Absentee Blogger

Why I'm not finding time to (personal) blog: A typical day for me.

7:30 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. Roll out of bed. (Yes, this is what time I get up. Sue me. I used to get to work by 7:00 a.m. and work until 6 or later anyway, so I figure I might as well sleep in if I'm going to work late regardless.)

8:01 a.m. Hit my office.

12:00 Think about taking a lunch. But don't.

5:00 Take Marti to the dog park.

5:30 Back to work.

6:30-8:30ish Work out. Start on dinner. Eat dinner. Clean up after dinner.

8:30-12:00 Spend some time with Alan. Take Marti out. Try to fit in laundry, other chores and oh, yes, that other JOB I'm doing.

Oh, and weekends? Fuggedaboutit. They consist of maybe grocery shopping, a dinner out, catching up from things I couldn't do during the week, and most of all, Other Job. So yeah, I'm a little stressed. A lot busy. Ok, a lot stressed. But something's gotta give eventually right? I'm hoping it's the day job.

Until then, Marti has taken to wearing earplugs to block out the noise of my screams.

Dorkus Extraordinaire

Awkward situations come along and sometimes you just can't do anything about them.

I said "Hi" to my neighbor just now. She was walking to her car and was about 15 feet away from me. But my "hi" didn't come out very loud at all. It was the meekest "hi" ever.

Then she said "Hello!"

My brain rapid-fires: "Crap. Did she actually hear me say hi? Or does she think she's saying hi first?"

So I say "Hello!"

I guess it's better that she thinks I'm a friendly doofus (Hi, Hello!) than a snob who doesn't respond at all.

Best of 2008

I'm fully aware that it's no longer 2008. This means I'm a bit late with my traditional year-end post. But better late than never, right?

Biggest accomplishment: Starting The Blog. Collaborating with one of my dearest friends to create a place that thousands of people visit on the already saturated world wide web is my greatest accomplishment by far. It gives me a greater professional purpose, keeps me in shape and keeps me writing about topics outside of construction. I can't wait to see what 2009 brings for us!

Best work trip: My trip to Portland, Oregon. Although my flight around the Grand Canyon was awesome, you just can't beat two days of being at such a major event, seeing athletes and lines of shoes and apparel, and getting to meet editors for top fitness publications—for my own business.

Best celebrity interactions: I talked to Denise Austin! Seriously, how cool is that? Be checking in the coming months for more. Jenn and I also made Bob Harper blush via email. Hehe.

Best hair decision: Going darker with my hair! I think it just looks more natural and better. And it's so much cheaper.

Happiest moment: KU winning the national championship. There are truly no words to describe the moment, but I was on a natural high for more than a week.

Funniest find: My mom finding my diary from third grade. I got more laughs out of this than anything else this year.

Best big trip: Buenos Aires. Such a fun week, with lots of beef, wine and friends.

Best weekend trips: My trip to Phoenix to meet my mom and Kyle was a blast, and Vegas was hard to beat.

Best web find: Mint.com. Sign up at this website and in minutes you can see a pie chart that tells you that you're spending as much eating out as you are on rent. I mean...it lets you track your finances by signing up your bank accounts, credit cards and even student loans so you can see where your money goes. Cool for the money conscious.

New foods added to the menu: I made tofu for the first time (simple, yummy!) and tried Brussels sprouts as well. Now don't get all bent out of shape that I've gone all Crazy California. I've also been eating Chick-O-Sticks regularly.

Best natural wonder: Iguazu Falls. I didn't think anything could be worth two 20-hour bus trips. I was wrong.

Most amazing shopping moment: Not everyone can understand, but trust me, it was amazing.

Surprising kicked addiction: After discovering that it's a maybe-cause of my migraines, I've kicked the caff to the curb and gone for decaf when I have coffee at all, which is now rarely.

Marti's countdown
Funniest new nickname: I could do an entire post (or book chapter) on nicknames I have for Marti. But the one that currently makes me giggle is "Angel of Grace." She's definitely not always an angel, nor is she always full of grace.

Funniest Alan/Marti moment: We were out for a walk one dark night, and Marti started dragging me toward the middle of the street. I saw white painted X's on the street, and thinking she was checking them out, I let her lead me toward the middle of the street, saying "What is it girl?" When she wasn't actually interested in the painted lines, but kept pulling me across the street anyway, Alan goes, "Erin, she's not Nancy Drew."

Marti's worst malady: Poor little Marti came down with a whopper of an eye infection that took a shot to the eye, several weeks of antibiotics, eye drops, several trips to the puppy eye doctor and hundreds of dollars to get rid of. But she's still got both beautiful brown eyes!

Marti's biggest scare: Being jumped from behind by the neighbor cat. I was, of course, out of town, leaving Alan in charge. It should come as no surprise that this was when Samsi decided to strike.

Marti's new obsession: Mud. She's started chowing down along with the other dog park pups. It is disgusting. Foul. She gets three strikes and then we're OUT.

