Pictures from the inspection (at least as many as I could get before I maxed out my flickr account).

Saturday = inspection.

I want it now.
I want in to measure everything and to determine which shade of green I want to paint my office and which computer desk would fit best and what closet organizer I want.

I want to make blueprints and little bitty cut outs of my furniture and model EVERYTHING in all the rooms and visualize what is going to go where.

I want to get my new washer and dryer and freezer (a  nice big chest one so that I can stock up on meats and frozen goodness).

I want to buy bookshelves and unpack my beloved books that I haven’t seen since OCTOBER!! I miss my books.

I want, i want, iwant!!!!

*phew*

I just cleaned out my car and velcroed my dash board cover down. It’s a nice comfortable 80 something with high humidity. It feels like the midwest outside.

I think I’m going to eat and then go back to bed and luxuriate in getting about 10 hours of sleep to make up for the short sleep I’ve had so many other days….

Nephew pics.

Oh yes.
And by the way.

OUR HOUSE. (pending inspection)
(and the virtual tour link too)

Because I like tests too!

These shoes fill me with lust for some reason.

What would you wear them with?

P.S. I love Shrinky-Dinks. And my husband, because he will make Shrinky-Dinks with me.

HOLY HOT.

That’s hot, folks.
Highest ever temps in Phoenix…122 degrees back in 1990.

Another house to view tonight.

And I’m an aunt again – boy this time. Nolan Hendrix.
Pics as soon as possible.

Brief correction:
it is Nolan Henry.
Not Hendrix.

7lbs 12oz
20.5 inches long.

Well.

Boots has an ear infection in both ears – complete with bacteria and yeast. She gets a daily ear cleaning and a bi-daily dripping in the ear of some oily gunk.  That was $124. And she has to go back in 10 days. I just keep chanting in my head “I love my kitty, I love my kitty….” and that helps…but man…pricy! Where’s my kitty health insurance? Also, she’s mad at me and runs away if I try to snuggle with her because everytime I pick her up, hubby and I pin her down and do mean things to her ears. Poor baby!

The first meeting with the lady for mall-walking was…different. We walked for an hour and fifteen minutes (and then I walked more to go back up to Frederick’s of Hollywood to buy a corset for $15 – sadly, not my size, but the size of someone I know!) – and we talked the whole time. She has a very different life view than I do – which is to be expected of course – it just always takes some adjustment, I think. Also, why have the two people I’ve met off of Craig’s List so both been animal heavy? Seriously, the first one (whose wedding I will be in and I will be at least 10lbs lighter – hopefully closer to 20+) has four cats, a dog and more reptilians than I thought was possible to keep in one room – oh yes, plus her daughter’s pet rats, the feeder mice and the feeder hamsters…and the frogs….fish and tarantulas. It’s a menagerie at her house. This new one has 7 indoor/outdoor cats – her dog just ran away. They’ll probably be getting another one. I can barely handle my three fatties.

The house…well. It’s very hard, sometimes, to adjust my midwest mind to the fact that a 1700sq ft, 3bed/2bath house really is going to be over a quarter of a million dollars. Keeping that in mind, and adjusting for the sticker shock, this house had many good qualities and was in a very good neighborhood. We just don’t want to buy the first house we look at though…so we’ll probably view some more on Sunday/Monday of next week.

I just got back from a 2 mile walk in the heat. And it’s hot. I’m all sweaty.

But I walked to Target. And then Subway (mmmm, Subway!). I love city life. I can walk TO things.

Everybody likes to talk about themselves.

Even if it’s only to themselves.
My progression through 20-something, 20-everything continues steadily, albeit slowly.
After working through it every break at work all week long (that is at least 8 hours of break time), I am only on page 109 and I have a 4X6 legal pad that is about 3/4 of the way full. It’s a whole lot of words.

It has been triggering me to try to actually think instead of just react to certain things and to try to figure out why I feel the way I do about many things. I normally try to be self-aware, but this book is making me actually write shit down instead of keeping it all in my head. Spelling things out in cold English in hard ink and paper makes it much harder to lie to yourself and has a tendency to strip away those comfortable, obscuring veils that I know I use. And some of it is less that I am hiding from certain information, but more that I’ve not consciously thought about it or even been really aware that it was there. There is a lot of self-assessment going on out here in the desert, yo.

***

Aside from the book, what is exciting in my life?

1.) Tonight we go look at our first house at 630pm (Yay! Huzzah! It has California closets! *sits on the very excited monkey that is trying to dance in my  head*)
2.) Boots has another ear infection. So, off we go to the vet today. Again. But a different vet than last time. Hopefully this one can figure out why she keeps getting them and how we can stop this – because yuck! Smelly kitty ears full of yicky waxy buildup are just nasty.
3.) Today, I’m also meeting a new person from Craig’s List. She wants someone to exercise with and has Mondays off of work – And so do I! Hopefully we like each other and can be motivating to each other. We are, however, going mall walking (at my suggestion!). It’s too damn hot right now to be out-of-doors, even after the sun goes down. The other day, I left for work at 1230am. It was 96 degrees out. HOT! However, while mall walking isn’t a heavy duty workout and isn’t exactly my idea of a great time, it will be better than nothing. I get bored doing exercise videos alone. My schedule is too weird to join my old gym (Curves) plus my mother and my sister won’t be there to encourage me to drag my lazy carcass. So…cross your finger and hope she isn’t crazy!
4.) I have now signed up for my company’s 401k program. As of my next pay period, I will start contributing. My company starts matching in two months. I am excited. I have retirement stuff! Yay me! (And only 30 odd years to go until retirement!)
5.) I want a puppy. This is never ending. Or a dog. Whichever. However, the hunt continues for a breed that is not too aggressive (so as to not eat the cats), likes to exercise a bit (so as to go for walks with me), is compliant but not needy (so as to not require constant companionship) and who is not prone to too many health issues (so as to not have to die any earlier than dogs already do). And I like sticky up ears. And short fur! (Hello to the fun of taking care of that much fur – though, as an aside, I do have a FURMINATOR now!)
6.) I’m still thinking about the photography/digital camera thing. I am loathe to spend so much money if I don’t know that I’ll actually use it enough to make it a worthwhile hobby. I’m trying to decide how much the time/money ratio of the hobby would be worth. I am also excited though. I now have money for hobbies/adult education. AND! I plan to buy canvases to paint for our house. They are fairly cheap online and acrylics are also cheap…hubby and I will probably be saddling up our painting/creative sides sometime in the future. I have no idea what I’d like to paint – but just the fact that I CAN is awesome.

***
Boy.
That seems like a lot of words that don’t really say much!
 
Ah well.

I’m reading a book.
(big surprise, huh?)

But this book requires feedback from me…journally/writing type things.
It is so far extremely interesting and somewhat difficult (trying to answer the big three questions – Who am I? What do I want? and How do I get what I want? is very difficult at 4am.).

One of the exercises in the book is an interview for other women, especially women older than I.
I am going to post it here and request that any woman who reads it, please answer the questions (especially if you’re older than my 26 years). Especially if my mother or my mother in law happens by, I’d like your answers. If you want to email them, rather than post them, that would be more than fine.

1.) Overall, how would you describe your twenties?
2.) What were your goals during your twenties?
3.) What were you primary interests in your twenties?
4.) What were the three most fun and exciting aspects or events of your twenties?
5.) What were the three most challenging aspects of events of your twenties?
6.) If you could back to your twenties, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? Do you have any regrets?
7.) Do you have any other words of widsom that you think could be of value to women in their twenties today?