I noticed I am posting a lot less here since my facebook usage has become a multiple times a day thing verses a couple times a week thing.
I have also realized that I am relying on it way too much to get information about friends and family. I have found out people died/got engaged/broke up/had a baby (when I didn't even know they were pregnant) yet I can't pick up the phone to call any of these people. It's kind of sad really. But I just don't care. Then I feel bad, but then I don't care even more.

Additionally, I have just about completed my first 6 week course of grad school for my masters in healthcare administration. It's going very very well. Much better than I could have ever anticipated. It takes up so much time though. I can't believe it. I knew it would but I was not certain until it started.

Another thing I have gotten a little too comfortable with, is announcing things like, I am going to Hawaii! On my Facebook page rather than tell at least those close to me that I am going. So there is a good possibility that some random person I haven't seen or spoken to in person in a good 10-15 years knows I am going to Hawaii but my own father doesn't. Hell my own mother didn't at first either, oops. My bad.

I am really thinking I should try to become a better friend/daughter/cousin/inlaw etc but I just don't have the desire right now. I am very selfish. I will be the first to admit it. But aren't we all - deep down!? I have just decided to accept it rather than fight it.

So yeah, I am going to hawaii with Brian Dec 11th. Yay.

I am so excited to eat on Thursday.
NOM NOM NOM

I knew I’d be having an angsty day when I woke up to my alarm having a nightmare that I overslept, forgot I was ‘on call’ and could not find my phone.
So waking up anxiety ridden on a Monday morning definitely is not the best way to start the week.
It took me over an hour to get ready, which is normal but felt like forever today.

Nothing bad has happened at work. I just want it to 6 p.m. so I can leave.

It would help if I was more into my office mates. Today they just bug me to no end.

SO I started school today. I guess my biggest concern was that I would forget to do it, but I have put reminders in various locations to help me remember I am officially a student again and to not mess it up. Yikes, I hope I don't ignore the reminders.

This is so weird!

SO I start grad school tomorrow. I am really scared all of the sudden. Mostly because it seems so random. I haven’t paid for anything but my books yet and I know I can sign in and post stuff because I’ve already started since everyone was ‘introducing’ themselves. Going to school online is going to be so bizarre. I’m sure they’ll make sure I get a bill for classes soon.

Ugh I am so nervous!

"When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story." Barney Stinson

My biggest YAY moment recently has been because of what happened yesterday - but first, the backstory.

Laura (my sis) came for a visit to help Brian and I get unpacked and decorate and organize etc. She has totally helped me figure out some stuff that I just can't do on my own.
She's scheduled to fly out tomorrow morning and that was sad but I know she can't stay with us forever.

My friend Megan's grandfather died over the weekend. He and her grandmother live in Santa Barbara. His health has been deteriorating a long while and the grandmother has a wee bit of dementia. So, now that gramps is gone, she kinda needs someone to stay with her in the evenings/overnight - but not babysit. More as a companion sort of situation.

Megan needs someone to stay with gram. I don't want Laura to leave. Laura's currently unemployed. And I made no secret of telling her and everyone I know that I LOVE having Laura here.

So to wrap it up, Laura went with Megan to meet gram's yesterday and Laura is going to be the interim companion!

Megan is so grateful because now they can take their time to find someone and Laura is happy to stay for a few more weeks and I am THRILLED.

We're moved, the old place is cleaned and out of our hands. Supposedly we're getting our entire security deposit back.

The new place is going good. Of course we're learning of a few things here and there that are not awesome, but that's ok. We're still in love with our new place.

Oh, and we still have skunk friends. One nearly scared the pants off of me one of our first nights there.

I have been walking to work the last few days, it's a nice 20 minute 'ish walk.

Plus I walk right past Trader Joe's and that is always nice to know I can pop in there and get something to/from work.

We still have a lot of unpacking to do and we're still trying to figure out where to put everything, this part will take awhile.

Laura is coming to visit and help for the next couple weeks. Then it'll be all ready for Brian's ma and grandma to visit in early November!

