Good morning, happy Friday, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick. Blech! I went to bed last night feeling a cold coming on and a sore throat, so I took some NyQuil. Thank the Gods above for NyQuil! Then I woke up this morning feeling like a train wreck. I knew there wasn’t anything going on at work today, so I took some cold medicine and went back to bed for an hour. That at least took the edge off. Then I took a really hot shower so I could finally breathe a little. Making some progress. Now here I am at work, sipping on lemon tea with honey. Ahhh, relief.

I really do hope that I start feeling better. I have big plans for the weekend. Tonight Sim and I are meeting Lisa P. and Jeff at the Brooks & Dunn, Montgomery Gentry, and Gretchen Wilson concert at the Clark County Amphitheater. It’s going to be such a great concert! I loves me some country music!

Other than that, we don’t have anything special planned. Which works out really well if this cold gets any worse. I think I just need to sleep through the weekend. I wonder if that will help….

Yesterday I went to the podiatrist to have a procedure done on my left foot. While the procedure itself was not painful at all, the after math has been crippling. I am in SO. MUCH. PAIN.

I started out the day falling in the shower trying to wash my non-injured foot by propping myself up on the injured foot, which so did not work. Then I was trying to put my pants on and Ellie (my black lab, for those of you that are new) decided at that moment to come rub up against me, knocking me into my closet door. Also not fun. Then I tried on every pair of shoes I own to see which would hurt less to wear. As you may have guessed it, every single pair was a living nightmare! The pain. The anguish. So I sucked it up and put on my brown Nine West heels. I may as well be cute, right?

As soon as I got to work and hobbled around I was in so much pain it was intolerable. I finally admitted defeat and took the damn shoes off. It was really good planning on my part to wear nice, cute socks that matched my outfit, since it was all everyone saw for the rest of the day. Having my shoes off was so much better, but still kinda painful walking on my foot. I have been alternating between walking on my heel and walking on my big toe. Either way gets too straining on my calf muscles if I do it too much, so I try to vary it.

In summary: My name is Carrie. I am in pain. But at least I have cute socks.

This is just a test post.

After numerous request, I did some work last night and uploaded all my recent photos. I could not believe how long it has been since I put photos up. Sorry. So here they are:

I put up generic categories for Ellie, Molly, and the cats.

There are photos of my new faucet, as well as shots of Sim working on the installation part.

A few weeks ago, Heather and Lindsay came over to visit and I followed Lindsay around like the paparazzi. She is just too cute, how could I resist?

I have some shots of the boys’ favorite past time: Foos ball!

Last Friday night Simeon and I took David and Kristen to the University of Portland After Dark Soccer game. It was really fun. There was a BBQ before the game and fireworks after. Because I was an alumni we all got fancy purple shirts! We were all soooo cool! Go check us out!

And last but not least, Lisa M. and John invited Simeon and I to join them along with Lisa P. and Jeff for dinner at their house. We all enjoyed a great dinner (thanks Lisa!!), had fun drinking and playing games, and just hanging out. All the evidence is here.

So enjoy all the photos. Sorry it took me so long!

While I am a huge fan of making lists, mine tend to be on the practical, organized side. They never really lean toward the hilarious, make-you-laugh-so-hard-your-stomach-hurts, co-workers audibly snorting side. But if you are looking for the latter, look no further.

I love the email addresses one, the Coors Light one, and the defective bible one. But I have only just started digging through them and I wanted to share with those of you who needed a laugh today.

I think I may have the “Touch of Death.” I was just in the lunchroom eating my leftover spaghetti from my Spaghetti Factory dinner last night, when all of a sudden the microwave died. I was standing in front of it waiting for the display to finish counting (I know it’s really bad to stand in front of a microwave, yadda, yadda, yadda. If it’s not one thing it’s another. Sue me.) 14….13….12….11….

But 10 never came. The screen went totally black. I fiddled with the cord to make sure it hadn’t come unplugged. Nothing happened. I tried pressing the “clear” button. Nothing happened. I opened the door and closed it again. Nothing happened. I even tapped on the top and said “Hello!” Nothing happened.

So I must have the “Touch of Death.” That or really bad timing. Sorry fellow co-workers if there are any of you who hadn’t gotten to warm up your lunch yet! My bad!

**Updated** I did not break the microwave. In fact, after testing several different things, we realized the outlet had died, not the microwave. So we have temporarily rearranged the kitchen to accommodate this fiasco.

And, um, I totally forgot to take pictures during dinner last night. Sorry! I was so distracted trying to get everything done (and at the same time) so we would all get to eat. Some people had to leave a little early, so I was under a time crunch. You understand, don’t you?

I love clothes. I love shopping. I especially love shopping for clothes. And I don’t even need to be shopping with the intent to buy (God knows my bank account needs a break from time to time!). I even love window shopping. Or, with the help of high speed internet access, shopping on-line. So usually I don’t need to be tempted too badly to pull up my favorite shops and browse the latest looks. But when the stores email me to let me know something is new (or, heaven forbid, on sale!), how could I not click on that little link? It would be rude not to, right?

