I like Chinese food.  I will happily admit.  There is just something perfect about steamed dumplings and fried rice.  So on Friday night I decided to order Chinese food from my local delivery place.  They use the mapping software that goes by telephone number, so the second question (after take out or delivery) is usually what's your phone number.  Here is when I realized that my love of Chinese food may have crossed over into an addiction.  The girl on the other end of the phone not only recognized my phone, but....

"Can I have your phone number?"
"Sure.  It's 954583...."
"Oh, 3076.  How are you?  How's the family?"
"I'm fine, we are all fine, How are you?"
"I'm good.  So you want steamed dumplings and what else?"

SHE KNEW MY PHONE NUMBER!!!  I can see remembering someone's name, but my number and part of my order....

I think I need a new Chinese place.

As all of you know, I am not the action figure type. I think they are a little interesting, but it is just not something that really intrigued me. Until today!!! I have found the one action figure I can really get behind. This is a little frightening, but I also can think of about 4 people that would also be in line for this figure.

http://www.signals.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?action=detail&item=HC2062&WEBSOURCE=022106&SOURCE_CODE=S2631H

We have been teased long enough. It has finally been made a reality. South Florida will soon be the home of an IKEA store. Cheap chic furniture, really awesome drapes and rugs, and Swedish Meatballs will soon be just off of 595. My Mecca will be mere miles from my home. I will be able to buy gadgets and gizmos for every room of my house.

I think this qualifies as Nirvana. However, the wait will be grueling, since the opening date is not going to be until the Summer of 2007, but a co-worker and I have already decided to take a personal day to make sure we are at the grand opening.

After 9 long grueling years of lugging dirty clothes up and down stairs, spending countless hours at the laundromat, and searching couch cushions for spare quarters, I can now say "To hell with it all".

Roy and I are now the proud owners of a washer and dryer. I was so happy, that I really wanted to sleep on top of them. One of Roy's co-workers were getting rid of their old set, so all we had to do was pick it up. That sounded easy until we get to the house with the U-Haul, and realized a few things.

1)The U-haul is missing the ramp
2)The co-worker's wife is still doing laundry in the old machine.
3)They wanted us to un-install the old machines and install the new ones

Number 3 should not have been a big deal except for the fact that the old machines had been hooked up for at least 8 years, and have never had the hoses replaced, so they are stuck onto the spigots. We were able to get the cold water unattached. However, while Roy was attempting to unscrew the hot water hose, he realized that he was bending the copper piping. Roy stopped so he would not break the pipe. The co-worker decided to give it a go, and cracked the pipe. Now there is hot water spewing from the wall. The co-worker was not mad, because he realized it was not our fault, but still we felt really guilty for breaking his pipe. After a trip to Home Depot, and finding the right clamp to seal off the leak, we were able to get the water back on to the house.

Roy and I quickly left before there were any more disasters.

So now laundry will actually be bearable and the money in the cushions will be used for movies.

Trader John, a local used book store keeps a portion of the store open 24 hours a day. Granted it is a rolling cart with a myriad of books on it. If you decide to buy a book, you drop a dollar in the mail slot. Mariness has commented on this cart before, so when I saw this story I instantly though of her. This would make her late night wanderings more interesting...if she was wandering in Paris.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050819/ap_en_ot/book_machines

I know that I have not been the best at keeping up on my portion of live journal, but it has been a crazy few months. I now have so many things going on that I can barely tell which was was up.

1) School - the fact I should be working on a paper about the Strategic plan of the American Library Association instead of typing this post.

2) Moving Roy Here - This weekend I will be working on moving Roy from Virginia to Florida

3) Finding a House - I have finally realized that I will never be able to find something outside of Crack Town for 170,000. Not to mention the $100,000 typo that another realtor made on Friday which had me scrambling to get a showing on a place that was supposed to be listed at $255,000 not $155,000.

4) Packing - I have been trying to pack up some of my stuff so we can put it in storage until we can find a bigger place to live.

However, there was one ray of sunshine that has been making me happy. Nothing has gone wrong with the wedding plans. Things were going wrong in other parts of my life, but the wedding has been smooth.

Until Today!!

I just spoke with the DJ. A person that I have known for about 10 years. He is a great guy. He's funny and knows my taste in music. I have used him for several events. There is no one else I would want to be my DJ. Everyone in my family is so happy that he will be the DJ. So when he called to tell me that he needs to coach a swim meet in Sebastian on the same weekend as my wedding....

I got a little upset!!

I am now looking at having to audition new DJs to replace him. This is not what I wanted to do. UGH. He did say that I could hold him to it, but I also don't want to deprive a group of high school from having their coach at the meet. I spoke to Roy, and we came up with a few ideas to ensure that we keep my original DJ. The favorite amongst them is going to all of the meets until the wedding and heckling all of the swimmers from that school, or bringing a starter pistol and firing 3 seconds before the official start so everyone gets disqualified. While we would never go through with either of these plans, it did help relieve the anxiety a little.

Hopefully, this will be the biggest problem that we will have to encounter.

As if my life were not busy enough.

I have finally gotten the Summer semester schedule figured out, and have squeezed in my study time and my study group time. I have my work schedule under control. I have my home schedule under control (insert I am avoiding doing any cleaning). I have gotten most of the wedding stuff taken care of as well. So now that I should be moving in a better direction, I have gotten a new project added to my To Do list.

