The Best Years of Our Lives

.... Which is what I was always told would be high school. That was false.

For a little while, the best years of my life were college.

Then 2011 happened, and I'm pretty sure that it's been the best year for almost every single person I know. (Myself included)
I could list them all, but that would be ridiculously boring for my dedicated and loyal readers, plus it's a bit "why everyone else is having a better year than you"-ish, don't you agree?

Just an overview, though....

I will have been a bridesmaid/maid of honor in 4 weddings by year end. As far as I can remember. I may have lost count, because sometimes my brain tells me 5. But I might be secretly living out my own wedding on occasion in my own little fantasy land, so I'm pretty sure it's 4 real weddings.

Miss Rachel got married in February of this year.
Miss Angelica got married in April.
My sister will say her nuptual vows in November.
Miss Meredith will vow matrimonial happiness and loyalty in December.

(Yup, it's 4. Which means I've officially caught wedding fever. Sorry. I'm human. With 2 X chromosomes. It happens.)

At my last count 750, a whole bunch of people I grew up with or have known since it was socially uncomfortable to be pregnant have had or are having babies.

(I don't have baby fever. I still see LOTS of dollar signs and poo when I hear the word "baby" or "pregnant". It's a panic attack inducing word.)

However, this post isn't about me.

Anymore.

I guess. ::sigh::

Miss Rachel got a blog when she popped had little Molly, so it's only fair that Miss Meredith gets a blog because she's getting married.

And moved far away from the great nation state of Texas.

In November, I was text messaging regularly with Meredith because I had done this really brave thing and gave online dating a shot. And I managed to meet a man I really liked, and clicked with right away, and of course I had to tell some all of my girls about him, because well, it was my turn to meet a man that was good, dammit.

Back to Meredith.

Anyways, because Meredith saw me being brave, she decided that if I could do it she can. Then she almost chickened out, but I told her not to, and so she joined the big internet dating world too.

Then she sent me some text messages about not wanting to go meet this guy (or two, I can't remember) she had been talking to, but I told her (nicely) to put her big girl panties on because she could be missing out on her soulmate if she bailed.

And I was right. Ha! HAHA! I wiiin. Wiiiiiiiinnnnnnniiiiiiing.

Long story short, Meredith had some really long day dates with Chris, and made him drive an hour to see her, because she's worth it (which I'm also going to claim credit of teaching her by way of "good dating rules"), and it kind of went like this:

Chris asks Meredith to be his girlfriend.
Meredith says no, citing some silly reason of it being too soon.
Meredith changes her mind roughly three days later (not typical at all......) and decides that what other people think doesn't matter and says yes.
Mushy Mushy Romance stuff
Someone says they love the other first.
The other reciprocates said feeling.
Chris gets into grad school on another planet in Michigan
Meredith panics calmly devises a solution.
Chris plans a solution all on his own.
Meredith picks up on said solution and starts pre-planning.

Chris proposes to Meredith in some sneaky yet horribly mushy and disgusting romantic way.
Meredith says yes.

Meredith makes phone calls.

Facebook statuses change.

The Earth celebrates and floods Meredith's facebook wall (and maybe Chris's, but I don't know) with congratulations and good tidings.

I buy another bridesmaid dress that I will be dying attening Cross Fit classes to look good in. (Cause pictures are forever, y'all.)

I receive a save the date in the mail (even though I have a mental rolodex, I still appreciate the memo. And have a slight tinge of misery that my mental rolodex will not last forever.)

I check out Meredith and Chris's wedding webpage, because I should  be doing research and scientific article reading for a book project, but a 25 page paper on algae eyespots seemed daunting after reading 3 other papers.

And if you wish to check out the happy couple's very cute and witty webpage, I've linked it above, but it can be found here:

Meredith and Chris, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G


Much love and congratulations to the both of you!

PS: And thank you, Meredith, for not making me buy a dress made out of satin that cost $200 which I will wear once and may or may not have a marsupial pouch in the front which as much as I love you I will torment you for the rest of our lives for ::coughAngelicacough::.

<3

I'm not your consultant

I'll admit it, I on occasion do some really stupid things. And I'm a smart girl. So, I'm able to overlook some things that very intelligent people do on account of all sorts of things like:

Stress
A general inability to understand simple concepts without making them hard
Sleep deprivation
Or just generally not wanting to do them

For example:

I am a fully grown, independent, American woman.

