family

I'm exhausted, but thought I'd do a quick update (heavy on the pictures). We had a wonderful Easter weekend visiting my family in Augusta. We got to spend time with not only my parents, but also my brother (and his beautiful girlfriend) and my sister! This is a rare and blessed occurance, I can assure you. We spent lots of time chatting, watching golf, cooking, eating, and laying in the sun. We got to attend my parents' church, The Quest, today, which we really love. It makes me so happy to know there's such a wonderful place to worship and learn in Augusta. I love getting the opportunity to worship there, and as it's turned out, I think we've spent the last 3 Easters there!

Anyway, less talk, more pictures, right? Here we go.

The whole fam: Sarah, Mom, Matt, Me, Jake, Dad. And may the record state that Sarah and Mom are both wearing heels and I'm wearing flats...I'm actually NOT the shortest!

Jake and Emily...how a guy like him got a girl like her, I'll never understand!

The siblings. Here's a true story: one sibling fake-n-bakes regularly and two do not. Can you figure out who does what?

The kids, including Goliath, the world's most stressed-out dog!

My parents...they appear to be squatting (and laughing)...not sure why, but aren't they cute?!

Me, Mattie, and the beloved Lola. It was really hard to get her to cooperate for a pic...

That's all the pictures I have the patience to upload for now. Soon I need to do another picture post with pics I have from Matt's birthday, the house, and more! But right now, bed is looking a lot more tempting. Perhaps tomorrow.

Note of interest (to me, anyway): We weighed Lola this weekend and she weighs 52 pounds!!! Eek!! I had no idea!! What a hoss!

stressed.

UUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH

I feel STRESSED. I want to scream at the top of my lungs for about 5 minutes. It may or may not make me feel any better.

#1) So we won the bid on the house. Yay, right? Right, theoretically. But we have 48 hours (from 10 this morning) to turn in this big pile o' papers to the seller (HUD), all filled out, i's dotted and t's crossed. It's no big deal-- we actually filled them all out/signed them last week, before the auction was even over. The problem is this ONE stupid little prequalification form that USAA (our lender) has to fill out and fax back to us on their letterhead. We already had drama with this form last week, and the only REAL problem is that I can never TALK to anyone at USAA without waiting on hold for an hour first. It KILLS me. Just to ask a stupid 2 second question, I have to wait for between 30 min and an hour?? Tell me, who is going to be in a friendly mood after that...and I go through this EVERY DAY, because every day I (and by "I" I mean my Realtor) have SOME sort of question/clarification. So I get off work at 4:45, make the call in my car on the way home, and rarely get off hold/the phone before 6:30pm. GREAT way to start the evening. Anyway, today I was SO incredibly frustrated (more by being on hold than anything else) (oh, and cause the clock is ticking now) that I was not up to being my normally nice and easygoing self. The nice girl act wasn't getting me anywhere. So I tried a little honesty, and what do I get? Oh, I get transferred to someone's superior, who tries to "diffuse" my "escalating" temper. I'm sorry, but if you wouldn't KEEP ME ON HOLD FOR 6 HOURS A WEEK maybe my anger wouldn't be escalating.

So, we maybe have the house. If this stupid form isn't the death of us all. I will be more excited later, hopefully.

#2) Our OTHER next-door neighbors got robbed today. Yup, that's 2, count-em-up, TWO next-door-neighbors getting robbed in the past 5 days. That's all I got! Our house only has 2 sides, so that means ALL our next door neighbors have been robbed. Fabulous. This makes me feel really great about my life, my home, my stuff, and my dog's safety. A real safe haven. Now i get to look forward to driving home (on the phone, on hold) from work tomorrow ALREADY pissed off from being on hold, and I may or may not have an intact home/dog. FABULOUS.

#3) The only thing in the world that could have made my night better was watching last night's Amazing Race or last week's Office. Oh, guess what. Neither of those actually happend. LOVE YOU, NBC and CBS. Thanks for ruining my life.

and while I'm at it, let's move on to number 4, although it isn't really weighing heavy on the heart like #s 1-3...let's just toss it in there so you know why today really took the cake.

#4) While teaching this afternoon, one of my students oh-so-lovingly asks "Miss Erika...why do you have bumps on your face?" (as she uses her index finger to point to like 200 imaginary spots on her own face). WHY??? WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME, GOD? Why am I 26 and why do I have acne like a friggin middle schooler??? WHY? And thankyouverymuch little 4 year old, it's only currently THREE giant zits. Trust me, I know. I counted. And I can actually count, unlike you. So there.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

infinity

Do you have any idea how beautiful it is today in Athens, Georgia? Unless you happen to live here (which most of you do, ha), you may be unaware. It is absolutely perfect. That's the only way to describe it. I'm going to ignore the yellow coat of pollen covering everything and instead focus on the sunshine, the fabulous low-70s temperature, and the slight breeze. It's divine. Know how many days I could handle of this weather? Infinity. If every day of the rest of my life were like this, I would be okay with that. Anyway, just a quick update before I dash to a cookout. How perfect of a cookout day is it??!!

This weekend has been great so far. Last night was a Vineyard "Ladies Night" at Brett's (my fave restaurant). It was a wonderful evening. I had a long week, so it was so nice to just meet up with friends (and new friends) to enjoy a few hours of good food, drinks, and conversation. Matt had a friend come in from out of town, so he was able to spend some time with his friend as well-- so good times were had all around. After we ate, I went to Target with 2 friends. It's been a long time since I've been shopping with friends (usually it's by myself or with Matt) and we had fun being silly in the shoe section and looking at purses for entirely too long.

