The Perils Of The Penthouse

It all began one treacherous night. It was not dark and stormy, but it may as well have been. All of the residents of the Penthouse were gathered in the kitchen making their various dinners – all a wee bit exhausted from an intense day of racing and curing cancer. Neither are things we take lightly. Unfortunately in our exhaustion we managed to create “situation” in our kitchen. Our garbage disposal got plugged up and therefore plugged up that whole half of the sink.

We tried it all, draino (or rather Rachel’s own invention of a draino like substance, seeing as we do not have draino in our apartment) letting it sit and then returning later, and running the garbage disposal. Nothing worked, our problem was not going away. So I scooped out as much of the nasty sink water as a could into the other half of the sink that was still working. I got pretty brave and I stuck my hand down the garbage disposal to see if I could pull out whatever substance seemed to be causing the blockage, but no luck, as far as I could feel there was nothing there.

It is an unsolved mystery – we left it to sit overnight and then get maintenance in to look at it the next day. Well next day comes we are managing ok with only half of a sink. The dishwasher gets full so it gets turned on. Big mistake. Upon starting the dishwasher water began pouring out of the sink all over the counter. Aaaaahhhh! The dishwasher was stopped and the counters mopped up- but unfortunately the problem was more severe than we originally thought. How is it that one half of the sink still works but the other half and the dishwasher do not?

Hopefully maintenance will be by soon to fix our problem.

Race For The Cure

Yesterday Angela and I participated in the Race For the Cure. Naturally we wanted to cure breast cancer, but really we were out there to show our support for Rachel. She is our third amigo, who just so happens to be the Teams Director at Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure. Now this was our first time participating in the race, which is a 5k walk/run. For all of you from Spokane it is like a miniature version of Bloomsday, it definitely brought back memories of the many years I participated in that run, thankfully this one did not have Doomsday Hill.

It ended up being nearly perfect weather, it was very overcast and foggy, the perfect temp to run in. Yes I did say run and yes we did actually "run" the race. Ok well we ran half of the race and walked half of the race, we had to slow it down whenever they had a band or DJ so we could truly enjoy the race. We did not want it to go by too fast, we were out to cherish each moment – and if that means sacrificing first place to walk a little bit so be it. But still I would say we were in the front third of the participants. And boy am I feeling it today. My legs are so sore I feel like they are going to fall off, it is hard to believe I used to run cross country and would have considered a 5k a short distance or an easy run. Wow that was a long time ago.

One of the best parts of the race, besides the fact that practically everything was pink, was the expo beforehand. All of the sponsors had set up booths in which they gave away free stuff, so much fun. Of course we love free stuff and boy did we make out like bandits. We came home with a new bag full of, various drinks, tattoos, key chains, shirts, mints, chip clips, headbands, vitamins, and much much more. Her are some various pics from the day.

Casual Friday

I went to a seminar earlier this year that was all about non verbal communication (FYI I have also taken a class solely dedicated to this topic). In the seminar they informed us that companies who offer casual Friday are 80 percent less productive on Friday’s because their employees are already in weekend mode. Well thank goodness I attended that session and not my boss, because he probably would have banned casual Friday after hearing those statistics. That brings me to my real topic, why today is the best casual Friday EVER.

You see this past weekend I bought a new pair of jeans, and today is my first time wearing them. They look pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Now you may not immediately understand the significance of what I just shared with you, so let me explain. I have not gotten an new pair of jeans in about 3 or 4 years, and on top of that I think it has been about 10 years since I have been able to walk into a store try on jeans, have them fit and buy them. Seriously since like junior high. I usually have to special order them to get a long enough inseam, and I recently discovered that The Gap were I would order my pants discontinued their extra longs. I was in a shambles upon hearing this news. I spent many days searching the internet trying to find somewhere that sells jeans with at 37.5 inseam.

Thank goodness for Buckle, they saved my life, no I am not being overly dramatic. I walked in the store dug though a sea of blue denim only to discover that they carry extra extra longs. YAY! It was such a great day, a major event in history, I no longer have to dread shopping for pants. A huge burden has been removed from my life,buying pants has been a large cause of frustration in my life. Now if only I could convince all home/apartment builders to put shower heads up higher – but that’s another challenge for another day (and really I do get an added workout everyday – nothing like a few squats to wash your hair).

