Patty Johnson's Blog

It was a nice weekend. Steve & Lori and fam came to visit because Saturday was Becky's baby shower. The shower was fun...mostly because I got to hang out with my cousins. Plus Lily had a blast going around the room in circles with the other kids...she'll still not walking but she moves pretty fast while holding on to people or furniture. After the shower (I won a yummy key lime pie candle btw) we all just went to my parents house to hang out. We got hungry and ordered Springville Warf Italian Fries. SO YUMMY, I don't know why we don't order them more often...well besides I'm sure they are pretty bad for you. Sunday we all went to Golden Corral for lunch. We tried to call ahead but aparently the don't take reservations until after 6 months after they open. So, the 13 of us had to sit in 3 seperate table but at least they were next to each other. Nothing else really happened this weekend. It was fun and relaxing not stressing about anything.

I'm IRATE

So, housing came to inspect us. I could sum up the situation in what the lady said right before leaving..."I could pass you but I just want to double check that you fix all the little things so we'll be back in a month" DAMNIT. You know how SICK and TIRED I am of having inspections?
I swear they look to find things wrong!
What do I have to fix? I changed the spout on my kitchen faucet to a sprayer type - can't do that. I have to call maintenence and get them to come here to glue a little rip in one of my window shades & have them bring a new thermostat cover (funny how the faucet, shade and cover were the same LAST TIME) Oh, and the pipe thing that comes out of my dryer...part of it is plastic and it needs to be all metal. (yeah, that was the same last time too and they didn't say anything)
I'm just sick of having to waste my time fixing all this little crap when I just know they will find something else wrong EVERY DAMN TIME. This is nuts.
Oh, and to top this all off I've had 3 hours of sleep and I have a HUGE headache.

Well, after a nice mostly relaxing weekend I get the mail and read that we are getting ANOTHER inspection this wednesday at 2:50pm. Reason: when the dude came to change the furnace filter last week he reported that our house wasn't clean enough. Damnit! First of all this guy just came in to my house proceeded downstairs changed the filter and left. He didn't even go into most of my house. I'm not going to lie the basement was pretty full but that's our storage so bah.
Well, since I obviously don't want to get kicked out I have been spending every waking moment cleaning. The review people really love things super clean so I had to scrub-a-dub-dub everything basically.
Gwyn helped me Monday and Tuesday night. She made "Clean Sweep" t-shirts (as in the TV Show) for herself, Lily and me. We sorted through oodles of boxes and clothes and I think we probably threw away 1/2 of the crap down there...You should see how many HUGE garbage bags are outside right now!!! Tonight after she left at midnight I mopped and vacuumed and scrubbed the bathroom and cleaned everything you can think of.
The only upside is the house IS really clean. I mean REALLY REALLY Clean. I've used so many cleaning products this house even smells super clean (Special Shout out to Pine Sol, Febreeze, Oust, Lysol, Pledge, Easy Off Oven Cleaner, Tilex, and my favorite cleaner of all Orange 409)
Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I borrowed my Dad's car which is nice so I can recycle cans and such. Our playgroup is tomorrow at 10 o'clock then I'll eat lunch with Adam and then basically wait for the housing people to come inspect the house (The last few times they have come at least an hour earlier than they said the would). After that there is a possibility of Lily getting her bangs cut and then I'm assuming I'll sleep the rest of the night because I can seriously barely move my bod right now. Oh, and don't forget that with my last trip downstairs for the night I stepped on a stupid piece of glass. Yipe!

Adam, Lily and I went to Stratford this weekend. Our main goal was to get both our computers formatted and mine put in my new case (which has a nice lock to keep Lily's fingers off the power button) We got there Friday at about 6pm and started on the computers right away. We had nothing but problems...they didn't know where certain cords went in my case, Adam's computer didn't want to format or install windows...it was ridiculous. I'm sure we rebooted Adam's computer like 50 times trying to get it to work. I'm not sure what they did but both computers finally now work. (We are partially convinced that there is this "healing spot" in the dining room)
So, now Adam and I are trying to put all our stuff back on our computer that we burned to disc and download the rest. My DVDR/CDR drive is being weird so hopefully it will heal itself too ;)
On the way to the Strat I had my first SHAMROCK SHAKE of the season. YUMMY! That's one of the signs that Trivia is nearing...Shamrock shakes, Belt's opening, Medford Contest, and us practically living at HQ...Trivia is really coming up quick this year. I had been trying to take lots of movie notes recently...until Lily broke my DVD player. She leaned on it and it hit the ground and so now only the sound works not the picture. Last night I finally got a new DVD player and it is safely inside my tv stand so there should be no worries.

