Unpacking the House: Scorecard part deux

This morning I have unpacked another box of clothes (mine) and sorted three boxes of clothes (Spouse’s) for donation.  This cleared a big chunk of space in the office, where my clothes will be housed. I’ve also straightened the basement. I’m feeling quite accomplished. I also got my security code for the new job, so one more checkmark off the list!

Today’s list of things to do:

Obtain Colorado plates for both cars.

Drop off donation clothes.

Practice open at work.

Straighten guest bath.

Sweep.

On the bad news front, the teacher who had been considering taking over my classes at the gym in Michigan has apparently declined. I’m disappointed for my students and hope they’ll find a suitable alternative.

The New Year begins with a BANG

I’ve got some temporary part-time employment, as of today. Even though it’s not permanent, I’m feeling pretty good about starting the new year with a job.

In yoga news, this is how I teach yoga. A friend sent me the article because I’m always talking about how yoga doesn’t have to be serious and how I love to hear people laugh in my classes. Part of the reason I use pop music is because it relaxes people – lets them know I’m not going to be going all Bhaghavad Gita on them – and they sing along. Singing along is my next favorite thing to laughter. I’m not sure what the yoga community is like in this area, which is why I’m not pursuing teaching immediately. My style may or may not mesh with the locale.

A lot of folks I know are doing the 365 meme, where you take a photo of yourself every day. My friend told me about another variation: 52 weeks with a self-portrait each week. I’m going to give it a shot, but my real meme this year is going to be the Daily Leadville photos. Each day I’ll post a photo from the area – not necessarily Leadville, but I’m going to try.  I’m going to use it as my way of documenting my new surroundings.

52 weeks - week one

Now is the time on Sprockets

When I ask myself who the EFF I bought all these holiday cards for because I can’t think of 40 people who would want our  holiday greetings.

I did NOT achieve a driver’s license today because it turns out that Michigan is one of 14 states who do not require proof of citizenship/legal ability to live in the US to obtain a license (note to any illegal immigrants out there). Now, since the last time I had to provide proof of my identity to the state of Michigan for a driver’s license without (yanno) a driver’s license was when I was sixteen and a birth certificate was my only other legal form of I.D. I was unaware of this. Unfortunately, states like Colorado require proof of your legal right to live in the country and I was without my passport.

The hour-long drive wasn’t a complete waste. We stopped at what (now) I think must be the worst Borders in the history of the world. I went in with a list of 20 authors – no exaggeration – and found books I wanted by precisely ONE. Either they didn’t carry the author AT ALL or carried only one or two old titles. This, coupled with my unfruitful trip to the Driver’s License office, does not a happy camper make. Instead I got a future Bandwagon book, even though my Bandwagon will be far away, and a copy of The Watchmen. Spouse found a couple of things he liked. I also managed to get some business taken care of re: billing my last community ed class. So, not a waste but I’m not really happy about having to do it again.

As previously mentioned, our holiday cards (and man, am I glad I told everyone they were holiday cards) showed up today and I’ve been dutifully filling out addresses all evening. I also made a batch of the “Eff you, Queso!” that we love so much and it made up the entirety of my dinner. Eff you, Queso is very delicious and perfect for when you’re lazy:

yogagrrl’s Eff You, Queso!

1 package ground beef (somewhere around 1.5 lbs)

1 package taco seasoning

Brown ground beef, ignore taco seasoning directions and just add the seasoning and just enough water to soak up all the juice (usually about half a cup).

Add:

1 jar Tostitos Queso sauce (Medium)

1 jar Tostitos chunky Salsa (Mild)

1 can refried beans (12 oz or someting like that)

1 liberal spoonful of Mrs. Renfrow’s Jalepeno Green Salsa

Heat through until bubbling.

That last ingredient is what puts the Eff in Eff You, Queso! It’s super delicious, but HOT. Adjust the amount you put in according to how much Eff you need.

It keeps for several days and is just as good (if not better) when reheated. I love it because it’s tasty and easy, and we almost always have these ingredients on hand.

And since I’m talking about Eff You, Queso! let me add this link: to a brilliant (and simultaneously not so brilliant) interview about the foreign policy dilemma with regard to Israel and Hamas. If you don’t like the Huffington Post, that’s fine, just scroll down to the video link. It’s the perfect illustration of how NOT to interview someone who PARTICIPATED in the history that you’ve READ about. Heh. Loves it.

