My June in pictures and some words. (I’ll fix the formatting later on some of these pics. You can click through and see the big ones over at Flickr.)

Week 1

The first Thursday night in June, we attended a lecture by the architect that designed our house. Then we went to Dairy Queen in another part of town.

After that, we headed to the Melody Inn to see Greg’s band Vodka de Milo.

I liked this picture of Justin that I took:

And I like this one of Greg, but mostly because you can see me in the reflection of his sunglasses.

Then, The Cocaine Wolves took the stage for their Royal Feast album release show. I can always count on Mr. Steak to give me at least one totally goofy face just like I can count on Munciana Holmes to give me a couple of windmills:

I was a little burned out of taking pictures of bands at the Melody, but I did notice that the band members each chose a different kind of shoe (L-R: work boot, cowboy boot, Adidas soccer shoes, classic checkered Vans).

The best part though was having Rob out with me and seeing a bunch of friends we haven’t seen in awhile.

Although Rob has gotten better about me always taking his picture, he still doesn’t like it:

So it is only partially because of my vanity that I take a lot of self-portraits. It is because I am my most willing model. Well, and all that inanimate stuff that can’t complain.

The next night was First Friday, and I guess I had worn Rob out because he wanted no part of my Fountain Square shenanigans with Greg. There was an opening at IMOCA that featured photos of Evans Woollen (the aforementioned architect who built our house) buildings. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across two photos of our house before it had been added on to. I immediately texted pics to Rob:

The next day, I stayed home and cleaned. Nico supervised.

Then Rob and I went to dinner at Thai Taste where I tried their Bubble Tea. We stopped and bought a little scratcher house, and Nico was the first one to check it out.

That Sunday, we headed up to South Bend for Dylan’s 5th birthday. It was a pool party, but we didn’t end up swimming. We did however enjoy the visit from the Snow Cone truck.

The next day, we went back to my brother’s to hook up Dylan’s Rock Band birthday present and we also played with ShibuyaCamera on the iPhone.

After we got Rock Band hooked up, we headed over to Joe and Carisse’s to hang out a bit and had a good laugh telling each other to “Git-r-done”. We came back from The Bend on Tuesday, and I spent the next couple days organizing and purging some stuff.

Week 2

On Thursday night, one of Rob’s bands had a show at the Vollrath which is in kind of a dodgy part of town. I dragged Greg along with me, and we had fun cracking ourselves up. We decided to leave and head to the Melody Inn after we helped Rob load his drums out, but we ended up staying for one more drink. Greg’s reasoning (according to my Facebook status update) was “I just saw a girl walking outside in bare feet so I don’t know if it’s a good time to leave yet”. I felt very Baby in Dirty Dancing in my jean shorts and stripey shirt, and the line, “I carried a watermelon” kept running through my head.

Of course the night ended with Greg drunkenly demanding I play ELO’s “Telephone Line” on the jukebox.

Friday, I went for a walk-jog after loading up my phone with new music. Then on Saturday, I headed over to the Indieana Handicraft Exchange to browse the goods. I texted Rob this selection of Cat-er-pillows and he chose the one with the Monocle, whom I brought home and he named Reginald.

I was just getting ready to come home when Greg showed up with Tommy T. There was so much going on that weekend. In addition to the Handicraft Exchange, there was the Talbot Street Art Fair and Gay Pride Weekend. Walking around the Talbot Street Art Fair, I ran into one of my favorite teachers from Clay Middle, Mr. Choinacky. I talked to him for a minute and then we were all hot and hungry so we walked over to the Varsity Lounge for a grilled cheese and to cool off. It was our way of celebrating Gay Pride. Just as we were leaving, Greg got a call from another friend who was at the Lockerbie Pub and told us to come over and hang out. At that point, World Cup had just started and I told Greg, “You know they’re just there for World Cup, right?” Then he countered, “They wouldn’t call me to hang out for World Cup.” I bet him $5 that the gathering was World Cup celebrations, and when we got there I won. We hung out there for a bit, and I finally went home again because I knew that We Are Hex was playing that night and I wanted to see them.

On Sunday, I went back to the Art Fair to talk with Mr. Choinacky more and we had a nice little visit as he was packing up his booth.

Our plans for Monday were to drive out to Connecticut to pick up a Craigslist Optigan and stop at Fallingwater and Philip Johnson’s Glass House on the way there and back. I tried to reserve tickets for the house tours, but they were sold out at the convenient times we’d be passing through. I was excited to take a road trip with Rob, but on Sunday night after not being able to secure the tickets, I told Rob that it would be cheaper to just have the Optigan shipped because with gas and hotels, it would still be cheaper money-wise.

