My Life in the Southwest: January 2014

Friday, January 31, 2014

Bad Blogger

So the bad blogger of the month of January goes to……drumroll……MOI!!!!

January was busy, hectic, fun and also heartbreaking. Here’s a breakdown and also some random things:

*We found out our dog Max has cancer (heartbreaking). He is doing okay for the moment, and we think he has a few months left at least. He still has a great appetite, which we view as a good sign. He's 11.

*My sister-in-law, niece and new nephew came for a visit last week (fun!). We had a blast. It was so good to spend time with them. I will do another longer blog post hopefully over the weekend. Then they left (heartbreaking).

*We no longer have a cleaning lady. Yes, I know no one will feel sorry for me. J However, I decided to let her go for a couple of reasons. One, I’m not sure exactly how our animals act when they come into our house. The dogs are generally ‘people’ dogs, but I don’t know what they do when our cleaning lady (and company) are in the house once a week for 3 hours. While Max is doing well with his diagnosis so far, I want him to be comfortable 24/7. I want him to go and lay on his bed in the bedroom if he wants. Or on his bed in the living room. I want ZERO stress in his precious life right now, and I have a feeling he gets stressed out with different people in his house every week (see next paragraph).

We recently found out that it’s not just the cleaning lady and her husband that come and clean. It’s them plus 2 to 3 additional people (sometimes different ones each time). ??? I don’t know why. Yes, I understand they may have a team, but neither my husband or I felt comfortable with a new set of strangers in our house each week. So my husband changed our garage code and we both feel much better. We may hire another cleaning lady in the future, one that we know and trust (we have someone in mind).

So, things are a bit crazier at our house (hectic).

*We’ve both been getting more French assignments lately. I have a French talk on Wednesday that I haven’t even started on. Yikes. We also just found out that we are going to have a French Watchtower study every single week. Yay!

*I’ve been watching The West Wing. I’ve never seen it, although we own the complete series on DVD. Both my husband and mother-in-law are big fans. I first tried to watch it while we were on a yacht in Alaska. In the evening. While on Dramamine. With the gentle swaying of the boat. Yeah….it didn’t go well. So I gave it another chance. And I love it. I know why it won so many awards. I’m on Season 3.

*Work has been crazy this week. As soon as we released our temp employee, things got nuts. Of course. Isn’t that how it always happens? We are also getting ready to move to a brand new building that is WAY closer to home. They gave us our boxes this week to start packing. It's exciting!

*Sorry for no real photos....I will do a bigger blog post over the weekend....once my French talk is done.

*Go Seahawks!! We aren't having a Superbowl party or anything, however, my mother-in-law will come over and watch it with us and have some veggies, hummus, and cheese and crackers. And wine. Not your typical Superbowl party food, but we are not typical. Ha ha.

Okay, that's all for now. Time to work on my French talk. Yikes:

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Music

I love music, as most people do. However, I don’t listen to it as much as some. Some people turn on the radio when they get home, have it playing while they clean house, etc. Not me. I enjoy the quiet at home more than I enjoy music. However, I still listen quite a bit. In my car (always). At work (mostly). And occasionally at home, if I’m getting ready for a date night or something.

I get all of my music from iTunes. The last ‘real’ CD I purchased was ‘Prism’ by Katy Perry, and the only reason I got that is so that my husband and I could share it (instead of us each purchasing the album from iTunes). But before that purchase, it had been YEARS since the last time I bought a ‘real’ CD. Thank goodness for iTunes!

I like everything mostly, except for most country and, you know, polka. Ha ha. I have a bit of everything in my iTunes account. I tend to gravitate towards the typical ‘top 40’ songs. Pop, alternative, indie, r&b, etc. But I also have a lot of soundtracks (Hunger Games, Midnight in Paris) and Broadway tunes. Phantom of the Opera. The Lion King. Les Miserables (both the Broadway version and the movie version from last year).

It’s amazing too how some songs can bring memories flooding back, or make me think of a certain tv show episode or something like that.

