Goodbye to July

I can't believe today is the last day of July.  This year is going by incredibly fast.  Before you know, school will be starting, then Halloween will be upon us, Thanksgiving will be right around the corner.  Soon after that it will be Christmas and then the start of a whole new year.  I remember as a kid that my grandmother told me that time seemed to move faster as we got older.  It didn't make sense at the time, but now I totally understand.

Texas Heat

I was in a store the other day and the clerk was joking that it is really sad that we are hoping for a hurricane to hit, just so we can get some rain.  Today, one of my team members sent me this joke, so I had to share. 

Texas Heat

Dear Diary,

Just moved to Texas ! Now this is a state that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. It is beautiful. I've finally found my home. I love it here.

June 14th: Really heating up. Got to 100 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a sun worshipper.

June 30th: Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing the lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

July 10th: The temperature hasn't been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least, it's kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

July 15th: Fell asleep by the community pool. (Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body). Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.

July 20th: I missed Lomita (my cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car at noon, Lomita had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag, then popped like a water balloon. The car now smells like Kibbles and Shits. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat. Good ol' Mr. Sun strikes again.

July 25th: The wind sucks. It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer!! And it's hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the fritz and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts.

July 30th: Been sleeping outside on the patio for 3 nights now, $225,000 house and I can't even go inside. Lomita is the lucky one. Why did I ever come here?

Aug. 4th: It's 115 degrees. Finally got the air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 85. I hate this stupid state.

Aug. 8th: If another wise ass cracks, 'Hot enough for you today?' I'm going to strangle him. Damn heat. By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

Aug. 9th: Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts, and when sat on the seats in the car, I thought my ass was on fire. My skin melted to the seat. I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and ass . . . Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried ass, and baked cat.

Aug 10th: The weather report might as well be a damn recording. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. It's been too hot to do Shit  for 2 damn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn't it ever rain in this damn state? Water rationing will be next, so my $1700 worth of cactus will just dry up and blow over. Even the cactus can't live in this damn heat.

Aug. 14th: Welcome to HELL! Temperature got to 115 today. Cactus are dead. Forgot to crack the window and blew the damn windshield out of the car. The installer came to fix it and guess what he asked me??? "Hot enough for you today?" My sister had to spend $1,500 to bail me out of jail. Freaking Texas . What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here??
Will write later to let you know how the trial goes.

Graduate Degree

I have read recently in 2 separate reputable magazines that graduate degrees, specifically MBA's, are becoming more of a hindrance than a benefit.  With the changing economy, those looking for work or looking to change job, who have a graduate degree are often overlooked.  The reasoning behind this is because it is believed they will want too much money for the position.  Also, the trend seems to be heading toward looking for more practical experience.  This is kind of concerning to me since I am in the middle of getting a graduate degree.  Will the time, money, and effort I have put in to this degree be beneficial once it is complete? 

Hell's Kitchen

I love Hell's Kitchen and watch every season.  This season, Elise is already becoming a total pain in the butt.  She is an overbearing, obnoxious bully that needs to go home.  Chef, please take pity on me and send her home!

23rd Anniversary

Today was our 23rd anniversary.  We had a great day.  We slept late, then  went to the movies to see "Horrible Bosses" which was hilarious.  We then went out to eat and hubby gave me this beautiful necklace.  I am really picky about my jewelry, but this necklace was a really nice choice.  I can wear it with both casual or dressy clothes and is just perfect.  It is a little hard to see in the picture, but one dolphin is gold, one is rose gold, and one is silver covered in stones.

Vacation

I took Friday and Monday as vacation.  Yesterday, we went to the mall and took the neighbor kids.  We had a really good time.  The neighbors, B & K (12 & 14) treated hubby and I to lunch for our anniversary.  Our anniversary isn't until Monday, but they made us a card and treated us to lunch at Pluckers.  We went to Toys R Us, PetsMart, and then hit the mall.  While I was getting my haircut, hubby and the kids went looking around.  After I came out, I noticed hubby was carrying a bag....a Helzberg Diamonds bag.  What did he do?  We already got something for each other for our anniversary.  Hmmm.  Anyway, we continued through the mall looking at pretty much everything.  I had fun with K, she is 14, and we were looking at and trying on clothes.  Apparently I have more patience than her mother when it comes to clothes shopping.  I find that funny because shopping is not my thing, but with her it was fun and easy.  After spending 7 hours shopping we were all exhausted so we came home.  Today, hubby and I had to go grocery shopping, but mostly we just vegged.  Monday we are supposed to go out to eat and possibly a movie.  Hubby said he would give me the mystery bag on Monday and that it wasn't for our anniversary, it was just because.  That is really sweet and it must be something that really caught his eye since I am not in to jewelry like most women.  He said even 12 year old B thought it was cool - now I am really curious.

