I tried this dress on when I was shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding in October. It was beautiful, gorgeously constructed and nicely structured. I seriously considered buying it, but it was outrageously out of my price range.
I considered buying again when I was shopping for a wedding dress thinking I'd love to wear this at the wedding and then again over, and over and over, but at almost $400, it was out of my price range, even for a wedding dress.
The dress is on sale now, from chicdowntown.com, and how sad that even on sale, I still could never afford to buy it. So imagine my glee at winning it. Here is the downside. I think it will be too small. I tried it on in October and it fit, albeit snuggly, but I am significantly larger of ass now than I was in October.
I thought about getting back in shape for the wedding. I loved my dress, but it didn't seem worth it. We only had three months and I was so busy and even a tiny bit chubby, I've never felt as beautiful as I did on that day.
I think that once I get the dress I'll see just how small it is, and maybe I'll finally be motivated to lose the 15 pounds I've gained in the past six months.
Labor Day weekend every year means COD FISH in my circle of friends. COD FISH is a sort of tubing-drinking-costume contest. A whole bunch of friends (about 50 this year) get together outside Glenwood Springs and hit the river.
Last year, COD FISH produced about 150 pictures. I've been meaning to get the pictures up since Mak gave them to me at the end of January, but it took me about a month to go through all of them. Considering we are all supposedly grown-ups, and contributing members of society, I didn't want to post any pictures containing nudity or sex.
This dropped the number of pictures to 79.
Here are a couple of my favorites, the rest can be found on my Flickr page, here.
Sunday morning Josh and I left the house bright and early and headed down to the South Loop for breakfast. We grabbed some grub at the Bongo Room . It was great, I had an amazing back bean and sweet potato breakfast burrito that knocked my socks off, I just wish we had known it was BYOB. We were in t he mood for mimosas and there were none to be had.
After our tasty breakfast we walked under Lake Shore Drive and over to the aquarium. It was mighty chilly, but we were bundled up and the sun was shining and it's not a very long walk after all.
We made our way to the Aquarium and bought our tickets and were... well... a little disappointed. We took our time and looked at everything, but still it only took us an hour or two. The museums here in Chicago are all so amazing, I guess I was expecting more; maybe this summer when the new construction is opened up the aquarium will live up to my expectations.
Despite the no flash photography rule, the aquarium did provide excellent backdrop for yet another photo shoot.
I can not resist putting things in my head.
When we bought the admission to the museum, we had the option to also purchase tickets to the 4-D show as well for $2 extra. Though we bought the tickets, I scoffed at the notion of a "4-D show" and then (poor Josh) launched into a physics tirade. Once that was out of my system we made our way through the line of screaming kids exiting the theater (they alternate Planet Earth with Sponge Bob Square Pants) and found seats.
Let me just say that the 15 minute Planet Earth show is not to be missed. I had so much fun, I wanted to stay and see the Sponge Bob show too. Josh talked me out of it. Well, the insanely long line of screaming kids waiting to get in to the theater talked me out of it.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking north. Josh and I both love walking around all over the city, and since we were both bundled up, we decided to walk until we got tired and then jump on the red line. We headed North until we got to the Chicago Public Library (well, one of them, I think there are like, 70) where we stopped to get library cards (since I now have an Illinois drivers license) and pick up a few books on tape for me to enjoy during my commute.
After the library we kept heading north until we got to Navy Pier, and we decided to catch a movie. I wanted to see Coraline in 3D so, after a burger and a beer, that's just what we did.
Do yourself a favor and go out and see it as soon as possible while it's still playing in 3D. It was amazing and unlike anything I've ever seen.
I compulsively read Perez Hilton celebrity gossip website everyday. I know, I know. In my defense I listen to NPR and read the Economist too. It's all about balance people. Unsubstantiated gossipy balance.
When I was looking at these pictures from Saturday, Perez's tacky "separated at birth" bits came to mind, so I decided to do my own separated at birth today. Funny thing, turns out I wasn't the only person with this idea...
Update: My friend Ivory just asked: Okay, please tell me guys talked about your posts before they happened??
OK, here's what happened. I was in the car driving home from work and Josh was hanging out at home with Murph and Kitty. We were talking on the phone (hands free, of course) and I said "I need you to find me a picture of Hollywood, because I couldn't find one." And he said "What? Why?" and so I described this blog post. To which he replied he was doing the same thing. So we both kind of harrumphed and decided that we'd just both do it since we'd both already started working on it, and then we decided to share pictures, because that was just less work.