Dunder Mifflin This Is Pam

So yesterdays post about the Jonas brothers turned out to be a little foreshadowing of Wednesday night primetime television. Word on the street is they performed on Dancing with the Stars. Did you see them? I didn’t my Pops was in town and we were strolling through the scenic grounds of Biola University at the time, however I did get a phone call alerting me that they would be one. Thanks for looking out for me mom, always on top of the pop culture news.

While on the topic of TV I must inform you all that I am more than a little excited for the Thursday night lineup that begins tonight. Two of my favorite shows start afresh. Ugly Betty and The Office. And a little FYI for all you Office fans out there Target currently has a plethora of great Office paraphernalia in their dollar bins. You should definitely go check it out, if you need some office supplies (no pun intended) or if you need a gift for a beloved office fan. Seriously they have some amazing stuff. I was a little overwhelmed by the variety; and spent way to long examining all of the different notepads, pens, mouse pads, Magnets ext….. I am pretty pathetic when it comes to finding things for a dollar I admit I even made a phone call to Ang to see if we had any friend’s birthdays coming up. I wanted to stock up of cheep gifts while they were available.

Totally off topic, but extremely important to all of my readers, and know that I only share this because I know based on one of last weeks posts you have all been concerned. Our washers and dryers are now functioning again. Wahoo! I am in such desperate need to do laundry I think it has been almost 3 weeks and I am really on the verge of running out of clothes to wear to work. Tonight is the night I shall end my laundering fast. I am just hoping that everyone and there mom who lives in our apartment complex is not trying to do laundry tonight as well.

Mandy always laughs when I act stupid

Mandy, that’s were it all began. No I am not talking about the Barry Manilow song, although it will always hold a happy place in my heart even if it was written about a dog (it will forever remind my of Mr. Rae my 5th grade teacher who would sing it too me). But this version of Mandy I am talking about is by The Jonas Brothers. Lindsey introduced me to this song almost four years ago and I was quite honored that someone would write a song about me – and I thought the brothers who sang it were such cute little boys, maybe the next Hanson.



Who knew they would explode into such huge stars. Now if you are reading this and don’t know who the Jonas Brothers are I think it is officially time for you to come out from beneath the rock you are living under and interact with any girl between the ages of 8 and 18, turn on the Disney channel or pick up a Teen Beat Magazine (they are now bigger than NSYNC was back in my day). Although I must say that with there recent nomination for a VMA they may be on their way to the main stream now, I did actually hear them on KISS FM yesterday, it’s not just Radio Disney anymore.




I have been a closet Jonas Brothers fan for quite sometime now, but I am coming out. I admit that I along with all of the tween girls in America I like the Jonas Brothers. (I do also enjoy Hannah Montana and High School Musical of course) Now I don’t know if this is because I am trying to live like Peter Pan and never grow up that I feel the need to listen to and watch these youngins to fell young still, or maybe just the fact that I lived a deprived childhood, one in which I did not have the privilege of Disney Channel, so I am making up for lost time. Whatever the reason is I enjoy almost all things Disney Channel – just last night there was a raging game of High School Musical (the DVD board game) happening in my living room.

What you may ask inspired this utterly random post: Lindsey made me some mix CD’s for my new car and the one I popped in this morning on my way to work started out with S.O.S. by none other than The Jonas Brothers.

Pain In My Neck

Yes I do have a pain in my neck. No it is not a person, it is a literal pain. It started in my arm, then moved up to my shoulder and is now in my neck. The only thing I can think to blame in my weekend of manual labor. Curious yet? Since you all know me, and therefore know I am not your typical lets get down and dirty and do some hard work this weekend kinda girl. But even us lazy folks have a hard working weekend every now and again.

You see I cruised on over to AZ to visit with Lindsey and help her decorate the baby room. The original plan was to paint an accent wall in the room and pick out curtains. Not too much hard work involved in that. That’s true, but the simple plan sort of evolved into many coats of paint on the one wall (with very high ceilings I might ad) and the sanding, repainting and distressing of a dresser.

