My Random Thoughts

Its been about 2-3 weeks and the apartment is pretty much set. We need more furniture (like a couch, a chair and a desk! I’m writing this from a bed tray on the queen size bed that gets smaller every night I sleep on it).

Jeff keeps giving me crap about not taking the more uppity apartment with the integrated garage, which was more money for less space! pbpbpbpbpbpbpb to him.

And now for the rant - I need to buy a house, fast! Faster than fast - yesterday! The first thing that makes me crazy is the dumb bitch who parks in the spot which is not a spot. Its the space to the right of the handicap space - you know the one they would use if they had a wheelchair to get into??!?!? yeah, she parks there. It’s also right infront of the ramp up to the sidewalk.  Perhaps I wouldn’t be so upset if it wasn’t CLEARLY MARKED that its not a space and that NONE of the other ones are parked in.  If I think about it while i’m going to/from the grocery store, I will stop in the office and give a word to the management company. JUST MAKES ME CRAZY!

And then there are the elephant children who live on the 3rd floor. It not just the regular walking around, or the occasional drop, it’s the running up and down the stairs and the squealing as they do it. Obviously it bothered more than just me, as the apartment complex sent out a note to everyone saying please be considerate of your neighbors and the breezeways are not the playground. You shouldn’t be congregating there. THANK GOODNESS!

Now the rants on poor Jeff……I brought up some ’stuff’ to decorate the apartment to give it a more homey touch. I dared to hang something on the wall - I thought he was going to have a fit. I used the 3M command adhesive strips. It was just a small little thing, and dude, they are keeping most of the security to repaint anyway, so who cares! it’s not like I was putting holes in the walls! GAWD!

I can’t wait to get my own home. I’m going to put holes in every surface i can find. I’m going to paint every surface i can find and i’m going to be happy about it!! I think I”m going to go home this weekend and paint a wall in my current house, just cuz I CAN! so there!

Today there happened to be one in front of me!!

I was coming back from lunch. After the light turned green, a very impatient woman in a BMW blew around me before the lane even became a lane. A turn onto Northlake found her only right in front of me (so going a whole lotta fast to get no place). In front of her was a Florida State Trooper. Now i’m just following traffic, thinking about how much money we’d need to save for vacation. There are cars in the right lane, going the speed limit, but not much more. The State Trooper was doing about the same in the left. He starts slowing down and the beemer gets closer to him.

With no one in front of him or beside him, he moves over, quite rapidly, to the right lane, and turns on his lights. i’m not quite sure what’s going on, so I slow down a little more, as do the cars around me. This leaves even more of a gap between me and the beemer in front of me. Mr. State Trooper cuts me off to get behind her, lights still going. Yes, he pulls her over, probably for tailgating. I laughed all the way home.

While I was waiting for my flight on Thursday, i picked up a copy of the NY Times that had been left on the seat beside me. There was an article that is strange on so many levels that it had to find its way into a blog someplace. It may as well be mine!

The article talks about how the bathroom is becoming the new den (brown is the new black and size 2 is the new 4 or whatever that quote was from the Devil Wears Prada - but I digress). So yes, back to the new den. The article details how designers are creating these huge bathrooms because that’s the only time couples have to talk in their uber-busy days. They will have ‘morning kitchens’ (a mini-fridge and a coffee maker) or couples will enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day.  So here’s where I have an issue with this whole thing - if you are sooooo busy that the only time you have to talk to your spouse is when you are both getting ready in the morning, maybe you are to busy! Spend a little less time at the office, take a vacation, what are you doing on the weekend anyway?

One couple has taken to eating breakfast in the bathroom - EATING BREAKFAST? How long does it take you to get ready in the morning that you’re eating breakfast in the bathroom? I can go from fast asleep to ready to walk out the door in about 30 minutes - that includes drying my hair, putting on my make-up (yes, in the house, not the car) and getting dressed. The hubster can do it even faster.  In my case, hubster gets up at 5:15am and no matter how busy our lives are, I am not crawling my butt out of bed to chat with him in the bathroom. Neither one of us are civil enough to want to talk at that hour!

Another couple has a soaking tub where they enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day while soaking with each other.  Now that sounds relaxing - install a hot tub. But one couple in the article needs their bathroom to have some alone time from their ‘frequent houseguests’ - first, usually you want to visit with your houseguests, but if you have that many that you feel the need to get away from them - STOP INVITING THEM! They need your permission to enter the home, so just don’t let them come.

I just don’t understand this trend. My last couple of weeks at work have been busy - I’ve been putting in 80 hour weeks and working on weekends, but yet I still find time to spend with the hubster. But not in the bathroom. These are probably the same people that over-schedule their kids to the point that they don’t know which end is up and no one has any time to just be them.  I’d like to know what these people do.

ok - I admit it, I am hooked on The Bachelor. However, I am hooked not for the ‘love story’ aspect, but the stupidity aspect. It is a train wreck.

