Some Life Updates

Even though I write in this space pretty consistently, it still feels like some stuff gets skipped over.  Like how we booked a spontaneous trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras or how the other day, I put on my pajama pants and one of Joey’s socks fell out.  How long had it been there??  Okay, just kidding about that second one, but I wanted to take a moment to mention some larger life happenings that aren’t Oscar-related 🙂

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I honestly don’t know if I ever even mentioned it (HOW?), but after our first renovation venture went bust, we took some time to think, then decided to scale the project WAAAAY back and try again.  Sadly, the EXACT same thing happened.  After many reassurances that the budget we were very upfront and clear about was doable, we were given a number almost twice that.  We were so mad and disappointed and mostly, really ready to wash our hands of that design/build company, who obviously don’t know how to price projects.

I think we’ve mostly recovered again.  But since a renovation of any size apparently wasn’t in the cards, we decided to at least get ourselves a new garage (which was going to be part of the renovation).  One that actually fits Joey’s truck!  This also meant having to take down a few trees in our backyard, including this pretty big one that we’ve always loved.  It’s feeling very open and exposed back there now and it was honestly sadder than I expected to lose the trees, but hopefully when all is said and done, we’ll have a nice garage and we can forget the disappointing stuff that came before it.

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This little pup! ♥  For as cute as he is and as much as I love him, I have to say, his behavior is sometimes not the best.  Mainly, he’s suddenly nipping at me!  Like all the time.  I thought maybe it was a jealousy/protective thing — he is VERY attached to Joey — but he does it even when I’m home alone with him.  It seems to have something to do with my hands??  It is honestly so strange and confusing.  He will come sit in my lap, nudge my hand until I pet him and then when I do he tries to snap at me.  When I pull my hand away, he frantically nudges at my hand to pet him.  “What do you want from me??”  I’ve become very good at discerning when he’s “in a mood” so I’m not really taking it that seriously but it is sad when he’s looking so cuddly and cute and I just want to pet him!

In “good dog” news, we recently got Andi to stop sleeping in our bed and it has been life changing!  Every morning, Joey asks me how I slept and I say “REALLY GOOD!”  It was also surprisingly easy, considering we’d tried to lock him out of our room several times to disastrous effect.  Turns out he just needed a big blanket on the ground to burrow in, ha!

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And the last bit of news is that it’s official, we’re putting our homebrewing career to rest.  We’d been doing it so infrequently anyway and though Joey still drank our brew, I much MUCH preferred to drink something we bought.  Very proud of what we made but look, a professionally made beer just tastes way better.  Also that kegerator was taking up room in our small house.  Joey cleaned it up and took it all to the basement — he carried it by himself backwards down the stairs and it gave me next level anxiety — and that’s that.  It’s sad but it’s also not sad.  It didn’t really feel like part of who we were any more, plus we have plenty of other things we enjoy doing together.

Okay, that’s really it, you know everything about me now 😛

Memory-a-Day in August

Wednesday, August 1st: Listening to Amos Lee live in KBCO Studio C and wondering how he always sounds so good.

Thursday, August 2nd: Hooking a piece of rigatoni with my fork as I sat outside, eating dinner with my sister and Joey.

Friday, August 3rd: Waking up and reading on the couch for 10 minutes instead of just jumping right into the shower.

Saturday, August 4th: Giving a negative assessment of everything we’d ordered for lunch before I’d even tasted any of it, then being so so wrong about it all.

Sunday, August 5th: Feeling like the morning had been so long in a truly good and productive but not rushed way.

Monday, August 6th: Eating breakfast alone on our porch swing, putting my phone down, and realizing how quiet and calm it felt.

Tuesday, August 7th: Looking up at the scoreboard during a Rockies game I was barely paying attention to to find we were losing 10-0!

Wednesday, August 8th: Sipping an iced latte that tasted like Cheerio milk, in a very good way.

Thursday, August 9th: Realizing I’d left my phone on the kitchen counter and admittedly feeling slightly panicky about it.

Friday, August 10th: Feeling extremely bored as one of three people in the office on a Friday.

Saturday, August 11th: Giving my mama a real big hug before leaving her office.

Sunday, August 12th: Doing okay keeping score for Joey while he grabbed something to eat at the Rockies game.  “It’s a K or a backwards K, but which is which??”

Monday, August 13th: Sharing a spoon with Joey because he dropped his on the Colfax sidewalk after we got ice cream.

Tuesday, August 14th: Groaning when I realized I was still 150 pages away from a book that just wasn’t doing it for me.

Wednesday, August 15th: Feeling the urge to tear out a lot of things in our garden, but settling for just trashing our mostly dead snap peas.

Thursday, August 16th: Reading an article about the new Alon Shaya restaurant opening in Denver and how it’s 70% female-staffed!

Friday, August 17th: Listening to Queen Aretha in my office.

Saturday, August 18th: Freeing a bee from our pre-packaged container of baby spinach.

Sunday, August 19th: Walking up to Civic Center Park and feeling so happy to be spending a Sunday afternoon with Joey.

Monday, August 20th: Burning my tongue on some piping hot coffee.

Tuesday, August 21st: Feeling so so indecisive about whether to have leftovers or curry takeout for dinner.

Wednesday, August 22nd: Taking off my shoe to shoo away a bee while I ate dinner by myself in the backyard.

Thursday, August 23rd: Being shocked that I ran an 8:47 third mile despite how tired and slow I felt.

Friday, August 24th: Leaving my notebook at the office for the weekend and thinking it might be okay to live without a list for once.

Saturday, August 25th: Feeling that buzz of excitement as we sat in a movie theater and saw previews for things coming out this fall/winter.

Sunday, August 26th: Having the energy/motivation/time to clean a few places in our house and feeling really happy about it.

Monday, August 27th: Waking up in the middle of the night and realizing I’d slept in my contacts!

Tuesday, August 28th: Feeling sad that no one else in my book club loved the book as much as I did.

Wednesday, August 29th: Feeling that genuine buzz of excitement about going on vacation.

Thursday, August 30th: Holding tight to Joey’s arm as we got on our first ride of the day at Disneyland!

Friday, August 31st: Watching, with terror, as a giant beetle repeatedly tried to fly into the restaurant we were having lunch in.