It turned out that was the right choice though, because we had some crazy storms and rain come through Indy, and we ended up taking a little water in the basement. Not a lot, but I was glad we were home to monitor the situation. I don’t like being away from the house when severe weather hits. I was getting on a good cleaning/organizing roll, but the next set of storms knocked the power out for about 14 hours overnight.

Week 3

After deep-cleaning my bedroom and the power being out, I got a bit of a cold. At first I thought it was allergies, but then I gave in to the fact that I was actually sick. I had been pretty productive and able to function with it, but Rob made me take it easy a couple days and rest because he was afraid I wouldn’t get better. Somehow in that time, we managed a quick trip up to The Bend to pick up the Beetle with its new stereo!

Beans found a new place to take a nap:

I also started tap dancing lessons at the Monon Center with Erin, Jen, and Courtney. It has been really fun, and I always look forward to Tuesday nights. On that Wednesday, Rob and I headed to the Rathskeller to have some drinks with Pastaqueen and her friends before she left Indy for North Carolina. We took the Beetle, and Rob does not like this particular scarf look on me. I feel like I look like Little Steven or one of the New Jersey Housewives.

Week 4

On Thursday, I was still a little under-the-weather. Rob made me make an appointment with my Dr. since I had been sick for a week now. We headed to the Apple Store to wait in line to pick up our new phones, and I was racing the clock trying to get our phones before I had to get to the Dr. It was kind of annoying to wait, but at least I knew there was actually a phone waiting there for me. They provided umbrellas for shade, water, and I had my rainbow Apple manicure to keep my spirits up.

We got our phones activated and headed straight to the Dr., calling them on the way to let them know I’d be 5-10 minutes late. I took this picture while there, and forgot to download it to my phone before syncing and putting all my info on the new phone, so it only survives on Facebook (well, and the copy I uploaded to Flickr for this post).

That Friday was pretty tame for me, a I knew Saturday was packed full of fun for us. We did manage to try out Huddles Frozen Yogurt though. It was good and very easy to blow way too much $$$ on froyo.

Saturday, we started our day at our favorite neighborhood pancake house, before heading to a housewarming and then on to a show at Birdy’s.

I had tons of fun playing with the new iPhone camera. And Rob had a lot of fun photo-bombing my self-portraits.

On Sunday, I headed out to the Mel to show Greg the iPhone (since he was still waiting on his) and tell him all the stories he missed while he was in Wisconsin. The difference between the front and rear cameras on the phone is large, especially factoring in that you can use the flash on the rear camera.

Then I went home and made sure to set my DVR to record my old school and church friend LauraVanderkam on the Today Show being interviewed about her new book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (I get some pennies if you buy it after clicking that link).

Then on Tuesday, it was time for a dentist appointment and tap dance class. I drove the Beetle all day and it was awesome, although I did end up pretty freckly without a visor. At least I wore sunscreen!

The best way to end June was to sneak up to South Bend without telling anyone, and visit Keely who was in from NYC. She was hanging out at Joe’s pool, so I drove up for the day to hang out. The weather was absolutely perfect- just beyond warm to hot and with a slight breeze. I rocked a Panama Jack look and enjoyed time with doggies and friends.

And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Joe’s wife Carisse made us ice cream sundaes with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Then I went to bed and it was July.

This weekend was fairly low-key. We didn’t end up doing anything Friday because I waited for the Terminix guy who was late. It wasn’t his fault and I didn’t have anywhere to be, so it was cool, but now that my favorite guy that we had for years isn’t servicing the house anymore, I think I’m going to re-evaluate them when our service agreement is up with them next year. I want heavy-duty bug killing, and I might be looking at the Orkin Man. Friday night, I remembered that I needed to hit up the Kroger to get the ingredients for Rob’s birthday cake for his joint birthday ceelbration with his sister out in Greenfield. It was kind of chilly, and almost fall-like. While it was nice, I really would like some more warm weather before we go to that nice weather more often. Although this is Indiana, so we’ll probably skip that nice weather in the fall when it’s supposed to occur and go straight to the frigid arctic weather.

