this world, and you're literally putting your life in their hands every time you get on the road! I was talking to Tim about it... for example, when you go through a four way intersection, do you look before you go if your light is green. In all honesty, I have to say that 90% of the time I probably don't. Tim does because he was t-boned, but I have a feeling that most of us don't. We just trust that the other people aren't going to run that red light. Is that unsafe? Probably... I just thought it was very interesting how much trust we place in complete strangers hands.

I am very sad to report that the Kings are officially out of the playoffs. No more basketball until next season. It was actually a pretty good game last night - they lost by four points. Two plays. I think some serious reorganization needs to be done in the offseason this year. Get rid of the crap and bring in some good stuff to help Bibby and Peja out! I've actually heard rumors that the Kings are taking a look at Phil Jackson as a coach. Wouldn't that just be great. The Zen-Master himself coaching in Sacramento! (for those of you who don't watch basketball, Phil Jackson coached our archrivals, the Lakers, through the years when both teams were actually good and had a nice rivalry going. We don't like him one bit). I guess we'll just wait and see!

I am proud to say that this week I have stuck with my exercise program. My goal is to do something every day. Even if it's only 15 minutes of biking at the gym (as was the case today because I woke up with a headache). I have to report that I am feeling pretty darned good. My energy level is up and I feel like I'm getting my buff legs back. I miss being tone. So now I'm getting up about an hour earlier and trying (note the word trying) to get to bed a little earlier. Tim is also on the program and I think he's having results too!

Well, that's all from here. It's Wednesday - that's halfway there! Have a great day!

All Clean!

This morning I made the 7am trek to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. My dentist is a really nice lady, so it's not so bad. Plus, the technician guy (he does your x-rays and the actual cleaning of your teeth) is really funny. He sings these little songs in Spanish and is always humming. My kind of guy. The good news is that I'm all clean and cavity-free! Yeah!!! I did fluoride today (my dentist says it's not just for kids - adults should do it too, especially if you wear retainers like I do).

I'm super excited about Kati's graduation this weekend. She's worked so hard for this and it's going to be such a fun weekend! I fully intend to be the loudest family there, even if it's just me screaming for her! In fact, I might even go find one of those air horn things. I'm excited because I took Sunday off of church, so I'll get to stay up there and go to Kati's church (where I've promised not to make faces, even if they do things weird) and get to hang out with my Mama on Mother's Day. Tim's going too... we're taking his truck up and possibly bringing some of Kati's furniture back (she can't haul it to Georgia, so I'm going to borrow it).

So I'm my own pet peeve for today. I had to get up early to be to the dentist on time. I wasn't exactly hungry, so I decided I'd grab breakfast on the way to work (off subject, but I rewarded my cavity-free mouth with two Boston Cream donuts. Nice huh?). I wanted to pack a lunch, so grabbed an apple and some bread and cheese (for a grilled cheese sandwich). Well, now I'm here at work and that doesn't sound good at all. So my pet peeve for the day is packing lunches that suck.

Oh yeah, and the office update. I called the police and filed a report yesterday. I'd rather be safe than sorry and the officer that came out said we did the right thing. Hopefully we're done with this mess now!

Hope you're all having a great day! I'll end with a pretty cool quote that my sister sent me:

"Cherish your vision; cherish your ideals;
Cherish the music that stirs in your heart,
The beauty that forms in your mind,
The loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts.
If you remain true to them, your world will at last be built."
~James Allen

*hrumph*

So today sucks. For a cornucopia of reasons.

A long weekend translated into a very early morning today. Monday sucks enough as it is, but today I get here and there's a note on my desk from the janitor saying he was in the building last night and noticed our lights on. The door had been pried open with a screwdriver or something. Nothing is missing, so apparently that means we do nothing about it. No one really seems concerned. Never mind the fact that someone used a SCREWDRIVER to PRY the door open. Or that maybe the checked the place out and are going to come back. I'm always the first one here, so I'll be the one murdered by the screwdriver wielding bandits. *hrumph*

In other bad news, my Kings lost last night. They threw the game away. I miss Chris Webber. And Vlade. And Doug Christie. I think we made a big mistake trading them away. Oh well, sucks for the Maloofs. So now we've won one game and Seattle has won three. There are three games left, two of them away, and Seattle only has to win one more to bump us out of the playoffs. We would have to win all three to move on. *hrumph*

And what the heck is going on with my allergies?! This sucks! Your eyes are not meant to itch like this! *hrumph*

Darn it, people, start posting comments. I feel like I'm talking to myself here. I KNOW there are more of you reading this!!!

I can sum the day up in one word. Hrumph.