Last night were the ‘hometown’ dates. Travis is down to four women and I don’t think any of them went particularly well. Moana’s family just completely were not into the process. Her stepmother was disgusted by the whole process and how degrading it was to marriage and family. I can’t say I disagree - how could you think you’re going to find true love in such an artificial environment. 

I watched until the dates were over - didn’t need to see the rose ceremony.

Now, girls, let’s get real. You’re doing this for your fifteen minutes of fame and if you think you’re doing it for any other reason, you’re fooling yourself. Travis - I don’t know what your motivation is.

I realize I’m part of the problem. If it didn’t have viewers, there wouldn’t be a show. Why do I watch it? Because it makes me laugh. Reality TV - nah, more like comedy

Let me just say if you’re reading this an you’re a home building contractor of any type - RETURN PHONE CALLS! We’d all appreciate it.

My painter was supposed to start on Thursday. I haven’t heard from him. I’ve left 4 messages, and none of them have been returned. I’m just glad I work from home and didn’t take time off to wait for him. I’d be more irritated than I already am.

I called my 2nd choice painter and he hasn’t called me back either. I really don’t want to get the phone book out and start looking again, but I’ll do what I have to do to get this place painted. I may even do it by hand at this point.

Then the carpet people are supposed to call. Nope, didn’t hear a thing from them either.

So, to recap. Return Phone Calls, but avoid having to do anything if you can. This your public service announcement for the day.

Just heard it on the news, frazing - frantic multi-tasking. Everything they said was true, constant interruptions, can’t get back to things. Their suggestion, you shouldn’t check email just because the icon is there. I’ve heard other ‘organizational’ suggestions, only take phone calls during a certain time of the day, return them at certain times of the day. Don’t constantly check email. Set a schedule and only read and answer emails during that time. All good suggestions, but let’s get real.

In my job, if someone is calling me, they want to talk to me. They may not neccessarily NEED to talk to me right that second, but probably pretty close to that second. If they didn’t, they would have sent me an email. I can’t even imagine telling my boss I only take calls between the hours of 10-12 and I return messages between 2-4. Worst yet, what if I need to get in touch with my boss?!!? My clients are going to want to wait a couple of days for an answer. You call me at 9 and leave me a message, I return your call at 2:30 when you’re not available, you call me back the next day and I’m not available, but I don’t return your call until 2pm. How long will we play telephone tag until the issue is resolved?

In terms of organization and ability to concentrate and get things done, yeah, I’m all for doing one thing at a time. Unless everyone is going to play by the same rules, it will never happen. The first time an irate customer/client/prospect escalates the fact that they can’t contact, blah blah blah, game over. And here we are again.

So, if you’ve read this far, what is the point of this - nothing more than thanks for pointing out the obvious - now I feel more frazled than I did before! At least I’m in good company.

So I get an email tonight - my PMP status has been suspended. I completed my PDU’s, but PMI has yet to mail my application for renewal. How am I supposed to renew in time if I can’t get the application from them? It’s enough to make you want to scream!

No, I’m not kidding - December 30 and a tropical storm has formed. The water shouldn’t even be warm enough to support this.

It’s 1000 miles south-southwest of the azores. No threat to any type of land that I’m interested in, but still - will this hurricane season never end? It’s only going to get warmer from now on. Can’t wait to see how early the next one starts. I knew I should have been a meterologist. This would be some heady stuff right about now. I could see myself as a storm chaser. As long as my home base wasn’t in trouble, I’d be cool.

I’m still amazed and shaking my head. I really need to study how these things happen.

TS Epsilon - I am SO over this hurrican season. The screen people are here fixing the damage from Wilma. How appropriate.

I keep trying to logically figure out, move or not move. I’ve even made a spreadsheet - it shows its actually more expensive to live in PA, just from the perspective of living expenses (mortgage, insurance, taxes). I was actually amazed. I expected to see a much bigger difference to the positive for PA. NO! I’m really confused now. It’s becoming more and more of an emotional decision, rather than a logical one.

The big unknown is what type of damage we’ll run into next year, and there will be some. Last year we ran into a new roof - that cost us $14000 and we only got about half from the insurance company. We’re still paying for that. And there was the pool screen repair at $2000. This year its the pool screen repair at $2000. We still haven’t painted or replaced trees and landscaping, which will cost us a little more. When I look at those things, i know that I won’t have that kind of expense moving up north. CRAZY

Well, I think what tips the balance is the repairs. What it comes back to is if we weren’t in a period of heavy storm activity and if we hadn’t gotten hit so many times in 2 years, and if insurance wasn’t going up, and FPL wasn’t putting surcharges on everything, it would be a laugh - of course we’d stay - it’s great down here, we’re having fun and it would be cheaper. But getting knocked with out of pocket expenses every year - that hurts.

There is a storm in the Carribean - TS Gamma has popped up and has the same path projected as Wilma took. I’m so over these hurricanes. I’m tired of worrying and wondering. And this late in the season! COME ON, everyone has already taken their hurricane tracking stuff down.

SIGH - nothing I can do about it. Glad I didn’t go out last weekend and get new trees!