BUY A HOUSE!!

Yeppers. I am now looking for a new house. My soon to be Mother-in-law decided to buy us a house as a wedding present. We will be assuming the mortgage, but she wants to know that we are in a place that is truly ours. I am amazed by this. I never thought that I would be in a house this soon. This is nutty. Of course Mom G. wanted to see what we could get for $100,000. After I told her that it would get us in crack town, she raised her limit to $175,000. So now I am looking for town houses or little starter homes in the area.

This is exciting, but also nerve wracking. Wish me luck!!

Today was a great day. The mail room brought me a care package from my sweetie. I love my care packages. They always contain some sort of odd gifts and plenty of sweets. This package contained a picture of a fencing bunny rabbit, and an Ikea catalogue that is in Spanish. The last time I checked I did not speak Spanish, so the best I can do is look at the pretty pictures. There is also the bags of treats for the cat and for me. The cat will be feasting on chicken treats while I will be enjoying fudge striped cookies, Take 5 bars, Hershey kisses and of course the Grand Daddy of them all. GODIVA TRUFFLES (insert the choir of angels here). What a way to start the weekend!!

For my current semester, I decided to take Human Sexuality and Social Change. On a whole the class is very interesting, even though my professor has the horrible habit of saying "what" every three seconds. Our first few weeks, everyone thought that he actually wanted an answer. Then we realized that this was an annoying habit, so we have started to ignore it entirely.

Since this class is about sex and the American society, we have talked about a myriad of issues such as prostitution and pre-marital sex. To prepare for our next class, we were assigned reading on our newest topic. Pornography. Thanks to one of my dear friends I have had a difficult time preparing for the class.

Over the weekend, I settled in to start my reading when I would get the voice of Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q singing "For Porn".

It was rather amusing, but now I am in fear of going into class next week and accidentally singing the song under breath.

This past week has been a roller coaster and I must say I have enjoyed the ride. After everyone left on Saturday night, Roy and I were relaxing before taking on the dishes, when he asked me if I would marry him. I am happy to report that I said yes. I am so happy that I could pop. The rest of the week was spent calling family members, taking engagement pictures, and deciding on a wedding date. It is an amazing feeling, and I am not sure when my feet will touch the ground.

For those that know my parents, they took the news really well and are excited for Roy and I. Pop was really relived to hear that Roy is moving down here so that I do not have to give up my education. All is good.

I am sure there will be more posts from me as the saga of wedding planning unfolds.

As most of you know, about a month and a half ago I got a new kitten. Trillian the Ankle Biter! Well, last night Trillian went home with a friend of mine from work. Trillian and Pumpkin were just not working out as a team. Trillian was always in play mode, and Pumpkin just wanted to sleep. I thought in the beginning it was going to be a good thing, but it was too much stress on Pumpkin. I put up an ad at work, and someone from the Human Resource Department came by and picked her up last night. They have a much younger cat that Trillian can play with, and the husband will be home during the day to have better control of her. I know it is better for Pumpkin to not have her there, but I do miss Trillian. I actually missed her tearing through the house this morning. Pumpkin also spent most of last night and this morning looking over her shoulder waiting for the Kitten Sneak Attack. Hopefully, we will all adjust back to normal soon.

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Tonight was rather amusing. No better yet, it was pretty damn funny.

Tonight, I worked at the Office Depot Center for the Cher concert. I never did see a bit of the concert, but I did a lot of people watching. That is sometimes just as amusing.

Well as usual, the concert did not start on time, and people in the nose bleed seats were saying that Cher would not go on unless they turned off the World Series in the concession areas. There are so many things wrong with this statement. the major one is how would people in the cheapest seats in the house know that Cher would not go on until the game was turned off.

Well the game was never turned off, and the concert finally started. There was a lull in the crowd, but there were still a lot of people in the concession area watching the game. At the end of the concert, no one really left. Most of them came into the concession area to watch the rest of the game. It was really fun to watch this screaming crowd watching the game.

So in the end, everyone won. Cher made millions at one event, the people at the concert could see a great show and watch the game, and the Marlins won the World Series.

What a great Saturday night.

I must say, the grapevine in the office has grown every where. I have gotten confirmation from both the employment agency, and everyone in the office, that i will soon be put on the payroll. This is AWESOME, but i have yet to get the official confirmation from my boss. Hopefully this will all be remendied next week.

It is quite amazing on how a couple of cans of pigmented liquid latex,can change one's mood. I have taken this weekend to paint over the pink and raspberry "textured" paint in the bedroom, and as I went through the process of priming the walls and putting the new color on I had a lot of time to think. The first thing that ran through my mind was "What was I thinking to paint the walls raspberry?" The second thought was more introspective. I looked at the paint as a fresh start. A clean slate. I have gone through a lot over the last few months, and it has been a turbulent time. Taking all of that into account, I wanted a color that was warm, fresh, and inviting. I decided on a medium shade of yellow that makes the entire room look brighter. Even now, as I sit back and admire my handiwork, I have to smile. The color is perfect, I feel like I have accomplished a major task, and I am sure the paint fumes are helping a little as well.

I know it seems odd to make an entire journal entry about a can of paint, and I did not create something as magnificent as the Sistine Chapel, but on some level that paint has become part of a masterpiece. And that masterpiece is me.