We are pretty much done with the old digs. And into the new. I am going to walk to work tomorrow and I can't wait. Well, I mean I can wait for the morning to come but ya know, it's going to be so nice not to drive!!!

The move went slowly but surely. All of our stuff is now in one place and there are only a few minor things which I would see with a very critical eye that the ex-landlord could ding us on to keep a tiny bit of our security deposit. I no longer care if he keeps some. I'm over it! Although this doesn't mean I won't bitch about it if he does keep some money.

I like doing the final cleaning of an old place. I think it brings me some form of closure and it's my way of thanking the place for letting me live there by giving it a good massage.

But shit, now I need a massage.

I cannot wait for the day that I am bored. I know it's coming, it might happen on Sunday if I'm lucky!!

I am mostly delirious right now and I need to take out the recycling and then take a shower. I hope you are all doing good out in reader world. I miss a lot of people right now. I guess going through major life changes makes you miss your beloved friends and family a little more than normal.

1. Brian and I saw a surfing Dolphin on Sunday, and it was utterly amazing.
2. Then, we watched our cats and a skunk sniff each other through the screen door off our kitchen. Everyone was playing nice but I was scared about the stink potential, so the glass door was closed out of my own personal stinkers fears.
3. This weekend, we are going to see the ‘big trees’ up by Kings Canyon/Sequoia Ntl Forest. I am very excited to see these big tree’s. I am ready to be mystified. My only complaint(s) would be the fact that it’s 5/6 hours away in the car AND da daa da daaaaa we are officially moving into our new home on Sunday, Sept 27th. So that means the weekend before our big move will be spent camping far far away. I am trying very hard to be cool with this whole thing.

I get stressed out surrounding a move. I guess it’s very emotional for me maybe because 3 of the 6 times I have moved, have been in conjunction with major life events. Or maybe it’s because I am a big giant baby, never did it as a child, and always had a secret fear of moving because some of my friends moved and I couldn’t handle the thought of having to go to a new school and meet new friends.

Perhaps my fear of change is deeply based inside of me. Whatever it is, I’m trying to battle with it because it’s not going to take over this time. Especially since I’m exceptionally excited about this particular move. I think I hang on to things too long. Emotionally. SO I am always sad to leave behind the person that moved into the home I’m vacating, and this time is especially traumatizing since I barely recognize the girl that moved into 23 Orange Ave August of 2007. Therefore, in a totally crazed way, I feel some weird sense of abandonment when I physically move on.

Ok psych majors – GO!

Here is todays installment of why I feel like an idiot.

I bought some grape jelly at the store. I spread it on for some good 'ole PBJ for lunch. It spread really easily and looked different then I am used to the jelly looking. Then I realized I bought blueberry something or other and I just assumed it was jelly because it was dark colored and in some glass.

Whatever-it's still damn tasty with my peanut butter.

I should have known today was going to be crazed.

Because when I went out to the car this a.m. to leave for work, there was a dog BOUNDING down the sidewalk towards the end of our street. I didn't waste any time getting in the car, ya know, just in case it was coming to attack me. Well shit. He had NO interest in me. If I didn't know any better, I would guess this dog was late for curfew the way he LEAPED over the fence to his yard like a damn deer. Nobody was outside calling him. I am relatively certain they had no idea he had left the yard. So now in my imagination, I picture him as some kind of juvenile delinquent/Ferris Bueller dog that sneaks out all night and runs home before his owners get up for work.

Then I ended up in a meeting that I wasn't suppose to be in, talking about things I have wanted to talk about since my first week, and even though I feel good about how it went, I would have liked to have been more prepared because, well, you can never be too prepared when you're basically telling someone that what they're doing sucks.

After that, I moved - our office is undergoing slight rennovation and my new desk is ready so I did it. Not that I have accumulated too much in the almost 2 months I have worked there. So it was mostly easy. Except I thought my skirt was longer and I may have been flashing my ass for the office to see as I was crawling around under my desk. Too bad that is not the FIRST time, as I got home Thursday night to find a gaping rip in the seam of the ass of my pants (gawd I still hope nobody saw that or if they did I hope they would tell me). Oh well. At least I was wearing underwear. Both times.

