Healthy Living Thread

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Thursday kids!

Zoe, I forgot to say before that I hope they get the condo rented out for you! I’m still paying rent in KC (the lease is up August 30, so this will be the last month) and it was really depressing. Oh well; I consider it a small price to pay to get out of there and have a real life back!

Deegee, I think I will have to skip the Aspen trip this time because the tickets are crazy expensive, my friend can only go in on Friday and out on Sunday, and I really don’t want to spare the time because this last test will be the hardest one for me. As appealing as it is, I sadly thing I will be holed up right here in my apartment with my books…

Marcy, children’s zyrtec—you’re BRILLIANT! I often avoid taking allergy meds, except when I am just so miserable I simply can’t get around it, but this might be just the thing! And yes, the airport in Aspen is so funny to drive by. Kind of like a private airport but they just happen to let a few United jets land every now and then, LOL.

I have pictures of the loft somewhere and I’ll post them for you guys if I can find them. The building was a converted cold storage factory and was actually the original loft conversion in Chicago done by Harry Weese in the 70s. The space was truly amazing—thanks to the guy who lived there before us and did an incredible renovation—2,500+ square feet with no walls, except in the bathrooms, and right where the two branches of the Chicago river come together so we had the most phenomenal view!

OK, this is power 4-day weekend number three because I take the third exam on Monday. I am amazed at the sheer volume of material on this topic (regulation and business law) and the topics don’t really flow since they are covering so much and there’s no real relationship between a lot of the subjects. This one will truly be a feat in short term memory, and once I walk out of there I will truly never remember much of this again!

I *plan* on going to the gym at some point today. Not a regular hour long workout, but just a “half-workout” since this will be my first time back since I hurt my back. How sad that THAT will be my fun outing today!

Alright--off to the books!

 

[marcy]

Happy Thursday!

Dee Jay, yay for your KC lease being up at the end of next month. That will be a relief. Agreed the Aspen airport is an interesting site. I am going to pick up my kid’s allergy meds this weekend. The view from your loft must have been amazing. I hope you find pictures.

My day dragged by at work but the evening is zipping by. I was going to make homemade pizza for supper but we bought a mix at William Sonoma and it looked like it would take too long so went with pasta and veggies.

We don’t have much planned for the weekend. My sister and nephew are coming to town to visit my parents on Sunday and I am sure Marty will play golf.

Take care.
Marcy

 

[deegee]

Dee*Jay-Glad your lease is almost up! Having 2 payments is crappy, especially when one of the homes is vacant. Ooohhh - I do hope you find pictures of the loft. Your view sound like it was amazing. I don't blame you at all for staying home for a power study weekend since your exam is Monday. These exams are timed really close together, aren't they?

Marcy-Regular Zyrtec makes you loopy? I take one first thing in the morning. Hmm - maybe that's why I take so long to wake up! I hope your mom improves with her next treatment. The only thing we lost when our power came back on after the derecho was the desktop. I guess we're really lucky. Matt has our deductible up so high that we didn''t file a claim. We have this wonderful, whole-home generator that comes on automatically when the power goes off. With all of these storms, we haven't lost power once! I'm mostly feeling better, thanks for asking. My shoulder and wrist are still really bothering me and I may end up back at the doctor for my shoulder. Unfortunately I jammed my rings on yesterday and couldn't get them off. They're still on, I can't get them off, and they're waayyyy too tight. KRUD.

Food was pretty good today. I had watermelon for breakfast, half a roast beef sandwich and an apple for lunch, and a salad with grilled chicken on top for dinner. My sister and her family stopped by this evening on their way home from Florida. They didn't stay long because they still had about 2 hours to go to get home, but they wanted to see our new house. I ordered what I hope is a pair of super comfy UGG slippers from Zappos this evening for my achy cold feet. I'm so impatient - I want them NOW. Matt should get back home tomorrow evening, and we have absolutely nothing planned for this weekend and I'm looking forward to it. Have a great Friday!

 

[zoebartlett]

Deegee, I hope your wrist feels better soon. How's your shoulder and back? Feel better soon!

Marcy, I'm sorry your mom's going through so much.

Dee*Jay, I love the Chicago through a wine (or champagne?) glass photo in Dragonfly's photo thread.

Friends were supposed to come over today for lunch by the pool, but it's raining again and it's only 72*. We may go out to lunch instead. This summer's weather has been so iffy. We've had these spurts of nice, warm summer weather, but plenty of rainy, cool days, as well.

 

[deegee]

Zoe-My back is back to its normal level of pain, but my wrist and shoulder are being very ugly. My left wrist has been broken several times, and I tore my left shoulder all to pieces in my wreck 15 years ago. They both tend to act up along with my left elbow (which has also been broken). I have had to have injections in my shoulder and neck in the past and I think I may have to again. Sorry your day wasn't great for your visit with friends. I hope you found something fun to do.

