Tiling SUCKS!

I haven't written anything because my life has been taken over by this renovation project. We had to get the tiling done by Monday so the plumbers could finish off our bathroom. UGH! Friday night, all day Sat and Sun, I tiled and grouted. I even did some more grouting last night and it's STILL NOT DONE.

At least enough of it is now done so the other contractors can finish their work. Saw the contractor this morning and he thought it looked great. The bathroom should officially be done this weekend if we can finish off the last row of tile while our parents are visiting. The next challenge is the trim. Must put a few layers of polyurathane on the trim before the carpet can be installed. Oh... and touch up all the paint. At least that should go smoother than the tile. Maybe I shouldn't say that...

B left for Europe on Sunday morning which meant that I got stuck with all the grouting on my own. Auzzie stopped by on Sunday afternoon to say hi and ended up scraping tile with me for a while. She needed to get out of the house for a little while. Her boyfriend wasn't feeling well and we all know that men are not good patients. When they get sick, they regress back to the age of five.

This weekend both B's parents and my mom are coming for a visit. Should be an interesting fit. We currently only have 2 bedrooms due to the renovations so I'll have to be creative about finding mom a place to sleep. I have so much to do before they show up. Clean, finish tile, organized my stuff for the rummage sale... Our neighborhood is having a rummage sale that I am participating in along with some friends. I haven't even started pricing or organizing stuff and it's next weekend. I'm hoping my visitors leave early on Monday so I can get a big chunk of it done then. We shall see...

Busy weekend

I bribed a friend of mine with dinner if she would come over and trim my dog's toe nails. Doggy has recently decided she doesn't like having her nails trimmed so it was time to call in reinforcements. So Friday night we had a nice dinner that started kind of late. At midnight we were in the hallway trying to trim Doggy's nails. B held on to her, I kept feeding her a constant stream of liver (yuck!) and my friend cut her nails while sternly telling her that growling was not acceptable. It must have been a funny scene.

Saturday night we went to a going away party. Another person is leaving. It has been a very common occurance since the former CIO left. Seems like every week someone else is leaving. There were a bunch of people I knew at the party so it was fun. Especially catching up with people I haven't seen for a while.

I am envious to see these people leaving MKE for warmer or better places. I need a new challenge. I'm bored with my current job. Joo and I started talking about the catering business again. We love to cook and this idea might be good when we start having kids. We've thought about working part-time or job sharing but it is difficult to find the right job and right manager to make something like that work. Maybe we will start small by doing some catering for friends and see how it goes.

By Sunday, I was wiped out. My workout was tough probably because I was so tired and drank some wine the night before. I was so happy to see B still in bed when I got home, I could have jumped for joy if I wasn't so tired. We ended up taking a 4 hour nap. The rest of the day wasn't that productive either but I need days like that to help me get through the week.

Not much goin' on

Don't have much to talk about. This week has been pretty quiet so far. Work, walk dog, work out, eat, sleep.

I did go to a Brewers game on Tuesday night. B called me up at 5:30pm on Tuesday to let me know that they had an extra ticket and was I interested in going. I was on my way out the door for a workout session so I told him to try to find someone else but I would contact him after I was done and go if no other takers were found. He mentioned that our friend Dayton was going to call his wife, Joo to see if she wanted to go. I happened to run into Joo at the gym and said that she probably has a vmail about an extra ticket.

Funny how our significant others know us. If there had been only one ticket, we probably wouldn't have gone. Suddenly there were 2 tickets which ment that Joo and I could car pool and show up together. However, we soon found out that there was only one extra ticket (they supposedly couldn't find the other ticket). It all worked out because we just bought a cheap ticket and joined the group. They were at Friday's Front Row so it didn't matter that we didn't have tickets together. It was a fun night even though Joo and I left before the game was over. We were both tired after working out.

Weekend with the family

Visited the tribe this weekend. It was my niece's first birthday so the tribe gathered out at my sister's house on Saturday. The weather was great and it was good to see the family. We hung out in the back yard most of the day. As usual, the talk somehow got onto the subject of sex. Many of us had to go to our 'happy place' to escape being scarred for life.