And there you have it. 2008 in a nutshell. Here's to a wonderful 2009!

Lemme Lemme Upgrade

While we thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas Bush of 2007, Alan and I decided to upgrade to Larger Small Christmas Tree of 2008.

I was tempted to buy a poinsettia this year or a plant similarly small because we just don't have the room for a big tree, but we were feeling particularly festive this year and decide to upgrade. We headed to the nearest Christmas tree lot and walked among the large trees, almost wishing we had a lobby or atrium and could buy one of the insanely priced 20-footers.


After a trek through the piney forest of cut trees, we settled on this cute little guy. While small in stature, he is quite balanced and filled out very nicely. While we're in a years-long hunt for an appropriate tree topper, this picture will give you an idea of this year's upgrade. Marti is for scale.

Hope you all are enjoying your large Christmas trees!

Best Weekend Ever

Well, maybe not ever, but last weekend was quite stellar. I didn't even get Friday after Thanksgiving off, but I made the best of the hand I was dealt.

Thanksgivings in California are not Thanksgivings in Kansas (slash Missouri). Alan and I would much rather be back home with family and having reunions with our oldest and best friends, but alas, it is just not possible with so far to travel and the opposite of all the money in the world. However, we've made Thanksgiving decidedly our own since we've been out here. This year, Alan's lab once again played another lab in the Turkey Bowl, aka "The most serious game of touch football ever." And by serious, I mean, bruises-on-the-arms serious. Still. They should be turning yellow any day now. And no wonder. Check out the hoss Alan had to block.

This year the game was more intense than last year, but they pulled it out in the last play to win for the second year in a row. Hurray for champions!

After the game, we spent the rest of the day "relaxing hard." This consisted of opening a bottle of wine and playing Scrabble all day while football played on TV. I relaxed a little too hard, apparently, because Alan beat me like eight games straight. And I'm supposed to be the "word" person. Whatever. A good vocab doesn't give you luck when drawing letters out of a bag. (Just kidding, Alan's very good at Scrabble.)

Because I wasn't trusted to cook dinner (and because I really didn't want to make dinner for just two in a kitchen with no dishwasher), we had reservations at a local restaurant. We'd wanted to eat there anyway, and they had a four-course meal, complete with turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie. We were a little too full when we left. It was awesome.

On Saturday Alan and I headed up to "the city" to go to Phantom of the Opera. We ate a delicious Thai meal beforehand and had fruity drinks that equaled the cost of both of our entrees and appetizer combined. But at least they came with flowers.

It was an overall fabulous weekend, with plenty of relaxation and good times and way too many drinks. I'm 28. Three days of hitting the bottle is a bit much. But it should confirm to you kids that no, I'm not pregnant.*

*Two people in one week asked, and my boss dreamed I had a baby in an airport, so I feel I should set the record straight. But congrats to my cousin Stacey who actually is pregnant!

That's what I get

Remember all of my moaning about how hot it was and how miserable it was sweating all day in the heat of the apartment?

Well, wouldn't you know it, it's coming back to bite me.

It. Is. Freezing.

We cranked up our heater a couple of weeks ago. And although it doesn't run all day, it's definitely getting cold enough that it needs to kick on a couple of times at night and in the morning for it to be comfortable. If our windows were at all decent, I think we could get away without heat for another couple of weeks, but you can literally feel the draft coming from them.

At the end of the year last year we started having trouble getting our very scary wall heater to kick on. We'd have to open the cover to the thermostat and wiggle a sensor to get it to turn on. That worked this year, until last night. No amount of wiggling is getting that puppy to give us the sweet heat.

We woke up freezing this morning, not wanting to get out of bed. My hands are currently like popsicles as I try to type. I just want a happy, comfortable medium.

Off to call the landlord.

Oh my gosh, stupids!

I am running into ridiculous amounts of stupidity today. AND I WORK AT HOME!! And no, Marti is not the stupidity that I'm running into, jerks.

Unfortunately, the stupids are able to find me by phone and via email. If I had to be within spitting distance, I might explode.

Example 1
For the newsletter at work, I send instructions and all content to people in Iowa. They in turn do it up nice and send a proof email. I get an email from one of them regarding the proof:

"The subject line in the proof is different from the one you sent in the instructions, which do I use?"

Um. Maybe the ONE I SENT WITH THE INSTRUCTIONS? And the one I mentioned SEPARATELY IN THE EMAIL. And NOT THE SAME AS THE ONE TWO WEEKS AGO.

Iowans. (sorry non-idiots from Iowa.)

Example 2
A company gets back with me regarding a product information request.

Stupid: "Does this cost money?"

Me: It's editorial, free of charge.

Stupid: Is there anything that costs money?


Yeah, if you want to advertise. But no, what I'm asking for does not cost money. I'm not trying to trick you here.


I could keep going, but don't want to bore with details of my dramatic dumb day.