That is what I will look like at 3:01PM today. Well, maybe not the blond hair, but everything else.

Our event calendar is weird and needs an overhaul. Weeks of relative quiet, and then we have 10 huge events and/or meetings within 3 weeks of one another. Ack. So in the middle of planning for a two day out-of-town conference (among other things), there's a board meeting AND a coalition meeting. I made it through the board relatively unscathed, and today is the coalition.
Still, it's better than unemployment. I'm not going to complain too much. I'm just sayin', is all.

SO! I'm gonna do this, then it's happy weekend time. HooFreakinRay! Ciao.

I'm THAT girl now. I'm obsessed with my hair.
Don't worry, I'll get over it. Right now it's like having a new toy or something.

Also - is my phone skin/sticker thing the cutest in the world or what?

Yesterday was the last boss-free day for a while, so I took advantage of it. Not by leaving early, but by GETTING THINGS DONE. It's like being a mom. You get things done while the kids are at school, because when they get home they're all needy and stuff. Heh.

We had dinner with Mom&Dad last night, and showed off the Brutus taHOE. They were highly impressed, and we went for a little ride. I love sitting in the captains' chairs in the backseat. I can hardly wait for our next roadtrip. I'm going to disappear back there and take a big ol' nap.

Why can't it be Friday?? I don't have much more working days left in me this week. Ciao.

 I stepped away from my cube and when I came back I was appalled. What messy person sits here? Why doesn't she clean up her desk?
Yeah.. you can always tell when I have a big event coming up. My desk looks like a bomb went off nearby.

It was a red-letter day, because I got to have lunch with my ragazz'. Yay! He worked from the Chateau, and it didn't take much arm twisting to get him into the taHOE to drive downtown. Heh. What a nice break in the day. Then I got to have PIE with Luuuuuuuucy. We did lots of reminiscing. She's *way* better at remembering names than I am.

Speaking of red-letter events: Dudes. I bought a blow dryer yesterday. FOR MY HAIR. I swear.. the last time I had to use one of those was, well, I can't remember. A while ago. This is very exciting, but a little scary. I'm still treating it very gingerly, in case it all decides to fall out again. That's what's keeping me from dyeing it.. because I'm really not that wild about all those grey hairs that are showing up. Yikes.

I'm totally going to be one of those old Italian ladies with black hair and red lipstick when they're 90. I will be the most rad-looking old woman ever.

Ciao.

My friend SheRALL brought me some bling from Italy. It's pink and it sparkles. Perfect!

Also, it's going to be winter soon, so I need a soft, warm wrap. That's what's on my needles right now.

I thought I was being spectacularly unproductive at the western *fort* last night. Then I looked around and realized that I'd done all the laundry, put away the dishes, scrubbed the counters and cleaned the bathroom. Huh.

The boss called when he landed for his first layover of the trip to let me know that he'd forgotten his phone charger. He needs a second one anyway, so I bought one at the Sprint store and then stopped at FedEx-Kinkos to overnight it to him. That's where I discovered that I now know our company Amex number by heart. I don't know if that's a bad thing or a good thing.

It's Tuesday. That means bowling night. It also means chele's going out for dinner and PIE with Luuuuuucy. This will probably be our last pie before she goes in for surgery, so we have to make it count.

Whoa. Now it's 5:45. GOGOGO. Ciao.

Many, many lights and gadgets.

Another successful weekend on the books. It's definitely autumn.. I know this because the crockpot is now occupying its seasonal spot on the kitchen counter. We had roast beef and gravy over ciabatta rolls for dinner.
Yum. Just.. yum.

Here's to the upcoming week. Uneventful and inexpensive would be good. Keeping this in the front of my mind today:
Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself.
Ciao.

I love these shadows on the wall in the morning. Don't judge.

Ragazz' was grinning like a kid this morning. He doesn't even have to RACE the cars.. he can get that happy by just WATCHING the cars race. And also, it gives him an excuse for a 90 minute drive in Brutus taHOE, so that's an added bonus.

In the meantime, I'm playing domestic housewife. All the clothes are washed, so just the bedding is left. The dishwasher is empty, and we gave the neighbors some pumpkin bread.
Oh God, please let us win the lottery so this can be our EVERY day. I'll even buy a ticket if that helps.

After I get the pot roast into the crockpot, I'm off to see SheRALL and collect my fresh-from-Italy present. Yay! Just like Christmas in September.
And, you know, Christmas is 90 days from TODAY.
Oh.. my... where did that whole YEAR go???

Ciao.

Shadows, a photo by chelejean on Flickr.

