Monday, March 19, 2012

Winter-een-mas and Things

There's a reason for my distraction lately:

Ahhhh obsession. 

Game of Thrones Season 1 came out on DVD.  We may or may not have coincidentally been out at Wal-Mart at midnight the night it came out.  This also may have coincided with the Mass Effect 3 video game midnight release which we weren't there for, but many others were.  And I may or may not have been 2 seconds away from threatening the nearest stock boy that if he didn't find a copy for me ASAP I would make his job very difficult.  (I didn't actually threaten anyone.  I was just getting very antsy when waiting for the Mass Effect 3 line to go down so I could get some help.  I'm not very patient.)

I bet you thought I forgot about the Winter-een--mas trip post didn't you.  Well, HA.  I did NOT!  Although, I should warn you.  This post may ramble more than others.  This is likely due to A.) The lack of oxygen to my brain due to not being able to breathe, and B.) Being hopped up on cold meds.  Stupid Mother Nature and her P.M.S.-like mood-swings.  Let it be known that I REFUSE to turn the air-conditioning on in March! I don't care if it's 85 in our apartment.  Here that Mother Nature?!  You will not be breaking my stubbornness determination!

Anyway, so Winter-een-mas.  For those that are unaware, it's a gamer holiday.  It started as a part of the online comic Ctrl+Alt+Del and gained in popularity with gamers everywhere.  Since my dear husband is an avid gamer, he has celebrated this holiday since he found out about it.  And since he didn't get to go home during Christmas, we could think of no better 2nd Christmas and no better time to make a trip home then during Winter-een-mas.  (Last week of January)  

We went home for a record five day long trip.  It was pretty great.  Usually we only have a 3 or 4 day weekend when we go home.  One of the disadvantages of living as far away from home as we do and having our friends and family mostly in one place (*cough*mom*cough*), is that trips home always seem rushed and we never get to see as many people as we would like.  To help this, we decided that instead of rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off, we made family a priority and spent time with them separately and then we would have one big party and anyone that wanted to celebrate the holiday/party with us could come!  

In general, it was a huge success.  We even had our friends Andrew and Amanda drive up from Alabama, and our friend Frank drove up from Kentucky for the party! (Did I mention they were awesome?  Cause they are.)  There was booze, friends, much visiting, and a good time was had by all (at least, I hope it was for everyone).  The only catch:  Ironically, there wasn't much gaming.  We didn't think about the fact that everybody hadn't been gathered together like that in a very long time.  So, mostly people forgot about the games once booze and visiting was involved.  Next time we do this, we're gonna try to set up pre-set tables for people that wish to do more gaming.  We DID play an awesome board game called Zombies!  And there was tons of food, since we made it a potluck.

And here comes the bombardment of pictures.

I blame the wine.

This is a great picture of these three.  They all look so happy!

Everything about this picture makes me laugh.

Me with Andrew and Amanda

Wade with a baby rattle...I don't know why

There was bacon and beer!

AAAAhhhhh! Zombies!

Apparently, Zombies required much concentration
Definitely, one of the best trips home ever.  You can't go wrong with bacon and booze :)

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Our Neighbors are Jerks

I'd like to interrupt the previously scheduled Winter-een-mas '12 post for a segment I'd like to call Holy Crap Our Neighbors are annoying.

.....

Holy crap our neighbors are annoying! We apparently live above a nightclub and under a racetrack.  The amount of pounding noises that surrounds us during the day is insane.  I still have yet to decide if the people above us have a small child, or a large dog.  I'm pretty sure the running sounds like a small kids stompy run, but OH MY GOSH, do they really run around for that long without stopping?  Like, is that normal?  We don't have kids so I'd have no clue but I'm pretty sure the only living thing I've seen with that much energy usually has four legs.  Not to mention the kids on our floor running around screaming in the halls day and night.  One of these days, I'm gonna stick my foot out our front door and trip them.  Because, obviously, their parents never taught them not to run in the halls! and also screaming is bad!

....Ok, that was mean.  I wouldn't trip them.  Just glare maybe.  Or....you know...just complain to other people some more in the most passive aggressive way possible.

.....

So, the real story here, is that I'm pretty sure my frustrations with the job search are manifesting itself as an irrational, (or, maybe, not so irrational) annoyance with our apartment, and apartment living in general.  I've grown to pretty much loathe everything about this apartment.  Everything from it's small size, to it's crappy plumbing, to it's overactive heating vents.  We have to keep the windows cracked in the winter if we want the apartment to be below 85.  (we don't control the heating)  The good thing is, we've learned to laugh about it anytime something else goes wrong.  Well, ok, I've learned to laugh about it.  Nathan's so laid back that he naturally just laughs about things like this.