And I HATE getting my car maintenanced. (It's a word, now, y'all. Hush.) I hate taking it to get an oil change and tire rotation because it always happens when I'm actually out doing things that require me to look cute, so the chauvinistic Y chromosome behind the counter thinks that I'm just a pretty face (I say this with zero little narcissism) and that I don't know shit about cars besides "They go and they stop."

Which, in a sense, is true. I also know that they need gas in them to go and stop. See? Winning.

But my father did instill in me the importance of regular oil changes, tire rotations, and making sure the tire pressure is adequate. Because no one wants a blow out on the highway and I'm not nearly calm enough to handle that gracefully. So, I bite the bullet every 5,000 miles when my cute little Scion's light goes on and it tells me obnoxiously every day that Maintenance is Required.

Last time, this cost me $175. Because I needed a new tire and Firestone claims I have "low profile" tires, which translates to "expensive," and no, ma'am, we don't have any tires cheaper than $123. Then he called me again while at a baby shower to tell me that my alignment is off and "MUST be fixed today" and that this will cost another $180 for lifetime adjustments.

Well, Mr Firestone dipshit man, I just started a new job, and I haven't been paid in going on 3 weeks, plus I don't feel like charging $400 to my credit card today, so you can take your alignment and shove it up your happy manipulative ass.

Which actually sounded more like "I'll just take what we've previously discussed today. When can I pick it up?" (Matt got to listen to the explicit diatribe. Lucky man.)


There is a point to this blog post.


After quitting my last job (AKA "The most boring job ever with the coordinator from hell"), I thought I was done there. That I wouldn't have to go back and deal with them again. Once I was in new job, I actually realized how horribly unorganized they were, and I thank science every day that I got out when I did and got in to where I am. It really does make such a big difference when you are happy with your job. I come home happy every day. (Except Friday this week, because I sat on a highway entrance ramp for an hour. Traffic makes me exceptionally bitchy. EXCEPTIONALLY BITCHY.)

I was wrong about being done with old job, and now I'm apparently a free consultant. Which mostly pisses me off, because I only work for free at the zoo. And even then, I get cool perks. Like free shirts, the ability to cuddle the animals (after special training I sort of need to get 16.5 more hours to qualify for), free wine and food, and other cool shit. Docenting is awesome.

Anyways, I nicely agreed to attend a meeting with my old boss a week after I left so I could explain to her how I did things while I worked there. Since she was a scheduling nightmare and thinks I have nothing else to do (I'm *not* working another job 40+ hours a week, trying to workout more, doing research on 8,000 papers for a scientific book with an old professor, and then cooking dinner and keeping the apartment clean because Matt is just as busy as I am), I sent her a three page document outlining how I did all the major aspects of my job.

I left out the "Watching the live coverage of the Casey Anthony Trial on cnn.com continuously" part.

While she appreciated this document, she still wanted to meet with me, so I ended up having to go to downtown San Antonio at 5:30 in the afternoon on a weekday, and was thus, pissed. The meeting lasted 45 minutes, and then I had to rush to a dance class. Basically all I did there was fold the contracts open to the budget sheet and place them in a folder that they were already in.

This woman is a MEDICAL DOCTOR.

She writes prescriptions. Writes treatment plans. Is a Chief of Staff.

And she can't figure out contracts and budgets.

I, initially, attributed this to the whole "out of her realm" thing, and tried to be nice about it.

Then she called me yesterday. SATURDAY! While I'm vacuuming, doing laundry, and taking  pictures of our abode. Instead of asking me her questions at that time, she scheduled a phone call for today around 1. Seriously, woman. This is ridiculous.

She's confused about the bills. (Honestly. That was her reasoning.) And my initial thought was, "you pay them. They have a dollar amount on them, and you write a check, and mail it. They'll send you another one in 3 weeks. Sucks, doesn't it?"

I'm a sucker though, and my dad also instilled in me the "not burning bridges" thing, and in my industry once you're hated, you're hated forever. So I agreed.

But now I wish I hadn't.