Friday: work work work...get off work one minute early (literally.. I left the office at 2:59pm). Make a run to the old house, grab one of the final loads of stuff. Watch my stories (I still love Grey's Anatomy). Fall asleep.

Saturday: sleep in til 8:30. Run various errands. Then the fun part:The Festa Italiana! All my peeps in one place (on Harriet Island), food, wine, music and Mass followed by a procession. This was the first year.. I can see it turning into a bigger thing in years to come.

Here in Minnesota (or as my desert-friend calls it, "the frozen tundra") you get used to seeing tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed people everywhere. At the Festa, it was all short, dark-haired people..just like me!

And now, after two glasses of wine, I kinda want to just go to sleep. But instead, I think I'll do a little laundry and make some pumpkin muffins.

Life is good. Ciao.

DUDES. I was 4 rows up from the dugout.
We had a work outing yesterday.. unbelievable tickets to a Twins game.

It was a whole different experience, being that close to the field. You can see the players' faces (and the fact that almost all of them are about 12 years old. Holy Hannah. SO young.). The downside to this, though, is that foul balls can - and do - come flying at you. I watched as one ball came directly at us.. and it was like everything went into slow motion for a minute. It whizzed right in front of me (I literally heard the "whoosh") and went BETWEEN my boss and me. If we hadn't ducked we would have gotten hit.
After that, it was sorta fun but also sorta terrifying.

I think sitting up in the cheap seats is just fine.

We finally got back to Maverick's for dinner, and then spent more time driving around in the BIGGEST CAR IN ALL THE LAND. I can hardly wait to take it on a road trip.

And finally, it's Friday. Longest. Week. Ever. I'm pretty tired. Ciao.

So then I dreamed that we bought ANOTHER car last night.

Oh wait. THAT WAS REAL TOO!!!

You guys. We keep buying cars. And houses. Recession? What's that?

Somehow, though, when Ragazz' explains these things to me they make sense. And then we buy new things.

Like this, for example:





Yeah. It's a BIG ol' Tahoe. Like, *gigantor* big. It's like Hammeh (my HHR) on steroids. Totally tricked out everything. It has so many buttons and gadgets, it's like the deck of the Enterprise when you sit in the driver's seat.

I'm a little afraid, yet kind of excited, to drive it. Sometime, not right now. It's.. big! (that's what she said. heh.)

And I've discovered this now about car dealers. They all SAY that they're no hassle/no haggle. And it's true, you don't get to haggle over the price of the new car.

Instead, you haggle over what you'll get for your trade-in.

Watching that all unfold was a beautiful thing. They wanted to give him $6500. He said no, he wanted closer to $10K. Then the sales guy was trying to get into Ragazz's head. "You could just sell it yourself? Or, you could try selling it yourself. Say - How about selling it yourself?"

Heh. I wanted to tell they guy - I've been trying for almost 6 years now. There's NO getting into my ragazz's head.

Also.. it didn't hurt that he was negotiating this deal at 8:59:45... and all the dealership people wanted to do was GO HOME.

In the end, he got $8500 for the Chuckwagon. Which is exactly what he wanted to get anyway. Genius! 

So we drove home at 10:00 in TheHOE. The biggest Hoe in all the land.

New house, two new (to us) Chevys in the garage. Clearly we're doing something right.

Ciao.

This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices on a Tuesday night. Oooh! pretty colors! Shiny thing!

We have the huge board meeting today. I'm as ready as I'll ever be, so there's no point in stressing about it anymore. Have you ever noticed the phenomenon, though, of whenever you have a million things to do, your boss will just *sense* it and become very very needy? Like - overly needy. Things that I KNOW he's capable of doing himself suddenly become impossible for him, so I get interrupted one million times. Heh.

BUT. It all got done, and life moves on.

Here's the other thing. I love love (and also adore) my fancy automatic coffee maker. Coffee first thing in the morning, without any effort! I have it set up so that the coffee is done 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. Once it's made, and the *beep beep beep* happens - I am incapable of snoozing. The lure (and the smell) of coffee is too strong. Since I got this coffee maker, I've only been awakened by the alarm a handful of times. The coffee is my alarm now.

Also - I'm very glad that there are no hidden cameras on me when I stumble out of bed. They based the term "zombie-like" on me, you know. Pre-coffee chele is something that no one wants (or needs) to see.

ALSO also - HEY. It's fall.

Ciao.

Amelia *waves* posted this picture, so I grabbed a copy too.
It's so sweet, and it perfectly captures the ceremony. It really is an honor to be able to do this for my friends.