My solution to this frustration is to plan our future home in my head.  We're definitely nowhere near being able to buy, but this is not stopping me from the planning.  It helps me escape the apartment-life doldrums.  Pinterest.com has only served to worsen this new habit.  Only problem, is with all the plans I've made, I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to live in a castle.  A castle that we're gonna have to build, because I'm pretty sure there aren't any preconstructed castles with the specifications that I'm gonna need.

Included will be:  at least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a game room including pool tables and gaming consoles, his office, an art studio for me, a reading nook and a badass kitchen.  OH, and a closed-in porch.  And maybe a pool.  And this is where Nathan would want me to include a room for pet ferrets.  Jury's still out on that one.

Speaking of art studio:  I got a professional-ish camera for my birthday!  I say ish because it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of a high-end professional camera that is way way way out of our price range.  It's an entry level one which is perfect for hobby type photography.  Expect many pictures of the cats on here because they're the only subjects I have available right now.  Apparently spring is starting in other parts of the world, but here in Wisconsin, March still counts as winter so it's been too cold to take the camera out.  I promise this blog won't turn into a cat-picture blog.

Maybe.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Playing Catch-up

I promise, we're still alive.

The holidays are over and we're getting back into the swing of things so I wanted to get back into the routine of this whole blogging thing.  Over the holidays, I surprisingly heard a lot of "I've been reading your blog!" type comments from friends and family.  I want you all to know, I thought that was awesome.  I've been doing this largely as a way to try and document all of the events have been coming and going with great speed for me and Nathan.  New jobs, new places, etc.  But, I did also hope that I could use it to let friends and family know what we're up to since I am absolutely awful with calling all of you as much as I should.  Just so you know, I am aware that I suck at that.  Unfortunately, I don't get to know what YOU all are up to this way, but that just hammers home that I need to get better with that whole phone call thing.  Anyway, I'm gonna use this post to catch up on the past couple months before continuing forward.  A couple of months, where I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with many of you.  But, unfortunately, not all.

Oh, and as always, it'll include lots of pictures.  This is gonna be a long one.

Christmas
This past Christmas was both very happy and very sad all at the same time.  For instance, I got to see both of my awesome aunts! (yay alliteration!) BOTH!  That's almost unheard of.  Most of the time I will see one, or the other, but very rarely do I see both in one holiday.  Major downside:  Mom wasn't able to make it home.  I officially have not seen my mother since Christmas of 2010.  That sucks, and I miss her terribly.  Good side: I got to sleep in my old room at Dad's and see them, all of my wonderful cousins and their children on his side and got to see my always stylin' cousin Salena and her husband Brian from mom's side who live far far away and I also rarely get to see.  And even made time to go see my absolutely wonderful mother and father-in-law Jenny and John.  (also, all the puppies!)  Family was definitely the theme for this Christmas.  Downside:  Nathan had to work Christmas.  All of it, the day after and New Year's.  So while, I was able to see all of the family, he had to sit at home by himself.  I hated that.

Other bonus fun time:  I got to meet Jude finally!  The most awesome one-year-old ever and spend some time with his wonderful parent, Ashleigh and John.

It turned out I was too busy to take tons of pictures of Christmas, but here are a couple.

We couldn't all be together in person, but Skype is a wonderful invention. :)

Even though he wasn't there to see it, Nathan officially has his own stocking at Dad's
Santa Deer.

Christmas pt. 2 A.K.A. Kirby's Wedding
I had the week between Christmas and New Year's off.  Relaxing right?  Not really.  But definitely tons of fun!  After driving down to Mattoon for Christmas, I then drove down to Huntsville and Guntersville, Alabama, for my good friend Kirby's Wedding.  She was a bridesmaid for me, and I was more than happy to return the favor.  Now THIS one had tons of pictures.  It was a blast.  I hadn't seen Kirby since my wedding, so seeing her again was great.  Also, I got to stay with my good friends Amanda and Andrew.  I had not seen them in, I think, close to seven years.  I missed those two so freakin much, and it was so great to get to spend time with them again.  We picked up right where we left off.  Complete with Rotel and Milo's sweet tea.  I also, got to see Samantha!  I hadn't seen her in probably about seven years or more either!  It turns out I had really missed being in the south.  There's not many places you can be outside in short sleeves in December.  :) The downside to all of this again, was that Nathan was stuck working, but we made up for that with his own visit in January.

Bachelorette!
She was gorgeous

Sam!

She was incredibly busy, as brides often are, so we just took a picture with her back :)

Bachelorette Party!


Lake Guntersville, from my hotel room

They. Are. Awesome.

Did I mention Milo's?  Cause I should have.
I was gonna include our Winter-een-mas visit home in this post too, but I believe I'll put that separately.  I just now previewed this post and saw how freakishly long it was becoming and figured the Holiday Extravaganza deserved it's own post anyway.  I got back into Madison New Year's Day. around 1 o'clock pm.  It was snowing, of course.  In total, I had spent over 24 hours on the road by myself.  While there were both upsides and downsides, it was definitely time well spent.