Today is the second day in a row with no rain for the first time all summer. The humidity is really low right now too, and it feels wonderful outside. It's supposed to rain all weekend, so I'm enjoying this evening. Lily and I are hanging out on the deck waiting for Matt to get back home. Well, I'm on the deck and Lily is chasing wildlife. Work was super busy today and I am so glad its Friday. I'd cry if someone told me I had to go to the office tomorrow. Have a great evening!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Friday kids!

Marcy, do you get to Aspen very often? Since I so several times a winter if you’re ever there we should meet up!

Deegee, the timing of these tests is my own fault… They give up 18 months to pass all four, but I didn’t want to make a “career” out of this so I set them 30 days apart on my own. It seemed like a good idea at the time…

Zoe, the pic was a total accident. I just had my glass sitting on a table in front of the window and I wanted to take a pic to show my best champagne drinking friend the view from my (then) new apartment with the glass in front of the window. I didn’t even realize until I took it how it turned out.

I stayed up until about midnight studying, then got up at 7 and started again. I went to the gym and did a (very) small workout around 10:30 to see how it felt, and then had lunch with a friend there. I’ve been doing practice sessions since I’ve been back. This tax stuff is killing me…

 

[marcy]

I headed to the basement after seeing this out my front door.

 

[marcy]

Hi everyone! Happy Friday and woo hoo the weekend is here!

Deegee, any interest in your old house yet? Almost any medicine makes me weird, tired, sensitive or gives me hives all the way to making me violently expel it after it's been in my stomach about 15 minutes. Me and meds don't mix well. I bet you will really enjoy having a whole-home generator. I remember that was one of our options and it certainly wasn't cheap but I know it will be handy sometimes. I hope your shoulder and wrist continue to improve. Rats that your rings are stuck on your hands. At least you can enjoy them. Your UGG slippers should be awesome. Let me know what you think. I might pick some up before the snow flies in like 2 months or so.

Zoe, did you and your friends go to the movie? I hope you had fun whatever you decided to do.

Dee Jay, we got to Vail / Beaver Creek / Edwards area once or twice a year. The last time we went up there for a long weekend we drove over to Aspen then came back on the scenic route rather than I-70. If we're ever up there when you're out this way a GTG would be fun. Your picture of Chicago through the glass is really cool. I like the idea. I may have to steal it sometime. Of course our next trip will be hanging on our walls.

I left work an hour early. I was bored and just didn't feel well. I was going to go visit my parents but the very dark sky convinced me to just go home. As I walked in the door Marty was leaving to play golf. About 20 minutes later Marty calls me and tells me there is a funnel and to go to the basement. Naturally I went out and looked for it and there is was just right across the street. I grabbed my purse, my iPad mini, my Teddy Bear and the Killer Rabbit and headed downstairs. I wandered around downstairs looking out the window and pretty soon we started having golf ball sized hail but luckily it was soft and seemed to break up pretty well when it hit. When it first started I thought Marty had come home and was stomping around upstairs. Nope. It was hail.

Marty tried to arrange a last minute poker party. So far there are 3 of them in the man cave.

Have a great weekend.

 

[zoebartlett]

Deegee, I hope you feel better soon. It's not fun when pains from old injuries flare up.

Marcy, oh, no, a funnel cloud! How long were you in the basement?

Dee*Jay, you should enter that pic in a photo contest somewhere. I can't believe how busy you've been and you still find time to go to the gym. You're my idol.

My friends and I wound up going out to eat today since the weather wasn't great. It was fun, and I'm going to miss them when we move. They won't be far (a little over an hour away), but still...

Saga below. It's long. I had to get it out but I won't be offended if your eyes glaze over.

So I sort of freaked out this morning while leaving a message for someone. I had gotten an e-mail from the property manager we've been dealing with at the condo we own. She mentioned how one company would be ripping out the floor, another company would fix the supposed crack underneath the sub-floor, and ANOTHER company would install the new floor. That's when I flipped because that's kind of insane. If one company can do it all (and we've already found one who can and I've already met with them), isn't that better than having to coordinate with three different companies? I left this woman a message and wasn't the most calm I've ever been.

She never called me back, so 20 minutes later, D. called and spoke to her. He put her on speaker phone so I could talk too. She started to tell me that she didn't feel comfortable with the arrangement I mentioned above (having one company do all the work) because she wasn't sure about this one company's warranty. I was surprised at how calmly I told her that she wasn't the one who got to decide. I must have mentioned at LEAST 3 times how frustrated we've been and we're afraid of losing our tenant. I feel so bad because when it comes down to it, D. and I are the owners, and we should have stepped up long ago. We just trusted people to do their jobs (and we've had a million non-related things to deal with, so this can't always be on the forefront of our minds). This woman assured us we'd hear from her on Monday about some things she had to check on. We'll see. Okay, so we get hang up, I check my e-mail, and our tenant has sent an e-mail to me (with several attached pictures) of the dryer knob that is cracked underneath and won't stay on the dryer. I guess she's been using pliers to turn the metal stem that the knob attaches to when choosing the settings she wants to use. Honestly, how little did I care about that issue at that moment? I closed my computer and burst into tears. I'm over it now, for the most part. Oh, I did pull it together and ordered a replacement knob from the manufacturer.