(Also - WTF, I am the shortest person in the world, and I'm wearing 2-1/2" heels here. I never really feel short.. until I see pictures and people are towering over me. Heh. )
(Also-also - I really do love that pink jacket.)

It's going to be another early into work day, I think. I worked 10 hours yesterday, which is unusual, but we've got a big board meeting coming up. So really, I don't think I'll feel guilty if I leave early on Friday. Heh.

I was all peopled out by the time 4:00 rolled around.. so I stopped at the grocery store and then went back to the Western house. I've decided to start calling it "the fort". HA! It's a good place to hide when I need to retreat from the rest of the planet.

Time to go make Tuesday happen. Ciao.

I realize that I should have taken a picture last night, when we actually FED people at this dining room table.

We had the nieces™ over for dinner last night. It was a momentous occasion: first dinner party, first time cooking/baking in the new oven, first REAL meal in the house. Up until now, we've been living on takeout, delivery and fast food. I made spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread and my gramma would have been proud of me. Deeelish.

I woke up at 4:00 this morning, stressing over work. I don't like this.. because really, I don't get paid *nearly* enough to get stressed at this job. heh. So I'm gonna go in early and deal with the stressy things and get them out of the way.

Ciao.

 


The wedding yesterday.. it was beautiful. I didn't get any pictures. I know that there will be others posted, though, so I'll get one up here when I can.
I don't even have other words for it right now. It was all love, all the time!

And now it's Sunday, and there's spaghetti sauce on the stove, and football on the TV, and we're snuggled down under the blankets on the couch. Both of the nieces will be here for dinner in a little while.

La vita è bella

Ciao. 

And then there was some furniture, and all was well with the world!
I'm tired of writing about moving stuff.

I stayed home from work today because my voice was starting to go yesterday.. and I really don't want to perform a wedding ceremony using sign-language. Heh. So I'm resting and drinking tea and taking spoonfuls of honey at regular intervals and, most importantly, NOT talking. The rehearsal and dinner are tonight, and I will be good as new by then!

Tomorrow, I get to hitch-up two of my most favorite people. How cool is that???

Back to the resting. Ciao.

I think that one day this BMW will probably show up in the garage. He's studied every square inch of this car.

Last night we moved more little last-minute stuff (like ALL THE LIQUOR), and now all is in readiness for the moving guys to come today. Oh yeah!

I've been fighting off a bug for the past couple of days, so a nap was in order after that. Wow.. napping is the best. I should do those more often.

Then it was time for moar shopping pleeeeze. Ay yi yi. The spending, it never ends. Back to Bed Bath and Beyond the universe, this time for more pleated shades and a swanky (and skinny) garbage can. Then Home Depot for network wiring supplies. My boy, he can do anything. There are network jacks in the living room now. WOOT! Cable TV cannot be far behind.

I still feel a little buggified this morning.. scratchy throat. And also, even though my friend notprada says that I am made of "coffee and zoom" (which made me laugh and laugh and even snort!), today I'm feeling pretty low on power. I think I can duck out of work for more napping in the next couple of days. After all, I have to be healthy for the weekend... when I magically turn into the "marryin' preacher lady" again, so as to marry (to each other) two of my most favorite peeps! YAY.

Ciao.

Yes, it's woobie-time again. That time when you wake up, get coffee, then wrap yourself up in the woobie blanket because it's cold and dark in the morning.

I'm missing summer already, and we haven't had the first frost yet. But that's coming tonight, I guess.

I'm keeping this thought in the front of my mind today: Live generously and graciously toward others.

Ciao.

This is what the kitchen counter looked like after I pulled all the liquor bottles out of the cabinet to pack them. I am only slightly exaggerating. MAN. For two people who don't drink all that much, we have a lot of liquor.

Last night, we turned the corner on the whole "packing up the house" thing. All of a sudden it was just... done! The movers are coming for the big stuff on Thursday. There are said liquor bottles left on the counter, a few things in the freezer (note to self - get those coolers back over to the old house), and that's it.

Then there's the whole garage thing.. but that's the boy's domain. I try not to get too involved with any of THAT stuff.

I scrubbed the bathroom (and nearly asphyxiated myself in the process), and OMG, I will be so happy to never have to try to clean that awful, old, teal-green porcelain EVER AGAIN. Hated it!

This last round of packing was that random kind. Grab a paper bag and walk around and around the kitchen, throwing the last minute random stuff into it. I have a feeling that most of it is going to get tossed as it gets unpacked.. but at least it's out of the old place.

So very, very soon, I might get to talk about other things rather than moving. How novel!

PIE tonight with Looooosey. Yay! Ciao.

This is what you do after hours and hours of moving things. You play Angry Birds on your phone.

