Dr Seuss in my head

There is so much going on lately that I wish I could just instantly categorize and describe eloquently, but alas, the busier my brain gets the less coherently things come out of it. Especially cool things. I just get like a chihuahua, all shaky and jumpy. And people go "Oh, isn't she funny when she's excited." Ah well, ce va fi, va fi. (Yes, that probably translates to what you're thinking. Romanian for "what will be, will be")

My friend at work just lost his mother to cancer. We got to talk about it today and through our conversation I learned that, though we have had very different lives, we have very similar worldviews. Most notably regarding faith, unpopular musical genres, and our roles as 3rd children.

I have finally figured out the secret I have been searching for for months. Running. You would argue with the question, so I will leave that part out, but running is clearly the sole answer. (Would you believe I absolutely did not see that as a pun until after I wrote this paragraph?!) It is also the only thing I hate as much as people making fun of my little brother or hurting defenseless animals. But tonight I added my running regiment to my workout regiment and it wasn't so bad. In fact, the more I hate it, the more I like doing it because I am addicted to challenge. Next step: I want to take fighting lessons. Yeah, like UFC.

We doggysat for our very most favorite mini schnauzer over the weekend. It is so hard to leave him. The whole time we are packing up he runs back and forth between Sam and me, making this growly gargling noise that is so precious and sad that it takes us twice the time to pack because we have to stop to snuggle him every 2 minutes. But while we were there we took him for a walk and dang that little dog can run!

And now, since this is already too much text and not enough pictures- here is our little Rascal:

They have the most nap-inducing couch and every time I fall asleep on it, Rascal lays on me and watches me like that.

This is how he greets us. HUGS!! He is such a little kid it is hysterical. He loves to be carried around like a baby, which of course, Sam obliges.

And in case you weren't convinced that he is the cutest dog you've ever blog-met, here he is as a puppy:

I daaaare you not to giggle or say "awwww". Give it your best shot. Ok, so that isn't actually Rascal (I got it from a breeder's site), but that is exactly what he would have looked like as a baby. Awwwww :) We are completely smitten.

Last, and actually least because this is such a great list of discoveries: Sam put One Cell in the Sea by A Fine Frenzy on my iPhone and I could listen to that album all day every day. Even with one line stuck in my head, playing over and over as I try to fall asleep it is not even annoying. Speaking of sleep, did I knock anyone else out? It is 2 hours past my bedtime!

Procrastination

We seriously need to go to bed, but for some reason neither of us is tired. Blah. 9:15 and not tired, which means we won't wake up until like 4:45 tomorrow and that is no bueno.

Our life is so crazy right now. We are the ones who never go out, never make plans, always stay at home and veg together. (That is not a complaint.) But this is February and we have been home so little lately that we still have our Christmas tree up. Yeah...We hardly even notice it anymore. It is in grave danger of staying up until we move, in April. Eh, at least it is really cute. Thank you to everyone who has sent us ornaments- we have collected a theme of birds, snowmen and "joy" ornaments as gifts without ever even mentioning we were collecting those things (I don't think?).

Perhaps if we lived in frigid, frostbitten places like most everyone else we know it would not seem so ridiculous to have our tree still up, but it is 75 degrees here and we have all the windows open. Snowmen are so wildly out of place here!

Hehehe, Sam woke up with a faux-hawk yesterday morning and it was soooo cute. I don't know how he managed to accidentally wake up with a perfect hawk...must be a Romanian thing. It was so cute he did it on purpose today. Hehehehe it makes me so happy!

Yeah, I'm jumping on that train

I don't really know anyone who gets into Valentines Day anymore. Do you? It seems like more people loathe the holiday than actually celebrate it, these days. My senior year in college Sam left a cute message on the chalk board in one of my classes on Valentines Day and it was equal parts precious and humiliating, which I'm pretty sure he picked up on- and never tried that again.

We may be averse to the holiday of love, but when it comes to movies about love, we are all in. Here are our favorites of the last 100 years:

From While You Were Sleeping, my first ever favorite movie to When In Rome, which we just saw yesterday, to Unconditional Love, which is the most bizarre and hysterical story I have ever loved. And Return to Me is even the favorite chick flick of my dad and brothers.

tv remote is in the bathroom, purse is in the fridge

As I was cleaning the kitchen after I put the turkey in the oven this evening I realized *ding!* there is no decent lighting in our apartment- EXCEPT IN OUR REFRIGERATOR! Soooo hehehehe I took a picture of all the stuff in my purse IN THE REFRIGERATOR! This is just hysterical to me. That, and the fact that I had a container of bacon in my purse (yes, that was actually from my purse, not from the fridge). Obviously I just do this to amuse myself.

Today has been the craziest day. I always set my alarm for an hour before I have to get up because, let's face it, I am not a morning person and waking up at 5 am takes an hour of trying to wake up. But this morning my alarm went off and I was totally awake. At 4:00 am. Gah, that is just unnatural. Sam recently expressed that he is always starving in the morning because his stomach doesn't believe in breakfast in the car. So I got up and made eggs and sausage and rolls and brought it to him in bed. He was a little freaked out, but I think a happy tummy makes up for a lot of bizarre wife behaviors, no?

Should have been a British judge

I knew it. I am in the wrong profession, wrong country, wrong everything. I should have become a judge or a lawyer in Manchester, England! Then I could work here at The Civil Justice Centre, or the "filing cabinet of justice". Check out this article to learn about its passive cooling system, strategic natural lighting and 11-story glass atrium (if you're an architecture nerd like me...). And then try not to cry as you scroll down.


Yep, there it is, folks. My office. Or as I like to call it, "the guacamole bowl of injustice". It is not even actually an office; it is a mechanics shop with some storage space above it where my desk happens to reside. Shall I laud the environmentally friendly diesel/weld/spray paint fumes that grace my office or the strategic natural lighting that we have to cover with cardboard boxes or the avant garde architect that designed everything slightly crooked and asymmetrical? Ha, I don't know if you're ready for such excitement! At least we haven't found any scorpions yet...at the old office we found them every couple days in our desk drawers or behind our computers. Oh, the desert. Some day I will write about the pros of desert life, but that may be a long time coming.

I did just get a cubicle, though, which is very exciting! Seriously, I am glad for these gray walls surrounding me. Did I already write about this? I feel like I did... Oh well! I am the lone person from my department, working within another department's office. It was pretty confusing and distracting, as people thought I changed jobs or our departments merged or they generally just moved around and talked about other-department stuff all the time.

Anyway...is there a word for being the opposite of claustrophobic? Wide open spaces freak me out. Now, thanks to my cubicle (lovingly named Cubey), I can imagine I work in a 5'x5' space and anything beyond is a dark abyss. Oooh, I like that. But maybe it's just the paint fumes?