Did you finish reading? Kudos!

 

[marcy]

Zoe, I stayed in the basement about 20 minutes. Once the hail and rain started easing up I figured the funnel was gone and came back upstairs. I am sorry your condo has been such a hassle and headache for you. That doesn't make sense to me either having 3 different companies come in if one place can do all the repairs. That seems like it would be cheaper too to hire just one company. I hope you get it all taken care of soon.

 

[marcy]

Hi. Happy Saturday.

I made waffles for breakfast and cooked sausage for Marty. We worked on things around the house. Marty made us homemade pizza for lunch. We went to see RED2 this afternoon. It was quite good. We enjoyed it. After the movie we stopped by and visited my parents then did some grocery shopping. We are watching Fifth Element now.

Tomorrow is golf day so ill have the entire morning to myself and I have most of my chores done. Sweet.

I hope you are having a fun and healthy weekend.

Marcy

 

[deegee]

I was typing, and then my post was gone. I really, really hate that!

Marcy-that picture...Ahhh!!!! I'd have run to the basement and hidden under something. I'm such a chicken! Our house was on the market for 9 days and is now in contract. We had a tentative closing date of August 8, but Matt found out Friday while he was in Louisville that he has to be in Pasadena Aug 5-9. Short notice, huh? Great timing too. It sounds like everything is in and ready to go except the appraisal because the lender was a little slow in getting it ordered. Please keep your fingers crossed (and send good vibes and happy thoughts and dust and whatever else might work) our way that everything goes through okay. I finally got my rings off yesterday. Whew! How are your parents?

Dee*Jay-I agree with Zoe - you should enter that picture in some kind of contest. It was an awesome view of the city! Good luck on your test. I hope you got lots of valuable studying done this weekend!

Zoe-I feel so sorry for you having to deal with all of that stuff. And your tenant too! How far away is the condo you own from where you live now? When do you move? I think you said in an earlier post, but I'm afraid to scroll down for fear of losing everything I just typed!

Matt and I did mostly nothing yesterday. We hung around the house all day and then went to eat dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. I've been there before a few times with coworkers but he's never been. I don't think he was wild about the grape leaves appetizer and the tabouleh (sp) salad, but he loved his meal. Today we took Lily on a walking trail at a park that is very near our house. The park is in the mountains, so the trail went up the hills through the woods. We got to a point where we had to turn around because the terrain was too steep and I'm a klutz. I've been feeling like taking a real walk the last few days, so we have gone for nice long walks in the evening. We walk through our neighborhood to the main road, up the main road a little, and then into another neighborhood that is a great walking neighborhood. It is extremely hilly, so I'm going to have some tone leg and butt muscles before long! Last night we went down a hill that was so steep, we had to take baby steps to keep balance. I truly can't believe it is a paved road! My knees are practically the only parts of my body that don't normally hurt, and they were bugging me after that hill last night so we avoided it tonight. I did really well with food this weekend, so hopefully I'm finally turning that corner and getting back on track. Have a great Monday!

 

[marcy]

Happy Sunday Eve!

Deegee, I am sorry you lost your post. I type mine up in Word or pages so I don’t lose it. I am sending mega dust and good luck vibes your way for closing on your old house on the scheduled date. Does Matt have to do anything or sign anything ahead of time since he'll be out of town? That is great your house sold so quickly! Yay for getting your rings off. I would be freaking just because I can’t clean them but of course I am very anal about that. My parents are about the same. My mom is really struggling to keep her oxygen level up. She has COPD and was diagnosed with that 10 years ago (from my memory she said she had hyper pulmonary hypertension which somewhere along the line became COPD) and was told at the time she could expect to live 5 years with it. She forgot to hook up her oxygen to eat lunch today and her oxygen dropped in to the low 80’s in about 20 minutes. My dad said he thought her breathing was becoming more difficult for her. My dad continues to be very emotional and stressed. I feel so bad for them. It sounds like the trails and paths around your new house are a challenge, I hope your find a path that works well for you. I have the same problem. We have a greenway right behind us that is pretty flat but they haven’t put in the sidewalk down to it so my only option is walking down our long flight of stairs then I’d have to walk uphill in either direction to get back to the front of our house. My other option is on the main roads and either direction requires an uphill grade one way or the other. But I just flat need to get out there and try it.

I got up about 6:30 today. I was working on the program for our astronomy meeting so spent some time working on that in my pj’s. I finally took my shower about 8:30 then worked on laundry. My sister and one of her son’s came to visit my parents today so I went to visit them for a while. Marty played 2 rounds of golf so I caught up with him about 4 for a drink then we and one of his golf buddies went out for supper. Service was HORRIBLE to the point I wrote a complaint online to their customer service.