Saturday morning, I skipped the Binford Farmer’s Market and made a smoothie and the Pineapple Upside-Down Cheesecake for the party. It’s his favorite. It was off to Greenfield and after a brief stop at teh Riley House Restaurant to pick up some broasted chicken, it was party time. It was fun to play with Lizzie and we had nice visits with Rob’s family. His dad is doing really well after the kidney transplant. It’s totally amazing because I can already see improvement. I guess I just expected teh recovery to be worse.

I went for a bike ride when we got back, being inspired by the serious bikers- and by serious I mean the guys with teh fast bikes in Lycra looking like they were Tour de France training. I thought, “Oh, these guys must live out here because this terrain is probably good for training for races.” In reality, it was probably a couple guys who were part of the Ride Across Indiana which cut right through Greenfield on US 40.

Sunday morning, we rode up to the Binford Cafe. It was about 2.25 miles round-trip and we saw some geese and some doggies and enjoyed the sunny, yet cooler weather. It’s not very far, but I do try to ride my bike more and more to things close by like the Farer’s Market, Kroger, CVS, et al. In the afternoon, I headed to the IMA to see The Way We Get By which is a documentary produced by an old classmate of mine. I’ll say more about it in another post I think, because I have more to say. My reaction was definitely positive though. After I got home, Rob and I went to Barnes and Noble and had dinner at Taiwan Tea House on 82d & Dean Rd. on the north side. It was sooooo good. I could eat there every day.

And we were able to ease into this week today, by using our Monday to have lunch at the Mongolian BBQ (for cheap since Rob had a birthday coupon!) and head to Costco for some necessities. Productive, yet enjoyable.

Anyway, here are some random weekend pics from my iPhone:

So, I know that I have neglected my blog, but I don’t have a team of writers like Perez Hilton, and I guess I’ve just had other stuff going on. I’m sure you’re wondering where I am if you’re even reading this, and maybe you think I’ve just faded into obscurity like an old Top Model winner. I have been semi-active over on Facebook and Twitter, so I suppose those are the best ways to see what I’ve been up to. Although, I’m probably going to set some better privacy filters over there. Believe it or not, I have been having an internal struggle the last 3-6 months about how much of myself I want to share online. I don’t really know where this has come from, but I think I’m starting to find the balance.

Rob is back from the Recording Workshop and he is now interning over at Azmyth Studios. In addition to it being a good studio with a diverse group of clients, it’s also the closest studio to our house.  I am so glad he’s back. I really missed him. The first month wasn’t that bad, but oy February seemed so long.

Anyway, I’m really going to start blogging more now. I think I’m finally to a point where I can start sitting down and doing some writing, as I have not been able to do any since my main concentration has been purging my clutter.  Frankly, I feel like I can start doing a lot of things now because my house is almost that of a normal person. I do know that I will officially be leaving my pack-rattedness in 2009.  I have recently been working on purging clothes.  It is now to the point that everything clothes-wise has a home in my house, yet there is not enough room and the spaces are overflowing. So, now that it’s all amassed together, I get to go through and go category by category and make myself get rid of at least 1/3 of each category of clothing. I am still battling with some stuff going on in my basement. Apparently my joists are too short to support by floor properly. And there’s some erosion. I am getting back in contractor mode and it sucks.

On a better note, my most recent obsession has been green breakfast smoothies. I’ll do a whole post at some point here, but I have really been enjoying my breakfast. I basically stuff whatever I can into a blender that’s good for me- greens, fruit, flax oil, protein powder, Centrum liquid, Benefiber- and blend it all up into a delicious morning breakfast drink. I’m sure a lot of the green smoothie purists would scoff at my additions of Centrum, Benefiber, and protein, but whatever.  Today I am mourning the return of my friend Jennette’s Vita-Mix to her. You may remember when I met Jennette at BlogIndiana (yeah, lot of good it did my blog to go to that *wink*). She’s such an awesome blogger that companies send her stuff, just hoping she’ll start using it.  Anyway, I was reading up on blenders and apparently the Vita-Mix and the Blendtec are the Canon and Nikon of blenders. So, I put out some feelers on Twitter to see if anyone had any experience with either blender, and she offered to let me take hers for a spin. My Cuisinart is a pretty awesome blender, but it just can’t hold a candle to the Vita-Mix. My next mission is to get a Blendtec to try.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on here. I may take a day off, but I’m going to try the whole blog-every-day-for-a-month-straight exercise in April, so get used to coming back here.

Nothing but love!