Another wrench in the works

I’ve got to cancel tomorrow’s class because my mom needs me to take her to the hospital. I have made very little progress in remaining packing this week. I did, however, get a B on my micro exam. Now I’ve just got to get my lab reports together.

Winter is officially in effect here. Plenty cold with a fair amount of wet to match. I’m looking forward to less humidity in Colorado.

KD, I haven’t forgotten about you

My micro test is done.

I’m going to yoga at 11:00, then to fax some mortgage paperwork, and THEN I am getting my mic to do a podcast/mp3. I’ll have one within the next 48 hours. I’m actually kind of looking forward to doing it. If it turns out all right, maybe I’ll post some short yoga sessions here.

Plus, packing!

My life is chock full of excitement, I’ll tell you.

It is Tuesday and I am freaking EXHAUSTED.

I’m meeting with a realtor today. I also have to make a donation at the local shelter, sort and pack some more clothes, and find a seamstress to alter a few things before I leave town.

I’ve also got to sort out our ‘leaving town’ arrangements. Previously it was Dana and I driving out west. Now it’s possibly Dave and Dana and I, which means it might make more sense for Spouse to just fly home and drive out with me. It’s all very brain-tangling and I’ve got a microbiology exam on Thursday. I do not have the brainspace for logistics right now.

Last but not least, I’ve got to coordinate help to get the remainder of the garage packed. Ugh. I hate today.

I believe I promised photos

Pirates!

The vest and jacket came from DressLikeaPirate.com

Hat and sword from the local Halloween depot.

My boots and riding breeches, shirt via ebay.

In case it’s not absolutely clear – I freaking LOVED THIS COSTUME.

YARRRRRR!

Check out my enormous hair!

A better shot of the dresses.

With the bride and groom

All friends have been cropped or blurred, so as to protect the [not so] innocent. And now that the wedding is over, I’ve moved on to a more extreme haircolor.

Candy apple red, baby!

Updates!

I FINALLY got my most recent mix updated on imeem to include *all* the songs. It had been missing the Gomez song, which I kind of love, so I wanted to make sure it was all there. The mix has gone over really well in my classes.

I’m really really excited about Halloween, mostly because of my costume. I’m looking forward to dressing up and going out and have volunteered to be the designated driver for a few of my friends. Being sober also means I’ll get the best pictures. Heh.

Wedding stuff will keep me busy for most of the weekend but I’ll be attempting to steal internet time whenever I can. I’ve also got an eye appointment at 8:15 in the morning and may need to sneak a yoga class during the morning. We’ll have to see how forgiving the schedule is.

Life wouldn’t be life without a little frustration

So earlier this week I noticed I’m having a problem with one of my teeth. I’m annoyed because I was JUST at the dentist and they SHOULD have caught this. Then, on Tuesday, I lost a contact lens. For most people this isn’t a big deal. I, on the other hand, am one of the handful of folks NOT wearing disposable lenses. So I have to schedule two emergency appointments this week. On top of that, since Spouse has started a new job, our insurance is different and it means having to find (in the case of the eye doctor) a new place. I’m still going to the dentist and I’m going to pressure them to bill my insurance because they SHOULD have caught this on my last visit and I’m really annoyed.

I think I’m going to try a local yoga class today. Two reasons: 1. It would be nice to have someone tell ME what to do for a change and 2. I can evaluate the classes for my students.

We’ll see.

Carly’s family arrives en masse tonight. She’s getting a massage this afternoon and we have to sort out which errands still need to be run.

Ugh

We have seven boxes of books packed up to move, and we haven’t even GOTTEN to the room that has most of the books.

The DVDs are all boxed up. The office is slowly but surely beginning to resemble a room again.

As Saturday rolls around

I’m not shockingly more productive. I have gotten through the majority of the laundry. Spouse’s stuff is 99% sorted and ready for packing. Books are still sorted but not packed. My clothes are almost all clean and ready to be sorted for donation/keep.

On the bright side, Mom got her hair fixed.

Also, I took a nap.

Tabatha’s Salon Takeover is the new best reality show in the history of EVER.

It’s Friday and there’s no relief in sight

I’ve got a living room full of partially-filled and mostly-labeled boxes. There is is still a small sized mountain’s worth of laundry to be done.