Tomorrow is go back to work day. Boo.

Marty is shaking his head at me; I have an aquarium program on my iPad mini and have 2 of the teddy bears and 2 of the killer rabbits watching it. I told him his DYI programs were boring them.

Well, I must get ready for bed and try out a new color of nail polish. My mom wanted my dad to go pick up her another bottle of her polish from Sally’s Beauty Supply. I eagerly volunteered to go get it for her and got myself 2 colors of polish as well. I had about 30 bottles when we were packing and threw them all out. Of course 90% were various shades of pink or mauve.

Have a great Monday!
Marcy

 

[marcy]

Hi.

Dee Jay, how are your studies going?

Zoe, any progress on your condo and getting the repairs done?

Deegee, are you feeling better? I hope so.

My mom started round 2 of her chemo this morning. She is pretty sick tonight. Poor thing. I would call again but if she went to bed early I'd feel bad waking her up.

Marty cooked supper for us today. He made pasta and homemade sauce. It was pretty good but dishes were plentiful and the stove was speckled. I'd make him do the dishes but then I'd go back and clean it again anyway.

Take care.

Marcy

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Tuesday kids.

Zoe, good for you and DH for taking control of the condo situation. As for the dryer knob, it’s kind of lining straightening up the deck chairs on the Titanic, LOL. You’re a better man than I am—I would suggest to her some *alternate places* to PUT that knob!

Deegee, it sounds like Lily is loving the new place and all the freedom to roam! Bill and I went to a Lebanese restaurant one time and got talked into a bottle of Lebanese wine. It was terrible! But what do you expect; the Lebanese aren’t exactly *known* for their wine, ha ha.

Marcy, I’m sorry your mom is not feeling well after this second round of chemo. I envy all your nail polish choices. Since I do the no-chip manicure I can only buy the polish at beauty supply stores and I rarely get there. I probably only have about 6 colors, and really only 3 that I use. I’m a bit of a one trick pony like that; I tend to do a summer color, winter color, and a spring/fall one.

The exam yesterday was HORRIBLE. I don’t know what else I could have studied that would have helped, so if I have to retake it (and I’m pretty certain I will) I don’t even know where to begin. And the b!tch of it was that it’s supposed to be 40% tax and I got ONE DAMN QUESTION on tax. I spent ALL THAT TIME STUDYING stuff they didn’t even frickin’ ask me about. ARGH. Oh well; what can you do? Grades for the second piece come out this week and I will be surprised (but not 100% surprised—this IS the CPA exam after all) if I didn’t pass that one, but this one.. ACK.

I came home and got out the book for the next piece that I am scheduled to sit for on Aug. 31 and started reading it. Then I went to bed and stared at the ceiling for hours, so I read some more from 3 am to 5 am. Needless to say I am a bit tired today…

 

[zoebartlett]

Deegee, we're moving an hour from where we are now and the other (rental) condo is about an hour away, too. It definitely won't be as convenient to pop over if needed. We move in 2.5 weeks. I hate packing. HATE IT. The movers have given us an estimate and they said we have a small load. It doesn't feel that way to me though. I wish I was a minimalist but I have too many things.

Dee*Jay, I'm sorry your test didn't go as well as you had hoped.

Marcy, I'm sorry your mom's not feeling well. She's been through a lot. Hugs!

There's progress! Sort of. D and I are meeting the property manager and the guy who's company will be doing the work tomorrow at the condo. We thought it was good if we met there so the property manager could see the issues. There's a chance the floor guy will be there, too, and maybe he can begin ripping up the floor. Cross your fingers.

We're not sure how soon after the work is completed we should let our tenant know that we're going to sell. She knows it's on our radar for some time down the road but we haven't told her our timeframe. On one hand, we want to put it on the market right away (with the understanding that new owners wouldn't break our tenant's lease that ends on NYE). On the other hand, our tenant has lived with this mess for months and we want her to have a good impression of the unit again. It might make her more open to buying. She's said that she's turned off right now, so we want to change her mind. Plus, for her, it would kind of stink to hear right away, "thank you for dealing with everything. Sorry it's taken so long. Oh, by the way, we're selling, so get ready to move out unless you want to buy." A little wait time would be a better idea, right?

 

[zoebartlett]

Deegee, I've never had Lebanese food but it sounds really good. Isn't it nice to have days where you do virtually nothing? I'm crossing my fingers that the closing goes smoothly and you and Matt can be done with the house once and for all.

Marcy, hugs to your parents, too. I can only imagine how difficult this must be.

 

[deegee]

Marcy-your poor mom. She has sure been through it. I'm sure your dad is upset and stressed. I think about them a lot. Something is going on with my dad right now but I don't know what. Mom & dad never say much because they don't want us to worry, but it drives me insane when I find out one of them is having surgery on the same day they have surgery. Ahh! All mom would say was that they think he has internal bleeding, but haven't figured it out yet. I found that out a week after he spent the day in the ER. I understand you not wanting to try the walk to the greenway since it bothers your knees. That crazy hill we tried the other day made my legs ache for hours! Most of my nail polish colors are black, shades of blue, pewter, etc. No pinks!