It was lots of fun, but definitely a lot of hard work. Let’s just say we know why someone invented a power sander. The dresser we refinished had one of the thickest most uneven coats of paint on it, which left us with sore arms yes, but also hours of sanding and a rather large dusting of white all over us and the room.

As a whole we were pretty successful in our endeavors. But they were not without our fair share of mishaps along the way. The biggy was thankfully not our fault, it was the painters tape’s fault. After hours of painting, we were carefully and yes slowly removing the blue tape from the walls and were aghast to discover that it some of our hard work off with it. It failed to live up to it’s name. Instead of protecting the walls from paint, it actually pulled the paint off. (see photo)

But have no fear we were able to get it all done, and still find time do some shopping.

Finally Fall!

It’s official, Fall is here. You may not know it by looking outside and seeing a vast array of colors, or by feeling a slight chill in the air, but if you look at your calendar it will kindly inform you that today is the first day of fall. We jumped the gun a little and whipped out the fall decorations last week, but I have decided that there still needs to be some celebration today. It is yet to be determined what exactly that celebration will be, but I am getting a good start by sipping some Harvest Peach tea and checking out all of the fall decorations and crafts from Martha, and of course I changed the backdrop of my computer at work to a classic backdrop entitled Autumn. I had the slight hankering to watch Autumn in New York, but I don’t actually think the movie is about autumn, nor do I have access to it. So that’s out. (I do however; hope to someday experience autumn in New York. Stroll though Central Park and enjoy all of the wonderful colors while bundled up to stay warm in the crisp weather). I was also thinking about baking something pumpkin flavored to welcome in the season, but alas I do not like the taste of pumpkin, just the smell. I think I think I will save myself a mess and light a candle instead.

You've Got Mail

I do not usually get mail. A couple of times a week I get my Netflix, but other than that it is a rarity that anything in the mailbox is for me. And yet yesterday (when I knew I would not be getting a movie) I felt so compelled as to check the mailbox. Naturally drama/embarrassment ensued. How is it that I manage to turn the most mundane of chores into something much more?

So I walk down to the Offices, where the laundry room/mailboxes are located. Upon entry I see that the room is under construction all of the washers and dryers have been removed (which is another problems as we three in our apartment failed to notice the signs that we would be without laundry facilities for 2 weeks, and therefore did not do laundry right before they went out of commission and as a result desperately need to do laundry but can’t Yikes!) and the floor torn up. Now I could have like a good resident seen the do not enter signs and turned away. But of course I did not I had to get to the mailboxes, I mean I walked all the way over there, I was not turning back now. So I peak my head in and ask the man working on the floor if I can enter to check my mail. He begins to answer me and I decided that there is no way he is going to tell me no I start to walk in. As I am walking I begin to listen to what he is saying, of course about 5 seconds too late. I am trying to take a step and my shoe sticks to the floor and my foot rips out of my shoe leaving my shoe stuck to the floor and my foot completely red. I hear him say we ripped up the flooring so it is really sticky, watch out. Hhhhmmm a little too late. I am now standing one foot trying to decide my next move and the two workers and now sitting watching me trying to hold in their laughter.

When I get myself into situations like this I do not think clearly. This is why I should not be the emergency coordinator I make stupid decisions when I panic. You can probably guess what I did next. First I put my foot back into my shoe and tried to take the step again. No such luck the shoe was stuck good. So of course my food comes out again and I stupidly put my foot down and use my hands to retrieve the stuck shoe. Well I successfully un-adhered my shoe from the floor but of course in process my foot got a little stuck, and hurt when I ripped it up in the process of my next step.

Right about now is when the workers and openly laughing at me. So glad I could entertain them, there day was probably somewhat dull until I came along. I had to walk a total of about 15 feet to the mailbox and 15 feet back to the door. I did my best to walk lightly and not put too much pressure or surface of my shoe to the ground as my attempt to not get stuck again. All in all I think my foot cam out of my shoe about 5 times. I did somehow manage to make it out all in one piece with shoes on feet, and of course all for nothing because there was nothing in the mailbox.