One of those moments happened on the plane somewhere over the Atlantic (almost to France). I had been sleeping, and my sister woke me up because the flight attendants were starting to serve breakfast. We were a couple hours away still. So I woke up and was still in that groggy state, however very excited. I looked out the window and the blue water of the Atlantic was below us and I put in my ear buds, turned on my ipod on Shuffle and thought to myself, ‘whatever song comes up first, THIS is the song that I am going to remember as I’m flying to France. I hope it’s a good one.’ And it was:

So now whenever I hear that song I immediately start thinking of that plane ride and the excitement I felt as I ate my fruit and croissant, knowing that just in a couple hours we would be in Paris.

Whenever I hear ‘Forever’ by Chris Brown, I think of this scene from The Office:

(sorry for the poor video, it was the only one I could find)

Whenever I hear ‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica, I think of riding in the car with my brother through the twisty roads of southern Missouri in the Ozarks on our way to Silver Dollar City.

Whenever I hear ‘The Man that Got Away’ by Judy Garland, I think of this wonderful scene from Gilmore Girls, when Luke and Lorelai get back together (poor Lorelai, all alone eating her sad Chinese food):

And don’t even get me started on Parenthood. There are AMAZING songs in that show every single week. I don’t know how they do it.

Here are a few of my overall favorites:

Of Monsters and Men – I listen to their album on repeat and it never gets old

Imagine Dragons – Radioactive, Demons – great music.

Katy Perry. I could probably do an entire post on Katy Perry. I was never really a big fan of hers until I watched her movie/documentary ‘Part of Me’. It sheds a whole new light on her life, how she got started, how her marriage fell apart, and what kind of person she is. It is really good (it’s on Netflix streaming if anyone is interested). It follows her around on tour. Yes, she’s an oddball. Yes, she’s quirky and wears weird clothes and wigs. Yes, her music videos are funny and she definitely doesn’t take herself too seriously (Roar? She paints an elephants’ toenails, brushes a crocodiles teeth and names the tiger 'Kitty Purry'). But her songs are good. She writes a lot of her own music. My favorites? Firework. Roar. (listen to those two if you’re having a bad day and feeling bad about yourself). ET. Dark Horse. The One That Got Away (the acoustical slower version):

One Republic

Pink – her Truth About Love album is great

My favorite artists to exercise to:

LMFAO, Maroon 5, Madonna, Katy Perry, The White Stripes, Macklemore, Robin Thicke, Chris Brown, Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, The Killers, Michael Jackson (Billie Jean), Pink

My favorites for relaxing:

Adele, The Civil Wars, Birdy, Coldplay, The Lumineers

Those are just a few of my favorites!

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Random

*Wow, I've already managed to become a not-so-great blogger this month, when that was one of my goals. Oh well. I'll try to get better.

*My sister-in-law, my niece, and my new baby nephew are coming for a visit next week. I am SOOOOOO excited!!!!!!!

*Today I cleaned out our tiny pantry. Why can't it stay this way?

(notice all the Market Pantry items? Thank you, Target Cartwheel)

*I am in a major clean-out-everything-and-purge mood. Kitchen is done. Next up? Master bathroom.

*Yesterday was a 'French' day. We had service in the morning. Then me and my mother-in-law attempted to go to French Bible reading class, but the teacher never showed up. So we made the best of it and went to Einstein's Bagels for a snack. Then we had meeting at 4:00.

*I got rid of a ton of plastic items (Goodwill) today. Old rubbermaid tupperware, etc. I've slowly been switching to all glass containers.

*Tonight Downton Abbey is on. Yet another reason why I love Sundays. I only cried once during the 2 hour premier last week. Hopefully this week will be the same.

*We are moving to a brand new building at work next month. Across town. Only 7 minutes from my house (as opposed to 20 minutes away now). I am excited! I've been scanning like a mad woman at work...I don't want to bring a bunch of paper and stuff I don't need to my new desk.

*It was almost 60 degrees here today. It feels like I've been living in hoodies lately.

That's all for now....much to do.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2014 Goals

New year, new goals. Here are my goals for 2014:

*Blog more. I would love to blog at least 3 times per week. Mostly for myself. I love looking back at my blog as kind of an online journal of events.

*Get healthy. Sigh. Every year.

*Continue couponing, mostly at Target. I saved $154 last year just by using my Target red card (debit card). Seriously....if you don't have one, get one. It's a debit card, the money comes right out of your checking account and you save 5% every time on everything. That's like free money!