Tomorrow is someone's birthday and since I'm not-allowed-to-celebrate-it-or-mention-it-but-presents-are-ok let me just say we have some lovely plans this weekend involving eating (shock), drinking (double shock), playing Wii (I'm not lying), Sunday brunch at our favorite restaurant and a super secret not-birthday-celebration-certainly-not-no-sir something planned Saturday night. Should be fun!
But first things first- this afternoon I am going to brave the DMV in Chicago to get my brand new Illinois state drivers license with my brand new last name and I'd be lying if I said that didn't freak me out just a little bit. Farewell maiden name, I will miss you.
This month Josh and I have spent an alarming percentage of our income on plane tickets.
Before Josh met me, he hadn't left Chicago in years.
Now we gather no moss.
The first half of last year found us living in different states, so travel was frequent- as frequent as our bank accounts could allow. The second half of last year was filled with weddings and showers and bachelorette parties. The burden of all that travel rested mostly on my shoulders, but Josh came along on a few trips. This year is already booked. We already have as many trips as we can afford planned (maybe more than we can comfortably afford, but we'll manage.)
Next month we are heading to Denver for my birthday/Nicki and Chip's wedding/Emma's first birthday weekend. In April we are finally going on our honeymoon. We booked our tickets, and reserved our hotel and we are looking forward to a long weekend in DC and a short visit with my Grandma.
I'd like to be able to head to Aspen for our annual camping trip (sans Josh) in July, and again with Josh for COD FISH 2010 in September.
We have TWO (!!) weddings in October, one in Maryland and one in Memphis, so that should be a busy month.
All that traveling is exhausting, but I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends, and I keep in mind that it could be worse. I have friends who travel every single week for their jobs. Talk about exhausting.
Right now thought I'm mostly just bouncing around home or work thinking DenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenver
DenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenverDenver
Last night dinner at home just wasn't really happening, so Josh and I popped around the corner to Sweets & Savories, a restaurant right around the corner from our house that serves "casual French American cuisine."
We'd talked about checking it out several times, but Josh's brother had mentioned he thought it wasn't very good, so we kept eschewing it for other restaurants in the area. Lord knows there are plenty.
We shared tomato soup and an order of frites and we each got a hamburger (American Kobe beef, foie gras pate, black truffle mayonnaise and white truffle oil) they are normally $17 but we had a groupon for $5 burgers.
At least it looks good...
The soup was, well, soup, and the frites were good, but sadly these were the highlight of the evening. We both ordered our burgers medium rare and they both came out well done- dense, dry little hockey pucks. We ordered 2 burgers and took one and a half burgers home for the dog.
I know that they sold 644 groupons, so maybe they are getting tired of making burgers, but we wont be back to try anything else. What a waste of a good opportunity to make a great first impression and secure our return business.
At our wedding last month, my friend Mak pointed out how cool it was that I have this history of the last few years of my life all here whenever I wanted to look back on it. Sometimes, to my very great chagrin, I do look back.
In this post (just over a year ago) on 2/11/08 I went on and on and on about not wanting to get married.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the whole marriage and kids thing. What a major decision. At the end of a long day, all I want to do is get home, cook up some supper, and sit down on the couch. I don't want to compromise on dinner or share the remote. I don't feel like talking to anyone. I want to read my book or write a little. Maybe I want to knit or drink wine in a bubble bath. I might watch a Keeping Up With the Kardashians marathon and pick my nose for a while. Make a big bowl of popcorn for dinner and lay in bed watching DVD's on my laptop. I'm not ready to give up this strange behavior, and I expect I'd have to were I to marry. This is one reason that I'm not just happy, but some days I'm down right relieved I'm single. At a party on Saturday night with maybe 12 couples I found myself a little overwhelmed. Not because I felt lonely but because it occurred to me just how big a commitment marriage is. I find some solace in the absolute truth that I haven't met the right person yet. I know this absolutely because I've not met someone for whom I'd be willing to make these compromises and change my ways. I'm certain I will get married, everyone does, but the idea of spending the rest of my life with any of the men I've dated in the past is laughable. To the point where I'm starting to wonder if my terrible dating choices aren't so much just bad decisions but some kind of sub-conscious commitment phobia. The idea of spending the next 60 years with one person actually makes my flight or flight response kick in a little. I guess I'm just not sure I'm looking to settle down just yet.