Dee*Jay-oh, I'm sorry your test didn't go as expected. Hopefully it wasn't as bad as you thought. I didn't try the Lebanese wine. I hear this place makes pretty strong mixed drinks. I was being rather angelic that day and got iced tea. Not sure what came over me.

Zoe-progress! Hooray! I hope things start getting done on your condo repairs. And I agree...I HATE packing! Our offices got new carpet last fall, and we had to pack everything in our offices/departments in boxes. Everything. It was in storage for a week, and then we had to unpack and figure out where to out things because you didnt necessarily get your furniture back. Then Matt & I moved in the spring and I had to pack up our house. I am done with packing!

I have meetings scheduled for most of the day tomorrow, so I'm dreading going to work. 9-10:30, 10:30-11:30, 11:30-1, 1-3. My days have been looking like this lately. Matt says he would collapse in hunger! I was snacking on junk, but this week I have been substituting fruit instead. We found out today that the lender got the appraisal ordered really late (after our realtor called them twice), so our closing has been moved out to Aug 12. That actually helps us with Matt's trip to CA being next week. So the closing was delayed, and it technically wasn't our fault. The termite inspection was yesterday, and the house passed with flying colors. The home inspection was last week, and our realtor told us she'd never seen such a clean inspection report. The most costly thing we had to do was have the gutters cleaned. I still have my fingers crossed really, really hard that the appraisal gets done this week and the closing date holds at the 12th. I fret about things like this! Food was good today, but we went to DQ after dinner for a tasty treat. It's chocolate time, and there's no standing in my way when it's chocolate time. Have a great day tomorrow!

 

[marcy]

Happy Tuesday!

Dee Jay, sorry to hear your test was so hard. I am keeping my fingers, toes and eyes crossed for you. I generally wear the same shade of pink nail polish but I like variety. Buying nail polish is certainly a weakness for me. I didn’t sleep well myself last night. I hope we both get a lot more sleep tonight.

Zoe, thanks for the hugs for my mom. She’ll take any of them she can get. I hope the meeting with the property manager goes well. That would be great if your current renter wants to buy the place. Now is the time after getting things all fixed. Good luck with that!

Deegee, I buy the colors of nail polish you like, use them once and pass them on to someone else. I do like them but they always kind of startle me when I see it. On my way home tonight I drove around here to see what would be a less steep path to walk. I am sorry to hear your dad has something going on; yes that would drive me crazy not knowing what is going on until the last minute. I hope the doctors figure it out and can work on getting him on the path to recovery. That is wonderful your house passed all the inspections with flying colors. I am sure the appraisal will come back positive as well. I know you’ll be happy to get your old house sold.

I went to a funeral this afternoon. My niece’s in-laws live near us and her MIL’s sister died last week. We’ve talked to them quite a bit since last fall because they were having a house built in our development at the same time we were. Her sister has gallbladder cancer that spread to her liver. I don’t really know much of their family but we went to show support for her. The funeral was very well attended and with 4 eulogies plus normal service stuff it lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. I only minded because the seats were incredibly HARD.

I went back to work for a while then came home. Marty made supper again. After I got the dishes done I went to visit my parents and my mom was doing better today. I guess she was really out of it yesterday – my dad said she was saying crazy things and she was very nauseous. They had reports of her blood readings since being admitted in to the hospital and the ones the oncologist is concerned about are improving. That is great news. She does seem weaker again. She at least ate one taco for supper.

As I mentioned earlier I didn’t sleep well. I was thinking about my mom. Marty was snoring so about 12:30 I moved to a spare bedroom. This is the first time I tried our new mattresses. I hate it! It was very hard. I had a hard time falling asleep and then woke up all sore and achy about 4:15. I came back to our bedroom and finally got back to sleep about 5 then Marty got up. Short night.

Take care.
Marcy

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Wednesday kids!

Zoe, that such a good idea about getting the condo back in tip-top order and giving the tenant time for it to “sink in” before you ask her if she is interested in buying it. Have you ever talked with her about that possibility before? (And forgive me if you’ve already mentioned that on here, but I don’t recall.) That would truly be the perfect scenario!

Deegee, when the CB and I were in northern Wisconsin over the Fourth of July we went to Dairy Queen EVERY DAY. I always *think* I want a Peanut Buster Parfait but on the rare occasions that I actually get one I’m about ready to explode by the time I get to the bottom—and believe me, I’m NOT stopping before I get to the bottom! I was “good” on the trip though and only did small hot fudge sundaes.

Marcy, I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well. I went to bed early and slept straight through. When I got in bed I tried to read a bit more of my chapter, but I finally gave up and just went over a couple sections of notes because I wasn’t in the frame of mind to take in new material at that point.