Well, I've been extremely crabby all week. There's no particular reason for the crabbiness really. A bunch of little things and thrown together probably. Trivia drama, depressing weather, 4 day ongoing migraine & backache, etc. Because of this stupid crabbiness I'm mood swing crazy which I'm sure Adam just loves. He's been trying to be extra nice which is good and helpful.
Maybe it's because I'm a shut in this week. The only time I've been out of this house was on Wednesday for our playgroup - which was fun as usual. We were supposed to go shopping yesterday, but ended up waiting around for the UPS man for hours instead...and of course today it's like Wintery Hell outside. We are supposed to go to the Strat tomorrow for a weekend with my in-laws. I'm hoping it will be nice and relaxing and I can sleep alot. We are going to reformat both Adam's and my computers so they are nice and fresh for trivia. I also got a nice new computer case with a lock on it so now I will stop rolling my computer chair into the power switch and Lily won't be able to turn it off either.

Valentine's day was a good one. At Midnight (early V-day morning) Adam made me open my present. He got me a GIGANTIC fortune cookie with a "fortune" that he wrote for me. It was very cute. The fortune cookie covered in chocolate & sprinkles and was yummy.

For dinner we went to Grazies right after he got done with work. It was only about a 1/2 hour wait but it was okay because all the drinks were half price for happy hour! We ended up leaving with lots of leftovers (4 boxes) and the food was super yummy. Lily was having fun with a doughball, waving to nearby people, babbling, etc.
After dinner we were all supposed to have homemade banana splits but we all fell asleep

For Aaron's birthday a handful of us went to Golden Corral for dinner. It was really good, but then again I think I could live on steak, ribs and ice cream! Lily had lots of fun digging in a bowl of 'croni & Cheese too. After we all chowed down, it was party time. Well, for everyone else. When Adam and I both want to go out we do the "ol' switch-er-oo". That' s were one of us will go out for a while and the other one will stay home with Lily. Then, in some midpoint we switch places...so we can both have some fun. Adam took first shift because he had to work the next day. So, he was out from about 7-10:30. Lily and I hung out and watched "Just Like Heaven" Then he got home and I was about to leave when Lily decided she didn't want me to. She saw me put on my coat and just started screaming and crying. I felt bad, so I laid down with her for a bit and sung her to sleep. It was quite the winter wonderland last night BTW. I got to Partners at about 11:30ish and Aaron, George, and Shaun were there. I had 2 Liter Long Island Ice Teas so I was a bit tanked. Vanessa was out earlier and had 1/2 of one and Adam had to take her home...so that tells you how potent those drinks are. Shaun left at like 1ish and Aaron was drunkenly talking to Tuck Pence's (the singer at Partners that night) family so George and I talked for a while which was nice. It was nice being out in general for a change. I really would like to spend more time with my friends. The only time I really see them regularly is when we go there for Survivor on Thursday's. At least Trivia is coming up quickly...Trivia prep is awesome because we all hangout in the basement getting ready or just talkin' Trivia.
Okay, enough babble for now, I gotta go do some trivia notes woohoo

So, I finally made it to this free playgroup for Mom's and kids on Wednesday. I've wanted to go for a few weeks but seemed like all the things I had to do this month were on Wednesdays at the same time as the playgroup. I was kinda nervous at first...you know me and strangers...but I knew that Lily would like to be around other kids for a change.
I got there early and there was only a couple people there, but quickly the mom's and kids poured in. Lily had a blast laughing and playing with other kids. We spent lots of time with this little girl named Savannah who is only a couple months older than Lily. We also played peek-a-boo thorough the window of this playhouse with another girl for quite a while. It starts every wednesday at 10am and goes until 11:30. I'm sure I'll go from now on whenever I can because I can actually talk to other people who have kids (since I'm the only one in my close friend group who has kids) and Lily can have fun with children too. Double Bonus! Lily was really tired afterwards so she took a nice long nap :)

Things have been a bit stressful these days. People getting angry about our theme of this year is really stressing me out. We did a survey to narrow down all the suggestions that we had and ended up with two great themes that got the most votes. "Dad's Computers: A Farewell to Moms" and "Dad's Computers: HOWL High Alumni". They both were very personal to the team. The "farewell" theme is in tribute to Mom's Computer being sold this part year. The "HOWL" theme is personal because that was our first 500 point question which we got last year. Since they were both great, all the people at the meeting agreed to choose both of them. Apparently that's not good enough for people. A couple people who weren't at the meeting have been complaining for the last few days that it's not fair that we chose those themes. That always has been one of the goals of the January meeting it's just in the past that we didn't a theme that everyone in attendance could agree on. I said we'd narrow it down and do another poll but since we narrowed the themes down to 2 and picked them both I really didn't think it would be SUCH A BIG DEAL. I did another poll to see if the majority of people were okay with our main "farewell" theme but that just seemed to piss people off even more. What do you people want from me?