Updates

Alrighty. Time for another update, this time, with pictures!

First off are some pictures of Aaron's Halloween costume, as a robot:





My folks came out this weekend for their first visit since they had helped us move out in the Fall of 2007. I had my camera with me everywhere we went, but there never seemed to be any photo opportunities, but I did manage to get a few at home. They were planning on coming out on Friday evening, but due to the blizzard that hit the Black Hills a few days prior, the roads in most of South Dakota were still closed, so they postponed their trip by one day, and stayed an extra day.

Dad and Odin spent most of the time tormenting each other. Sometimes I felt bad for Odin, but I stopped feeling bad for him once I realized that he just kept coming back for more, again and again.

We visited a natural history museum on the U of M campus on Sunday. We also went to a beer brewing supply store so Dad could pick up some stuff for his brewing at home. We ate a LOT! Some days, I felt like that was all we did. And drove around a lot, kind of giving my folks the tour of the city. On Monday we visited the Mall of America, my folks had never been there before. That was okay, and took up a lot of the morning and some of the afternoon. We managed to find a nice light jacket for Aaron for 75% off at Eddie Bauer, so that was pretty cool. On Tuesday, Aaron had to work, so we ran some errands, and Mom needed new windshield wipers for her car.








All in all, a good weekend, sad that it had to end, but dealing with the 3 day work week pretty well, haha.

Getting back to work sucked! It was like Monday, with three times the work load, voice messages, and emails. I had 20 new voicemails this morning, and 23 new emails. Holy crap. It took me past lunch time to return all the voicemails! I even explicitly said on my voice greeting that I would be gone on Monday and Tuesday, and back on Wednesday. Some people kept calling and calling and leaving message after message. "I've been trying to get a hold of you! Maybe you're on vacation?" Well, if you would take the time to listen to the message, maybe you would figure that out on your own. Sheesh.

Whew.

Winter's Coming

So back home (in Spearfish, my second home), they got a few feet of snow over the last couple of days, and roads have shut down, no traveling.  My folks were supposed to come out today to visit for a long weekend, but ended up having to postpone their trip by one day (hopefully only one day!), so we don't get to see them until tomorrow night.  Bummer.  But, that gives us extra time to get the apartment cleaned up!  Yay!

I'm so glad that we did not get the feet and feet of snow here!  To be perfectly honest, I am kind of scared of driving my new car in the snow.  I got it in the spring/summer, and I haven't driven a manual transmission in over 5 years.  I sometimes squeak the tires just driving on rain-slicked roads, going from a stop to a start.  I am just going to have to drive extra super careful right away until I get used to how it handles. 

I'm excited for my folks to come out!  This will be the first time they've visited us since they initially helped us move all of our stuff out here in the Uhaul and Dad's truck.  And it will be the first time I've gotten to see them since we went back home for a week in June.  I think we're going to do a tour of a beer brewery, find Dad some beer brewing supplies, go to the infamous Mall of America (on a weekday, NOT the weekend), maybe the Minnesota Zoo. 

Work is starting to get better.  The new guy started this Monday, but of course is still in training, and will be for an additional two weeks.  Once training is over, then he will get his own caseload.  My caseload was decreased a teeny bit when some of my groups were given to a co-worker, and it has helped out tremendously.  I'm still not caught up to where I want to be, but I feel like I can breathe again when I look at what work I have to do for the day.

Sorry about no pictures yet of the Halloween costumes.  I have a couple of Aaron's robot costume on my camera that I have yet to load onto the computer, as well as one picture of the two of us at my co-worker's party that she took.  Just need to get them on the computer so I can link them on here.  It's about 6am right now, and I was just quick posting before I had to start getting ready for work!

Have a great weekend!

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Halloween 2008

Whew, what a weekend (and it's not even 6am on Sunday).  On Friday, we got to dress up at work (as long as it was appropriate attire), and there was a costume contest, a candy game, and good times over all.  I went as a mad scientist, Dr. Horrible, from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog by Joss Whedon.  It wasn't a perfect likeness, so I mostly was just a mad scientist with a freeze ray gun, and fuzzy, purple hair.

One of my co-workers invited me to her Halloween party that was on Saturday night.  We had to find a costume for Aaron, which was proving to be hard, after visiting a few costume stores.  I just didn't like any of them, and neither did he.  Then on Thursday, he sends me a message while I'm at work that he wants to be a box-robot!  How fun!  I was still searching for stuff for my costume, so I went to one of our favorite little stores, Ax-Man.  It's a surplus store - everything that was ever in a junk drawer at home?  This is where it comes from.  I got boxes, reflectors, LED lights, mailbox flags with reflectors, and an old-style oven timer.  This was going to be so cool!

