Friday, October 31, 2008

Make History




Vote
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Because whatever your reasons, you NEED to vote.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so!

Yes, our plans are in full swing.
Come early June 2009, we will be turning Japanese!
My brother, who lives and works in Japan right now, has been wanting all of us to come visit him while he's still there (he's probably moving back to Colombia at some point) and since going to Japan is something Todd has ALWAYS wanted to do, this is just a perfect opportunity to go! Man, Todd sure married in to the right family hahaha!

Originally, we were going to fly in to Tokyo and take the train on to Toyama-shi where my brother lives. Apparently, that wasn't a good idea. For one, it's friggin' expensive as hell to fly in and out of Tokyo. Secondly, it's more in northern Japan so we wouldn't be able to hang with my brother as he's in the southern part. And third, my brother says that Tokyo is uninteresting at best. He flew in to Tokyo and did most of his training there before moving to Toyama-shi and frankly, if Daniel says that something is uninteresting, it probably is. So he recommended that we fly in to Osaka. It's closer to where he lives and is "the gateway to the south" of Japan so there's plenty to see and do in and around Osaka. We'll get to head into Kyoto and possibly Kobe (for some amazing beef at only $150 per steak) and Hiroshima.

We probably won't get into Toyama-shi, which is might be okay. Daniel describes it as the Des Moines of Japan. And as he stated, "If you were going to visit the US, you'd want to go to NYC or Chicago or LA...not Des Moines." Mostly that must made me laugh a whole bunch.

Todd has downloaded and installed Rosetta Stone - Japanese so that he's relatively prepared to go over there...he has plenty of time to learn the language and we might even look into some kind of "learning annex" class for him to take. He's all about trying to immerse himself in the culture as much as possible while we're there.

I'm a bit nervous about going, but in a good way. Everything will be fine a wonderful, but I worry about losing luggage or getting sick (or worse) while I'm overseas. I'm basically just a worry-wart and shouldn't be. I'm so excited to eat ridiculous sushi and Kobe beef and hopefully (because my stomach can only handle so much exotic food) some McDonald's. I do have this thing where I try to eat McD's (and/or Starbucks) while I'm in different countries, just to see what they offer. It was HILARIOUS to do that in Paris and Barcelona, so I'm sure Osaka is going to provide endless entertainment for me.

And hopefully, if it's not totally dork-tastic, we'll do some amazingly awful karaoke and it will be fantastic!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Watcha gonna do??

It's been a L-O-N-G time since I've had a truly free evening. For the last five+ years, I've been in school or studying nearly every night of the week. Now that I'm closing in on being done (don't get too excited...I still have about 6 semesters left), I'm wondering what I'm going to do with all that free time. I really have no idea what it's going to feel like to have absolutely NOTHING to do at night. I'm sure I'll get back in shape big time. HA! Maybe I'll just sleep. Or read. Probably travel. Definitely spend better quality time with Todd. Probably give him a break from life while I handle the house and everything about it for a spell.

Still though. What is it like to have free time? What is it like to not have things pressing from every angle? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll read a LOT. And watch Project Runway at it's regularly scheduled time!

It's almost like thinking about winning the lottery. If you've never had that kind of money, the options are mind-boggling. That's how I am with time. Living with Todd has taught me that time is precious. What we do with it is important. Best not to waste. We only have so much of it, after all.

Ah, I do know that we'll be going to Las Vegas as soon as I graduate...it's my graduation present...and it's definitely for both of us.

Anyway, yeah....the idea of having spare time...it's overwhelming right now. Best I not get too caught up in that and concentrate on the studies for now.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The '09 Challenge

Todd came up with our new year's resolution yesterday.
We have to find five things we've never done before and do them before 2009 ends.
I'm really excited about this one!

I'm just not sure what to do...most of the things I want to do involve enormous sums of cash (walking to Russia, spending a week in Cancun learning to surf, etc. ) or are kind of ... fluffy and not likely (sing the national anthem at a major sporting event) or the timing will be 100% not right (having a baby) or are things I should just do anyway (floss with regularity, keep our bedroom floor free to clutter).

So I'm trying to think of things I should experience in the next year...and I'm open to suggestion!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

One year down....50+ more to go!

I've sort of been reflecting on mine and Todd's first year of marriage the past few days...our first annivesary is fast approaching (on Sunday, as I've mentioned numerous times) and there are just so many things that we did in the last year, it's kind of staggering!

