This looks delicious.

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime® 6.5 or higher is required.

Early mornings suck.

Every time I try to get to work early, I end up sitting in traffic so long that I get there the same time as when I normally leave. So I woke up super early after not being able to fall asleep last night until 11:30 (which is an hour of lost sleep already) then I didn't even make up some of the extra time I'm taking off for Denise's wedding tonight. That mean's I'll just have to make it up next week.

In other news, today is my BFF's birthday. So Happy Birthday Katie!!!

Nice hat.

This is what my mom looks like when she takes General out for a walk.

Yup.

I'm so used to updating my facebook profile that blogging seems like such a chore lately... sorry for the lack of interesting posts.

Give me some topics to write about and maybe you could have some less depressed-about-the-house-not-selling things to read.

FYI

If anyone feels like buying me a present in the future, I'd like the book "Eat this not that."

the good and the bad of the last 24 hours

Due to the snow last night, our test for tomorrow was pushed to next Monday, which I thought was great news. The other good news is my black civic drives just as well as my red civic in the snow. I didn't slide once last night.

The bad news is the kids across the street are outside sledding and General thinks it's his personal business to bark at them until they stop. Bark collar = on.

thank u modot

I love these signs. You can't really see it, but it says "Accident just past Laclede Station cleared at 7:49 am" and I think that's awesome. Not that there was an accident, but that MODOT can tell us why we are sitting in traffic. I look at it every morning to make sure that I'm 14 minutes and then 8 minutes away from the Kingshighway exit. Then I try to beat MODOT's time.

Thanks for wasting our time.

As a current seller and soon-to-be buyer in the housing market, I can tell you with absolute certainty that any house we look at buying will have more than one toilet. I do not require 2 full baths, although that is ideal. We are ready at any moment to call our buying agent to go look at houses, and he knows our requirements.

So as a seller, I would expect that anyone who comes to look at our 3-bed, 1-bath house KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING AT. We do not falsely advertise our house as a 2-bath house. So what do you think would make a family of four come look at our house today, only to tell us that they made an offer on another house.

Why? becuase their 2 teenage daughters refuse to share a bathroom with their parents.

BBC

Does anyone else watch the BBC network? I love the shows "How clean is your house" and "You are what you eat." I don't know why but when some lady tells you how disgusting your life is in a British accent, I just can't get enough of it. Both hosts are so brutally honest with their scolding, it's great! And there is a bit of educational value to both. I don't live like a complete slob, but I'm not a perpetual cleaner either. And the food lady usually has some sort of helpful tip in there about how to eat right or exercise more.

Sushi

Hubby has so graciously offered to take me out for a nice sushi dinner tonight. Even though he does not like sushi, he knows I loves it!

I'm planning on some edamame to start out, then some rolled up goodness from the Golden State. I know it's boring, but california rolls are some of the lower-points rolls. I don't really care for the texture of sashimi, which is much lower on the point scale.

After that, who knows where we will end up! If I have my way, probably asleep or at least on the couch. I haven't watched 30 Rock or ER from last night.

GRRRR

I worked on an excel spreadsheet yesterday for at least 3 hours. I went to go open it today and I cannot find the stinking file. Usually I just open from my "recent" documents, but it wasn't there. So I searched my computer. It got mad and the fan started running like the whole thing was going to blow up, so I stopped it. I looked in the "temp" file that things open up in when you open it from an email attachment. It wasn't there... I guess I'll have to do it all again.

SO FRUSTRATING.

Barack H. Obama

Today marks a day in history. I'm glad that my boss' boss allowed us to pause our day-long planning retreat to watch CNN for an hour and watch our new pres take office. It really was pretty cool to watch.

My favorite parts were:

• Aretha Franklin's hat.
• The end of the benediction. "When a red man can be the head man."
• The speech was a really well-written speech. Seriously.
  

Food talk

Other than being depressed about the house most of the time, I am somehow managing to lose weight. I lost 2 more lbs last week, and the "I'm-going-to-starve-to-death" feeling has diminished significantly.

Hubby was extremely helpful this weekend with taking me to dinner at Applebees -who has a ww menu, and cooking me a low-point dinner last night.

Once we get settled in a new house I'd like to take some cooking classes so our family does not rely on him to eat every meal.

Time to shop.

My good buddy Denise is going to tie the knot next weekend. I'm still searching for my outfit. I have one dress that I could wear, but it's a little big on me so I'm searching for a belt to wear with it.

OR

I'm searching for a new dress that is severely on sale. It's frustrating to shop for something when you don't want to spend any money and when you are in between sizes so nothing looks good. My mom and I found one last week at Macy's but it was at the soon-to-close Crestwood location, which means ALL SALES FINAL.

So, I'm off to shop.

New Boss

I spent most of the day at work on Monday conducting interviews for my new boss. Apparently my employer is not really feeling this whole "depression" thing, and we are hiring a middle-manager between my current boss and me (along with 2 others on my "team").

It was very surreal to be the interviewer instead of the interviewee. I'd never done it before and it was sort of strange to have someone so visibly nervous by my questions. One candidate was actually quivering her lip and shaking a little bit. I don't think I've ever been THAT nervous that I was visibly shaking, but who knows. I bet if I were shaking in an interview, I didn't get the job. I did not recommend that my bosslady hire that candidate. This person will have to be the one to stand up for me when I screw up, so I want him/her to have a little more assertiveness and confidence.

