The Gibsons

Yesterday while I was at work, all the schools closed early and cops went driving down the streets yelling on their loudspeakers to move cars off the road to prepare for plows. This was between maybe 3 and 6pm. It was mass chaos. We also canceled our weekend trip, which sucks. Last night at around 11,  snowflakes finally started to fall, and this morning we looked outside to see over a foot of stupid, stupid snow. Emma had a field day, running all over the backyard. She looked like a little snowball. She’s also enjoyed just staring at it through the windows.

Subsequently, we didn’t do anything today. We did brave the snow to go to the grocery store. And then I did exciting things like balance the checkbook. Always fun times, right?

Tonight we watched Inglourious Basterds and thought it was great. I like Quentin Tarantino movies in general, but after Deathproof I felt like he was getting too cliched and formulaic. This one started out formulaic but definitely got awesome. I thought Eli Roth was freaking awesome and should be getting more acclaim as The Bear Jew than Brad Pitt is getting for his smallish role. I’m glad Christoph Waltz is nominated for supporting actor for the Oscars. He did a great job. I love movies. We need to catch up and finish watching Oscar nominees before the show airs next month!

This is a drawing I made of my nose. I went to a new ear/nose/throat doctor today because I really didn’t like the last guy I went to. This one was SO much better. He was nice, listened to me, and took the time to explain what was wrong and what was going on. The listening part was really, really crucial and he took everything I said into account. So, here’s what my nose looks like. My septum is not only severely deviated, but it is also bent. As a result, my left nasal passage is almost completely blocked. Beautiful. But it explains why I’ve had so much trouble.

Now, again, I am ordered to get a CT scan and this time I probably will follow through. I’m nervous because a coworker said that this is how her situation started out but then when she got the CT scan they discovered sinus polyps and she’s had a bajillion surgeries and stuff ever since. I do not want to have that happen. But I am totally cool with the idea of a nose job. I’ve never liked my crooked nose so let’s totally fix it! We’ll see how the CT scan goes. Probably.

This weekend we had some travel plans that I am frustratingly barred from talking about, and they are likely going to be ruined by the snowpocalypse. We’ll see.

Do you ever get really paranoid when people are in trouble and you are innocent? Like if you’re not breaking any laws but a police car pulls out behind you? I feel that way right now because someone in my program at work did something very illegal and now everyone is getting audited, and even though my team is incredibly honest and we’ve never done anything fraudulent, I still have that little knot of panic, the feeling of “what if I made a mistake?” I don’t like that.

Time for Project Runway!

Hooray for so many things! I have had a happy time these past couple of days. First of all, and most importantly, my friend Sean came to visit yesterday!

I met Sean when he was a freshman in high school, and I was a senior. Along with like every other little punk/goth kid at RHS, I decided to adopt him. He was such a sweet kid! We unwittingly met up at a Misfits concert in New Haven one time, which was cool. And I used to drive him places, like to the punky thrift store. He always said he was going to go into the army, and lo and behold, he joined the army. He was in Iraq for 15 months and now he is back and retired from the military and will hopefully be sticking around the New England area for quite some time! I am so happy I got to see him. He’s still such a sweetie pie! AND he brought his adorable, adorable 7 month old Corgi, Charley.

I tried my best to make him give her to me, but alas, I failed.

I would be failing at my blog documentation of life if I forgot to mention the Lost season premiere. I don’t have a lot to say because my mind is still all jumbled from the insanity of the premiere episode, but I am so excited and intrigued. I am really looking forward to this season and I will be very sad when it is over.

Today was a good day, too. First, my partner at work and I discovered Chocolates on Broadway in Bangor, PA. Oh goodness gracious. Bangor is such a rinky-dink little town. Finding something so classy and wonderful as this chocolate store has brought a surprising joy to our workday. We will certainly be stopping in any time we’re in Bangor for work, especially since Bangor lacks a coffee shop.

Then, I got an email from Patricia Chapman, who runs the blog The Pat Studio. I entered her contest to win a collage worth $125, which was linked from BlogGiveaways, and I WON! I never win anything. I’m shocked. I am also pretty happy! I will have to decide where to put it! The contest description says the collage is 8″x9″ so maybe it will look pretty in the guest room. We will have to move it around and see. This is what I won:

For those of you who have never been to the blog giveaway site linked above, I HIGHLY recommend it. They link to giveaways for the most beautiful stuff, and apparently it’s actually possible to win. Who knew? And if you are interested in collage and multimedia artwork, Patricia Chapman makes pretty cool stuff.

Now it’s time to watch The Hangover. I hope it’s as good as everyone says it is!

Yesterday I didn’t post my picture of the day. Look! We made a new time capsule! I will not tell you what’s in it. We’ll just have to wait until January 31, 2020.

Today’s photo is of the Kevin Sorbo Hercules action figure I found in a box of action figures (”figurines?”) that someone was getting rid of at work. Kevin Sorbo punches. There’s a little switch on his back that makes his right arm punch forward. It’s awesome. He is going to sit on my desk (next to my Army Man [see right] who is currently hiding in my paperclip tin). Kevin Sorbo will provide some sanity as I am taking stressful phonecalls or doing paperwork.

Tomorrow my friend Sean is coming to visit and I am ecstatic! I love having people visit.

