Weekend Plans

I normally don't like to talk about my weekend before it happens, because I usually don't have any plans or if I do, they happen in whatever order. In fact, my co-workers don't even ask me what I'm doing over the weekend anymore. They just ask me how my weekend was on Monday morning.

But I actually have a busy weekend ahead of me!

Tomorrow, I have to:
- Take Bailey to the vet to have them check-up on his broken toe nail and get a nail trim
- Clean up my room (I still have laundry to put away from last weekend!)
- Watch "Paa": A Hindi movie that I got from Netfix tonight. I've heard awesome things!!

- Laundry
- My sister and brother-in-law and their 3 kids are coming to visit for Thanksgiving, and I'm sure it will involve cleaning and organizing before their arrival!

Sunday I think I'm either going to re-visit a Baptist church I went to last week or I may just try out another one that's a little closer to me.

And of course, Netflix is not going to watch itself.

I leave you with this wonderful parting gift from The Office. (I'd apologize for the quality, but I didn't make this video and it was the best I could find on You Tube).

Bogus internet

Our internet is spotty again so this is, once again, from my phone.

Today was a great day. Nothing special, butI tackled the kitchen again, and took Bailey to the dog park!

I also played Lego Batman and got quite a few more levels. It was a great end to a 5 day vacation. Let's just say I don't want to go back to work!

More Saturday details...

Sorry about the very abrupt post last night!! I was busy all day and realized at 11:30 that I really wanted to get my post in for the day, even if I did cheat a little bit. :) But...I did post twice on one day a few weeks ago, so I would still officially get 30 posts in 30 days. This is harder than I anticipated it would be, and I even mentioned that I wouldn't have a problem! I have posted every day, but I'm not totally proud of most of my posts - I really pride myself on coming up with what I feel are creative or fun posts, and some of them have been very boring.

So about yesterday...

I was able to get up early for me on a Saturday, probably around 8:30. I made myself some breakfast and Justin drove up to Woodland Park to go fishing with his dad. I took my time getting chores done around the apartment, and it couldn't have been nicer! 30 - 45 minutes of cleaning swapped with 30-45 minutes of Lego Star Wars. Before I knew it, I was hungry. Thought that was weird, until I realized it was 1:15! What happened to my morning!

I fixed myself lunch, then continued the cleaning/video game cycle from the morning. About 4-ish I drove to Sears to return a few items, and then drove over to my parents to greet my sister and her family and have dinner. I swear, her kids get cuter every time they visit! Now I'm totally pumped for Christmas in Dallas!! Then I get to see even MORE family, and all at once!

I got home around 8:30 and just chilled at the apartment until 11:30 or so before writing my mini-blog and going to bed. It was a great Saturday - I was able to relax and do absolutely nothing, AND feel that I got some work done and fit in social time too. The perfect mix and a perfect Saturday.

Today, I slept in a little later and have been watching the Cowboys for an hour or so. I'll be going to lunch with Justin, his parents, and his brother and his girlfriend. Not really sure what this afternoon holds, but I'm sure I'll enjoy another day of relaxing.

Weekend Update

Didn't I just do one of these? I guess last week just flew by. It feels weird doing a weekend update, since I've posted twice already this weekend. As you can already see, I spent yesterday at the Air Force vs. Army game. It would have only been better if it was a little warmer.

Today was spent, sadly, mostly on the couch. But Bailey is still limping on and off, and I wanted him to stay off of his feet as much as possible. I still don't know what's wrong with him, and other than the limping, nothing is wrong. He's eating normally, still wants to play and wants to follow me around everywhere. So I still don't know what to do.

I was able to spend some time really cleaning the kitchen/dining area and I feel really good about how it looks. Now I have to tackle the living room and the bedroom. But uggh...I think I reached my cleaning quota for the day. I also caught up on my books a little more, so another update on those should be coming soon!

