Enjablog

Alright, I know I’ve been slow this year and I’ve had people asking if I’m even doing the race… So here’s my info. Donate if you like:

2008 Komen National Race for the Cure®

Thanks!!

EDIT: I heard you’re rich. If you wish to donate, please click link above. If you do not wish to donate, I will cry.

Just a reminder to Hokies who haven’t yet pledged hours for VT Engage… Today’s a good day to sign up.

Not really sure what else to say about today, so I’ll just leave it at that. Go do something nice for someone.

Went to the food bank on Saturday morning. So many people showed up. We were all getting in each other’s way and wandering about aimlessly, but a lot of food got sorted and packaged to send out. There was also the excitement of finding rats in a couple of the boxes… It was an experience.

Got back, cleaned up, and was ready to hang with NewGirl & BoyToy. We took an impromptu trip to the ice arena before picking up some groceries for dinner, 1950s style. That is to say, with The Boss. He was on his own this weekend and wanted to catch up with NewGirl, so I invited him over for dinner before The Classy Party.

After using as many dishes as we could possibly manage for dinner, NewGirl shared most of her work inappropriate stories that she couldn’t tell before she quit, and then we were off for a night out. Surprisingly, not too many stories from the Classy Party. There were a lot of work people there and I managed not to meet anyone new the entire night, I think…

Sunday, did brunch with TLD for his 30th birthday. We concocted this whole scheme whereby I would get dropped off at the restaurant with the cake to coordinate with the host while NG&BT picked up TLD. It worked out flawlessly. This year: chocolate cake with orange frosting (flavor, not color). And we had picked up a set of baseball cake decorations with birthday candles. It was fit for a 5-year-old. ;)

Hung out at TLD’s for a while after that and tested out his new birthday present from NG. Then went over to visit OtherManager before NG&BT were off to catch their flight.

I fell asleep around 7:30 that night.

I’m finally catching up on the studying that I rescheduled from last week.

Hour and a half bus ride to work this morning. For some reason the driver took a detour through Landmark Mall. I have no idea why, but she made a busload of people at least half an hour late this morning.

Sleep.

Wow.

You buy an XO Laptop for $400. You get a laptop and a kid in a 3rd world country gets one too.

EDIT: I originally posted this because I thought the program was really cool. But I’ve been reading more about the computer and it’s amazing. Solar power and pull-cord options for recharging the battery. It’s designed for kids and collaborating. The laptops automatically detect each other and give you the capability to transfer music, videos, documents, etc. without prior setup. It allows you to let other people view your screen while you’re working, so you can edit documents and work together without having to crowd around one screen.

It’s also designed for harsh environments, so you don’t have to worry about rain, spills, dropping it, or dusty environments. And it weighs 3 pounds. I’m so impressed with this. I was all talk about just sending this to a kid. I want one to play with! Maybe I’ll let Juniorita play too.

Aw, just got an email from Carolyn Hax!

From last week’s ALS Walk:

We’re closing in on $12k! Thanks, everyone! (On the front row, starting from the left, that’s Nick, Zuzu, and Carolyn) :)

Oops. I’ve had so much going on this weekend that I forgot to attend recitation today. I got caught up watching football and then left to go to my parents’ house for dinner tonight for Lenny and Grandma’s birthdays… And only remembered when I got home because our TA sent out an email changing the time for next week.

This weekend… Friday was NewGirl’s and Ian’s last days at their respective jobs. Our floor took NewGirl out for happy hour. I skipped out a little early to have some quality BFF bonding time. Saturday started off early with some homework, cake, cookies, and catching up on last week’s TV shows. NewGirl’s going away bash was Saturday night, so I ran some quick errands at Target, Rack Room Shoes, the office, the bank, and Popeyes before arriving a fashionable 30 minutes early. I really thought everything would take longer. The longest stop was at Popeyes where I bought 30 chicken fingers and the girl behind the counter asked if I could wait 4 minutes for them to cook up more. Uh… yeah, I can wait 4 minutes.