Brought the dog with us even though I know my sister would have preferred that we leave her behind. The kids aren't used to having a dog around and are sometimes afraid of the dog. Mini A loves my dog from a distance but if she gets too close, Mini A runs in the other direction. She did discover that the dog loves playing with the hose. The swingset/jungle gym has a fire hose attached to it. You can run a garden hose up to the fire hose and it actually squirts water all over the yard. Mini A soon realized that it was pretty funny to watch the dog chase the water.

B wasn't feeling well so he was grouchy most the weekend (or maybe it was just the visit to my family's that made him grouchy). He was still trying to get over the remnents of the fever he had all week. He probably should have stayed home and rested but instead he was dragged everywhere for family stuff.

My friend and maid of honor, Firecracker also joined us. She is one of the extended family and has been to many family functions. She seemed to have fun hanging out with the tribe and we even got in a little girl time going shopping on Saturday. She was also a big help preparing Mothers Day Brunch. As usual, I didn't get started early enough and was way behind. My sister and family showed up at 10 and nothing was ready to eat. Little did Firecracker realize that she would be put to work during her visit.

All in all, it was a relaxing weekend. Now back to reality...

What's the real reason?

A friend said something last night to me that made me think... Some girlfriends of mine gather together about once a month to watch Sex in the City. We are making our way through the entire series so it's an evening filled with good food, good drink and fun TV. There is an episode in Season 1 about baby showers. A friend of the SITC gang got married, moved to the burbs and is pregnant. The gang is not happy about trekking outside the city for a baby shower of all things.

I happen to feel the same way about showers as the SITC gang. They are not my idea of fun. I made a comment about my similar feelings and my friend (a new mom) said that I don't like baby showers because I want a baby of my own. Maybe it was the tone of her voice or the look she gave me but it got me thinking. Is this the reason? Looking back, I've never liked baby showers even before I had any desire to have a baby. I always thought the reason was because I loath the stupid games they make you play and I am usually thrown together with a group of women I don't really know.

I still couldn't get this out of my head. I even consulted B's opinion when I got home. He didn't see the logic in my friend's comment which made me feel better. However, I started wondering if her comment stemmed from something else. Guess I'll never really know unless I ask her (which I probably won't).

Back to the Grind

No postings last week. I was in training and the trainers insisted on laptops down. This is a term widely used at my business because we are generally overworked people. Everyone brings their laptops to meetings and does other work or checks emails instead of paying attention to the meeting. To avoid this, some meeting organizers (or trainers) will insist on 'laptops down'. In this case it meant that class will not begin until everyone has closed their laptop and the entire class will stare at you until you do. I support the practice but it can be rather annoying when you are in the middle of a instant message chat and can't cut it off right away.

I was sooooo ready to get back to work by Friday. I have a single cube that I don't share with anyone. If one of my neighbors gets loud or is making annoying noises, I can pull out the headset and block them out. Not so during training. I get to listen to all these people munching on snacks, sniffling, whispering, etc. In case you haven't already guessed, I get easily annoyed by certain noises. At the top of the list is hearing other people eat. I think it's gross and would like to shoot the parent that didn't teach their child to eat with their mouth closed. This is especially common among cultures outside of the US.

I sometimes have to force myself not to say anything. After all, these people are strangers to me. I can deal with it for a week, right? When we wrapped up class on Friday, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I went home for some peace and quiet and then worked out to release some tention. Much better!

Friday night B, Doggie & I went to Yappy Hour at a local art gallery. They were raising funds for off leash dog parks in the Milwaukee area. They had free drinks, snacks for human and canines and lots of other dogs and owners to chat with. It was a fun event but Doggie was on sensory overload. Usually when she is around so many dogs she is not on a leash and can flit around and socialize with all the dogs. Instead she was leashed and kept darting every which way to check out all the other dogs.

The rest of the weekend revolved around working on the house. We did have a nice dinner with friends on Saturday. Grilled out (even though the temperature dropped and it was freezing out) and made kabobs that turned out really good. Stayed up later than planned chatting with friends and drinking wine. This did not help the early workout on Sunday but it was worth it.

Well, time to get to work.