So, 2008 sucked. Don’t get me wrong. I’m counting my blessings. We elected a new president. I’m alive. I’m fairly healthy. I can still pay my bills (although, I engaged in some serious cost-cutting to make it easier). And for the most part I’m happy. I was really hopeful for 2008. I mean, it was a leap year for crying out loud. We should have gotten along! But like the partygoers who overstay their welcome, I will be relieved when 2008 is gone.

The Election and The Economy

The election process is important in that it gets people to discuss issues important and unimportant in the context of where we’re going as a country. But boy was it a stressful process. The 24-hour news cycle, the LOOOONG primaries, the heated arguments, the feeling of wanting to bang your head against a wall when you tried to discuss issues instead of someone’s pastor- all contributed to my stress level. In the end, we got the best person for the job (my blog, my opinion), and I am more hopeful for the next 4 years than I have been after any presidential election since I’ve started voting. Don’t get me wrong- things aren’t going to change overnight and we have a long uphill climb to fix our country- but I am confident in the fact that our President-elect is surrounding himself with good people and even people who don’t agree with him and he is up to the task of moving America forward.

You’d have to have spent the last year under a rock to not realize the economy has gone to crap. The fear over what has been happening has really held me back from doing things I have wanted to do in case the financial apocalypse comes. I really wanted to do some travelling this year with some friends and I just couldn’t justify it financially. It sucked. Not to mention that most of my family has their futures invested in the auto industry and having to witness the industry do a freakin’ soft-shoe to get a LOAN for 1/20 of what we GAVE the financial industry in a blank check while listening to people talk about how American auto workers are supposedly living high on the hog (seriously, have you been to Kokomo?)- well, I get a little stressed and worked up just thinking about it all.

My Health

In the beginning of December, I ended up needing an emergency appendectomy. I’m happy that my appendix didn’t actually rupture and that I knew my body enough that I could pretty much diagnose myself using Wikipedia. But no one really wants to be a patient. After my surgery, it was 2 weeks of only lifting stuff under 10 pounds- which isn’t exactly a lot. It’s about the weight of one of my kitties. It kind of tripped me up in my progress towards clearing the decks and finally shedding my packrat-ism, and it made getting stuff ready for the holiday season go at a frenzied pace once my lifting restriction was itself lifted.

On top of all that, I hovered for awhile back at my highest weight ever. Now I am back down to where I was when we got married (about 15 pounds off of my highest weight and where my body likes to settle in). I am not going to focus on losing weight so much in 2009. I am trying to do things that have more of an effect on my mental health than anything. In turn, I think that will address some of the reasons I do carry extra weight. I’m sure that my mental health and the fact that I literally do not have my house in order contribute to the size of my waistline, but you know I feel like I’ve been on a diet since I was 10, and I’ve been sensitive to it since the first time someone called me fatso which was probably in, like, preschool. So, I’m going to take this year off of dieting and really just concentrate on other things and just do what I can to maintain the weight where I am now and only start worrying about my weight if it tips past my highest again.

Oh, and my dentist told me that I’m probably going to need some major dental work coming up soon.

People and Relationships

I feel like 2008 was just littered with sucky people and me failing to nurture some really good relationships. There were some people I thought I could trust that turned out to be DRAMA, and I just feel like I squandered some opportunities.

Oh, and there were way too many stories of suicide in my sphere of people. A friend of ours shot himself outside a CVS in Kokomo because the pain of MS got to be too much, and I heard too many stories of soldiers who came home and just couldn’t continue. I know 2008 sucked, but I don’t think it sucked to the point of not going on and leaving loved ones behind. Just too many sad stories.

My House

In June the heavy rains and crazy storms flooded Rob’s man lair and destroyed the carpet and some of Rob’s records. Then come to find out that even though we put a sump pump in, in order to mitigate any damages in the event of water down there, because we didn’t have sump/water backup coverage on our policy (since it was done after we bought the policy and didn’t realize we needed to notify the insurance company to add it), our damage wasn’t covered.

So, while we formulated a new plan for waterproofing the basement (which thanks to Dave Lankford is now bone dry), Rob’s stuff from downstairs didn’t really have a home and it was stashed various places upstairs amongst my clutter.

Then this winter we found out that my roof wasn’t vented well enough and we were having attic condensation issues where we store stuff. Seriously, I can do without any more home weirdness happening for awhile.

Then, there’s the general issue of my clutter. I’ve been doing really well in the last quarter of the year- and especially the last 6 weeks- but lots of other stuff got in the way. I just wasn’t able to get in the right mindframe to deal with my packrat-ism until the end of the year.