Speaking of nail polish, I got the Opi Liquid Sand four pack of mini colors for my toes. I am LOVING this stuff for stay-ability! I did my toes two weeks ago tomorrow and they look "brand new," even by the cuticles, which is where it starts to grow out and bug me. I almost want to redo them just because I'm looking forward to the purple next (currently I've got blue on, and did the red the first time), but I'm going to hold off for a few more days.

I went to dinner with the President of the Kansas City Porsche Club last night, who was in town for a few days. It was great to catch up with him and I really miss the club down there. I hear the club up here is not as friendly, and that the race events are downright brutal, so even when I have time to join in I don’t know how much I really will participate with them. This weekend I am committed to getting back to the gym. It’s been far too long since I spent any regular time there!

 

[zoebartlett]

Dee*Jay, we have talked to our tenant about buying the condo, and it's also written in her lease that she has the first right of refusal (that's the correct terminology, right?). We haven't mentioned it recently but she brought it up not long ago. She was saying how frustrated she's been (I know, sorry! We are too!) and that she's turned off on the idea of buying any condo, and more specifically, our unit. It's not so much the problems as it is the property manager and the fact that with so many shared walls, it's often hard to determine (or at least agree on) who is responsible for taking care of and paying for certain issues.

You mentioned Dairy Queen and now I want ice cream really badly. I haven't had it in 6 months and I miss it. A lot.

Re: nail polish, I think Marcy, you mentioned sticking with colors that are all red or mauve. I do that too. D. laughs every time I show him a new bottle I picked up. He thinks they're all the same color and I need to branch out. I did once and the color looked horrible. It was a dark grey/purple and I ended up using it on my toes only.

Not much else new here. I went to the library and picked up two new books this afternoon. I also did a bunch of other errands. My aunt is arriving from out of state tonight, and she's staying with my parents for part of her trip to NE. We'll hang out with her and spend time catching up, which will be fun.

As for food, I've been snacking a lot lately. Luckily, it's been mostly fruit salad, so at least it's healthy. D. bought whipped cream to put on top, and I've given in a few times. We also have chips and they're not the baked kind. For the most part though, food's been good. Exercise, however, has NOT been good.

 

[marcy]

Happy Wednesday Kids!

Dee Jay, I am sure you enjoyed an early and good night’s sleep. I did better but couldn’t go to sleep for well over an hour. I will have to try Opi again. It didn’t last more than a day on my fingernails. I’ve been buying Orly and China Glaze. They last 2 to 3 days before they need done again. How fun to catch up with someone from the KC Porsche club. I hope the Chicago clubs turns out to be a nice group as well.

Zoe, it is understandable if you current tenant is a little burned out on the response you all have gotten from the property manager. I want DQ too. I love soft serve ice cream. I do the same thing when I try a different color of nail polish – then it goes on my toes then maybe I give it to a niece or someone at work.

Work was boring but I bought a set of alphabet magnets so I played with that for a while. Sadly they have weak magnets and kept fall off my cube walls. It did amuse me anyway.

Marty cooked corn and steak on the grill and made rice to go with it.

I am working on a batch of laundry. Tomorrow is Thursday already. Sweet.

Marcy

 

[deegee]

Dee*Jay-I had the peanut butter bash last night. Oh my! I tore into that thing so fast that by the time I was finished, I had a monster stomach ache. But it satisfied my chocolate craving! Unfortnuately the DQ is much too close to our house. It takes about 3 minutes to get there. Not good at all. I'd love to try the liquid sand polish. I hadn't seen it before you posted about it in your other thread, but I like the way it looks in pictures. I bet the purple is really pretty.

Zoe-I understand your tenant's hesitation, so I think you're right to give her a little time to get to like her space again. Hopefully once it is all fixed and nice again, she'll forget all her woes! I guess I didn't realize all of those issues you mentioned with owning a condo. We looked at a condo before we found our house, and we didn't really talk about that kind of thing with the owner.

Marcy-I probably should mention that I only wear the dark funky colored nail polish on my toes. It would distract me on my fingers! My fingernails always end up with a Plain Jane French or American manicure. I always swear that one day I'm going to have them done in black or that dark blackish purple color, but I always chicken out. I'm glad you had your alphabet letters to keep you amused at work. We have our dry erase board in my section at work where we write notes and random thoughts all day. That keeps us pretty entertained some days.

Today was crazy. I had free time between 2:49-3. During that time, I snarfed my leftover spaghetti and an apple. My last meeting ran really long and I ended up leaving 2 1/2 hours late at the end of the day. Thankfully I put a roast in the crockpot this morning, so dinner was an easy fix. We had pork roast, quinoa, and veggies for dinner, and I had fruit for a snack. I can't hold my eyes open, so I'm off to bed. I have another meeting in the morning 9-10 and then 10-12, and then I think I'm free of meetings until Friday. Have a great day tomorrow!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Thursday kids!