HOWEVER. We're almost through to the other side. Saturday was the worst of it. Poor Ragazz' hit the wall. He was tired and headachey and really just needed to lie down and do nothing for a while. So he rested while I made a chele-sized run (i.e., stuff that I could carry, pack and unload by myself - the food!) and he felt better in the evening so we made another run at it.

On Sunday we slept in until about 8:30, then I watched the 9-11 memorials for a while. So hard to see the kids reading those names. Sad..
Then we were back in the moving-zone. All the clothes from closets and drawers. The laundry. The dressers. The airbed (the new squishy real bed gets delivered next week). The coffee maker!

Ragazz' actually stayed there last night. I came back to the western house so I could wear REAL clothes to work this morning (I only had moving clothes - i.e. inappropriate for work clothes - with me.). Tonight the electronics are going, and I'm going to clear out the fridge and start throwing junky stuff away.

So. Close. To. Done.

We picked up Ms. T-Rex and went to Maverick's for dinner. How we missed this place for this long, I'll never know. Holy Moly.. BEST ever. While we were driving down there I was so excited. "Hey! We're going somewhere that doesn't involve moving anything!! We're going out like REAL PEOPLE."

Heh. It's been a while since we did that.
Ciao.

See that little splotch of red there? That's a sign of things to come.

I confess.. I did not pick up a brush or a box yesterday. I had a little bit of guilt about that. Just a little tiny bit. But my gosh, a girl has to do laundry and buy some food some time, right? Also, we went to ApplianceSmart (our new favorite hangout) and bought a new bed. A cushy, tempurpedialicious, queenly sized bed, boxspring and frame. Huzzah! They're going to bring it to the new house in a little over a week.

Today I will more than make up for the sloughing off of yesterday. I have about one million boxes over there, just waiting for me to unpack them.

My wrist is as good as new. I'm still going to use the splinty thing for moving, just to be safe.. but for typing and every day stuff, it's all good. Hooray for injectable corticosteroids.

Ciao, Bellas.

Even though the painting is done, I still dreamed about it.

I didn't pick up a paintbrush yesterday for the first time in 10 days. What a weird feeling. Instead, there was massive packing. All the kitchen cupboards (except for the top shelf that I can't reach, and the ones with food) are done. Even the junk drawer! We just keep slogging through. I told ragazz' yesterday that we've now entered the "death march" phase of moving - where you feel like it's never ever going to be done. I'm expecting that we'll hit the euphoria phase next. "I CAUGHT MY SECOND WIND AND NOW IT'S GO GO GO!!"
I also expect that we'll have consumed a lot of RedBull before that happens.

I literally have nothing else to talk about on el bloggo, because this is all we do. I'm dreaming of the day when I can go back to writing about hanging out with our friends, or trying a new place for dinner, or, you know, doing real every day stuff.

Heh. At this moment, I don't even know where my knitting bag is.

Time to dose up on that caffeine and have at it. Ciao.

Those cupboards? Many of them are now filled with dishes, cups, glassware, etc. So although there's still a lot of extraneous... junk.. everywhere, it's starting to turn into a real kitchen.

It won't be done for a while yet. But we're getting closer.

As of last night the very fancy washer and dryer are both working as well. So many buttons and lights! It's like a video game.

Oh - and while all this house stuff is going on, there's still this thing called "work". I go there every day, too. Eight hours there, followed up with another 6 - 8 hour shift at the house. Right now I'm living on caffeine and Luna Bars. That's not a bad diet, is it?

Here's the thought I'm going to keep at the front of my head today:
You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourself the proud owner of everything that can't be bought.


Indeed. Ciao.

I went to the hand doctor yesterday to get a shot in my wrist. Ow. I have De Quervain's tenosynovitis (and I'm not even making that word up) and the only thing that makes it feel better is a big old shot of cortisone which lasts for about 4 months.

The last shot I got was in April and it lasted until August, right before we started painting. Heh. Painting didn't make it worse (and it's my left hand anyway), but now I can't lift anything heavy with that hand for about a month. Ooops. Sorry about that whole "moving" thing, honey.

But what I *can* do is pack stuff.. so that's exactly what I did last night. I was a packing maniac. All the dishes, cups, glasses, flatware, utensils, knives, potholders, platters... I boxed it all up and then when ragazz' got home from bowling he took it all over to the new house. Tonight I'll go put it all away and then I'll hit the pots and pans and my one MILLION crockpots.

Andiamo, yo. Ciao.

I'm pretty sure I've destroyed my retinas by staring intensely at all these brightly colored walls over the past week or so. Heh.