Today has been glorious in all aspects. We made a yummy breakfast (after sleeping until almost NINE O'CLOCK, which is really late for us) and then I went shopping (alone this time) for Matt's bday while he cleaned up and took Lola to the dogpark. I got Matt's presents and also managed to find 2 pair of shoes and a skirt for myself. Hey, a girl's gotta look spring-y, right?! I came home, wrapped the presents, and helped Matt bathe Lola outside when they got home. The dog park has apparently not recovered from the days of rain, and Lola found every mud puddle to play in.

The presents are on top of the bookcase, in case you couldn't tell. It's the only place I could think of that Lola couldn't reach. She's a crafty one, that Lola!

Anyway, we packed up a backpack full of provisions and loaded Lola back up into the car (although she was practically dead from dog park-induced exhaustion). It was time for her to experience her first UGA baseball game (and our first of the season). We love going to UGA baseball games because there is a place behind the outfield where you can sit (if you bring a chair) and enjoy the game for free! So there are always lots of people with their dogs, kids, food, radios, etc. It's a good time, and totally free. Unbeknownst to us, they had changed the game time to 2 hours earlier than originally announced, so we ended up getting there in the 7th inning, but it was fine. Lola did a good job. She was nervous with so many people and noise, but she didn't whine or bark and was very friendly to all the people who wanted to play with and pet her.

Here's the view from our seats. Since we got there so late, there weren't any really good spots left, but it was okay. The people in front of us were friendly and liked Lola, which is about as much as we could ask for!

We got back home, and now I'm sure Lola will sleep for at least 48 hours before waking. When she gets tired, she's done. And she's tired. And so is someone else:

(Note: We do in fact have a couch, a queen-sized bed, and a full-sized bed in our house. And an air mattress. Why he chooses to nap on the floor is beyond me.)

Better go wake him so we can go to the cookout! Enjoy the rest of your beautiful (if you live in Athens) weekend!

clementine??

I just finished watching last night's episode of Lost, and although it was indeed a very good episode and actually answered a few questions, the question that is left lingering in my mind is...Clementine? It's the name of a (very minor, or so we are led to think) character, and I'm just like...seriously? Could you EVER say that name without thinking of that song "oh my darlin', oh my darlin', oh my darrrrrrrlin' Clementine...." And now, after I've been singing that song in my head for the last 5 minutes and typing the lyrics out for the blog, it occurs to me that I don't know any more words than that. The words that come next in my head are the words I invented to go next back when I was like, 7 or something. I am 100% sure they are not the actual words, and in fact they make absolutely no sense. And yet they are there. Interesting. But anyway...

It's been another long week. Matt's been sick again (a stomach thing this time) but managed to miss only 1 day of week, which is definitely a record for him. He went back today, although I'm not really sure he felt any better. At least he didn't have a fever. Poor Mattie.

We are making a bid on a house! It's a HUD-owned home, which makes the bidding process very unusual...normally we would make an offer, which the seller would either accept or make a counter offer, something like that. With this house, there is a 10-day window in which the seller accepts bids. Like an auction. Only this is a silent and blind auction. You don't know who else is bidding, how much they are bidding, or anything. When the bidding is over (Sunday, April 5th, at midnight), they will open up all the bids and award the house (or the contract, rather) to the highest bidder. Weird, huh? So we've spent some time debating and debating what to bid...today we went to our Realtor's office and did all the paperwork. All we have left to do is get a certified check for $1000 that is our "earnest money" (Wiki it if you're as confused as I am about what exactly that is) and we will have officially entered the bidding! Although we really do like the house, I'm trying not to get too worked up about it, since it seems quite likely we won't end up getting it. But if we do...then yay! And there will be plenty more details forthcoming, if we win.

Tomorrow is Friday, which is a very good thing. This week has felt forever long. Our next-door-neighbors got robbed yesterday. Matt was home (sick), so heard about it both from our landlord and from the guys whose house it was. They came by to see if he'd seen or heard anything (he hadn't). These are scary times. I've been a pretty paranoid person for quite awhile anyway, and this has done nothing to soothe my fears. Ugh. Erin, our landlord, mentioned that since we have a big dog, that's probably in our favor (as far as not being next on someone's list of Houses to Rob). My feelings on that are....well, we keep Lola in a cage when we're gone. So a caged dog is probably not that scary. Now, we could start keeping her out when we're gone (someone run a cost-benefit analysis on that one...because she most certainly would ruin some of our stuff, versus maybe getting robbed and losing some stuff), but then I read earlier this week in the paper that some folks on the other side of town got robbed, and they had a dog, and the robbers just shot the dog. Took care of that little problem. So I figure I'd rather have Lola than any of my other stuff. But anyway...this topic isn't very uplifting...but it is on my mind, so there you have it.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything very interesting to talk about. My life hasn't been very interesting this week. On Tuesday night, after I got all freaked out reading about that insane computer worm/virus/terrorist thing that was supposed to be happening April 1st, I decided to back up some of the stuff on my computer. I'm too lazy to burn CDs though, so I just thought I'd save stuff to my flash drive that has all of like 256mb on it (it could be more, but whatever. It's small.) As I debated which things were the MOST important to save, Matt and I spent some quality time looking through the 8 years of crap I've been saving. I'm talking Instant Messenger conversations from my freshman year of college. OpenDiary entries I typed in Word and saved from high school. Matt got all caught up on my life of 8-10 years ago. It was pathetic. And hilarious. And, unfortunately for us all, did not get saved onto the flash drive...so God help us if we do get struck by the Configra (or whatever the heck it is) and we lose those priceless documents!!