The party was really fun. The U of M game was on and there was lots of gossip, food, and drinks. Of course, the purpose of the party was bittersweet, but it was definitely memorable. We had a gallery for my office art shelf, which consists of drawings NewGirl has created over the past year. There was flip cup, which apparently Boss got talked into playing. I’m kind of sorry I missed that part of the evening. Skunknut was sick and missed out on all the chicken fingers, but otherwise, I think everyone else NewGirl was expecting made it out to say goodbye.

After the game, a bunch of people started to head out, so NewGirl, NewGirl’s reason for leaving (a.k.a. boy-toy), and I made our way over to Boss Jr’s haunted house. It was definitely an adventure driving over, especially since I was driving and have no concept of direction in DC. But an hour or so later, we made it and, after signing a lengthy waiver, were thoroughly haunted. Boss Jr was a convincingly creepy clown. NewGuy had a zombie look going on. There was also a nun, an awkward mad scientist/doctor, a dude in a cage, and other random bodies strewn about. It was definitely fun and games for us since the three of us walked through the house together. But I think if I had gone through by myself I would’ve screamed like a little girl.

We got out of the city without incident, but then wandered Arlington for a bit trying to drop NewGuy off. I’m really bad with directions in Arlington and he may have been a little drunk mixed with unable to figure out where we were fast enough to tell me where to go. In any case, after about half an hour of extra bonding time, we successfully dropped him off. We promptly got lost again trying to find our way back to Alexandria, but we found NewGirl’s yellow brick road and were on our way.

So, I got home and was fast asleep around 4am. I woke up a few hours later to go meet my advice columnist hero at the ALS walk. It was interesting… I was so excited to meet Carolyn Hax, but then she was just a regular person and I totally felt like a nerdy groupie. Which was ok because then I met a group of girls who were also readers and came out to meet her like a bunch of groupies and we all hung out and chatted for the entire walk. Robin, Emma, Laura, Brooke, and another girl whose name I don’t remember… They were all so nice and welcoming. A couple of them came together, but the rest of us showed up solo and didn’t know anyone else. So, it all worked out. I also got to meet Kenny and Nick. And the kiddies were running around climbing over both of them, but I have no idea which one was which. I am so impressed by their whole family dynamic. I can only aspire to such maturity in my life.

On the charity front, our team won a second place award for the rookie team to raise the most money. This team was formed 30 days ago and raised over $10k. Our total doubled in the past 3 days and we were ranked 9th overall. It was all very exciting.

Afterward, a bunch of us were deciding which metro to head toward or what we were going to do with the rest of our day. I ended up heading over to the Freer Gallery of Art with two people and hung out for a while. Then I got a call from NewGirl letting me know that she had rented a cargo van to deliver her recliner to me. We ended up having to get past the mean front desk lady, but we got away with moving in furniture on a weekend anyway. We had a heartfelt goodbye and then they were off to get more stuff done before heading out for good tomorrow morning.

I went back upstairs to finish watching the ‘Skins game and then got a call from Lenny asking if I had baked a cake. I decided to head over to the parents’ a little early so I could head out right after dinner and work on my homework some more. Instead, I just hung out there longer and decided that it was very important for me to blog a bunch before doing anything actually useful or productive.

And now here we are. This is why I forgot to show up for recitation this afternoon. I kind of suspected I would forget since every time I looked at my calendar to see what I had scheduled this weekend, I was surprised to see recitation on my calendar and was concerned that I was going to be too busy. And well, I was. I least it’s recorded, so I can play it back and see if there was anything useful.

Ooh, I just noticed that this is the 20th day in a row that I have blogged. That’s pretty good for me.

Ok, I’m out.

I can’t believe I totally forgot to post this earlier! The ALS Walk is this Sunday. Come out if you have time:

Schedule: Registration and Check-in begins at 9:00 am and the Walk begins at 10:00 am
Date: Sunday, October 21, 2007
Location: Constitution Gardens

And if you can’t make it, here’s my profile if you have some money burning a hole in your pocket.

It’s that time of year again… Boobs need saving.

