My friends and I have a current e-mail conversation that is 43 (and rising) messages deep. There’s a few people in this conversation that do not use gmail.
For them, I am very sorry.

I just read that 80% of New Orleans is under water. The SMWB tells me that the storm changed direction right before it hit land, heading a bit more east. If the direction hadn’t changed, New Orleans probably wouldn’t exist anymore.

I mean, really. Can you even fathom that?

Saturday morning, I rode up north to Kentucky with the CPH’s parents to attend a wedding. We were headed to meet the CPH who had gone up the night before, as is customary for groomsmen to do. This wedding was especially touching for me, but I’m not entirely sure why. J* was a mutual friend of both me and the CPH during high school (more the CPH’s friend, but J* and I still considered each other friends). The CPH and I were acquaintances in high school but we weren’t great friends. And we’ve never been to a wedding of any of our high school friends. It was just nice being married and seeing one of our friends getting married. Go here for pictures.
On a less confusing note, the CPH will be lecturing at the next gallery opening (Sept. 9) at the Harrison Center for the Arts. He’s a GenX historian.

The CPH’s mom had a bunch of their old slides transferred to a cd recently. We now have them up on flickr.

Oh my goodness how cute my CPH is!

Yesterday, the CPH met me on the circle for lunch. As we were walking back around the circle and heading back to my office, CPH said (something to the effect of), “Indianapolis just isn’t the same without R* and Nathalie”.
And he’s right. We’ve got a big C* shaped hole in our hearts.

So all week long I’ve been reminding the CPH about a dinner date we have tonight with an old friend from high school. He’s tried to make plans for tonight with others so many times this week that I thought about writing “tonight is out” on his foreheard backwards. I get so frustrated at my husband because his memory is less than stellar. I feel like I’m constantly reminding him of something.
And then last night, as I looked over the email from our friend giving us directions, I realized that we were not meeting this week but next.
Doh.

Heater just tagged me…Ahhh….
Ok here goes.

10 years ago: 10 yrs ago, I started going to EKU. I had gone to a community college the year before and had decided I wanted to go away to school. I dont even know why I chose EKU, but it probably had something to do with the fact that my dad hated the idea.

5 years ago: 5 yrs ago, I was beginning my masters program at UTC. I had been working at the University Library for about six months prior and they had agreed to pay for my classes.

1 year ago: 1 year ago, I was working in a cooperative garden and having a good time meeting up with my friends once a month to harvest vegetables.

yesterday: yesterday, I sneezed all day long. Then I went home and sneezed some more. Sneezing is no fun.

5 snacks i enjoy: milk duds, pretzels and applesauce, grippos, nuts, canteloupe

5 songs i know all the words to: “nobody – Sylvia, “rockt to you The Jets, “little flowers Denison Witmer, “The Gambler Kenny Rogers, “Cover you The choir

5 things i would do with 100 million dollars: build a house for my moms in the woods by a river, send my in-laws to Canada forever (that sounds bad, but they want to go there!!), set aside funding for john for his phd work here, buy a house in fountain square, and start my dream business.

5 places i would run away to: Chugwater Wyoming, Seattle, New Mexico, Boston, and My moms house.

5 things i would never wear: Sorry, I got nothing here.

5 tv shows that i love: Only five!!?!!. Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica, Gilmore Girls, One Life to Live and The OC.

5 bad habits: Obsession, second guessing, peeking, trying to be too clever, quietness in large groups of people I dont know

5 biggest joys: Sleeping, Coughing in a library, Babies, Tivo, and making my husband laugh.

5 favorite toys: Tivo, My ferrets (collectively), My laptop, Headphones at work, any couch I can fall asleep on.

4 people i’m tagging: Amy, Sister-in-law, James and Nathalie.

The CPH and I went up north on Sunday to visit our friends who run an organic farm. We had a great time. We got to see lots of animals (Sheep and Cows and Chickens, oh my!). We always buy our eggs from C* and Katie and we even got to gather our own while we were there.
We had a great day topped off by a marvelous drive home (driving in the country with the windows rolled down is one of our favorite things to do). However, yesterday I was sneezing like the dickens. Which made me really sad because if you know me, you know that my dream is to gather my own little peeps on my own little farm and live in my own little heaven until I die.
And I really…don’t want…to…achoo….have to…achoo…sneeze…all…the…freakin’...achoo…time.