A Good Day

For the most part I do not have bad days at work. Don’t worry this post is not about one of the few bad days I have had, it is about today, a good day. My day was progressing much like the usual, nothing too exciting happening, very average, but I would still consider it good. Then a few things happened which made the day progress from good to very good. It is generally pretty simple things that give me great enjoyment. So I will share with you the three things that happened today making my good day even better.

1. We got a new coffee creamer at work. Yes I do taint my coffee with creamer – I can drink it black but I choose not to. At home I use the classic half and half, but at work we always have the good Coffee Mate creamers. On a normal day I use French Vanilla. I knew going into the office today that there would be no French Vanilla creamer because I used the last of it yesterday, but I figured I would tough it out by using the powdered creamer or going black. So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the fridge and saw a new bottle of creamer in it. Upon my inspection I discovered that it was Carmel Vanilla, and it was sugar free (I like to use sugar free items to tell myself I am being healthy). I do believe that I enjoyed the Carmel Vanilla creamer better than the old French Vanilla. Yum Yum!

2. I heard a great song on the radio, and any time I here this specific song it makes me happy. I think it is just such a fun random song, and the following music video is even more random. Go ahead give it a gander. See if it makes you laugh or maybe it will just leave you speechless.

3. Anticipating the welcoming of autumn. Fall/Autumn is quite possibly my favorite season; unfortunately in southern California this season is basically nonexistent. There are not many leaves to change colors and there is not any crisp weather. Therefore it is up to us to create a fall atmosphere. Tonight we are breaking out all of the fall decorations. I know we are a few days early (fall does not officially begin until Monday the 22nd) but we have been ready for a good month now. Bring on the orange, gold, and burgundy.

Congratulations!

Today is a day worthy of Celebration. It was Lindsey’s last day or work. YAY!!!! You made it Linds, I know there were days you doubted you would make it, but you did. You are officially done working in the hotel business. I am glad of you that you are done, but sad for me, I will miss the emails we pass between each other all day long. You are abandoning me to go nest.



Don't be fooled by this picture, she is actually a lot bigger than this, today marks her 29th week. This is the most recent picture I have on my computer, but I will get an updated one up next week.

There Will Be Blood

Yesterday was September 15th, which is probably the 3rd busiest day of the year at my office, hence this post being a day late. It is the day that corporate extensions are due. Everyone was running about the office in a frenzy, the phones and fax machine were ringing like crazy. Naturally I am the calm in the storm. Everyone else is a bit frantic, but I maintain my cool, trying to bring a calming sense to the office. Or so I tried to be. I was doing well, until part way through the day when I pricked my finger on a staple. It was so minor, I barley felt it and surely did not think about the fact that it might be bleeding.

But bleed it did all over the signed tax returns on my desk waiting to be mailed to the IRS. So much for creating a calming atmosphere. My blood definitely sent the office into a panicked state. I had completely ruined 3 tax returns. Today was the deadline, there was no time to get the people back into the office and sign new copies, and we couldn’t send blood stained copies to the IRS, right?

Seeing as I am the emergency coordinator, I took over, told everyone to stay calm, I was fine (I do not however think they were worried in the least about my well being) and I would right the situation. It took a little doing, but I did manage to get the situation somewhat cleaned up. I had to reprint all of the pages that had blood on them without signatures, and then gently mop up the blood on the signature pages. With a little magic of white out they looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. There was still a small remnant of blood, but it was a vast improvement to the mess it was.

Lesson learned: blood creates stress.

Pink

Pink is of course my favorite color. Thanks to Susan G. Koman For the Cure there is a pluthera of pink things out there for my to purchase, like my lovely mixer. Since Susan has done her part in providing me with household goods it is now my time to help her out in return. Today is the lsat day to sign up for the OC Race For the Cure. So that means if you live in Southern California you need to get on there website and sign up ASAP. Trust me if I can do it you can do it. Angela and I have been in training for about a month now. We are going to do our best in this 5k race and banish breast cancer for good.