And, to top it all off, my downstairs neighbor still likes playing his/her music at max volume, with no regard to the level of bass. I still can't tell if they're in a band, and they practice everyday, or if they watch their tv while it's hooked up to a stereo. Sometimes it's music, sometimes I can tell it's people talking. I understand this is how apartment living is, but I don't look forward to another 6 months of this. Oh well, I wouldn't be the first person to be frustrated with neighbors!

Hope you have a great week!

Saturdays

Saturdays truly are a wonderful invention.


Mine started off by sleeping in until 8 am (trust me - that's sleeping in for me). Bailey didn't actually wake me up this time - I just woke up right around that time and couldn't go back to sleep. So I was able to wander into the kitchen to make pankcakes and enjoy CMT's Top 20 Videos! It's becoming a weird Saturday morning tradition, but the music is great and I enjoy seeing what they can do with the videos.


Then I finally got a huge chunk of time to pick up the apartment. Dishes were done, and then I got distracted. Oops! They shouldn't show movies on TBS when I need to pick up! And, what's a Saturday cleaning without a Taco Bell lunch break? I got their new chicken taco salad, thinking "oh this will be interesting"- it was AWESOME! It of course didn't look anything like it did in the picture, but it was good and and I would get it again.

The morning was slightly sunny, but some storm clouds were hanging around. I wanted to take Bailey the dog park, but the rain finally caught up to the clouds. Which stinks, because he came back from camping with a cough and he's finally better and I wanted to take him out.


But hopefully Sunday will be sunnier and I can get outside!

New apartment

So here's how I lived for about a week before moving:

Here's a preview of the new 2 bed/2 bath. You might want to bookmark this post, because you'll never see it this clean again!

Front Entryway:

Living Room (off of Front entryway):

Dining room/kitchen (off of living room):

View of Cheynne Mtn. area from Balcony:

The only other pics I have are of the bedrooms, but those are square rooms, so I'll spare you those.

The Saga Begins

These pictures sum up how I feel right now. Packing is intense!! I really don’t mind packing, or moving for that matter, but I HATE feeling cluttered or overwhelmed. Which is exactly how I feel each time I walk into my apartment with boxes, clothes, trash, and other assorted clutter just laying around. It looks totally unorganized and I stress out because I can’t possibly think of how I’m going to keep track of where I am with all of it.

But…only 2 more days, and then I can start moving it all out! Then, the real cleaning begins.

Ugh.

It's Moving Time!

I feel like I’m going from nothing happening last week to a VERY crammed and busy 2 weeks ahead of me! I’ll be trying to balance work and moving and I’m actually very excited to see it all come together! It’s all coming together so fast.

Last night – Baby shower for co-worker, then out for drinks for a semi-going away party.

Today – Take Bailey to the vet for shots and an official weight (so stay tuned!). Potentially not get the apartment based on Bailey's current weight. Visit Comcast to get cable switched over and get an additional digital cable box.

Week of May 17 – start organizing, packing, purging, donating, ripping my hair out, etc. And all of this with working at least 8 hours a day and trying to keep back a 115 pound Velcro puppy. (again – weight of said puppy still to be determined.)

May 22 – wake up EARLY and start moving things into the new place! (No work today…woo hoo!). Possibly have my parents and/or Justin’s parents help with heavy lifting. Fortunately my utilities are already set up for this day, so we’ll be able to have A/C, lights, outlets, etc.

May 23 – have several co-workers coming over (and hopefully parents!) in the morning to help try to move everything else in one day. (Could be possible…not that much stuff in a one bedroom, and remember-I’m trying to purge as much as I can bear to part with!)

Week of May 24 – goal is to have everything successfully moved out of 1 bedroom and into 2 bedroom, and will need to scrub the living daylights out of 1 bedroom to maximize deposit refund. Also try to start unpacking 2 bedroom. I wonder which will happen first…hmmm….

May 31st – officially moved into 2 bedroom! Then work on unpacking any remaining boxes.

Whew! The good news is that it’s in the same apartment complex, just on the other side, so we aren’t going too far. Saves on gas! We’ll probably only use cars for big stuff, I would assume.