The move for me personally was easy. But it caused chaos in other areas like phone/network cables/etc. SO I ended up sitting outside for part of the afternoon while the people that needed to were crawling around our new area. It was madness.

The day ended with my psychotic coworker pissing me off. There is one in every crowd and I have pin pointed ours. That's all I'm saying.

There are many other smaller things that contributed to my ridiculous day but I am too lazy to type them out. I burned all of my food calories and then some at Spinning so I am completely light headed and actually wonder if I should have driven home from the gym! Oops. I can't decide if I like the fact that my allergy pill zaps my appetite. It's nice for weight control, but bad if you want to exercise too. I feel like DJ Tanner in that full house episode where she falls off the stairmaster or something to that effect.

Between the cat pee on the bed (yeah, I don't know why, don't ask!) and the giant skunk hanging around outside tonight (by the laundry room) I don't know if I am ready to give up and break out the aerobed tonight. But I am due to be awake in 5 hours so I kinda need to make a decision already.

Damn animals and their various stinks.

We are moving, officially. Our new lease date is October 1st. We are moving into a fantastic 3 bedroom 1.5 bathroom house with a great yard and 1 mile from my office.

It's quite a process doing this in Santa Barbara, I always felt in Chicago that people leasing an apt were just happy to have a renter. I don't think I never got a place I wanted.
But here? Oh man. Totally different story. Long story short, the process sucks and the woman doing the leasing for our new place (not the landlord) was kind of a dinghy idiot. She's good at what she does, but for instance, she called our landlord before we had a chance to warn them they might get a call. I would have liked to inform them first that we put in an application for a new place.
But apparently when I told the woman to wait about an hour so I can call the landlord, she took that to mean wait one minute. Oh well.
We got it, the old/current landlords gave us a great reference and are happy for us but sorry to see us go. That's cool, right? Right.

I can't believe we're moving - I am very excited!

Oh yeah, and our neighbors already knew we were moving too - we didn't tell them. Word travels fast.

Brian and I went to look at a bigger house yesterday. It’s 1 mile from my work. It’s awesome. So far, only downside I can tell, is, lots of wallpaper – but you know what, I don’t care and it’s not that bad. If we were buying the house, it would be removed eventually but we’re renting and at least it has character.
We are almost done with the process. Provided our credit report checks out and nothing strange happens, we should be signing a lease tomorrow night.
October 1st would be the start date of the new lease. We’re freaking out. In a good way.


It has been an insane few hours in life so far today.

Besides that, just a few updates. My 'rash' is almost gone. I now have the ugliest farmers tan ever. And it's peeling, something I haven't dealt with in so long I am not sure the last time I 'peeled'.
I'm still too scared to shave and/or put lotion on, so I'm just letting my leg skin do it's thing. I am hairy and dry. I don't like it, but that's how it is for the next few days.

Brian's back from his dorm room conference. It was a good experience overall so I am glad he's not totally scarred on conferences.

We have a fire technically in Santa Barbara County but it's pretty far away, like at least a 40 minute drive so we are not in any danger. It's just really smoky and ashy here now because we are downwind I guess.

Work is still going well. It's interesting to learn everyone's personalities as time goes on. There are definitely some strange one's here. And I am not referring to myself, I am pretty normal - scary yah?

Today I went to urgent care. Yeah I work in a hospital with an employee health dept that can give me a damn (second – grrrrrrrr) TB test tomorrow but they couldn’t give me a prescription for high strength cortisone for my sunburn-turned allergic to solarcaine-rash that itches like a mad dog with poison oak on its arse.

So I went to this awesome urgent care – being serious, kinda liked them better than any doc I’ve visited here the past 2 years – and he said stop using solarcaine and just deal with it. It was kinda funny but hey he was to the point right? I liked it.

I feel for Brian right now. He is at his first conference, presenting his first poster (think science fair type of thing) and he is staying in a dorm room with a roommate. Can you believe it? It’s in Santa Fe. Not near any food, sharing a bathroom with the rest of the ‘floor’ and this cost UCSB $400 for lodging!!!
Santa Fe is suppose to be pretty cool so I hope he gets to see it but it’s sounding like a totally crappy situation.

