parking

I hate when I reinforce stereotypes - the latest one, that women are bad drivers.

I'm not a bad driver but am bad at parking.

A little background: I got a new parking place at work this week - an assigned one, woohoo! There is the trade-off that it’s a ‘buddy spot’, which means the spot is actually a spot long enough for 2 cars. Another person is also assigned to the spot and whenever we are both at work one of us is blocked in. We have to coordinate between ourselves to move a car if the person parked in the back needs out.

Anyway, I went to park in the spot and figured it’d be easier to back in so that I could more easily get out of the spot in the afternoon. I thought the parking log was before the post on the side, but I was wrong…so now I have a small scrape on my car…argh… having that happen in the morning really ruined my day for a while. I get mad at myself when I do dumb things, and really hated having to tell Kevin what I did.

I love Kevin for a million reasons, the latest being that his reaction was, “oh well, that's what bumpers are for, for bumping into things."

success

The conference I helped to work on was a success! We had it this past week in Austin, and were so fortunate that the weather was warmer and drier then it has been recently. I was starting to worry about the weather with all the ice days people have been having around the state.

I always learn so much at the conference, its great to get together with people that do the same sort of work and learn from their experiences and in getting to know them I also now have a network of people to talk to as I need to work on things they've already done or just bounce ideas off of others in the field.

We also manage to have some fun - this year's special event was a casino night. I had a great time playing black jack, roulette, and even craps! I've never understood it before but learned that night - they knew many of us hadn't played and would help us along, and watching it you catch on. We weren't playing with real money, making it even better!

I will be much more involved with next year's conference since I was elected VICE PRESIDENT of the organization!!! I am excited, and a bit scared, about what I've signed up for, but know it'll be a great experience and so many people have already told me they'll help.

I got home on Friday and was so glad to see my boys, poor K was home alone all week but he had plenty of schoolwork to keep him busy.

Today we went and bought him a netbook to use for his schooling, I am sure I'll use it too for my internet play time :)

Mid-season shows

I love my DVR. It lets us watch shows without commercials, even if sometimes it does only record half the show, and when that happens - thank goodness for hulu!!!

The spring shows are starting up, and this week we gave Chandler Bing's new show 'Mr Sunshine' a chance, but didn't like it.

We did like 'Traffic Light". Embarrassing admittance: I enjoyed hearing Chumbawumba again....it was everywhere when I started college, odd how some songs can just take you back to a certain point in your life.

I'm still not sure about "Perfect Couples" but will give it another chance.

What other new shows are good?

Can you believe we had another 'arctic blast' in Houston? I got to leave work early on Wednesday and started late on Thursday to avoid the icy roads. We were lucky that it came in between Kevin's classes, so the roads were clear for both of his trips to class. His class the week before was cancelled because of the ice.

Working for a university has the advantage that they have to make the decision early and publicize it fully that we'll close in bad weather, unlike many of my friends' employers who almost never close!

The weather next week is supposed to be warmer and drier. I am so glad because I'll be driving to Austin for the conference I've been helping to organize. I'll have to head up there on Monday, so I won't get to spend the evening with my Valentine, but we'll have a nice meal this weekend. When I do travel for work I realize that I would hate to travel OFTEN for work.

Happy news of the week, my college roommate had her baby and its a girl! Congrats to Jay and Gwendolyn, and to Gabriel on becoming a big brother! I'm sure there will be posts on their blog, right now they are probably using any downtime they have to get some sleep...

curtains complete!

I've had a great no-snow snow day, and done everything I wanted to do today and helped Kevin play 'doctor' with our computer since he had to replace the power supply.

Our dining room curtain project is finally finished and looks great!
(before picture above)

It started in December when I went to look for curtains at the store and found out that the length we wanted isn't in the stores, its made but not often stocked at the store. I knew the look I wanted, but hadn't figured out exactly how to achieve it. In January we went to look at curtains at the store to see what we liked and see what was available in the size we needed. We found something we really liked. Luckily we had a really helpful clerk because its a whole language unto itself. We chose some curtains that have "grommets" to attach to the curtain rod rather than rings or a pocket (see the vocabulary, I was clueless when she first asked us which we wanted). We ordered the curtains and lucked out by taking advantage of a 50% off sale.

The red curtains came first, the sheers were back ordered. The sheers finally came this week and we were able to put them up today. It really completes the room. We even found a curtain rod with finials (more vocabulary) that are stone and look like our light fixture!

AFTER photo


I am finished with curtains for a while, even though we still need them for one more room...