Please give if you can/want. Thanks!

Hey, anyone interested in doing this with me this year?

Help the Homeless Walkathon, Washington, D.C.
Saturday, November 18, 2006

Let me know!

I finally got sized for a ring today. Apparently there are quarter sizes, but most places have the ring measuring things for half sizes. I think my right ring finger (the one on which I wear my class ring) is like a half size bigger than my left ring finger. Weird.

Met with my BeFriend mentee this evening after that, so got home kind of late. Then got a reminder email telling me my July report is 2 weeks overdue. Oops… Spent about a half-hour writing that up, watched some tv, and now I’m off to bed. That’s about it for tonight.

It’s that time of year again:
Race for the Cure!

Late registration is still open through this Friday, if anyone else is interested in coming out. Race is this Saturday, June 3, 2006.

Otherwise, please donate if you can.

Thanks! :)

2005 Help the Homeless Walkathon

November 19, 2005. Come out and walk with me!

The Red Sox won the World Series last year and now everyone thinks they can do it. What’s up for next year? The Cubs?

In other news… Spent last weekend napping a lot. I don’t know why I was so tired, but between reading and knitting, I probably took about 4 or 5 naps. It was good. Hung out at my parents’ for a while on Saturday to celebrate my brother’s birthday. Hung out at the HOY Saturday night and met Crit’s new chicky.

Did the ALS Walk on Sunday morning. It was strange… I guess it was a smaller walk, so they didn’t get a big route reserved. But this was the first walk where I was instructed to do laps. It was in Constitution Gardens and when I did WalkAmerica for the March of Dimes, they said Constitution Gardens, but gave a cross street and they met across from the Ellipse. This time, I walked just past the Ellipse and then turned back, thinking I had the wrong location. The only people around were playing flag football on the Ellipse.

When I got off the metro a group of 20-somethings had gotten off at the same stop all hyped about a walk and had headed toward the mall, so I back-tracked and headed over to see what was going on. Wrong walk… It was another breast cancer walk, so I asked one of the cheerers if she knew where the ALS Walk was and she gave me a funny look like I had made the biggest faux pas: asking about the wrong charity at a big charity event. Oops…

I went back to the metro and looked at the map and found where I was supposed to go (all the way to the reflecting pool). At this point I had probably already walked 2 miles looking for the walk, but I arrived at the pond near the reflecting pool and joined in the crowd of people. I got to what I assumed was the beginning/end and signed in. I asked around for what the route was and was told to walk around the pond three times. Interesting…

Finished that up and then went home for a well-deserved nap.

QOTD: “I dream of being called “mayo couple”, but my wife isn’t a big fan. She keeps packets in her purse so I won’t eat the ones out of my wallet.”

Condo: So, these last two weeks have been very erratic as far as this whole condo thing is concerned. I was scheduled to close on Tuesday, October 11th, but my loan fell through that morning. So, then I thought I wasn’t going to get the condo.

Then, the sellers said I could have a few more days if I had the loans approved and just needed time to process. I had until this Wednesday and if I couldn’t get a loan by then, I could use their lender and they would give me the extra leeway for however long he needed because they were more comfortable working with someone they knew. Ooh, I might get the place.

Then, I got approved for two loans that I couldn’t afford. So, I thought, again, that I had lost the condo.

Then, along came lendingtree.com and they said that there were loans out that that I could afford. Maybe I can get the place. So, I called a bunch of people and most of the lenders said it would take 10-12 days. So, I thought I lost the place.

One of the people I talked to said that if I had everything else done for the closing (appraisals and whatnot), they could close for me in 4-5 days. Oh! I’m sure to get the place now!

Schedule the closing for Thursday night. Phone calls all day Thursday assuring me that the loan process is in motion and I have been approved. Everything is going fine. Late Thursday afternoon and still no final number for my check to bring to the closing. Finally, I get the phone call moving the closing until Friday morning. Maybe I’m not going to get this place…

Friday morning, calls all around trying to find out what I need and what time the closing will be. Get a call at 10am saying that they could only get me a 90% loan for the closing that day. They could get me a 5% loan, but it wouldn’t be able to process until next week some time. What do I want to do?