I have yet to hear the results but there were two other candidates that I would be really happy to see come work with us because I think I can learn a lot from them, and ultimately that's what I want out my boss. I want them to be better than me at what we are doing so I can improve.

We need your help.

We need to sell our house.

I like that I can communicate with our agents, but obviously, they are having a hard time selling our house. I know they are advertising our house, but I'm not sure they are doing much else. I think they are just used to selling houses by people calling them, instead of searching for buyers.

So I'm asking for your help, internets friends. I need some word of mouth marketing to help sell our house. We are putting a new roof on it, so hopefully if that was something that has worried you in the past, fear no more! PLEASE tell anyone you might know, or know of, or even someone you just met. We need to sell that house. Stat. Stat means now.

Sunshine and roses

I have this weird feeling in my gut that things are turning around for me and hubby. I have a feeling that the house is going to sell soon. We are putting a new roof on the house (uh yeah, that's $5k we won't see again.) so hopefully that will be what it needs to lure someone in. I mean I know it looks bad, but it's not leaking or anything and the inspection would probably force us to get a new one anyway.

I lost 4 lbs last week, so I'm feeling good about that. I started business law last night... it was dull but also somewhat interesting to discuss because I kept thinking about how some of the things my former employer does are illegal. It makes me smile to know I'm no longer part of that organization.

Maybe life isn't so bad after all.

Total Bust

Not one person came to the open house. I guess I sort of knew it would be that way, but I had to say that we've tried everything. Our agent says we are still priced well, but that most people looking in Cdale right now are looking for a house for their kids to live in while at SIU or for new construction, which = Carterville.

Today we went to visit Doug and Jenny's new house. They have a lot of work cut out for them, but the house looks like it's in good shape and will be awesome when they get done. I was totally jealous of them today because I want nothing more than to buy a new house and move in. I don't really want to have to put in as much work as they are, but they also have skilled helpers who know what there are doing whereas we'd have to pay someone to do it right.

I'm at such a loss of what to do to sell our house. This just sucks.

Oh Little General

General has a new habit in the morning. Instead of laying in bed LONG after I'm up and getting ready, he now jumps up with my alarm clock and waits at the door. Most dogs are probably waiting to go outside and do their business. Not my pup. He just wants to sleep and snuggle. When I finally get out of the bed and open the door, he literally runs down the hall to my roomies' bedroom and jumps in bed with grandma and grandpa.

Only very spoiled little pugs get to do this.

Tick Tock.

Time is closing in on me fast. I start class on Monday - my final semester of grad school. I received an email this morning from my prof informing me of my extensive reading list for the weekend. Currently, I'm halfway through the final installment of the Edward and Bella Cullen saga and I'm fully entranced. I have to force myself to break away.

So, I have to finish the book tonight. For the next 16 weeks, I will be in memorize,-regurgitate- delete-mode.

(for those who have read the book, I enjoy teasing my hubby by calling him my werewolf because his is so naturally warm-temperatured and strong. He hates it.)

2 days - no sweets.

So I'm on my third day of weight watchers. I think my body is finally beginning to accept the fact that the holidays are over and we are no longer binge eating. I'm feeling better already. I've also done yoga the past two nights (to accomplish that, I literally have to force myself to stop reading Breaking Dawn for 30 minutes, which is rather difficult).

I weighed in at 193 for my first week. I'm telling you this because I feel like if I put it out there, it will make me accountable. Last year at this time, I tried to keep track on the bathroom wall, thinking that if I posted it somewhere public, it would work. Apparently my bathroom is not public enough because I'm only down 5 lbs. My goal is officially 170, which is approximately 12 percent. WW wants you to start with a 5 percent loss, so I'm aiming high.

Did you know that you can have 13 animal crackers for 3 points? I find that much more interesting than 1 graham cracker with a tablespoon of PB for the same 3 points. I have to find sweets somewhere in this journey :)

Chief ate the baby Jesus.

Last night was our farewell to Andrew and Jess, and Mr. and Mrs. Beast. So while we were talking last night, Jess told us the story of how Chief, their dog, ate the baby Jesus out of Andrew's parent's nativity scene and that he was in puppy jail because of it. Apparently Jesus is now just a head and torso with no limbs after Chief got ahold of him.

Here's Chief in his new custom-made Illini shirt. I was really glad to see this because now I know that my parents aren't the only one's who consider their adult child's pet as Grandbaby #1.

We closed down the bar, and it still seemed too soon to see our friends go back to their homes and force us back into reality. I really hope we can go visit Fort Bragg this spring.

NYE and all that jazz

New Year's Eve was fun, but I stayed up waaaaay past my 10 p.m. bedtime. Like 7 hours past. Getting up for work this morning was tough.

But on to the good stuff that I'm sure you are dying to hear about - The Resolutions. I completely agree with stlworkingmom who says to set "SMART" goals. After working with Continuous Quality Improvement at my last job and now lean and six sigma tools at this one, I should practice what I preach at work and set some Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable and Time-bound goals.

1. Take a vitamin. Everyday. I'm going to go ahead and count Emergen-C as close enough to a vitamin because I hate swallowing pills.
   
2. Weigh 175lbs by Nov. 18, 2009 by implementing weigh watchers practices and doing some form of exercise for 30 minutes 6 days/week. I think I can attain this goal before then, but that's my ultimate deadline.
3. Sell house in Carbondale and buy a new one (Good LORD I hope this one happens first), being completely settled in time for our Festivus Party Dec. 23, 2009. Put that on your calendar stat. Stat means now.