Less than two weeks...

OK, these last two weeks have been a little crazy. How to explain it all? As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words...

CRN	Subject	Course	Section	Course Title	Campus	Final Grade	Attempted	Earned	GPA Hours	Quality Points
12761	PE	103	591	Aerobic Fitness	Florissant Valley	A	1.000	1.000	1.000	4.00
12571	PE	131	463	Fitness Center II	Forest Park	A	1.000	1.000	1.000	4.00
11388	REL	100	650	Real Estate Sales Procedures	Meramec	A	4.000	4.000	4.000	16.00

OK, it's a bit braggy to paste in my grades. But I'm particularly proud of the phys ed classes because I really am trying to work out more and get healthier. Plus, for the aerobic fitness class, I sucked at sit-ups, so I was really worried about that one... But it's just grist for the mill, baby, fodder for the... whatever. I really improved my time on a one-mile walk in the 8 weeks of that course, so now I just gotta do sit-ups, that's all there is to it. And truth be told, I'm at least somewhat proud of the RE grade. I mean, that little puppy represents a significant time commitment, let me tell you. Probably wouldn't have taken the class, if I had know ahead of time. Besides, I've been wanting to do something RE related for years, especially after I was less than 100% thrilled with the last agent I dealt with. So it's a little bit of attaining a goal in that regard.





That brings us to: My very first vest. It was supposed to be a sweater, but the pattern was wrong. I know enough about knitting to figure out that it was wrong, but not enough to figure out how to fix the mistake. So I improvised.

I almost gave it to my friend Elyssa, as she has a 2 year old, but she said, no, she thought it was special and we should keep it (or so she said :-) ). Brian was nearby when I had that conversation with her, and I found out later he held his breath waiting for her response, because he really likes it for our future child. I just didn't like the idea of holding on to something for 3-4 years, 'cause that's probably how long it's going to take for that little vest to get used...




This next picture carries two meanings. First, that's Gally-boy in the car. We're on the way home from the vet, having just found out he's going to need surgery on a tendon that's making him limp. Fortunately, nothing particularly complicated and well worth the investment for his health, both short-term and long-term.

But next, can you see how crumpled up the rear door is, and a little bit over the rear wheel? The front door is dented, too, but not nearly as much. That's how my car looked after I got hit by a lady that ran a red. She says I ran the red. The police report says either one of us may have run the red. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Really, if it had been front to back rather than a t-bone, it would have been more of a fender-bender. Witnesses, if any, were unavailable, at the time the report was written.

The car insurance totaled it. I bought this car with inheritance money from my dad. It may sound silly, but I've always thought dad bought the car for me, and I cried this weekend for maybe the fifth or sixth time in my entire relationship with Brian at the thought of losing it. I didn't know I was so attached to that little car, but we've just been through a lot, that little car and me - we even took a trip around 14 or 15 states, can't remember exactly. Just me, the car, and my dog.

We're still deciding whether to buy the car back from the insurance company and try to repair it, or just take the total amount and apply it to a new car. The votes from friends and colleagues have come in about evenly split. Noticeably, the 2 most financially solvent people I know - my mom and my friend Ed - say to repair the car. I had put a note on the car three years ago to pay off credit card debt and had made the last payment about 2 and half months ago. Go figure. So that makes it really hard to stomach the idea of a brand new car payment. And who wants to buy a new car right before they have a kid or two, so they can urp and burp all over it?

In any case, these are some that we're looking at:

TOYOTA MATRIX



Or possibly a MAZDA 5...




I can't photo-shop it right, but imagine my little gray car up there, with a few of the dings beaten out, enough so it's drivable. Because we're considering that, too, for sure.

Of course, my sleep stuff is acting up, my usual response to stress. That's why I'm blogging at 2:34 in the a.m. More's been going on - my division was getting down-sized, so my job was on the line, but now it's not. And other things. But I'm going to try to get some rest now.

My, oh my. Could it be that it's already one week into May? A good portion of Spring gone by?! Where has this year gone, for cryin' out loud?!?

Well, I know for us, it's been craaazy busy. We're still setting up bank accounts together, joining our car insurances, and so forth. Structural integration, as it were.

I'm getting my real estate license. I've loved all things real estate for some time now, and have wanted to learn more about the field in general in preparation for when we sell this house, buy a new one, etc. I knew taking that class was a significant commitment of time and energy; turns out, it was substantially more than I had originally calculated. But I've quite enjoyed the class; it's kind of a hobby-type interest that will probably help us in the long run.

Brian's had to work late a lot lately. I wonder how often it happens that a spouse doesn't really understand that much about what the other does? He understands much more about my work than I do about his, for sure. If he doesn't know something, I can get my meaning across in a few sentences. But for me, on the other hand... Obviously, I can tell from his tone and demeanor whether he's had a good day or bad day, but too much more than that and I get lost pretty quickly. But I think he's more looking to vent or to share something he's proud of, not give a two hour lecture on the inner-workings of his job. So I listen and try to be supportive.

We've been watching with baited breath as the primaries have unfolded, happy with the results so far, wishing things were clearer, and not envying the super-delegates, who are going to have to finish this, with one side or the other unhappy with their choice. Hopefully, in the end, people will support whatever dem takes the nomination.

I haven't got much else to memorialize here. The point of the blog is to help us remember later what's happened but honestly, things have been so busy, we've barely had a chance to hang out with anybody, do anything besides work on the house, work on my class, trying to work out more (just Saturday, I downloaded a bunch of songs to work out to onto my mp3 player that Brian gave me, filling it up with my favorite songs from the 80s that he had ripped onto his computer from his CD collection) (it's funny to me to think of how we were growing up, listening to the same songs at the same time, not knowing that years later, we'd meet, get married, and how our favorite songs would match up), working on our respective projects (I long ago conceded the lawn to nature and the dogs; Brian has taken up that mantle and is doing a good job of it. I continue to knit knit knit, as the exemplars here show, and thanks to the dogs for modeling some of the projects I've made for myself), work at our respective jobs, enjoying each other's company, as always.

Ooo. I will spend a second on that - how we enjoy each other's company. I do so love pal-ing around with Brian. We just like to hang out with each other, you know? I'm sure I've blogged about it before. We complement each other nicely, I think.

Last thing - we've discussed with both families that we're not going to go to both families for every holiday. Seriously, every single holiday was becoming a marathon, bouncing from one family event to the other. It had gotten that we weren't enjoying them anymore. The first one we missed was Easter on his side; that was de facto because he needed to pack for Canada, not the result of a strategy on inter- and intra-familial dynamics. But it went over OK. And, since the next big thing is Mother's Day, we announced we won't be hanging out with my family for that. The announcement was not met with gut-wrenching dismay or anything, although I think my mom did sniffle once or twice while we were talking. Just kidding, actually both moms have been very supportive, I just know she would have enjoyed having us over... And it's not like we're going to ignore them, we get together almost every week, so we'll celebrate the moms in my family then, we're just not going to kill ourselves this weekend to make sure we're at all the special gatherings known to mankind. Depending on how things get planned out, we may actually be able to stop in on our way there or back...

So we'll see how the new dynamics work out. I don't like that we have to miss one or the other, and we probably will try to make it to both for the big holidays. Also, once we have a kid or kids, it'll all have to change again, most likely, but at least we're finding a way to balance things in this phase. We'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there. And we'll just say ooooooommmmmmm and breathe until then, as much as we can.