Let The Beer Drinking Commence!
Oh, holiday weekend! How happy I am to see you! We haven't had a paid holiday from work since New Year's Day, and I have been this close |__| to losing my mind. I act like I don't have a 3 day weekend every other week, for god's sake, but it feels DIFFERENT! This is a Monday!! Could I be happier? No, I could not.
We are going to see the Salt Lake Bees play baseball tonight. It's a perfect 78 degrees outside and we're meeting up with our friends Scott and Jessica, whom I love to see. And Chris said he'd buy me a beer! Actually, what happened is that I was having a bad day yesterday. We went to supermarket after work so that I could pick up my birth control from the pharmacy there (I lurve you, Nuvaring), and Chris took me over to the flower section and told me to pick some out and he'd buy them for me. But you know me, full of class, so I asked him if I could have him buy me a beer at the game tonight instead. Because I love flowers, but standing in line to pay for them didn't sound like fun when all I wanted was a beer. I'm such a romantic.
Been Away A While
Yeah, I haven't been writing because I've been in a pseudo-funk. I hate writing when I'm not feeling 100% because writing makes you examine your life, which is usually not desirable when feeling funky. I'm like that with exercise, too. When I run there is nothing to think about, and if I'm anything less than happy happy happy I get too navel-gazey and it sucks. But whatever.
Our engagement pictures came back, and we really like them. If I didn't send you the link and you would like to see them, email me and I'll hook you up.
We were supposed to go camping this weekend, but cancelled on Wednesday. There is so much fun stuff we could do in town this weekend, and we didn't feel like prepping for camping and being gone, only to come back and go straight to work and continue feeling exhausted. Ah well.
I think tomorrow night we're going to try to go to a Bee's game. Saturday night we are going to try to scalp tickets to the Jazz game. The playoffs have been really exciting! We'd also like to go swimming, clean our pit of a house, fill in the hole in our back yard where we busted up all of the cement with a sledgehammer, go on a hike, and maybe do a couple of wedding things, which are, by the way, never-ending.
Let me just tell you that getting married sucks and you should avoid it at all costs!! Continue living in sin forever! Except then you'll get pregnant and one of you will quit your job to take care of the baby and you won't have any insurance because you're not legally married and you'll have to run off to city hall and have a quickie wedding and you'll forever blame me for not getting the wedding you wanted, so nevermind. Ignore me.
Playing Hookey
Yesterday, Chris and I left work at 11am to go and get our engagement pictures taken. We took them all around downtown. It was a gorgeous day, hovering around 75 degrees. It was so beautiful that after our pictures, we decided not to go back to work. Instead, we rode our bikes to Temple Square, to do the Temple Square tour. It is the quintessential Salt Lake City tourist thing to do, and although I've lived here for over 6 years, I had never done it. We had plans to do other touristy things after the tour, but we didn't because Chris ran into his old Vice-Principal from high school while on the tour! It was a trip, because there were only 6 people, total, on the tour, including us! He offered to take us out to dinner, and we accepted and had a great time. After dinner, we rode to a bike shop to look around at baskets, and then rode home. It was a great day, and I'm not sorry at all that we didn't go back to work.
Weekend
The swanky work party on Friday was great. I had an awesome time, but then again I love getting dressed up and being social, so what was not to like? Except the fact that drinks were $8?
On Saturday we got up mid-morning and went to see Spiderman 3. It was just "eh". I didn't love it, but I didn't feel like I'd completely wasted 2 hours of my life. There was no witty dialogue and it was fairly predictable. After the movie we came home and waited for our new sectional, which we love to pieces. It was kind of touch-and-go for a minute, because it didn't fit in the room we intended it to go in, but we put it in our TV room and switched some things around and now it's even more perfect than we had previously pictured. After the furniture crisis we realized that we still hadn't eaten (and it was around 2:30pm), so we high-tailed it over to the Blue Plate Diner. We followed the Blue Plate experience with a long-ass nap. We got up around 6:30pm and decided that we were both so enamored of our new couch that we need not leave the house for the rest of the night. Instead we played games, and I beat Chris and Trivial Pursuit. Oh yes, I did.
We were up at a decent time on Sunday, too, in order to go to church. I know, I don't know who were are, either. The lady who has been teaching our religion class was doing the sermon, and we wanted to go and hear her. She was great, and we kind of have this goal of attending regularly for a year and then volunteering for the kids religious education program. But I also have no experience with kids, so we'll see. For the rest of the day we did home-y things, like planted some flowers and did laundry. And spoke to our mothers, of course.
Today was a payday Friday for me, not an off Friday. I thought the day would never end, and I only had to work 7.5 hours, because I was up on time from last week. But now it's over and I can pour wine down my gullet. But not for long, because I have to get prettied up so I can be Chris' date for our work's awards dinner. Yes, we work at the same place, but I didn't get invited, so I have to settle for being Chris' date. It should actually be fun. My friend John from work (well, one of them, I have 2 work friends named John) will be there with his girlfriend Monica, and they are fun. And hey, it's a free meal, and you know how I feel about that. Speaking of which, I should go and start getting ready so that I can look award-winningly excellent.
Hola Mis Amigos
So, the mayoral candidates last night. Eh, none of them stole my heart. I can still write in our current mayor, right? No one will ever be as cool as
Rocky Anderson. You gotta love a guy that stages a huge demonstration when the President comes to his city.