Home and Heart

Let me first preface this post with the following disclaimer:

I never do large picture posts because I find them to be horribly annoying and frustrating in terms of formatting. I have to upload, then rotate, and edit, and caption, and organize 21 pictures for this post, and I've already so far put them all on the new post document page and then deleted them all because blogger is not nearly as formatting friendly as Word. (I mean, really, I have a 24" computer screen and I can make the internet window as large as I want, but the formatting frame remains a dinky 5x7"). If I wanted to format a three page document on a notecard, then I'd have done that with scissors. And paper. Not really expensive technology. So, I'm sorry if it's poorly organized and/or frustrating. 

AND NOW......

The actual post. 

In early July, Matt and I moved into this new apartment. Which we love. And since then, only a handful of the people who helped us move have actually seen it. So, since between the two of us we've been basically inundated with requests to post pictures of our new home on facebook, I decided I may as well just make a blog of it. Because facebook isn't any easier to utilize, really, and it annoys me as well. 

Plus, this also allows me to blog, which I realize I haven't done a lot of lately. So now I'm playing catch up. 

This is what you see when you walk in our front door.  Please ignore the paint container on the first shelf. Our mover-friends sort of nailed one of our corners with my couch. We need to fix that.

The bowl on shelf one. Matt found these really neat looking pieces, and I feel it's only fair to pay him credit for his find.

Shelf Number Dos. 

Shelf Number Three. Which mostly happened this way because both my bookshelves are full and Borders is closing. I have a problem, y'all.

I realize all these vase pictures are annoying. I'm annoyed by them. But consider this a virtual tour of our home, and be happy that I'll never be a real estate agent. This sits at the top of the stairs before they turn.

Here is the living room from the top of the stairs-ish. That's my awesome couch that my movers friends hate. 

It's a kitchen. We cook here. And wash dishes. But we LOVE our granite countertops, and the real tile on the floors. (And in our showers. Whatwhat?!) 

More of the kitchen. See my fancy knives? I'm standing between the pantry and fridge. Which, really, you don't need to see. It's boring. Much like the rest of this post probably is to you. 

Dining room which we see from the kitchen. Yes, there is a shoestring tied to that chair for kitty. And that is a lot of booze, but I assure you, we have more. We like to party. We like, we like to party. 

That's what I fondly refer to as "the nook" and which kitty fondly refers to as "personal playgound". Which leads Matt to fondly refer to kitty as "Shkitty," which is a combination of "shitty kitty." And it's trademarked. You can't steal it.

The black hole of productivity entertainment center. I didn't pick that song, the cable TV people did. I did dance around to it though. 'Cause I'm annoying fun. 

Our porch. And for those of you who asked me what a zero gravity chair was recently, this is them. They get all lean-back-y (also known as recline-y) and you don't touch the ground at all. Sometimes you fall asleep in them. 

Our view from the balcony. It's kind of awesome for sunsets. And hummingbirds. And I was hoping I could birdwatch from there, and not be the creepy lady with binoculars, but even I'm not confident enough to risk being seen doing that. 

The master bedroom. I realize there are no sheets on the bed, it's laundry day. And I was multitasking. 

The other side of the master. From the closet. 

Master bath. Yup, more granite. And full tile showers. Which really just means that we're going to have to buy a really expensive house in a few years, because I'm getting spoiled. 

More living room. This is basically what one of us runs into each morning while it's still dark. 

The stairs to the split level. The guest room/office is up here, but that's actually where all the mess is still, so I didn't photograph it. On the left is the guest bathroom cat's room. So that obviously doesn't get a photo (who wants to see bowls of food and water and a hidden litter box?) Also a linen closet on this floor. With another vacuum. We have 8000 3 vacuums.

My parents have had this bronze in their house forever, and I mentioned to my mom one day that if they ever wanted to put something else in it's place that we'd take it. My parents actually have something else to hang on the wall where this was, so we got it. If I remember the story correctly it was a wedding present to them from my uncle. So it's like, a family heirloom. Sort of. 

This concludes our tour. We hung this nice little piece of metal art on the blank wall space here so that all of our guests can see something pretty as they leave. There's the door. ;-)

 Well, so that was maybe easier than I originally thought, but I hate how it's one picture per line. What if I wanted to put them next to each other? I realize there is probably a way to do this, but I just don't have the time patience to deal with it right now.

So there's our new abode. We love it, and like having people over for dinners, and I totally want to play drinking games, so let us know.... we're fun people. <3