weekend update

Not too much going on with us this weekend. I got an invitation to a birthday party for last night, so I went there. It was for my best friend in junior high, Brittany. I think I had seen her once about 4 year ago when I was working at the 10 Minute Lube for a summer back in Gillette. She lives surprisingly close to us, and her house was pretty easy to find, considering I was driving in the dark to a place I'd never been, without the usual help of my navigator, as he was out with some work buddies.

It was really great to see Brittany again, and she hasn't changed hardly at all. She lives in this great old house that was built in the 1860s, I believe, so it has a lot of character and cool decorations (most of which were added during remodeling). I met a lot of new people, we played Wii Sports most of the night, and had a good time. We're going to try to get together for coffee or something sometime to catch up.

We spent most of this morning cleaning the apartment, as the living room and most definitely the kitchen have been neglected for the last month, since we got Odin. Not that he hampers us from cleaning, it's just that we haven't. Also, we've been busy going out and doing stuff on our weekends off, since this is the first month we've gotten weekends off together since we've known each other.

I'm thinking that in the next couple of weeks, I'll have to go out to Fargo to see Jill, or Wisconsin to see Katie, as they both live about four hours away from me now. Jill said she is coming down on the 3rd of March, so maybe if she's still around when I get off work, we can grab dinner. Plus, I'll get to meet her new boyfriend (since he'll be coming to the cities with her).

I got some pictures of the lunar eclipse that was on Wednesday the 20th, so I'll put some of the better ones up. I've never really taken pictures at night, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Plus, I didn't use a tripod because I took most of the pictures out of the bedroom window (which is why you will see 2 moons in some pictures. The bright one is the real moon, and the sharp one is the reflection), and also took pictures outside when we were getting ready to go get something for dinner.




Odin was my nap buddy this afternoon as I zonked out on the couch. He zonked out on the ottoman, sniffing my hand, apparently.


He's so quiet in the afternoons, napping, recharging his energy reserves for the evening when he can run around all crazy-like again. He was driving Aaron nuts this morning, so Aaron had to come in and wake me up so he didn't have to deal with the monster cat alone.

Work is still going well. I think I get my own caseload this week, so I won't be getting claims from other co-workers, they will be coming right to me. Kind of a scary thought, but hey, it's all part of the business. I just feel like I still have so many questions, and there are still so many things that I don't know yet. But there's no way most of those things could be covered in training. It's just something you have to learn as you go. But I think I am catching on well and my higher ups are impressed with that, so yay me.

Well, that's about it for me now. Until next weekend, probably!

just plain weird

After Aaron and I got home from our shopping extravaganza this afternoon, we were sitting on the floor, opening all our new toys and trying the new harness on Odin (it's too big, he'll get out of it too easily).  All of the sudden, there's a soft knock on the door.  Aaron held on to Odin so he wouldn't dart out of the door, and I peeped through the peep hole.  There's a young woman standing outside.  I open the door, and she is standing there, holding as much stuff in her arms as is possible when you have an arm in a sling and your other hand's thumb is broken.  She asks if she can use my phone. 

"Uh, hold on," I tell her, as I go to find my cell phone.  I come back, hand her the phone, and she asks if I will dial the number for her.  She reads off a local number from a slip of paper, and after I dial it, I hand her the phone.  As the phone is ringing, the guy who she lives with upstairs opened the door and hollered something.  She didn't respond, just waited for the phone to pick up.  I heard the voicemail message pick up, and then she said, "Thank you" and handed me back my phone, then walked downstairs. 

I have no idea what was going on, but I have seen the two of them out in the hallway a couple of times, not speaking to each other, but obviously upset with each other.  Very strange.