Zoe, I think I do remember now you talking about having approached your tenant about the idea of buying your condo. One thing I did think of when reading you post is if she does not buy it and you have others come through and view it while she's living there you probably want to ensure she's not there for showings. In some areas that's a "given," but conventions differ across the county--and even locally in terms of city vs. suburban. For instance, in downtown Chicago the listing agent typically attends the appointments and shows the people through (and the buyers are usually accompanied by their own agent at the same time). In the suburbs agents tend to put properties "on lockbox" and buyer's agents make appointments and come through without the listing agent. In that case it's not uncommon for the current resident to be in the property. Given that your tenant may not be 100% "positive" on the unit at that time you really don't want her there to have the opportunity to talk with any potential buyers. Forgive me if this is stuff you already know!!!

Marcy, fingernail polish never used to say on my nails until I started doing the no-chip mani. Now the reason I have to redo them is because they grow out at the cuticle and it bugs me. I'm looking at mine right now, which were done over two weeks ago, and except for that growing out thing they are still absolutely perfect. China Glaze is from Sally Beauty Supply, right? Someone told me CG is actully OPI rebranded. I do believe that because I have bought CG colors only to get them home, look in my medicine cabinet, and see that I have the EXACT color already in Opi, just called something different. One trick pony!

Zoe, your schedule is CRAZY! Kudos to you for hanging in there--I'd be down at the closest bar betweens meetings guzzling martinis just to get me through, ha ha! As for the nail polish, I was so impressed with it that I took a couple of pictures right after I painted on the blue a couple weeks ago. They are on on phone and I will try to see if I can post them. When I showed my best friend my sparkley blue toes she just rolled her eyes and said, "you are such a 13 year old girl." Yah... you say that like it's a bad thing!

So I made the decision to listen to all of the lectures for the each section of the upcoming exam again as part of my studying becuase this is the section that I least "get." I've through 1 (of 10!) and I have to say it means a lot more to me now than it did the first time I heard it, so that's a good thing. SO MUCH to cover for this piece though... ACK.

Last night while I was watching the video I was HUNGRY. Not jut borded, but really a physical thing, so I had some walnuts that were sitting around in the cabinet from whe the CB and I made a spinach/walnut/blue cheese salad a few weeks ago, and then I gave in and made half of a grilled cheese sandwhich. Some of the cheese leaked out and burned in the pan and made a horrible smoke. The whole building is had-wired with smoke detectors and I was afraid it was going ot go off. I would have felt terrible terrible if the entire 46 story building was evacuated because becuase I'm a moron in the kitchen!

 

[marcy]

Happy Thursday!

Deegee, I am going to have to see what a PB Bash is, sorry it gave you a stomach ache. I find really dark nail polish distracting too. Mauve is about as dark as I go sometimes but I do like a bright red when I am wearing my ruby ring or for Christmas. I remember your white board at work; I know you’ve mentioned some of the inspirational or at least funny things on it before. That isn’t a bad idea. I made a bingo card up to use when someone watches our group email. I need to pick up a bag of “goodies” for someone who gets a bingo. So far I am the only one who has and of course then the prize was $20. Ha Ha. It sounds like you picked a great day to leave a roast cooking in the crock pot.

Dee Jay, I am too cheap to pay for a manicure but I know a lot of people that get them all the time. That is great your polish lasts that long. Very interesting about OPI and China Glaze. I am pretty sure I picked up the same color of CG that I bought a few weeks ago. I haven’t checked yet. Anything that doesn’t require daily maintenance is good with me. That is great listening to the lectures was helpful. Glad your grilled cheese didn’t set off any alarms. One time when we were camping this one couple was making us all s’mores. They were melting the marshmallows over a burner on their gas stove and set off the smoke alarm in their camper. It squawked for quite a while.

Work was boring. I shared my magnetic letters so we were entertained by that. One of my employees is getting married on the 10th so we listened to a lot of wedding stories. Marty didn’t want to cook burgers on the grill tonight since the clouds looked like they were going to dump on us anytime so I made oven fries and mini burgers with english muffins for buns. It was easy and tasty.

Oh and a GOOD thing about painting your nails is you won't try to eat anything while your nail polish is drying.

Tomorrow is Friday! Yippee!!

Marcy

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Friday kids!

Marcy, I do the no chip mani myself. My big constraint this timing--I always want my nails done at like midnight on a Tuesday, or something like that, and I have yet for find a place that's open then. I don't mind doing it (although soaking off the old polish is a bit of a PITA, but once you're done and "cured" under the UV light your nails are DRY. As in, you can take your hands out of the light and go dig in the garden or put on gloves. So it probably takes me about an hour, but it's the same hour I would spend waiting for regular polish to dry.