I "met" Josh 2 days later.
Boy, how quickly things can change.
Today is the one year anniversary of what Josh always says was his first comment on my blog (on 2/18/08)
Cleaning and sushi are two of my favorite things, so that'd be a tough call for me. Maybe I could combine the two. I've already mastered drinking and cleaning, so I'm sure I could pull of eating.
I should note here that he really does love cleaning and sushi. And drinking.
However, that wasn't really his first comment. I had written a post about how delightfully attractive I was finding very young men. (It's funny how some things don't change, Josh has, on more than one occasion, had to remind me to keep my hands off the shirtless 19 year olds.)
Things reached a fever pitch a week ago when my mom was visiting me on campus and we took a walk through the school's new recreation center. We stopped to watch a few minutes of a swim meet when my mom said "Ooh, look at their hot young bodies. You should bring your books here to study and sit back and enjoy the view." Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind.
Really, his first comment was this one on 2/13/08
Oh, sure, but when I go after 15 year old girls suddenly it's "creepy" and "illegal". What a double standard. Jeez!
Thanks for being a perv buddy! If you weren't, we never would have met!
The nice thing about marrying your website designer is the quick turnaround between idea and implementation. Lately I've been thinking about making some changes to the old blog, and it just so happens that Josh is uniquely positioned to help make that happen.
I've been cooking and exploring a lot more lately, and I have plans to do much, much more in the future. I've always liked blogging about my culinary feats and failures, but I've always felt that recipes and food photos are a little out of place here on the main page. Same goes for restaurant reviews, museum adventures, and details about our various travels. To that end, now located at the top of the page under the header are a few new tabs that lead to a few new pages. Under "Live" you'll find the same diarist style blog posts, under the "Eat" tab will be recipes, pictures and reviews of restaurants and under "Plays" will be posts about our travels and adventures around Chicago.
Josh and I finally celebrated Valentines Day (a little late) with Lobster rolls.
There are as many different recipes for the rolls as there are people who make them, this just happens to be mine. I always like to get my mise in place, even if it's something simple like this recipe:
2 lobster tails (I cook mine on the grill)
mayo
celery rid, diced
melted butter
lemon juice
tarragon
salt and pepper to taste
brioche buns
:
Thin the mayo with a little lemon juice, just enough to very lightly dress the lobster. mix in the tarragon, salt and pepper.
Ideally you'd be able to find top split buns, but I couldn't find any that looked good. Trader Joe's had these great looking brioche buns, so I picked them up instead. Brush the crumb side with some of the melted butter and grill them up to a nice golden brown.
This is where it gets really decadent (as if lobster salad on brioch wasn't decadent enough already), brush the tops of the buns with some more melted butter and grill the tops too.
That's just about it. When you use these buns it will be a little messy (that's why the top split buns are so handy), but it will be just as tasty.
Josh and I had plans to make a romantic dinner together at home for Valentines Day.
We got up early to run some errands. First we returned a bunch of wedding wine to the Costco. Let me give a quick shout out to Costco's customer service. We didn't even have a receipt for half of it, and they turned around and refunded us CASH, no questions asked. Then we headed to Target to return a few wedding gifts. Not your wedding gift, we love your gift. I also had several gift cards I'd been saving from Christmas. Big, big, big loophole in the no new purchases rule, gift cards; you have to use them to buy new merchandise, because they don't sell secondhand goods at Target. We were at the Target with about $200 in gift cards and we figured we had two options;
Option 1: Use gift cards to buy things we need for the house, for the pets, etc.
Option 2: Buy a Wii.
Let's just say at that moment we made the less responsible more fun decision, and the Wii is awesome.
We also got the Wii Fit, so hopefully Josh won't have a fat wife much longer. We spent the rest of the day playing Wii tennis, baseball, golf and bowling. Um, it's really, really fun. Then we spent some time working out with the Wii Fit. I am particularly fond of hoola hoping, less fond of running in place. We played so hard and so long that we forgot all about our romantic dinner.
Suzie is a straight shooter, a hard worker, and a great friend. She taught me to ask for what I need and want, not to ever settle for less, and to make things happen for myself.
She is one of those friends you have and keep forever, and she is something of a mentor to me professionally.
She is surprising- full of spontaneity, creativity, and unexpected compromise. There is always a solution, and Suz will always be able to find it.
To Suz, I hope your 30th year is better than your first 29 combined.