We picked up Guitar Hero 3 for the Xbox 360, as well as a couple of video games at Circuit City.  Then at Target we got a Playstation 3, a game, and Matt Costa's and Jack Johnson's new CDs.  We got new cat food, a harness, and a leash for Odin at PetSmart, and are in the process of looking for a new, bigger litter box.  In the three weeks we've had him, he's already outgrown the small one we initially bought.  Everything electronic we got came with some sort of discount, which is the only reason we got them.  I wanted to get the Firefly series on DVD, but it wasn't on sale, so we are waiting.  Then I wanted to get Serenity, but it doesn't come on BluRay yet, only HD DVD, and the PS3 only plays BluRay and regular DVD.  So again with the waiting.

Aaron baked two big loaves of banana bread yesterday, along with some lasagna for dinner.  Mmm, mmm, good.

Odin got to hang out on the deck (supervised) for the first time yesterday.

Happy Valentine's Day

Just wishing everyone a happy Valentine's Day.  Aaron and I don't have any special plans.  The last few days have been kind of weird for us, but I'm not sure why.  Aaron says I've been distant.  But I'm not doing it on purpose, or feeling crabby.  I'm sure it'll pass.  Hormones, or something.

Odin has discovered something new that is fun and exciting...it involves darting out the door as soon as it opens and running out into the hallway.  Which is kind of funny, but a little scary in that someone could open the door to the outside world while he's the hallway, and he might escape. 

We get a three day weekend from work, and I think we will be spending it cleaning the apartment.  Awesome.

This morning started out GREAT. First off, I thought it was Friday (w00t!), and went to check the bank account (pay day), to find it had not increased at all.  What the heck?  Oh that's right, it's only Thursday.  Then I go to the coffee store across the highway, park, and notice that there is a police car parked all crooked in the front row of the lot.  Sheesh.  If you wanted coffee that bad, couldn't you park like the rest of us?  Guess not.  Go to the door; they're closed.  The barista says they'll be open in an hour, and hands me a gift card.  ($5, w00t). 

Okay, get on the highway.  I knew it was going to be bad because we'd gotten snow

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Howdy howdy

Just a quick update for the weekend. So far, work is going really well. Everyone is pleasantly surprised and at how quickly I am catching on to my job duties, so that is always a bonus. There is a lot more to this job than I had originally thought, but it keeps me busy, that's for sure.

Since it is President's Day weekend, I also get Monday off, so that is always nice. Aaron has to work on Monday, so I think I will go down to Von Maur and say "hi" to everyone and use up the gift card I got when I left. Maybe find a new shirt or something. They're sure to have spring stuff out by now.

Aaron baked two big loaves of banana bread today, and also lasagna for dinner. Mmm, good. Aaron's tired of doing the dishes by hand every day because they pile up so quickly, when we have what SHOULD be a perfectly good dishwasher in the apartment. The problem is that it's a very weak dishwasher, and we have hard water, so things end up needing to be washed AFTER going through the dishwasher. So we just haven't used it in a few months. I talked to the ladies at the rental office about it, and they're going to have someone come in and look at it (again). The last time they looked at it, they ran some cleaning stuff through there and checked the bottom, which wasn't clogged up or anything. Then they said that the water softener was broken, and that's probably the problem. We tried out the dishwasher again today - still not working. But Odin wanted to help.


He wasn't too impressed with the noises that were coming out of it once we got it started up.

Odin did a lot of laying around today.



Now he's all wound up and bouncing off the walls, purring, and chasing anything that moves. That's generally what he does at night, especially when we are trying to sleep. We've taken to locking him out of the bedroom at night because he's always attacking Aaron. Never me, just Aaron.

Then he decided that he'd like to talk to Mom on instant messenger. The conversation went something like this:

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And here's a good one, just for fun. He wasn't hurting me, but just pushing on my throat with his paws.


Well, that's about it for now. So far, a pretty quiet weekend, and it's looking to stay that way. That's okay with me. Usually if we go over to a friend's house, we end up staying REALLY late, and I want to go home, but Aaron's not ready yet, so someone has to compromise, and it's just nice to go to bed when you want to. In your own bed, not a couch or blow up mattress.

Anywho, have a good weekend!

this looks familiar

i can't help myself.