It took us most of the afternoon on Saturday to complete the costume.  A lot of the initial time was spent waiting for glue to dry.  It was a very intricate suit - with a speaker in the front for listening to music, two bottles on little shelves in the inside corners of the suit, hooked up to funnels on the outside for drinking - one for beer, one for liquor.  Straws attached to those so Aaron could drink without leaving the costume.  LED lights diffused by wax paper for eyes, and dryer tubing, that aluminum looking stuff, for his arms.  We plastered the whole thing in aluminum, and were set!

Odin had a blast the whole time, ever since I brought the boxes home on Thursday.  He would climb up them and in them, loved the LED lights and the noise of the aluminum foil when we were putting it all together.  We will definitely have to store the robot in the garage for next year, that way he doesn't destroy it (and I don't know where we'd keep it in the apartment, anyway!)

He was an instant hit at the party.  We explained it to a lot of people.  Most people wondered how he was going to pee, as we had not created any sort of hatch in the front or back.  The costume was like a little oven, so he ended up having to take it off several times throughout the night to cool down.  I only knew a couple of people at the party, my co-worker Lori, and her roommate whom I'd met a couple of times before.  Everyone else was new to us.

There were tons of people, good music, TONS of good food, tippy cup and beer pong to play down stairs, and just a good party atmosphere.  Until Aaron got pushed up the stairs by some drunk guy, and he's not sure exactly what happened, but I think the oven timer fell out of the front of the costume, and then broke.  He had to throw it away.  Then he came and told me about it, which sucked.  I'm sure the guy was probably drunk and did not mean to do so, but c'mon.  He's a giant box robot - he can't just hop up those steps real quick.  So, we hung around a bit longer, then said goodbye and headed home.  It was a lot of fun, up until the end.

Amazingly, we were home right around midnight, which isn't too terribly late.  I was, however, up at 6am today because I never sleep well after I've been drinking.  Oh well. 

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Dentist

Just got back from the dentist's office this afternoon.  It was my first visit with that dentist (and my first visit in about three years).  I have perfectly healthy teeth and gums!!  But, I have a pretty severe TMJ problem, just like my sister (only I'm taking care of mine sooner than she did, so hopefully I won't have the same problems and expenses as Ashley). 

No cleaning for this appointment, just x-rays and poking around.  I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to have my teeth cleaned and impressions made for a splint.  After the splint is fabricated, we'll see where my jaw WANTS to be, and not where my teeth are making it go.  Hopefully it doesn't move too far and I don't end up needing ortho work (again!).  Hopefully the splint will just fix everything and I won't even have to be referred to a TMJ specialist!

I had originally made an appointment to see a dentist because my jaw was giving me lots of problems.  Couldn't chew on the right side of my mouth without the left side of my jaw hurting, I think I was grinding my jaw during work (high stress right now, as my workload tripled a month ago), and possibly during sleep.  Also, I couldn't even bite down all the way - my molars wouldn't touch each other.  By the time I made it into the dentist today, that had gone away, but it's still sore, and I'm still getting headaches.  Hopefully we can put an end to it soon, and I think my dental insurance will cover most of this!

Not much else to say at this point.  Kinda nice to get off work after only five hours AND feel like I accomplished more today than I did yesterday in eight hours of work!

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Concert weekend

Aaron and I got to go see Mason Jennings in concert at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Minneapolis last night, thanks to my dad (a birthday present). The concert was great! I was worried I wouldn't know many of the songs, because I don't have a full album of his work, not even one, I have just downloaded songs from the internet, and kept the ones I liked. Fortunately, I had downloaded fairly popular songs!

The opening act was Zach Gill, from California. He sang witty songs, clever lines, and made the audience laugh. He reminded me of a non-country Jalan Crossland, for those of you who know who he is. Then Mason Jennings came out, and had Zach Gill on keyboard for most of the show, except for the songs that didn't require keyboard, or the songs that Mason himself played keyboard. I have some pictures from the concert that were fairly decent, considering we weren't close enough that a flash bulb would do any good, and I had to take a bunch with different ISO and exposure settings to get it just right.