I went to the gym this morning but I only did 50 mins instead of an hour (10 gauntlet, 30 bike--and that's the first time I've done that since I hurt my tailbone--and 10 on the elliptical). I planed 20 on the elliptical but there was someone on a machine in the row in front of me that made a terrible grinding noise every time he took a stride with this right foot and it drove me CRAZY. I can't believe he didn't notice it, even with headphones on. Oh well, to each his own.

Today could be the day they release scores from Part 2 of my exam (not miserable Part 3 from earlier this week... ), but last time the Friday release went into Saturday because the server crashed so we'll see. I'm going to lunch with my real estate partner and then will chug away on studying for the rest of the day. I also have some laundry in and the dryer is starting to make that squeaking noise it made when I first moved in so I'll have to get maintenance up here about that. I wonder how many times they "fix" something before they just replace the damn thing?!?

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Saturday kids!

Got up early and took Billy Ray for a spirited drive. My radar detector started going bananas at 103 and I was thinking, oh no, here it comes... but I made it back home without having to chat with any of Chicago's finest this morning. My license plate is posted in Hangout. I still can't believe that made it through the State!

Most of the other state CPA candidates got their scores yesterday, but IL is *special* and we're still waiting... A couple other states are in the same boat, and Oregon even delivers results by "snail mail," but this is so unfair! Oh well, at least I have some level of confidence I passed this one, it's just the one I took earlier this week that will have me freaking up when time for score posting comes.

No gym for me today, but I'm planning on tomorrow. And that will be nice to counteract the big pile of leftover mushroom risotto and meatballs with marinara I just had for breakfast--ha!

 

[marcy]

Happy Saturday!

Dee Jay, LOL at taking Billie Ray for a spirited ride and getting home without meeting some of Chicago’s finest. Your license plate is awesome. I am sure some people will get a good chuckle out of it when they see Billie Ray zoom by. I will have to look in to the no chip mani. It is so dry here my nails are mostly set in 20 to 30 minutes but they are still a bit soft underneath. I hope they replace your dryer. That would be nice! Good luck on your test results.

We are watching episode 3 of Star Wars. Marty can’t play golf because of rain and no one wants to come play golf at the last minute so we started watching Star Wars. We watched episode 1 last night and started watching them again a few hours ago.

This morning we went out for breakfast, went to the farmer’s market then went to visit my parents. We stopped at Hallmark because Marty noticed they had a lot of Snoopy stuff. I got myself a notepad and a journal.

Then we went to Office Max and Marty bought a few new phones. His office phone (if you’ll remember) can’t dial 3 so we needed to get him something new.

Laters,
Marcy

 

[marcy]

Happy Sunday.

I tried to take my car for a spirited drive today but everyone in front of me was driving 10 miles under the speed limit. I got rather animated about that but f course that didn't help.

My day was full of chores and errands. I got gas, groceries, a poster board for a puzzle, some new shoes, some cash and went to visit my parents. I got the laundry done and made BBQ ribs in the crockpot for supper. I baked some potatoes and corn in the oven and then when Marty was done with golf everything was ready.

Marty takes off for 2 weeks tomorrow. Waah.

I bought little wheat buns and have enough BBQ beef left for 7 sandwiches. I picked up some baked lays so I at least have a lot of my lunches ready for the next 2 weeks. Woo hoo!

I am weary of my new shoes. My feet are twisted from my knees being out of alignment. I have worn Brooks motion control running shoes for about 14 years and lately they just aren't working for me. So I got some New Balance walking shoes today. The bottoms are shaped so different I almost felt drunk at first. They feel better tonight. I hope they work because honestly my feet usually hurt worse than my knees. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me.

Laters.
Marcy

 

[zoebartlett]

Dee*Jay, thanks for the tip about not having our tenant in the condo while it's being shown (if she doesn't buy it, that is). I haven't run across that. I assumed it's common knowledge that people leave, but apparently not everyone knows this. I'm pretty sure our tenant does, but I'll mention it. Here, it's not common to have the listing agents at showings, at least not that I've seen. Your license plate is hilarious, by the way!

Marcy, I hope your feet feel okay today. I hate breaking in new shoes.

Hi Deegee!

We chose flooring over the weekend, and it made me want to build a house just so we can choose everything for it. I could have stayed at the store for hours. Luckily for D. though, we have the same tastes and we agreed on new laminate right away. It was the quickest decision we've ever made, practically. It's a higher end laminate than what's there currently (a much thicker product), and it's so pretty. It has beveled edges so it looks like real wood, and it's a pretty light caramel or wheat color.

My mom's sister is visiting my parents, so we've spent a lot of time together over the last few days. We've seen 2 movies (The Heat - meh, and The Way, Way Back - good), gone out to eat, and now today we're heading to Cape Ann in MA. My mom's having surgery today and she'll be in the hospital for a few days. I may not be around here much in the next few weeks. Between visitors, helping my mom, and moving, my time is spread thin. Luckily I won't have too much time to dwell on the fact that my teacher friends are beginning to go to their classrooms and set things up and get ready for the new year while I don't have a job.