Alright, Odin and I had a good time this morning and Aaron was nice enough to capture some of it on the camera.

cat monster

Whew, has it been a week, or what? Today was my last week in training, so I start kind of on my own starting on Monday, even though I'm going to be under close supervision by someone else. At least this way I will be working on files that are under MY name, and not just taking files from other people like we've been doing this last week. There's a LOT of work to do in one day. This week has been grueling. But I think I'm getting the hang of it.

A couple of our friends had a bout of bad luck over the last couple of weeks, but I think this is the kick they need to get their lives going in the direction they want. I know that things are going to be okay for them, but it's hard to watch your friends who are hurting. I wish them only the best in their future.

Monster Kitty has been terrorizing us on a nightly basis by keeping us awake by biting, pouncing, and flopping around all over the bed. Here are some silly clips of him romping around the living room. The sounds are stupid, so don't pay attention to them, I was just messing around with iMovie.

crazy cat lady

It's official. I have turned into a crazy cat lady. I have taken about 70 pictures of Odin since we got him a week ago, plus a ton of video (still working on getting that up on the internet, but I have a couple of videos on YouTube). He's just so flippin' cute, I can't help it!

Today, we got in the Soft Paws claw caps for his toenails so he doesn't scratch up anything any more.


I also worked on a new cat toy for him, and after stuffing it with catnip and sewing it shut, it is his new favorite thing on the planet.



He's been spending a lot of time in the bathroom.



And likes playing in the tub.


I'm not sure if the video works, but it's worth a shot.

stuff

Odin went to the vet the other day for his sneezing.  He's healthy, just has a bit of an upper respiratory infection, so we got some eye ointment and drops to give him for his goopy eyes and sneeze.  We've been trying to get the bad habits out of his system by using squirt bottles if he jumps on the table or tries to scratch things.  He's learning pretty quickly, so that's good.

One thing that has changed a lot in the last two days; his energy level.  Since he started getting better because of the medicines, he's got a LOT of energy now!  He's darting all over the apartment and chasing things and waking us up at two in the morning because he's hungry.  We don't want him to get fat, so we're only feeding him two times a day, despite his yowlings.  He's little, this is more than enough food for him.

Last night around 10:30, just as I was getting ready to call it a night, Aaron gets a phone call from someone at work.  I guess the air conditioners shut themselves off because it's been so cold, and the room with all the servers in it was at 100 degrees or more, and one of the servers had shut down.  Since he'd had a drink and didn't feel confident in driving, I had to drive.  We didn't get back and settled until close to midnight, so I went in to work an hour later than usual (which is fine, because I just stayed an hour later than usual).

Odin helped me clean out the drain last night in the bath tub...pulled out all the hair from the drain and tried to chew it up.  Gross, but efficient.  I had been saying to myself that I needed to clean the drain out, anyway.  Glad he could help.

Work is still going well.  I feel less overwhelmed every day by all the information that is being thrown at me, and we are starting to enter claims into the computer programs, so that is helping me to know where to look on the claims to get the right information...sort of.  There's about three different programs on the computer that you use to do that stuff, and it's just kind of confusing.  Anyway...that's my little update for now.  I haven't loaded any pictures of Odin yet, although I do have a particularly cute one of him nomming on one of my socks that I knit.  I am currently working on making him a catnip toy with the same yarn so he can have something to play with without destroying my sock.

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last night

Okay, so keeping Odin in the bathroom didn't work.  He yowled his little head off for the first five minutes, and even with the bathroom and bedroom doors closed, the fan on, and music, we could still hear him.  It made me sad, so we brought him into the bedroom and blocked the hallway with a hamper and a box so he would be deterred from going into the living room.

After a few minutes of checking out everything in the bedroom (as he had not yet been in there), he mewled at us from the floor to say "Let me up!" because he hasn't realized he can jump very high yet.  He stayed on the bed all night and was very good.  I guess that $20 cat bed isn't going to get a lot of use...

But we will for sure put him in the bathroom when we leave to run our errands today; there's no way he's going to be in the living room by himself until he figures out how to use the scratching post.

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