"Get Me A Surprise"

When one of us goes out shopping, the other always says "get me a surprise".  We never buy anything expensive or over the top, it is usually something fun or something inexpensive that we think they would like. It is easy for me to get something for hubby; I can always get him baseball cards or some toy.   I, on the otherhand am a bit harder to get a surprise for.  Today, he did really good in the surprises.  He got me a cool wooden box (I like unique boxes), a tin of Death Mints, and a joke tin with a pair of emergency panties.  The panty tin is hilarious and the Death Mints actually taste pretty good.

PS3 Move

Hubby and I bought the PS3 Move controllers for our game deck and are just learning how it works.  So far we have only played the table tennis and it is a lot of fun.  Hubby is having more fun that I am because it is hard to move around with this boot on (I either severely sprained or tore the tendons in my ankle).  I am still having fun just watching hubby and he is really working up a sweat playing.

Women's Soccer

I have never really followed soccer before, but this weekend I watched the women's world cup game against Japan and found that I really liked watching the game.  It is fast paced like hockey and it actually made sense.  I was sad that the US women lost, but I really enjoyed the game.

Temperature

The biggest news here lately has been the temperature.  I believe they said last night that we have had 31 days of 100+ temps.  Last night we even had a period where they were asking people to conserve extra energy during the hours of 3pm to 7pm.  I am very ready for the fall temps to get here.

"I Thought You Were Dead"

Hubby bought me a new book yesterday when he was at the bookstore called "I Thought You Were Dead".  The book is about the relationship between a guy and his dog.  I am only on page 5, but I can tell this book may get to me.  The dog, Stella, is a German Shepherd and Yellow Lab mix, the same as my beautiful Riley.  I asked hubby if he knew what kind of dog this book was about and he said he didn't.  He just read the back and thought it would be one that I would like.  I am excited to get further along in the book, but already at page 5 it is really interesting.

Have any of you ever read this book?  I am hoping it is not the tearjerker that "Marley and Me" was, I cried through both the book and the movie on that one.

Weekly Wrap Up

For a short work week, it was really long.  Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty quiet and not much happened, but Thursday and Friday were NUTS.  I had a major report that had to be done by Friday and was supposed to be pretty simple - provide an analysis for two groups.  One group due this Friday and the next one due the following Friday.  Seemed pretty simple.  The our VP explained that he actually wanted it in more detail, so this one report turned in to 5 - oh and I don't have access to the data so I was at the mercy of someone else to provide me the info.  Well, the shorten the story, the person providing me the info, provided me bad data, not once but twice; so, I ended up doing the first report (all 5 of them) 3 times.  I was so glad the week ended.  Today, I am off to the Farmer's Market and to have a great, non-work filled, day.

Back to Work

Today I headed back to work.  Ho hum.  I was really enjoying the time away from the office and all of the issues.  But another way to look at it is that all of the drama and issues pay the bills.

Shopping

I've mentioned before that I am not much of a shopper.  I have to be in the mood to go shopping and then I really don't like to just stroll around.  Well, Friday and Saturday I went shopping and actually had a really good time.  The neighbors (12 & 14) asked me to take them shopping for a birthday gift for their Mom (her birthday is Monday).  On Friday, we just went to Walmart, but we had a really good time.  The kids got to act like kids and of course, my husband is the world's biggest kid, so we all just had a really good time.  Then on Saturday, I wanted to go to World Market to get the neighbor a birthday gift and the kids wanted to go to.  So the 4 of us set out to World Market on Saturday.  We again had a blast.  After shopping, we came home to drop off our purchases and then grabbed the kids Mom and went back out to eat lunch.  We went to Applebees for lunch and had a really cool waiter who was cutting up with us.  All in all, it was the most fun I have had shopping since my brother was down last year.