Probably the most exciting thing we did was TRAVEL! Man, did we do a lot of that! Buena Vista, Santa Fe and the Great Sand Dunes were first, followed closely by Toronto and Las Vegas and topped off with Boston...each trip was strikingly different and hold so many memories for us that we'd need a book just to talk about it all! Traveling always has been and always will be one of my biggest passions and I'm so glad that I now have someone to share that with who is equally as interested in traveling as I am. I really never thought I'd find someone who could enjoy it with the same fervor and excitement that I do...lucky me!

We adopted puppies. Oh man. What a ridiculous idea and process that was. I remember distinctly sitting on out front stoop at our first place trying to convince Todd that we should get cats (yes, multiple. Three, to be exact) and he was having none of it...didn't want a litter box in the house because "that's gross in a house as small as ours!" He paused and then said, "Maybe we'll get a dog....do you want to look at puppies today?" I about fell out of my pants. It was totally ludicrous. Neither of us have ever owned a dog and had no idea what to do with one or even what kind to get. Two weeks later, we were at "Crazy Dog Lady's" house visiting a pup named Sunny...and his BFF, Jackie, suddenly became enamored with us too, even letting Todd cuddle her. A month after that, Sunny and Jackie came to live with us and we re-named them what you all know as Leo and Suki. They are so freakin' cute and I kind of can't remember life before them. They have been on trips with us and have taken us for all kinds of wild, garbage-eating bed-destroying rides as well :o)

We had our share of fights, but that was something we knew would happen. We're good talkers though so nothing was ever catastrophic and no one ever wound up on the couch haha!

We have eaten so much fantastic food in the last year, it's kind of a miracle that we've both maintained healthy weights! Italian, Greek, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Moroccan, American, French, you name it, we've eaten it! Additionally, we have tried probably hundreds of new beers, much to my delight! I have found that not only do I no longer abhor beer, I quite enjoy trying NEW beers! Todd is likely grateful for this as well :o) We've even started a new blog - tuesdayorfriday.blogspot.com - where we review our restaurant experiences for our fun and your enjoyment. We make a pretty heavy effort to NOT eat a big chain places (unless we have a gift certificate haha!) so eating out is always an adventure for us. Date night = awesome in the Newton House.

Yes, lots has happened in the last year, but markedly, the most important thing is that we are still madly in love and falling more and more so every day. Having someone to wake up to and come home to is fabulous. Having someone to take care of and to take care of me is ... necessary (tee hee). Having Todd is perfection.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Has it really been almost a year already??!?

Things that annoy me recently:

1. When cashiers don't give you change back when it's less than like 5cents. I know, I know...pennies are nealry obsolete, but still...it's MY money. I never said they could just assumedly keep it.

2. When there's a rack of clothes at a store (cough cough GAP) and all the clothes on the rack are on sale, but when you go to ring up the jeans, turns out, THOSE jeans aren't on sale....so why the hell are the 78 pairs on RACK OF SALE CLOTHES?!

3. When we go to check out new apartments and they tell us there's a fire place in each unit only to find out that the city of Arvada has forced them to turn off the heating element to said fireplaces...so what is the friggin' point of having a fireplace?


Moving right along~
Fall is officially upon us. 71F today, 70F tomorrow, then 50s for Friday and 40s for Saturday. WOO HOO! Too bad we can't use our fireplace for warmth, but whatever. We'll have each other (awwww....). Beer Fest is also this weekend and Todd and I are going to be volunteering at the event both Friday night and Saturday morning. We get to go to the festival for free, we get bigger tasting glasses than those poor fools who actually pay to go, we get official t-shirts for working two sessions, we get to use nice, unclobbered, non-gross bathrooms at our leisure, and we get to spend a ton of time wandering around tasting some of the 1800+ brews that will be featured at the festival....all for volunteering to help pour beer for part of the time we're there. Woo hoo! My favorite part of the night is that we get name tags are are not required to use our real names. I'm usually KATE JACKSON, Todd typically goes by TAN WICKER and Laura (my friend that got us in to this whole volunteering at Beer Fest thing) is always THAT GIRL. This year, all the girls are going to don our GABF t-shirts, denim mini-skirts and insane tights with tennis shoes...my tights are white with black and hot pink houndstooth...woot! Todd found them for me :o)

So other than the insane cold that I'll have to endure walking to and from the convention center in a mini-skirt, it's going to be a grrrrrrrrrrr-EAT weekend!

It's only 12 days from our 1st annivesary...I'm getting more and more excited as the days wear on. We opted to stay in Golden for the weekend, since that's where we fell in love and subsequently got married. It'll be fun to re-visit all the places we used to go when we first started dating....the Starbucks in Golden, Blue Canyon Bar & Grill, Buffalo Rose, etc. etc. We're going to have dinner on Friday night at Old Chicago Pizza (where we had our rehearsal dinner) and then on Saturday night, we're having dinner at Fossil Trace (where our reception was). Sunday morning, we'll be going to church at Calvary Church (where we got married)...we've been there once before and really enjoyed it so I'm sure that this next time will be no different...