When the alarm went off at 4:30, the past week seemed like a dream. Until the moment I sat up. Let me tell you, rolling paint for 5 days in a row is the best arm exercise you'll ever get. I may never be able to fully raise my arms above my head ever again!

But oh my gosh.. the transformation is totally worth it. Even in its weirdly chaotic state, with Home Depot bags and door hardware and painting supplies in random places on the floor, it's gone from being just a house to a HOME. There are painted walls and window treatments and yesterday one of the neighbors stopped by to see our progress. It's the best.

There's been just two small "incidents" along the way, and they happened within hours of each other. When I was painting the blue bedroom (the last room to be done), I decided to use the corner tool instead of a brush to do the cut-ins. There was still a little bit of water on it from the previous rinse, but it was mostly dry. I ran it down the corner and noticed that there were going to be a few drips coming down the wall, so I turned and went back to the painting table in the middle of the room to grab my brush to catch the drips.

In doing so, my foot caught the edge of the tarp and pulled it away from the corner.

And there were more drips than I thought, because there was enough water in the tool to dilute the paint.

You see where this is going, right? I turned back to the corner... and saw two little rivers of blue paint dripping directly onto the carpet. I froze. Then one MILLION bad swears came out of my mouth and I grabbed paper towels and goo gone and attacked the mess. I had it mostly cleaned up in a few minutes... then I went downstairs to spin down. Ragazz' came out from the garage where he and his dad had been painting.. and I completely melted down. "I *sob* spilled paint *sob* ON THE CARPET!! *whaaa! whaa! sob! sob! sniff! whaaa!* "

God bless him, he hugged me, came upstairs and looked at it and said that it was in the corner where there'd be a nightstand anyway, and it was okay. Then our niece got there to help with painting and she grabbed Spot Shot - which is a miracle in a can - and literally got ALL the rest of the paint out of the carpet. Stand down from red alert.. all was well.

The second incident happened right after that. She was rolling the wall near the ceiling with the extended roller, and I was in the kitchen doing touch ups. Suddenly she yelled from the bedroom, "NOOOOOOOO! Chele!!! I just did something!!! And it's WORSE THAN YOURS!!!!"

I went flying into the bedroom, and discovered that, while turning from the corner in which she was working back to the table to refill her roller, she'd bumped the roller against the ceiling. There it was. A perfect little circle of blue paint on the white ceiling. AAAAAAGH!

We went all Keystone Cops/Lucy & Ethel for a moment.. then we sprang into action. This time it wasn't Spot Shot, but SPACKLE that saved us. The spackle was the exact same white as the ceiling paint. She dabbed spackle onto the spot, and sculpted it so it had the same texture as the ceiling. In just a few minutes, the blue spot totally disappeared.

We stood down from red alert again.. (and then took an extended break), and the rest of our painting was almost incident free.

Almost.

But that's another story for another day, because I have to go to work now. Ciao.

Blue bedroom, a photo by chelejean on Flickr.

And with this, all the rooms have at least one coat of paint!

Today we have to go back and hit up a few spots with a second coat, shop for a few more accessories, hang curtains in the bedroom, finish putting liners in the cabinets and drawers.....
In short there's a lot still left to be done, but we finished more in this week than I ever dreamed we would.

And we have to go back to work tomorrow. I feel like working will just take 8 hours away from time that could be spent at the house! Heh. Although, it will be nice to have 8 hours away from paint fumes..

Onward! Ciao.

Here's more before and after fun!

BEFORE:



AFTER:







BEFORE:

AFTER:



Up next today - The bedroom!

We wrapped up early last night. Well, 10pm early. Better than midnight.

Ciao.

THIS IS HOW WE SPENT THE DAY

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I'm exhausted and sore and I smell REALLY BAD. But it's totally worth it. Ciao.

Yesterday was about the painting. Or rather, the getting ready to do that.

First we went on a ginormous shopping trip to Home Depot. Like, four-figures ginormous. Although, to be fair, a good chunk of that was a lawn mower.

Then it was back to the house, where Ragazz' and his dad disappeared into the garage for a good part of the day to install the door opener. I taped and taped and taped and taped. And I was the official go-fer. Go to Target. Go get food. Go to Target again. AND AGAIN. One of the nieces came to help paint, and she did a fabola job on the bathroom. It's nearly done. We got home close to midnight, and dosed up on ibuprofen. Heh.

Today we go back to do it all over again. It's my goal to FINISH THE TAPING (good lord, there's a lot of that) and get the bedroom started. I think today's the day the internet man brings it to the house, too. That will be glorious.

Ready, set. go. Ciao.