So I click around and find all the cutest things and when I find something I really like I, with a little help from ICQ, shoot the url to Simeon. His typical response is “nice.” I guess that means its good. So today we had a little conversation about the difference between men and women. It went a little something like this:

C: do you ever think about clothes? or is that just a girl thing?
C: I mean I know you dream about shorts and flip-flops in 0’s and 1’s but other than that?
S: It must be a girl thing. I don’t ever think about clothes. other then the ones I am wearing.
C: and you barely think about that huh?
C: such sad things
C: Old Navy, Gap, and New York and Co. email me and taunt me.
C: But at least they email me.

Ok, so apparently I only like to blog weekly, who knew? I actually cannot believe its been that long ago. Time is literally flying away from me right now. I cannot slow things down. I have had at least something planned each and every day after work. Why am I suddenly so busy? Who knows.

Ok, so here is the recap of what I have been doing that has kept me from updating on my site. Let’s see….um….Oh yeah, labor day weekend. Sim nicely volunteered us to pet-sit for a couple of our neighbors’ pets, since we were not planning to go out of town. That is that we watched several pets for several neighbors. All together we watched 3 fish, 2 cats, 1 dog and 1 turtle. I feel like there should have been a partridge in a pear tree. But it wasn’t so bad. At least they all got to stay in their respective homes and we just checked on them all periodically throughout the weekend.

Despite all the pet-sitting, we actually got lots of things accomplished. We installed a new faucet in the kitchen (I love you shiny, functioning, glorious faucet!!) because my old sprayer never worked and I loooonged for a sprayer. You never know how much you love to spray until you can’t. Then we stained/sealed our deck. Its beautiful and new looking again! Who knew that all it took was a good hour or so of work and it is glorious again! Had Sim and I known how easy it was to do, we wouldn’t have put it off for as long as we did!

Once we made our deck welcoming again, all we wanted to do was sit and enjoy it. So we ended up buying a really cool patio set. It has 6 reclining chairs, a huge glass table, a smaller side table, 2 foot rests, and even a cool Lazy Susan for the tabletop. All we need to do is find a umbrella so I can hide from the sun. The best part of the whole thing was the deal we got on it because its the end of summer. Ah, but those people don’t realize that I love spending time outside far more in the fall than the summer! So the investment was quite favorable! (Pictures to come!)

Monday Sim and I went to a BBQ at Adam’s house, where I ate more meat than I care to admit. Adam is quite the chef when it comes to a grill and we all enjoyed the fruits of his labor. Not to mention the weather was incredible. Even for me! We all sat around and ate and talked and ate some more. Finally we headed home because we had to work in the morning and the meat needed to digest.

Now here I am back to work again, longing for the weekend. I went to my water aerobics class with Kristin last night and I am feeling so drained today. Who ever said that exercise gives you more energy was totally lying. Even after eight glorious hours of sleep last night, I am still wishing I could go home and take a nap. Oh well, just another couple days and it’ll be weekend again. Thank God for weekends.

But tonight is “Friends Night” so I’ll have to catch my second wind soon. I plan to serve dinner out on the deck with our new patio furniture. I just hope I remember to take pictures, so I can post them here for all of you who are begging me for more photos….

I started my weekend out on Friday by going to a soccer game with Simeon, Lisa P. and her man-friend Jeff. It was really fun. We bought the cheap tickets planning to spend the game in the Widmer Brothers beer garden, which is right on the field, and right by the beer. But when we got there, all the tables were taken. So my super-sweet-talker-friend Lisa walks over to this guy (Hi Virgil!!) sitting all alone and ask him if he is expecting any company. He wasn’t so she asked him if he would mind if she joined him, along with a few friends. So he let us keep him company at the game and wouldn’t even let us buy him a beer for his generosity. Then after the game there was a surprise (to us anyway) fireworks display. Sim said it was fate making up for me missing the 4th of July! It was great. I went home quite buzzed and very happy.

Then Saturday Sim and I lounged around the house. Finally we decided we needed to go out on a date and do something fun. So we grabbed lunch at Stanford’s and a matinee showing of Garden State. All I can say is wow. The movie was incredible. I had heard really great things over at Tequila Mockingbird over a month ago, but didn’t think it would ever come to a theater near me. Then when we were trying to decide what movie to see and it was actually listed in my theater, I was all excited again. I pulled up the trailer to convince Sim that this was the movie for us to see. He saw all my excitement and said “what the hell, sure.” But once the movie was over, he was really glad he did. Zach Braff, the hella funny young guy on Scrubs is so incredible. He actually wrote, directed, and starred in the movie. Can you imagine that?! All I can say is it is so refreshing to watch a movie with real plot (that doesn’t hide behind special effects), touching moments, and pure hilarity that keeps you giggling for days. Sim and I were reading through some quotes from the movie and I was actually crying, I was laughing so hard. So go make the decision for yourself. Watch it and you will see.

Then we went home, hung out for a bit. Adam and Susie came by with the kids. We all had dinner, which was cut short sadly when Darcie fell climbing over the baby-gate at the top of the stairs and hurt her wrist. Who would have thought that something designed entirely to prevent kids from hurting themselves would actually be the thing to hurt them? Not I!

Sunday we laid around in pure Bateman fashion in our pajamas til afternoon and caught up on some good quality television. But was I the only one let down by the MTV VMA’s? I expect drama. I want controversy. But what I got was bored. I changed the channel part way through and watched the end of Charmed. What can I say? At least they have drama.