I feel marginally accomplished this week, though, because I DID sort through the nightmare paperwork cubby. I sorted a small portion of our books (keeping vs. donating) and did a small mountain’s worth of laundry.

How do we accumulate so much CRAP? And really, we don’t have that much crap. It’s mostly clothes and books. And albums. We’re moving to a house that is nearly twice the size and my goal is to reduce our crap by half. It’s enough to make me think happy thoughts about UNpacking because there’s going to be much less of it.

Also! Life *and* The Mentalist are on tonight and my mom is on her way.

There are very few twitterers tweeting on my list.

The dangers of boredom

Include me changing my haircolor. I’m back to a more-heavily-red shade of brown. That means while the box says Light Amber Brown, on me it looks more like Auburn. Mom blames this on my fire-engine red hair at birth. Sure, it changed to blonde later but apparently it wants to hang on to those warmer tones. This is only ironic because, as a blonde, the tones were always on the cool side.

Speaking of that – you know how people always try that X-hair color + Y-skin tone + Z-undertone = here’s the colors you should wear? Never, ever worked for me. I mean, I’ve got naturally blonde hair, fair skin with pink undertones and ALL of those colors that are supposed to look great (pinks, mauves, et cetera) mostly helped me look wicked bland. Whatevs.

Shane gave me a Voting Is Hot! t-shirt and I LOVE it.

I’m not a huge fan of Coke products, but the mini glass bottles of Coke may be the best carbonated beverage ever.

TV updates:

Life continues to be awesome. I am still ambivalent about Heroes. The Mentalist is keeping me on the hook! I also watched Sanctuary (SciFi) and while I did not love it, I did not hate it. I’ve had a soft spot for Robin Dunne ever since Cruel Intentions 2, so I’ll probably keep watching.

I got another Ariel Tweto comment! She continues to be awesome as well!

I should be doing laundry. Instead, I’m half-heartedly doing laundry and really reading new fiction. I’ve gotten through two paperbacks already today and suspect I’ll knock out a third this evening.

Rumor has it

That Ariel Tweto returns to Wipeout on the season finale this week!

I’m in the process of backing up all my music, pictures, et cetera onto an external hard drive. It’s taking a lot longer than I thought.

My AT & T DSL service is working now, after a couple of brief snafus, and I’m quite happy – especially because it’s been raining cats and dogs the last two days.

Mad Men is continuing to be impressive. I think the incredible part is how well the actors who play Don and Betsy manage to so very subtly – with just a slight change to a facial expression – convey a wealth of meaning and emotion. The show doesn’t need action because there’s so much going on in every single conversation.

We went and saw Tropic Thunder over the weekend and it was hilarious. Tom Cruise was positively brilliant and one of the best things about the film. Now I’m spending my free time regaling all my friends with my new Tom Cruise impression. 

Spouse has a going away lunch with his staff tomorrow. The bigger university send off is on Wednesday. I can’t believe he’ll be gone by the end of next week. We’ve never lived apart for this long. Even when we were in different cities, we saw each other almost every weekend. I’m not really looking forward to that. He got a laptop today so that he’ll be able to communicate with everyone via blog (!?!) while he’s out there.

In other eventful news, I have gotten some very nice feedback from students about my classes but I’ll probably talk about it in another post.

This week is going to be a bit crazy because of the packing/moving stuff as well as Carly’s shower on Saturday. I’ll be relieved when September is over.

For my birthday

Charter Communication gave me complete and utter FAIL as an internet provider. I haven’t had internet service for more than 36 hours. I’ve had to do crazy things like READ BOOKS, talk to FRIENDS, and go to sleep WITHOUT CHECKING EMAIL. I can’t believe I haven’t gnawed my arm off yet.

So I’m at Barnes and Noble, partaking of their not-so-free wireless and catching up on the 120 emails that accumulated yesterday.

For my birthday, Carly engineered a surprise attack on my yoga class by coercing/bribing my friends to all show up. Spouse was supposed to join them but he was BUSY ACCEPTING A NEW JOB. That’s right. My bestest birthday ever was capped by an out-of-state job offer. He gave his 30 days notice TODAY.

Now I just have to sell the house. Gulp. This will be further complicated by the fact that Spouse gave me Guitar Hero for my birthday. My need to move will be competing with my need to crush the video game. We’ll see who wins.

Now I have to catch up on blogs! Thankfully the twitching in my right eye has already subsided…

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