We weren't terribly close, but it was a small theater, with good sound, and no one was sitting in front of us, so that always helps :)

Here are some videos I found on YouTube, as well.





I could only find a couple that I could link from YouTube that weren't live (just doesn't sound as good). Oh well. Enjoy! I know I did!

Ooofta

It's been a while since I last posted, sorry.  Work has been crazy-busy with my full caseload, and usually when I get home, I don't feel like recapping my day.  Last weekend Aaron and I didn't do anything, which was nice.  This weekend, we drove to Hudson, Wisconsin for a wedding - one of Aaron's co-workers got married.  It was a lot of fun. 

There was a long Catholic mass/ceremony, and you could tell that not many of their friends and family were Catholic, as they didn't know when to stand or sit, or what words to say or sing.  I was able to help Aaron and the other people around us to know when to stand, and when to shake hands and say "Peace be with you."  I think the last time I was at mass was during another wedding, back in 2006, I think.  Needless to say, I was a little rusty, but it was all very familiar, and kind of like riding a bike - you just never forget.

The weather was beautiful, the trees in Hudson are great oranges and reds, just the way I like 'em. 

I got to see Jess and Bret's baby for the first time - he's four weeks old now.  What a cutie.  I was holding him and burping him, and he just wasn't burping or anything, and then all of the sudden, he turns his head and spews all down the side of my shirt.  Oh well, it dried up pretty quick, and didn't leave any stains.  I knew what I was getting into when I got him.

The leaves out here are starting to drop rapidly - I'm watching them shower off the trees in the back yard through the window right now.  So we definitely want to plan the wedding for before the leaves all drop. 

Well, that's about it for me.  Two weeks' worth, and barely a full post. 

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What a week

Man, it's been a long week.  I'm starting to get used to being busy all the time at work - it's a little hard, as I was used to having some free time to talk to people and take some breaks.  I'm ready for a three-day weekend, that's for sure.

Our city is doing an inspection of the apartment complex tomorrow, so we had to get the apartment all spiffed up for that - they are doing random inspections of apartments, so you don't know if they're going to show up, and of course, we're both at work tomorrow, so we can't be there. 

I got to go to my first hockey game this week, too!  One of my co-workers has season tickets, but couldn't make it to the game, so she offered the pair of tickets to another co-worker, who then called me to see if I had any plans for the evening.  It's rare that we do have plans, so I was able to go.  It was a fun time!  I'd never been to the Xcel center before, and I'd never seen a hockey game before, not even high school or college league.  I'm really glad I got to go, it was an awesome time (and you can't beat free tickets!!).  So thanks to Karolyn and Lori for that.

I've been slacking on my working out.  When the softball games started, it interrupted me being able to go work out every day during the work week, which threw me all off.  Then, it got really popular after about 5pm, and I usually get home around 4:30pm, so I have to get home and change as soon as I'm home (which keeps me from sitting in front of the TV and not going at all...), but it feels rushed.  I might start going into work half an hour early, and then leaving at 3:30pm, so I can be home by around 4pm, and not have to worry about the rush.

Well, I guess that's it for me, just wanted to do an update since I hadn't done one in a while.

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Alrighty

It's been a while since I updated, so I thought I'd add some pictures and just general stuff in this post.

I have a full caseload at work now - I've been very blessed that the first eight months at the company that I have had a relatively small caseload, in order to get used to the system, the rules, and to find my own way of managing all of this. One of my co-workers is moving from the short term disability department over to long term disability, so I have taken on all of her groups, as well as the ones I was already managing. So instead of getting one to two new claims every couple of days, I'm getting four to seven new claims each day. I am busy, that's for sure, but before, I didn't really have a lot to do, and was constantly looking for other things to keep me busy throughout the day. So this will be a nice, brisk change of pace that I am looking forward to. This all started on Monday the 15th, so this was my first week with the full caseload. Whew. I made it through alive.

I found out about a company called the Paper Depot through a co-worker of Aaron's. They specialize in creating your own invitations, for anything from parties, to weddings. They have tons of samples of other works that have been done there, they have workshops, and all the supplies you could ever need to make your own wedding invitations. Paper punches, stamps, embossing powder, glue, envelopes, all kinds of paper, etc. It was very cool. I stopped by there after work some time this week, and played with a bunch of the paper punches that they had - they have sample paper that you can use to test out the punches, which I thought was really cool. Here's some of the ones I liked the best:







Those are not the colors I would choose, but I just picked out the red as a sharp contrast to the off-white colored scrap paper they provided. I was thinking more orange and brown or green for the invitations, or all three. And maybe red. Who knows.