I have never been shy about paint. I love paint colors. Neutrals? Bleh. Not for me. And the person who previously owned our house LOVVVVVED neutrals. So we’ve been slowly changing it. We hired professionals to do the rooms in our house so far, but yesterday we decided to paint one of the rooms in our basement all by ourselves. And we learned why we hire professionals – we are not so good with the painting. But it turned out AWESOME and it looks exactly how I wanted it to look. The pictures do not capture it very well.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I know, I know, it looks pink. And if you’ve ever been to my parents’ house in Connecticut, you’ll think that we painted this room the same color pink as my bathroom at their house. This is not the case, and it is the failing of my camera to show you this. You can see it better in the ‘before’ picture – the sample on the right. It’s actually this neat neon purple. (”Verve Violet” to those of you with Sherwin Williams color wheels.) It’s very similar to the color in this picture from the Crate & Barrel catalog.  This room is going to be a ‘library’ to house the bajillions of books you can see piled through the door in the other room. We’re also going to get a sleeper sofa to make it an extra place for guests. I’m proud of us for not making more of a mess than we did. I am also looking forward to hiring a painter to do our living room. It’s going to be one of these two colors.

We already know which one. Take a wild guess.

I took this picture on my way home (our house is in the picture) and I love it because the moon looked HUGE and it was so incredibly bright. It was beautiful! Emma and I went outside and played in the backyard until it got too dark and too cold. It is very cold out.

Last night I didn’t post because I didn’t get home until 10pm. TEN?! If you know me at all, you know I like to be home and I get anxious if I’m out too late, with some exceptions. So I guess last night was an exception! I attended the board of directors meeting for PRIDE of the Greater Lehigh Valley. You may remember that when we first moved here, we attended a bowlathon to benefit PRIDE. I have wanted to be involved for so long, but I was so busy with work. And I was anxious about joining. So I sucked it up, scheduled it in, and went last night. I LOVED being a part of it. It made me happy. It made me feel comfortable and purposeful. I hope to continue to be a part of this organization and hopefully be able to be a part in a larger capacity someday. For now, I’ll attend meetings and do what I can!

Today I picked up some little pint-samples of paint from Sherwin Williams and splotched them onto the walls! We tried two shades of [secret color] in the basement because we were torn between two. I think we have made our decision. We are hopefully going to paint it up this weekend. I’m looking forward to starting work in the basement! And we got samples of a goldish color for the living room. So far we really like it. We need another day to decide and then I will call the painter and we will get it done. We can’t do the living room ourselves because the ceiling is very high and thus the walls are very high! So. Yay for bringing more color and personality to our house!

In other news, I am very sad that Dollhouse is over The series finale aired tonight and it made me sad. I hate that Joss Whedon’s shows get canceled so fast. Fox sucks.

Awhile ago I started doing the Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred upon recommendation by Laura. I have issues working out when people are around, so I was doing it while Gibby was at class. Well, then he had winter break and was home all the time. Which is wonderful since I love him but it meant I was not working out very often. Now he has class two nights a week and I am, so far, doing great with keeping to my regime. In fact, I finally moved from Level 1 to Level 2!!! I don’t by any means feel like I’ve “mastered” level 1, but I have the endurance and strength to move on to level 2. So that’s good. I am in a lot of pain now though!!! It is really hard! I’d like to say I’m seeing changes on the scale, but I’m not. At least I’m seeing  changes in my abilities. That’s something and shows I’m getting into better shape. Hooray!

I miss fika. It’s the thing in Sweden where people take a break from life and eat little sandwiches and coffee and cinnamon buns, you know? I have some of the cracker bread that I got in the airport and some cheese so I had some of that while I was making dinner. I’ve been trying to somehow incorporate the idea of it into my day – a little cookie here, a chai tea there. A little downtime to chill in between clients. Plus cookies are awesome.

Our new TV series we will be watching on DVD is Angel, the spin-off of Buffy. It has appearances by many of the characters I loved the most from Buffy, like Spike and Andrew. Teehee. We decided we took a comedy break (It’s Always Sunny) and now it’s time to watch some more vampire stuff. At least until Season 2 of True Blood comes out on DVD.

I know this picture is from when I opened my time capsule, but I’m using it for today because I listened to the tape today! In a cassette player! Imagine that. We were doing a lot of work in the basement today and my record player also has a cassette player in it. It was fun to be sorting through old college textbooks and singing Foo Fighters. I used to make awesome mix tapes. For real.

So the deal with the basement is this: first we sorted out all of our old textbooks to decide which ones are worth keeping, and which ones I should take to work to donate to other counselors. We’re preparing to paint one of the rooms in the basement to make into a library. I’m not going to tell you what color, especially since we have to try out a sample first due to the lighting, but it will be exciting. Then we have to figure out what to do in terms of bookcases. This is our new project and it is fun.

We’ve been very productive this weekend. Besides cleaning out that room in the basement and taking measurements for furniture and such, we have: pruned trees in the backyard, removed chickenwire from the fence, made chocolate pastries to take to work, organized finances, caught up on paperwork (& schoolwork), and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. By “pruning trees,” I mean that I was so sick of branches hanging everywhere that I angrily took the shears and just started snipping branches. It looks much better though, but I think I went all Edward Scissorhands for a little while.

This week will be a little hectic due to a weird work schedule for me, and because Gibby will be starting his job again finally!!! He’s going to work 3 days per week at an afterschool program. The other two days he will still be attending class. He just finished his first week and thinks it will be pretty okay.