Today's Email

I have a lot of down time at work these days. I fill that time with a number of different things but mostly emailing. Lindsey and I email each other probably close to 100 times a day, seriously that is no exaggeration. It is great fun, I also email some of my friends and my parents, but sadly they do not respond at the rapid rate that Lindsey does. I don’t understand why they have nothing better to do than sit in front of their computer all day emailing me. Geez you’d think they had a life or something. Well today in the midst of my emails with Lindsey I received one from my cousin Lara. Woot Woot. Thanks Lara you totally made my day.

So in light of that we will take a little stroll down memory lane. Lets go back to a time when Lara and I both lived in Spokane, she was in college then and I was in elementary school (possibly JR. High – don’t really know the year) Lara lived with us for a while, but then she moved into an apartment that was right by Blockbuster and Baskin Robins, at the time I thought those were major attributes. I don’t know if this is totally true but for some reason I feel like it had orange carpet, but it could have been brown. When you opened the door you were at the bottom of a dark stairwell, kinda creepy, and there was a big shelf/seat at the window in the living room. I don’t know why I remember such random things of this apartment.

The best part about her moving into an apartment was that Lindsey and I got to go spend the night with her. Of course this was like the coolest thing ever, I mean come on it’s every girls dream to listen to/sing along with Aladdin soundtrack, and play dress up in Amazing clothes that Lara fashioned for them. Such Fun times!

Lara and I last Christmas

Side Note: Today I got and email from my dad, which he sent to me via his blackberry, quite impressive. Way to go Pops!

My Cup Runneth Over

If you are a regular reader of my blog then you probably know that I love coffee, seeing as I mention it in many of my posts. Well today I will again be telling you a story about coffee, however this particular story, about a situation that happened to me today. It involves not only coffee, but another one of my commonly written about topics, my clumsiness. You probably already have a good idea where this is going.

Let me start out by saying that I am currently wearing a white shirt, and post “situation” it is in fact still white. Shocking I know but it did not involve me spilling coffee all over myself – although that has happened to me before. It was mid morning and I was preparing to make the second pot of coffee. There was however a smidgen of coffee left in the pot. I was feeling rather lazy so I decided to pour the rest of the coffee into a cup instead of traipsing all the way down the hallway to the bathroom to dump it. This is were the trouble ensued. Normally when I do this I hold the cup up to the pot and pour in close range. Again I felt lazy so I did not pick up the cup I left it on the table and poured the coffee into it from about 1.5 feet away.

Bad move. I was never a waitress, so I never established good pouring skills. I began to pour the coffee and soon noticed that barley any of it was making it into the cup, most of it was landing on the table and/or on the floor. I either have very bad close range depth perception or really bad aim, along with extremely slow reactions. It took me a few seconds to stop pouring the coffee once I realized it was getting all over.

Ironically what appeared to be a smidge in the coffee pot sure looks like a large amount of coffee once it is spread across a table, coffee maker, and floor.

Calling All Speech Therapists

I often feel like I am surrounded by speech therapists. Many of my friends are working on there masters in speech therapy. I used to think it was funny that Melissa my friend from back home has the same career goals as my roommate Angela – I should have known it was a sign. A sign that one day I too would need speech therapy.
 
I did not however, think I would need to enlist their skills so soon. Maybe after I suffered a stroke or something like that but no, I should be so lucky as to have a cause for my symptoms. I did not suffer a stroke today; I just randomly developed a stutter. How is it that my speech skills digressing?
 
This is all the more ironic because just last week Angela had to make some phone calls while stuttering to develop  a compassion and sympathy for those who stutter and I told her I did not know how to stutter. I retract that comment, I am now to stutter. Guess I was wrong there.
 
Now not only do I need some help, but I think my boss is starting to think that I have some real problems. Of course every time I found my self suffering from the spontaneous stutter was in conversation with him. Seriously at it happened so many times I started to keep a tally – I ended up with 5. What is wrong with me?
 
Here is my self diagnosis (since I know so much about stuttering): Most of our clients have extremely unique names. I know that I do not pronounce most of them correctly, but I give em a good try. However, it is possible that I started to doubt my pronunciations, which in turn made me stutter.  Or it is possible that I really do have a speech impediment.
 