I miss him. I want him to come home. But since I am so itchy I am kind of cranky so it’s probably better he’s just not here.

How did I get sunburned you ask? Well…I missed a spot. A big spot, on each leg. Shin area onto foot. After dealing with this, I will be VERY specific about sunscreen for awhile (this is a good thing) and I will definitely keep telling myself I am grateful it’s just in those spots on my legs. If it was my whole body that was like this, I would seriously be very unhealthy mood wise right now! It was looking better yesterday but today it flamed up again. So, the nurses I work with went nuts and were like, oh my god you have to go to the doctor you must have an infection. They’re crazy. I forgot that’s what happens when you work with nurses. Ah it’s good to be ‘home’! I love my job, for real.

work is still going good.

i am tired.

Brian leaves for 5 nights tomorrow to attend his first conference. I will miss him.
It's going to be weird having HIM leave for once...

I just want to win the lottery and help EVERYONE!

I was in MN this weekend. Per and Susan got married and we also spent time w/Brian's family. That was nice. But also a quckie trip for me anyway.
The triplets are awesomely cool. 2 yrs and 4 months. Mandy has done a fantastic job making sure they know us, so they were not weirded out by our presence and were very sweet, I loved it.

Mom and dad have a puppy! They adopted her Friday night and she is so cute in the pictures! Her name is Maggie. They didn't name her. They should probably change it so people don't think they're psycho - otherwise they will have to tell her adoption story so people don't think they're total weirdo's. Although I do love that her name is Maggie :)

Between the weekend and the puppy, I have been thinking a lot about how to manage feelings about certain situations. Like living far far away from loved ones. I sometimes get the feeling that people think Brian and I are being selfish living in Santa Barbara. It's nothing personal, we just like it here. Oh and nevermind that Brian is here for a career choice. I think that gets forgotten or misunderstood. I like my new job. So yeah it might mean we are out here longer than planned or hell maybe not. I was getting frustrated with all of you midwestern guilt trippers until I found myself saying the same thing everyone says to us.

We were at Per's wedding and we were saying to their friends/family how we'd like them to stay in Santa Barbara after Per is done at UCSB. Of course we would because they are our friends and we like them and want to have friends here. And you know what? We'd move our f'n family and friends from the midwest and wherever else they are to be near us too if we could. So I get it, we all just wanna be around each other - or at least not a day on a plane away. Oh and independent wealth would help, so we didn't have to worry about pesky work getting in the way of time off.

So it's hard. I want to meet the puppy, like yesterday. I want to be around Weston, Wyatt and Ivy more because they are so cool. I want to drink my coffee with baby spit in it because Wyatt was helping me cool it off by blowing on it for me (god that was so cute and funny)! I want to see my sisters and parents and extended family regularly. I miss my Chicago-area friends with all my heart. I want to have a better relationship with Brian's family. But I guess we have to settle on being the weirdo's out in California for now, because none of these people are moving out here an we're certainly not moving back there anytime in the very near future.

Sigh. Nothing worth having comes easy right?

Week two is underway. We had two meetings outside today, that was cool. Well hot actually and I had to stand in the shade so I didn't get sunburned but refreshing anyway.
Kind of.
I don't know I guess it was actually quite overrated.

Anyway, things are still going well. I am happy to be there. The woman I sit next to is kind of snarky to the other woman I sit next to. I really want to ask what's up with that but I suppose I should just stay out of it. It makes me uncomfortable though. We are about the have an office overhaul anyway, people will be moving around and they are ordering new desks etc so hopefully that situation will work itself out. The snarky gal is just weird though. So I am guessing she's a bit snarky to everyone but I have not had to talk to her directly yet. Well even when I did for small talk, she was a little snotty. I keep telling myself that's her problem not mine.

I feel like I have more free time since I am working at Cottage. Doesn't make sense, considering I am working 40 hours a week now, but maybe it just helps me manage my time better.