So the candidates ran long and we didn't get home until 10pm last night, at which point we probably should have gone to bed, but instead we chose to stay up and watch the second half of the PBS special called "The Mormons". It was on last week, and we taped both halves. It was very well done. You can view it in full on their website,
pbs.org.
There is some "mormon-bashing" that goes on here among non-mormons, and I absolutely can't stand it. When non-mormons bitch about living here I don't know what else to say, except "welcome to being a minority". Get the fuck over it.
First Fruit of the Season
We harvested and ate our first strawberry of the season last night. It was delicious. We also went to our final theology class, and stood around outside talking to one of our renters about the war in Iraq and who Salt Lake City's next mayor might be.
Tonight we have our Spanish class and then we have May's community council meeting. The mayoral candidates are invited to address some of our questions, so it should be pretty interesting.
Today was pretty uneventful thus far. My big excitement was that I got a statement from the folks who handle my Roth IRA and I noticed that some of my 2006 contribution was credited for 2007 instead. I was pissed, but I called our advisor and he took care of it. Or rather, it will be taken care of in 5 business days. Can you believe that was the high point of my day?
Spring
This spring has been fabulous. Alternately rainy and sunny, alternately chilly and warm. Everything turned green in like, 3 days, and I'm not exaggerating.
This past weekend was a a rainy one. Friday evening we went to a graduation party for one of my coworkers and then I chatted with some peeps in Iowa City. Saturday we ran errands (including buying a new couch!) and then went to Jesse's daughter's First Communion party. It was a lot of fun, and we watched the end of the Utah Jazz game afterwards, which was really exciting! I would like to go to their next game, but it's on Wednesday, and I have Spanish and then Community Council on Wednesday night.
On Sunday, we got up and rode our bikes to Market Street Oyster Bar for brunch. It was yummy, and afterwards we rode to the library and then home again where we planted the rest of our garden. We are now out of room, so I guess we're done planting. I can't wait to see which things turn out well. We planted:
corn
tomatoes (regular, grape, and roma)
green bell peppers
jalapeno peppers
cayenne peppers
white potatoes
red potatoes
garlic
walla walla onions
green onions
strawberries (well there were here from last year, but you know)
lettuce (we just harvested the lettuce from our fall batch, and it's delish!)
turnips
carrots (we harvested the carrots from our fall batch, too!)
broccoli
cabbage
cauliflower
kohlrabi
radishes
kale
pumpkin
yellow squash
spaghetti squash
butternut squash
watermelon
cucumbers
green beans
beets
papdi (an Indian vegetable)
eggplant
And I think that's it. That's all I can remember right now, anyway. I hope it's a good garden year. The things that I didn't get to plant were red bell peppers and okra. But we're out of room, so whatcha gonna do? The plants that we didn't get food from last year were the corn and the watermelon. We're hoping for better results with those two this year.
Comeback
Can I tell you how please I am that Britney is
back? Very pleased.
Last night was pretty same-old. Went to the post office to mail our international wedding invites, bought a present for our friend's daughter's first communion, went running and then took a shower and went over to Steph's to try on a potential bridesmaid dress for her wedding. The dress was cute, and so I think it's the one she's going to go with. Excellent. We looked at some of their engagement photos, drank a margarita, and then headed home and to bed.
I did NOT want to get up this morning. It has been the perfect temperature here lately, allowing us to sleep with the windows open and only a sheet for covers, just the way I like it. And then we wake up and our sheets are so soft and the smell of summer is coming through the window and there is a cat on our bed and one in the windowsill, and DAMN, I don't want to get up.
The City of Trees
Howdy, strangers. The weekend after my last post, I whisked Chris away for a romantic weekend in Boise, Idaho. I hadn't written about it here, because it was a surprise for Chris. I told him we were going out of town and what time to be ready to leave, but he was in the dark about everything else. The trip was prompted in part by our need to get out of town and away from wedding stuff for a weekend, and in part because it was a year ago that Chris took me on a surprise trip to San Diego for the the weekend. Granted, San Diego is a better weekend getaway than Boise, but what can I say? The guy is good.
We actually had a great time there. We stayed in a bed and breakfast,
this one. (And no, I did not pay those exorbitant prices.) There are a couple of these inns in Salt Lake City, and Chris always wants to stay at one. He really wanted to stay at one on our wedding night, but agreed that it would be better to stay at the hotel where everyone else is staying, so that we can say our goodbyes on Sunday morning. So when I got a smoking deal on the rooms, I decided we should go to Boise and stay there.
We went to Zoo Boise, the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, the Funny Bone Comedy Club, and the Birds of Prey Center. We ate some good meals and walked around downtown, which was way too cute and reminded me of Iowa City, except with stores and restaurant for adults as well as college kids. We went bowling and slept late and watched movies. It was a much needed good time.
We haven't done much since we've been back. We spent all day Saturday watching the NFL draft at a friend's house and spent Sunday working in our garden. This week is almost over, and this weekend is a coworker's graduation party, the Kentucky Derby, and a first communion party for our friend Jesse's daughter. We should probably throw some wedding things in there, like ordering a cake and some flowers, and it will be over before we know it. Story of my life these days.