C'mon, October 19th!!!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Damn that stupid timeline...

I felt the "timeline" creep back a little bit today.

I was thinking about when I was going to wind up graduating from college. Feeling a little blue about all the time that I wasted in my previous life. I'm putting it in perspective with the global financial crisis and how the odds of me ever being able to go to school full-time are, well, slim to none right now. I'm not sure how people (like Laura) were ever able to do 40hrs a week and still graduate on time. I would kill to be able to do that.

I think I had a bit of a stabbing pain in the last week when I realized how many of my friends are pregnant right now. Too many to list, that's for sure. Granted all of them have been married for quite a bit longer than me, but still.

I dunno...will I be the ONLY one going through pregnancy when we finally start a family? That will feel rather lonesome, I think. I'm not sure what that feeling is about or where it's coming from. It's totally baseless, really.

Dammit, I just want to be done with school. I'm getting desperate and insane about it at this point...

Friday, October 3, 2008

Stepping away for a bit...

I have just finished one of the better books that I've read in a great while. It's called TWILIGHT by Stephanie Meyer. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's what Todd would call "urban fantasy"...it's about a vampire, after all. I don't know how or why I got so engrossed in it, but I did. Finished a 500 page novel in about 4 days. It has been a l-o-n-g time since I've read a book that I was practically addicted to...I read that thing every chance I got. Yeah yeah yeah...it's *technically* and teeny-bop novel, but I'd never read a vampire story before and the few vampire movies I've seen have been so-so at best (frankly, I could have done without ever seeing INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE...kind of a suck-fest)...so there was something intriguing about this book. I told Todd today after finishing the book that I'm kind of dying to read the next one...there are four in the series. He thought that was "cute"...

Honestly, it's just been nice to have something to focus my energies on OTHER than politics. The election season is starting to get to me, what with all the commercials, blogs, emails, debates, magazines blah blah blah. I'm ready for November 5th. Very ready. I'm not starting to get apathetic about the political situation of the country, but I am becoming a little desenstized to how dumb Sarah Palin can be. It's exhausting and she supplies the comedians with so much material, it's not enjoyable anymore. Nothing is ever really enjoyable when you don't have to try very hard.

So I'm ignoring it for a little while. Just a day or two. Focusing my energies elsewhere (like school, for instance...and fitness) for a bit while I let myself unravel from all the political craziness. While I whole-heartedly believe that emotions should not get mixed in with politics, this season, it's a bit hard...I feel very passionately about a lot of things that are going on right now and tend to get very upset when people don't/can't/refuse to listen to another point of view or even hear me out without scoffing...like I've somehow not educated myself rather thoroughly on the situation and the people and that my statements are the mere ramblings of a liberal young lady. Sigh.

Tonight Todd and I are finally doing a date night we've been wanting to do for months...literally. We're having wings and beer at Buffalo Wild Wings and singing karaoke...I kind of love karaoke dates with Todd...I kind of love Todd....nah...I definitely love Todd.

Also, our first anniversary is in t-minus 16 days...could NOT be more excited!!!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Another day, another weakening dollar

Driving to work today, I was considering this nearing recession of ours. Well, really the recession is upon us with a depression nearing, if we're not careful. I just looked around at all the people on the highway, all of us in our cars heading to work. I wondered how many of them were doing the very same thing I was doing. We're all going on our merry way, just trying to get through whatever kind of day we were about to have. How many people got laid off today? I don't know.


I also got to thinking, all these bank closings and sellings and what not (Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG), they seem to affect the people at the top right now. All these big wigs that thought they were being so sneaky and screwing the life out of homebuyers with "predatory loans" are now getting screwed right back. Seems karmic in a way.


But all this will trickle down eventually, don't you worry. I'm sure of it. I wish there was a good fix. There's just not. The federal bail out is a temporary fix at best...and by printing $750B more dollars, we're just weakening the economy more than it already is. But if they don't bail out AIG and the like, what will that end result be. I wish it were as easy as just saying, "Well you're the ones that made the bad decisions that got you here...deal with it." A guy came into our office today and was doing the hi-hello greetings and saw the sign on my cube wall that says, "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." and he was like, "Hmm....how true it is" and then delved into a brief discussion about the economy. It's kind of true though. Why are we paying for the sins of others?


This is just such a bizarre time for the country right now. I look around a just tsk-tsk and shake my head most days.