Someone asked me the other day if my brother and I are much different from each other. My initial response was that we have a lot of similar interests.

Like ferrets. . . and . . .

I’ve realized this week that my brother and I are, in fact, very different people. For one, my brother is a talker. He talks all the time. I’m pretty sure this is something he’s picked up from his wife as none of the rest of us are big talkers. I talk a lot when I’m drunk and occasionally when I’m alone with a person that I’m just getting to know. Other than that, I’m pretty quiet.

Also, my brother loves computer games. Ok, this one I knew, but I don’t think I ever understood the depth of his admiration. When I wake up in the morning, he’s playing games. When I say goodnight, he’s playing games.

Of course, this could be one of the things that we have in common. I am an obsessive thinker and he is obsessed with his game.

Yay for common ground.

Oh yeah. We both like cookies.

Yesterday was D* and Amy’s anniversary. They are two years old. Aren’t they so cute?

Today, the CPH’s brother and his wife are celebrating their third anniversary. Happy anni, Dean and Erin!

My brother and his wife are coming into town tonight. Last night, we went to the grocery store and stocked up. And then I made guacamole and some cookies. I feel that my cooking skills, when compared to theirs, is very inadequate. I have to admit I’m feeling a bit intimidated. But they’ll be graceful and loving and will eat whatever I make for them.

Ha.

That’s so not true.

Every morning when the alarm goes off at 5:30 telling me it’s time to get up if I want to make it to the gym in time to be able to be at work by 8:30, I am devoid of motivation. I have, at least, a 10 minute inner-dialogue on the pros and cons of getting up before the sun rises. But I know that if I do get up and head to the gym, I will feel better in the end.
This is nearly the same way I feel about making new friends.
The CPH and I met some new neighbors for coffee yesterday afternoon. We had been emailing back and forth for a good three months and finally set a meeting time and place in stone this past week.
We got along famously and I’m sure we’ll become grand friends (or something), but it was so hard to talk ourselves into meeting.
I wonder why this is?

I don’t have a picture of my brother handy. Flickr does me no good because we’ve only been using Flickr for, well, less than a year and it’s been over two years since I’ve seen my brother.
He’s turning 32 this year. He’s coming to visit me next week, so I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures.

The CPH reminded me that I have a picture of R* from his wedding three years ago.

This confuses me.

Because isn’t this site less about how to write a novel in 100 days, and more about reading, in 100 days or less, how to make your already well thought out novel a little better.

Don’t take up 100 days of my precious time bullshitting your way to the top of the delicious popular page.

I was hoping for more like…
Day one: Write down 5 of your most vivid childhood memories….

Last night, the CPH caught Nathalie cheating. And apparently, even though neither R* nor I saw it, she was blatantly cheating. Right then and there – That is when I realized that I truly loved her.
She and I are kindred spirits.
It was quite surreal watching her getting caught and then watching her temperment change to sad and then to angry and the whole time I’m thinking, “Holy Shit, this chance just does not come very often”. Looking at her, I was really looking at me. See, I am a cheater. I admit it. And, of course, I’ve never known exactly what others see in me when they catch me cheating. So to be able to see myself, through her, gave me a jolt of energy.
I mean, she looked so cute, being caught and all.
I should cheat more often.

Our friends, R* and Nathalie are in town this week. R* defended his thesis yesterday and it went splendidly (thanks for asking!). Yesterday evening, we celebrated with a dinner at R*’s favorite “fancy” restaurant (but we all know what his “real” favorite restaurant is…). The CPH made a comment once we were in the car that I always seem to clam up when I’m around one of his professors. And I have to admit, I feel a bit imtimidated by this particular professor, who I think exudes her brilliance in a calm and collected and not at all showy way. I have no doubt that she actually tries NOT to intimidate people, which unfortunately imtimidates me more.
-Mental note to try to engage myself in more conversations with this particular, A.C.
After dinner, we headed over to our favorite neighborhood wine bar and sat and laughed for a good couple of hours about sherpas. Okay they laughed about sherpas. I didn’t laugh about sherpas. Because I had no idea what sherpas are. The whole time they were talking about them, I imagined them to be little prairie dogs. Which is pretty funny if I think about it now. Nathalie was talking about how she had several sherpas guiding her as she summited up a volcano last summer. I mean, c’mon, go ahead and imagine Nathalie being led up a icy volcano by four prairie dogs.
Nathalie is leaving tomorrow and R* on Friday. I wish I could keep them forever and ever.

Sunday night, we were sitting around a dining room table talking with some friends about prayer, church membership, and communion. I have to admit – this doesn’t happen very often. We are nearly carbon copies of our college friends, so we never really have religion talks.
And I couldn’t be happier with where we sat on Sunday night. I absolutely love getting to know people on these basic and often, unexplainable, levels.
One girl admitted that she’s never been baptized and that she’s, technically, not even allowed to take communion at our church. She said that she demands so many questions answered before she can make the committment of baptism. And she doesn’t like the ambiguity of Jesus’ path to heaven. She, instead, prefers the strictly enforced and perfectly laid out rules of the old testament.
And while I disagree with her, elated that I am given a choice to take the easy way out, I understand her need. So many people need questions answered and they’ll sometimes admit that the answers don’t even have to be the right answers.
Because any answer is better than no answer at all.

Today is Amy’s birthday. Right now she’s in San Diego, staying the night in some big swanky hotel that her dad got them for the next few nights.

Hope it’s a good one, Amy Cat!

Go here. But don’t spend all your money just yet. I’m hoping to have some stuff up in a month or so.

Does anyone else find it amazing that someone can look at my ovaries and tell me the approximate time I’m going to ovulate?
We have visitors coming on Monday. There may be times that we run off to do some little (hint, hint) errands. How exactly do we explain those little errands that the CPH and I have to run every single day for the next week?
Hopefully, this post will work.
:)

You know those kind of dreams that you are so relieved once you wake up and realize it was only a dream….?.....
I had one of those this morning.
I was dreaming that I went into the front room with the CPH (who wasn’t the CPH, but was a girl who was my, I guess, CPLP, but was still my CPH) and we were going to lay down in that room where it was nice and dark. Instead, I noticed that I was peeing and I couldn’t control it. When I looked down the front room floor was flooded. Well not completely flooded, but there were little pools of my urine all over the floor. and it had seeped outside onto the porch. I went out onto the porch (which wasn’t my porch at all, but the porch of my grandmother’s house) with my vacuum cleaner and I was cleaning it up and this big fat cat kept getting in the way.
I screamed, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone back to sleep after my workout, now I’m going to be late for work”.
Then, I suddenly realized (yes, in my dream) that I had to be dreaming. And I was so relieved when I woke up and found myself on my couch with my cell phone alarm not going off for another 15 minutes.

As soon as I got home from work on Monday night, I fell asleep. I slept until about 8:30pm. I went back to bed around 11pm and woke up the next morning around 5:30am. So yesterday, i was feeling pretty refreshed. Last night, I maybe slept for half that amount of time and today, I’m dog tired.
I just really think that my body needs more than 6 hours of sleep a night.

The CPH told me about this not long ago. I haven’t had a reason to use it, but now I can keep our ebay earnings up there so my business partner can see it as well.
Here are our first two earnings sheets.

and

As you can see, Jamie is making most of the money, but as a partnership, we’re still splitting it down the middle (after we are reimbursed for our inventory). It’s been an alright experience, but I think I’ll do it maybe once a month, where I expect she’ll be doing it once a week.

Had a good weekend. It was nice and relaxing while completely exhausting at the same time. Went out Friday night with my sister. Went to this bar that her friend works at and made off well with only paying 10 dollars for at least 5 drinks each. First time ever, my mom had to come get me from a bar, which I guess is an experience everyone should have at least once in their lives.
Saturday equaled awkward time spent with family that I see once a year. There were glimmers of a good time. I absolutely loved watching my uncles interact. For the most part I could do without my aunts, because they sit and talk about boring aunt-y things. But my uncles…My uncles bet against each other, swear at each other and playfully sabotage each other’s fishing strategies so that they can get the hands of the winning pot.
On an interesting note: there was only one baby at the reunion. It makes me a little sad that the Daugherty’s are a dying breed.