Either way I need to get a handle on this situation before it gets any worse. Therefore I seek help from you Melissa, Angela and Jeni please give me a professional diagnosis, and get back to me with an aggressive form of therapy that you think will help me.

One Missed Call

I have a way way way to overactive imagination. Sometimes this is a good thing but today it was not. It all started with a missed call. You see my office gets absolutely terrible cell reception; therefore I do not answer mine when it rings/vibrates. Normally I go outside at lunch and check my voicemail if I am even privileged enough to receive a call that is. Well today at 9:38 am someone called me. The reason I say someone, is not to be mysterious it is because it was a number I did not recognize. A (818) area code. Hhhhmmmmm. This got my mind a turning.

My thought process went like this:

1. Where is the 818 area code from? (compliments of google it is North Hollywood)

2. Who do I know in North Hollywood? (I don’t think anyone)

3. Who could possibly be calling me? (Best scenario I came up with is it was a celebrity – definitely!)

4. Is it a wrong number? (I chose to believe not since I have a 509 or WA area code it is unlikely that someone from southern CA misdialed my number)

5. Why in the heck did they not leave a message?


As you can tell it was driving me crazy. I had to know who it was that called me. I became consumed. I must know. So I put my stalker skills to the test I went online and did a reverse phone number search. I have done this search before and been very successful, generally you put in the phone number and it will tell you where and who it belongs to. This time I was not so lucky. All it told me was that that particular phone number was a land line in North Hollywood and the number was unlisted. Which of course was no help, it simply made me even more curious.

So I went back to work wracking my brain trying to figure out who the mystery caller was. I am sure it has some totally logical explanation that will be a major let down compared to everything I have come up with thus far. Due to my overactive imagination I often think things are going to be way more exciting than they really are. Too bad the number was unlisted. I guess my search is up; I will get no real answers.

Aaaahhh! Three hours later, to the minute I might add, I walk back to my desk and see that they had called again. 12:38, one missed call. What in the world? Why the 38? It is obviously not a wrong number, why don’t they leave a message. This is driving me crazy. If anyone reading this called me twice today and hung up call me back after 5 or leave me a message.

Death By Tomato

Today was pretty mellow at the office, no crazy or exciting things happened to me. Therefore I must go back a few days and give you an amusing anecdote from my glorious vacation.

While away in the mid-west I had the pleasure of using many different forms of transportation, including such ones as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. I know how to handle those basic ones no big deal although it was my first time on a train, I did survived without mishap. I was no so lucky; however, when it came to riding a bicycle.

The brown family loaned Angela and I bikes while we were staying at their house so that we could ride the Prairie Path and cruise into Wheaton whenever we so desired. They were even so kind as to raise the seat and handlebars on my bike, to accommodate for my rather large size. It was still not an ideal situation, as my legs were still too long for the bike, but it worked just fine. Upon sitting down on the bike I realized that it had been a good 4 or 5 years since the last time I had ridden. Of course I did not forget how to ride a bike, but it was a lot more frightening than I last remembered. Yes I did just admit that – I was afraid I was going to fall off. I had some major difficulties turning around; my steering was not completely up to par. I am sure it was quite comical to watch.

Along our journey through Wheaton there were many times at which we had to stop for oncoming vehicles. Needless to say with my sub par bike skills I was not very good at the constant stopping and restarting that this involved. I preferred to simply follow Mr. Brown who was riding along in front of me. Because I chose to follow the leader I was not paying extremely close attention to the cross traffic, if Mr. Brown crossed I followed somewhat slowly behind him. This in turned, caused me to suffer a near death experience – I nearly got struck down by Bob the Tomato and Jr. Asparagus. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily there was no collision; I was able to maneuver myself out of the way just before we crossed paths. It’s a good thing too, because it would have been rather hard to differentiate between my blood and Bob’s tomato juice. (Really it was a car being driven by the man and women who do the voices for Bob the tomato and Jr. Asparagus, in case you were wondering.)

After a brief second of recovery we were back on the road again. I was even able to manage the rest of that trip and a few others with any other incidents; I only suffered from sore legs. Whew!

Have a Look Here

Here are some pictures from Angela and I's visit with Megan in Wheaton/Chicago.