General Suckage and Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong, I made some good progress this year and some positive changes that I’m ready to carry through to 2009. But I am so ready to leave 2008 behind. For some reason this year, in many different ways, I just couldn’t get it together. I was distracted by the Olympics and the election, dragged down by clutter, and never able to get on a good schedule. I was overloaded with information and stuff and even with good information, I was just unable to ACT. My execution sucked. By the time in September we got back from Jeff and Carrie’s wedding, I had just totally slipped a gear. Most days I just kind of stumbled around numbly in a daze and the bombardment of information and the weight of my stuff just dragged me down. I wasn’t depressed necessarily, just unable to focus and function.

Sometime in early November, I woke up and realized that as bad as it was that day, it wasn’t going to get any better unless I acted. I just made myself start on some small projects around the house and gradually I started to improve. I pretty much neglected anything else in order to put all of my energy towards clearing the decks. In a way, I look at myself like a clutter addict. So, I pretended like I was in rehab. I stopped buying almost anything but essentials and I concentrated on getting stuff out of the house and purging. I was on track to leave my packrat-ism in 2008, and I was really excited. Then I had my appendectomy and had to give up my original deadline of New Year’s Day. I’m still on a good track, but I was disappointed that I’ll have to carry my clutter baggage into 2009.

2008 has overstayed its welcome and I am not sad to see it go. It will go down in my own history as a year that I’d like to forget. Some good things happened, but later in life, I’ll probably just look back at it as one of those years that was like hitting a pothole and getting a flat tire in an otherwise pretty good ride. I am moving forward, and I hope that the people around me will forgive me for my flakiness and consider it a symptom of 2008.

So, adios 2008. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Today was Rob’s 33rd birthday. We spent the morning having our DirecTV fixed by a wonderful tech named Frank. After the storms (I really don’t know which storm, but I am assuming it was the storm after the flooding sometime and probably the same storm in which our wireless router got fried) both of my receivers stopped working so I have been relying on Hulu to get my Shear Genius and Baby Borrowers fixes. Today, Frank installed a HD DVR and life is getting back to normal.

Anyway, after Frank left, Rob suggested leftover pizza for lunch and I countered since it was his birthday, we should go out to the Cheesecake Factory. So, off to the mall it was after a much-needed shower by yours truly. We sat outside, had a nice waiter and they brought out his Peanut Butter Cup cheesecake with confetti sprinkles and “Happy Birthday Rob” written in chocolate sauce with a candle. We took the 1974 SuperBeetle convertible that my dad so generously is loaning us for the summer (there’ll be a separate post with pics in the semi-near future) up to the Fashion Mall and had a nice late lunch and bought Rob some new kicks. I call them his driving shoes because they have thin soles so he can really feel the mechanics of the stick-shift Beetle and where the clutch actually kicks in. I have always worn thin-soled shoes when driving stick shift vehicles because it is something ingrained in me by The Wag at Frick’s Driving School in Mishwaka where I took driver’s ed eons ago. Anyway, it was raining in Anthropologie and the store was closed (I am assuming as a result of yesterday’s downpours), and we stopped in the Sharper Image- which is going out of business that advertises 50-70% off, but is really just normal prices because they mark it up before they mark it down- and laughed at the prices and what was left.

After we left, it was off to the Urgent Care for me as I am developing an ear infection which I just thought was from sleeping weird and maybe with my hand under my head (sometimes I do this and I wake up with a sore ear) until I noticed the right side of my throat hurt when I was swallowing. Just prior to 6 PM must be the perfect time to get to the Urgent Care because I was checked in without a wait and when I came back out to meet Rob the waiting room was full. I guess people get home, eat, and then go to the doctor. After that it was off to CVS where this lady told me I looked so happy and healthy and commented that the car probably contributed to that (which is totally true- it is like Prozac riding around in that thing).

Then I got home and watched some TV, ate some Parmesan breadsticks from Papa John’s (seriously the best breadsticks from a chain pizza place ever available), and saw that my cousin April started a blog about my Grandma and her paintings. That chick is so stinkin’ cool. It’s always cool when you grow up and you realize there are people in your family that you have stuff in common with and you’d probably want to be friends with them even if you weren’t related.

So, it was a good day. And because I’m not leaving you with a photo, I do want to leave you with this super cute doggy video. I could watch this guy’s YouTube video’s all day: