Just Stroll-ing Along . . .

christina aguilera, grant lee phillips, shakira, sufjan stevens and michael buble.

i'll be out of touch with the world for about a week. our houseguests are arriving tomorrow (potentially six of them - frank, julie, bayleigh, joey, kd and possibly a friend of julie's) and will be in town until the 5th. looks like we're gonna have people sleeping all over the place! (good thing we got that extra full-size bed) we're planning some trips to the zoo and cedar point - although we're supposed to be getting some storms over the weekend. if that happens we'll probably just eat and play games and hang out at the mall.
i'm not really sure what our fourth of july plans are - i don't know if the stroll side has anything going on, so we might invite some people over to watch fireworks from our front porch. who knows. i'm not planning anything this week - whatever anybody wants to do is fine with me. i'm too tired from working at work and working at home to plan anything, so it's up in the air.
just have to say that my morning glories are absolutely breathtaking. i've got 8 planted and they are growing furiously and the colors are MAGNIFICENT. best 6 bucks i've ever spent ... yes, you heard me right ... only 6 bucks!
my florida gramma is arriving today too - i think she'll be in town for two weeks. she'll be coming over at some point, too, to see the house - and my grammy and papa HAVE to come over too to see what we've done lately - especially since they're leaving for montana (to see tia's new condo!) in a few weeks. really ... anyone who's seen our house before will not recognize it. the inside, anyway - we're still trying to figure out the outside.
anyway, i have a ton of shopping to do tonight - groceries, flowers, dog food - and a ton of housework - laundry, dusting, watering plants, staring lovingly at the books and magazines i've not the time to read - and tomorrow after work we're going to jackson to pick up the luminescent kathryn.
must finish these statements and get the rest of the month closed. have a happy fourth of july everyone!

update: so amber and blake are coming, too - wow. lots of people!

our upstairs hallway is orange :o)

so last night we had what was reported as the worst storm toledo has seen in over 25 years. i think we ended up at over 10 inches of "torrential" rain, with hail and over 35 mph winds and lots of tornados. it was pretty cool - brian and i stood on the porch and watched the heavy rains and stupid people driving fast past our house and hydroplaning around. we had a bit of water in our basement and big branches down in the backyard, but for the most part everything's fine. the dogs were hysterical - thunder thought he needed to spend the evening hiding between my legs ... which would have been fine, except i was painting and he's a little too big to be doing that. anyway, brian wanted to go tornado chasing ... yeah, he's from oklahoma! i wanted nothing to do with that, since it was raining so bad. the whole night though was kind've fun and scary and romantic, too.

anyhoo .... back to worky.

we had a good weekend. saw a few movies, planted some flowers, did some housework, went to dinner. brian spent saturday with his dad up at mis and i spent the day running errands, planting and spending time with a friend.
eventually we're gonna have to get an air conditioner ... it's so hot. we just have one little box fan for the downstairs and a ceiling fan in our bedroom. uuuugh. i'm a 55 degree person ... not 97 degrees.
yesterday we took my daddy some doughnuts for father's day. mmm ... twizzler sprinkled doughnuts.
we've made a list of things we have to get done in the next week and a half before frank, julie, bayleigh and joey get here. yeah ... we're gonna be freakin' busy.
to do:
paint porch and foundation
prime, paint trim in 2nd bedroom
finish trim in bathroom
finish crown moulding in our bedroom
install shelves in living room
build temporary shelf/counter in kitchen
install screens in dining/living rooms
mulch flower beds
attach trellis to porch
plant more hydrangeas (i bought 3 over the weekend - less than $25! made me very happy)
clean/organize basement (so frankie can figure out how to put in a 2nd bathroom)
finish painting kitchen ceiling
install new porch light fixtures

yeah - lots to do. having a deadline will help keep us on track, though. i hope.

some guy is bringing his son over to test-drive the camaro tonight - he wants to buy it for him for his high school graduation (?!) - it's a lot of car for a teenager, but hey ... we just want to get rid of it. he's willing to pay what we're asking, so that's a plus, too. so we'll see if they like it or not.

anyway, i'm out.

this has been a crappy work week! i'm noticing more and more how much i don't like people.


example:

(phone rings)
me: good afternoon, noral.
her: hi this is ______ and i live at ______ (random complaints). and furthermore, everytime it rains my patio floods and one of these days, it's going to come into my house. last time we had a hard rain i was standing at the door, looking outside and the rain came down and i thought, 'my god! what if it flooded my living room! what would i do!' so i really need somebody to look at it and fix it.
me: well, ma'am, i'm very sorry about all the inconveniences you're having, but i'm not really sure if there's anything we can do to fix the patio problem - but i'd be more than happy to pass on your concern and let bonnie know.
her: well i think i talked to bonnie once.
:pause:
me: oh, well that's good. i'll just remind her about it and then we'll let you know what we can do, okay?
her: well i'd be very upset if something happened and my living room was flooded.
me: i understand, ma'am, i'd be upset too. i'll see what we can do for you, okay? in the meantime, let's hope it doesn't rain!
:caller cackles:
her: oh and what was your name?
me: my name is sarah.
her: oh thank you sarah.
me: okay, thanks for calling ma'am, have a good weekend.

and then i hung up on her.

i guess it's better than these callers:

"yeah... um. there are spiders in the grass and they are leaving webs all over the place. what are you going to do about it?"

and -

"i live at ______ (which happens to be on the river) and there are geese everywhere. the geese are pooping in the yard. can you do something about that?"


grrrrr.

i'm thinking about applying for a different job.

kd was here, so we had a good weekend :o) we partied and ate good food and shopped and slept and saw bethie in her ballet recital - which was about the cutest thing in the world.


oooh i made the best apricoty-oniony pork. it was SO delicious. i served it with roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes. oooo.


anyway, brian's been working a ton - he worked ALL weekend, but was happy when he got home because us girls were waiting for him with good food and hugs :o)

we finally got to see kelly on sunday - i've missed her. she's been gallivanting all over the world and building a deck.

i got my hairs cut yesterday. they look okay. kd got her summer colors done on saturday - wow. she is one foxy lady. she bought a ton of makeup and got me some lip gloss :o) it's pretty.

um okay i'm gonna go now.

i just found out i have a second title:
assistant property manager.



i wonder if that comes with a raise?

been kinda busy :o)


kd's coming tomorrow :o)

bethie's ballet recital is tomorrow :o)

g.h. is saturday :o)

i planted 7 morning glories :o)

Q: What is your favorite dream?

A: The one with Clive Owen.

happy 1st birthday, sophia annabel!

the tiniest of tinies.

...this.

... this has been a trying week. the boss and bonnie were both sick, lynda had a family member pass suddenly in florida and i've been here alone at work, trying to run everything, get the books closed on may and get payroll done by this afternoon. it's certainly been interesting around here, and as much as i hate rushing, i'm better off having had to do this myself this week. it's certainly been a practice in patience.

on another note, we have no air conditioning at our house. needless to say, we have been taking a LOT of cold showers and going places that have air. - we saw x-men 3 last night --- wow. hilarious. i can't get over kelsey grammer.

lots more to do.
toodles.