And don’t worry all you family members out there – I’ll be sending you all the new address soon! I expect lots of gifts! (JUST KIDDING!)

When nothing happens, you can't blog!

I’d like to say it’s been a busy week, and that’s why I haven’t posted. But – it’s actually been the exact opposite. It was boring. Not enough stuff happened to post every day. Sometimes you have those “rip your hair out” weeks, and other times, you would kill to be busy. I’m never happy either way! It’s like the age old argument that people with straight hair wish it was curly, and those with curly locks would like it straight.

It wasn’t entirely uneventful though. I was able to catch up on a lot of things, and had a lot of time to clean the apartment! The last week included such events as:

• 2 season finales of my favorite shows made me cry like a baby: Scrubs (8th Season/Series finale) ended exactly the way it should have. Seriously, if I thought about it later that night, I’d start crying all over again. I couldn’t have imagined it any other way, except maybe no one leaving the hospital. But that’s how all the good shows end. And Bones, surprisingly. A certain character gets badly hurt, and it was just an emotional ending that I wasn’t expecting from a certain other character.
• 1 renewed love: I ran out of my normal tv shows to catch up with online, so I started watching NCIS again. I couldn’t believe I had stopped watching it!
• 1 new love: I’ve been watching Castle on ABC.com because I LOVE the actor Nathan Fillion. And it’s a murder mystery/cop show, so why wouldn’t I like it? It’s actually a pretty clever show. I just got addicted to him when he was on the brief Sci-Fi show “Firefly”, and he’s just a great comedic actor.
• 1 movie made me cry: I watched Sex and the City again, and if you’re a woman and you’ve seen it, you know exactly which moments I cried at!
• 1 clean apartment: The apartment complex needs to view an apartment before you move into another one, to make sure that you’re not the kind of person who will trash both. So I had to clean it from top to bottom to get the final “approval” to move.
• 1 apartment approval: My cleaning paid off! They said it looked good! Moving starts: May 22nd!
• 2 sore thumbs: On Saturday, Justin went fishing for several hours, so I took advantage of his Wii and played Lego Star Wars for almost 2 hours that morning and then later another 2 hours. I got through the entire Episode 4 on the game. Yea.
• 1 monumental boo-boo: It was Saturday night, I was sitting at my computer catching up on online shows and was enjoying a Mike's (hey, I'm 25 and it was Saturday night). I go to pick it up, and the next thing I know, it spills foward and covers my entire keyboard. I try to soak up what I can, but here I am 4 days later, and I'm finding it very difficult to type. I'm extremely mad at myself, but not mad because at least it still works. Thank God, but who knew I have to workout my finger muscles just to type?!?!!

All in all, it was technically an “emotional” week. I think I scared Justin by crying so much! (Both happy and sad tears by the way…sad ones mostly because of stinkin’ good acting and writing on tv shows!) He seemed to think that he had done something wrong that was making me cry and I didn’t want to tell him about it!

This week won’t be as blog-filled either unfortunately, since it will most likely involve packing and purging my packrat items. But there’s a baby shower, a trip to the vet and possibly some camping, so hopefully I’ll have something to report!

Weekend Update

Life is almost back to normal. After a very productive weekend, Justin is back in town and work has resumed, as it normally would for a Monday. The weekend really flew by, and it was a mix of fun and feeling productive. But it just wasn’t long enough!!

I am proud to say that I did all but 2 things on my to-do list! I didn’t read my book but I did have quite a few movies stored up, so I watched those instead. And then my jog and book reading took a back-set to the AMAZING weather and I ended up spending more time at the dog park than I thought I would. I was able to get both Bailey and Baxter to the park on Saturday AND Sunday, by myself!! Saturday we spent at least an hour and the dogs were great! It was a nice 72 degrees with the sun out and I was loving the fact that I had gotten up and out early enough to enjoy as much time as I wanted at the park. I love sleeping in, but at the same time, when I get up and get my day started, I feel more productive and fulfilled at the end of the day because I did so much! I even start to run out of things to do before the end of the day.