I’ve already made the sellers wait an extra week and a half. I have no idea if they were bluffing or not, but they claimed to have another buyer waiting in case I couldn’t come through. They’re not going to give me another week of leeway.

So, uhh… I’m supposed to come up with an extra $16,000 to bring to this closing in 5 hours? Yeah, right. I really am going to lose this place.

But wait! Thanks to the power of the intarweb, some frantic phone calls, Wachovia, and Fidelity, I was able to close on the condo around 6pm Friday.

So, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do all of this so rushed and to leave myself with $48.17 to my name (ok, not really…), but I think I got blinded by all the excitement. I’m working on the assumption that since the rest of my life has worked out so well up to this point, nothing could go wrong now, right? Right..?

And to make this all weirder, the lender that the seller wanted me to use and the lender that the broker finally found me a loan with were one and the same: Countrywide. Too bad the guy the seller put me in contact with laughed at the offer I wanted him to match. He said that was impossible and I would lose the place. And yet, it was his company that ended up meeting that offer. This whole industry boggles my mind.

Charity: Joined the Red Cross Knit & Crochet group. We knit and crochet rectangles and then stitch them together to make afghans for old people. It was terribly exciting, I assure you.

Doing the ALS Walk tomorrow. I hope the weather is nice. Supposed to only be cloudy in the morning, so maybe it’ll hold out.

I signed up to help out with the NPR fall membership campaign on Friday. I was so excited about it because they made it sound so fun on the radio when they kept talking about it. And I figured since it was my day off anyway, I could go in and spend half a day there and then go do something else around DC. Unfortunately, due to the condo thing, I had to call and cancel on Thursday evening. I left a message, though. I hope I don’t get in trouble for that…

Work: New boss at work. I don’t think he’s crazy, so I probably won’t have any funny stories about him any time soon. But at least now I have someone to report to. Maybe he’ll give me work to do too!

QOTD: “Should I just yell at your uterus for a while?”

Friday was mostly running errands. Got my car all maintained, then went to an interview for BeFriend-A-Parent Mentoring Opportunity:

Caring, change-focused volunteers build a trusting one-on-one mentor relationship with a Family Services client. You’ll listen, learn and work together on parenting and personal needs and skills.

After that, I went over to have lunch with my grandma. She was very excited to see me, but had warned me that my parents might be home. Hung out with her for a bit, then went home to start sorting through clothes for donations, and took a nice lengthy nap before Friday night fun.

Ian came to pick me up for a light dinner before meeting up with the HOY people, Sonny, and DW to watch Serenity. It was very good. I know I already got the heads up from Squidgey that the movie was *awesome*, but I never watched Firefly, so I went in pretty blind as to what to expect. It was pretty cool… lots of fighting, a crazy chick, and they’re in space. What more could you ask for?

Stayed up pretty late hanging out over at the HOY. We played Carcassonne again, the game we played at DW’s last week. It was much easier to play this time, now that I was familiar with the rules. Still a challenging game, I just didn’t have to check on the rules or strategy for every turn.

Tried Papa John’s BBQ chicken and bacon pizza. Pretty good. I’m still working on liking bacon, but the pizza was tasty. The BBQ sauce instead of the expected tomato pizza sauce created a harmony between the crust and the chicken. *giggle* It’s good.

Saturday was pretty laid back. Filled a hamper with unwanted clothes, then headed over to Ian’s to work on my knitting, read, and watch TV while he went through his belongings.

Sunday, got up early to continue with the previous day’s laziness. Stopped by at the parents’ place to hang out for a little while. It was my mom’s Chinese birthday, but I only found out when I showed up. Unfortunately, we ended up leaving before she got home. Anyway, happy birthday!

Did the dinner thing with Ian’s family, watched some football, gave Ian a haircut, and then called it a night.

QOTD: “as far as i know, they haven’t sent a convicted felon to my house as a contractor”

Current Book: Unmarried to Each Other