Then, this morning Aaron and I had an appointment at the Earle Brown Heritage Center to view the rooms to be rented and the grounds. We'd already been to the grounds when Aaron's folks were in town a couple of weeks ago. I never put pictures up because I just was too tired after that weekend, and was still recovering from my cold. When I took the outdoor pictures, there weren't any fall colors yet, but there are a few starting to show up now.










The indoor pictures were taken today. It's a nice room, with a lot of history. Not sure if the tapestry and case with old horse equipment is going to go with the theme, but we can work around that, and cover it up, if need be. We just can't take it down.

The woman who gave us the tour was nice, but didn't have a lot of information for us as far as renting went, which was fine, because it was nice to not be pressured into picking a date or anything like that right away. I still want to talk it all over with Aaron this weekend, but I think that's the place for us.

And then here are some new pictures of Odin, playing with his new catnip-stuffed toy I made for him this evening. He was drooling all over it once I finally finished it and let him play.




Oh, and on Monday this week, I met up with a florist - I work with her mom at the insurance company. The three of us had lunch, and I showed her pictures of the flowers I am thinking of using for the wedding. I want flowers that aren't "traditional" and that have lots of texture and personality. She agreed that a lot of the flowers that I picked out were great for the time of year, and that we could do a lot of fun things with them, so that was exciting. Every time I go into the grocery store, I wander by the floral department, and usually have my camera in my purse, so I've been trying to get some pictures of them, even though I might not know the names of them, a florist would. I'll post pictures later, maybe.

That's it for now!

I think we've got it figured out

Alright, I think we have our wedding venue picked out!  I told Aaron earlier in the week that I wanted to have a venue picked out by the end of the month, because there's only about a year to go until the wedding.  We still don't have an exact date, but I want it to be during the fall colors.  They are just starting to show up on some of the maple trees.

Anyway, I really liked both Centennial Lakes Park in Edina, and the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center.  Aaron hadn't seen the Centennial Lakes Park because I went there after work one day and took pictures, and all I could find was a small tri-fold with information about renting.  I had contacted the Earle Brown Heritage center via email and requested a rental information packet from them, and received a very nice one, which had information about all the food and drink they serve, detailed pictures of the rooms and layouts of them, etc.  Aaron didn't want to waste time going down to Edina yesterday to look - he said we should just go with the Earle Brown because the costs seem very reasonable, and it's VERY close to where we live. 

So we started breaking everything down, and I think we can definitely do something VERY nice that is within our budget.  I'm really excited.  I sent an email to the woman who sent me the package (since it was Saturday, after all), and let her know we were interested in a certain time frame, and asked when we might be able to go and visit.  Hopefully I will hear back from her early in the week.

Aaron and I have really been enjoying our weekend so far - all we've done is some grocery shopping as far as getting out of the apartment.  We did some cleaning, as we hadn't really done that since BEFORE the boys showed up for Labor Day Weekend.

We're going to reinstate Game Night on Wednesday nights - we played cribbage for the first time in a LONG time last night.  Aaron figured the reason Game Night disappeared during the summer was from a multitude of things.  Being busy, it just being unreasonably hot in the apartment, Aaron starting to play World of Warcraft again.  So it'll be nice to have our Game Night back!

That's about it for now.  Until next time!

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Tooth Dream

I had a dream this morning that my bottom molars on the right side were coming loose, but just the tops of them, not the whole tooth.  I needed to get to a dentist, and I was in this overly large office building of some sort that had every kind of store, office, shop imaginable, but it was so big that I couldn't find the dentist. 

Plus, I had been wandering around trying to find Aaron, and I found him on a deck/porch with a bunch of friends, smoking a cigarette with them!  I was SO mad.  He hadn't smoked in at least two years, and there he was, doing it again.  I stormed off, still in the pursuit of a dentist. 

I ended up finding a bathroom to check out my teeth in.  The tops were so loose, I just pulled them all off, so I wouldn't accidentally bite down on them and break something.  I wrapped them in a paper towel, to save for later, but underneath the tops of my teeth were wires, sprouting everywhere!  They were the nerve endings.  I had to be careful not to bite down on them, either, and I couldn't move them around easily, there were so many, and they sprouted up so tall.  How could all of those fit under my tooth??

And that's it...so strange.  I seem to be having a lot of tooth dreams lately.

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