Sunday I was able to get back to the park, but it wasn’t until 12:30 or so. It wasn’t in my original plan to go that day, but as I was packing up at my parents to “move back” to my apartment, I couldn’t ignore the fact that it was 80 degrees outside! I didn’t see myself wasting my last day of the weekend inside cleaning and unpacking, so I grabbed the dogs and went to the park! Since it was hotter than expected in direct sunlight, the dogs and I got tired more quickly than we did on Saturday so we only stayed 30-40 minutes. However, they enjoyed the creek, so that was a great chance for them to cool off!

I was able to completely clean the apartment, take a shower, and even watch some tv before I headed out to Denver to pick Justin up. His flight was arriving at 8:30, so I left the Springs around 6:30 to get some gas and cash for tolls, and arrived roughly at 7:45. The Denver airport is great, because they have tons of restaurants, bars, and shops for people to enjoy OUTSIDE the gates! At most airports, you have to have a boarding pass to get through and then you can enjoy all the shops, but DIA has that all outside Security, so people waiting to pick-up or for their flight get to enjoy themselves too. (The D/FW airport could learn a thing or 2!!) It was a late night though…arriving back home at 10:45 and not getting to sleep until after 12. And I had to be at work at 7 am today!!!

All in all, I had a great weekend and wish all of them could be that nice!

Everybody’s Gone for the Weekend

At this moment in time (in my life), my mom, dad and boyfriend are all out of town. All of my options for entertainment are currently not viable options, so I am forced to find my own alternatives. It’s like a blessing and a curse – I have the freedom to do whatever I want, but I have so many options, that I can’t decide what to do, and I’m afraid that eventually, I’ll end up coming out of this weekend having done nothing I wanted to at all!!

I have actually written out a list of things I want to get done this weekend, but at the same time, I don’t know what to start with! As of 4 pm today until 9 pm Sunday night, I can do the following:

- dog park
- clean the apartment from top to bottom
- clean the house (the areas I used)
- catch up on my Spring Reading List
- blog
- go for a jog or two
- laundry
- organize at least 2 closets in the apartment
- watch movies I’ve bought but haven’t watched yet or go see Slumdog Millionaire, or watch My Name is Earl on DVD
- nap

For those of you who know me well, I’m a planner. I like to plan out as much as possible of my days, and then if something doesn’t take as long as planned, it’s like I’ve “earned” some free time. Part of me wants to sit down and schedule times for me to do all of the things to do on my list. I’m a practical thinker when I plan and try to multi-task my “chores” by organizing them all so that it all gets done in the most logical amount of time – for example, I can watch my movies tonight, and then the dog park first thing tomorrow so that they’re tired out, and then I can read a book while they’re sleeping. Then when they’re running around the backyard, I can do my laundry and clean up the house. The apartment can be Sunday. And so on.

I know. Nerdy!

But, I’m also a procrastinator. If I can wait until the last possible minute to do my “planned list”, then I will! When I can’t figure out where to start my planning, I stress! That’s not to say that I’m losing my mind right now, but Planner Karen is getting annoyed with Procrastinator Karen and I’d just as soon avoid them both completely!

Fortunately, work has kept me busy during the day this week, but I’m so bored at night without my “options” in town, that my mind wanders!!!

Premature Spring Cleaning

Even though it's March in Colorado Springs, it has snowed twice in the last week. So it's hard to get the Spring Cleaning bug. However, the apartment was getting messy fast. Mostly clutter, but it was things that don't seem like clutter at the beginning, and they tend to add up to a lot!

But now, after 2 hours of putting the nose to the grindstone...The apartment is finally clean!!
Well, mostly. I didn't take a picture the other way. :-) The bedroom and closets are tomorrow night.

But I feel 99% better each time I walk through the front door! And I'm out in the living room more anyway.

I'm also looking forward this weekend, because Justin and I are going up to 11 Mile on Saturday. He's going fishing, and I'm tagging along with one of my Spring Reading List books, and we'll spend a nice day outdoors catching up on things we love! (That is, if the weather cooperates!)