Happy Birthday
About six months ago I was finishing up graduate school, and I have to say, I don't miss the crazy workload, but I do miss the freedom. I could work whenever I wanted, and for the most part, wherever I wanted.
I was able to go to bed late if I wanted to; I was able to sleep in if I wanted to; hell, I could stay home and watch Judge Judy all day if I wanted to.
Now I have a Job. There are adjustments to be made and compromises to be wrought.
I used to be fun, and now I'm just a drag. I have to make the responsible choice everyday, and it's kind of tough to do. Believe me; I don't want to be the responsible grown up. I want to be the happy go lucky fun party girl. However, the looming threat of layoffs, my first big project and my sizeable paycheck (that still doesn't stretch as far as I'd like) sort of render that particular desire moot. I get up and leave the house before the sunrises. I drive an hour to work a nine hour day just to drive the now two hour commute home with just enough energy to fix supper, maybe take a shower and hit the sack before ten pm so I can do it all again the next day. The sad fact is Monday through Friday I am a slave to my job. And I know I'm not alone. It's just life.
But I hate always having to say no to invitations and mid week requests to grab drinks. I hate having to leave dinner plans early and be a stickler for my bed time. But I have to. I know lots of people have jobs and still manage to have a life during the week, but I honest-to-god don't have the luxury of being hung-over or tired at work.
A few more words about my beloved, dearly departed sweatpants:
They had disintegrated. To the point where I cut the bottoms off and even that shearing could not salvage them.
They are missed, but it was their time. Anyone who had seen those monstrosities knows what a hindrance they must have been to a healthy sex life. There is nothing you could do to make those sweats sexy. Think of it like sending your loved one chocolates, but instead of chocolates I threw away my rotting decrepit sweatpants. Because I love my Josh.
Things just took a sickly sweet turn here in blog land. To remedy that, I'm going to tell you about newlyweded bliss and how sometimes it's not quite so blissful*.
Josh and I had our first major, knock down drag out fight since wedding. It was a fight that seemed to have passed, but came back with a vengeance not once but twice. It was a fight that spanned three days and several very sincere Fuck You's. It was a fight that involved federal crimes and my new, sweet faced husband accidentally** trying to trick me into committing mail fraud.
It was a fight that ended, with no actual crimes being committed, inadvertently or not. It was a fight that would have merited the bringing of flowers were we those kind of people.
To that I say, screw flowers***
Josh brought spinach****.
I arrived home to the savory smells of seared salmon with fingerling potatoes, wilted spinach and Dijon broth.
We ate a lovely dinner (I ate Josh's spinach), shared a bottle of leftover wedding wine and chilled out.
* I like to keep it real.
** Seriously, he's not a dick, it just didn't even cross his mind that he might be breaking the law.
*** Flowers, schmowers.
**** And he hates spinach
Haircut! I couldn't take it anymore, I chopped a foot of hair off and finally gave in to my bang lust.
It looked better when the stylist blew it out, but hey, it is what is is. I like it a lot, and I think in a couple of weeks when I have the bangs trained and I learn how to style it myself I'm going to love it.
About these new pants... a few weeks ago Josh bought me a new pair of sweat pants. I know this hardly seems blog worthy, but my ratty old sweats were legendary. I'd had them for YEARS, but Josh made me toss them on New Years Eve.
It was so hard to say goodbye. It was actually weeks before my first instinct wasn't to dig around for them as soon as I got home from work.
For the past few weeks I've been a little high on how wonderful our wedding was and how wonderful it is to be married to Josh.
However.
On March 5th The California Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the validity of Proposition 8. I still can not believe that this disgusting bit of legislation passed. I can't help but think about how I'd feel if one day my neighbors all voted and dissolved our marriage. We've been married 2 weeks. Now I try and imagine if we'd been together for years and we had children and had been waiting our whole lives to get married, and not just a few short months.
Today I came across this beautiful video. Try to watch it without sobbing. Then go sign the petition at the Courage Campaign.
I spent this extremely beautiful weekend inside and wasted all that sunshine.
I know, I know.
I had weekend duty, which meant I had to wake up at 4:30 on Saturday morning and head in to work. I was home by 9:30 am, but my whole internal clock was off. I crawled back in to bed, wrote a bunch of thank you notes, coaxed Josh in to bed with me and then we... fell asleep. We didn't wake up until 6:30. I wasted a really good Saturday, but I learned some good stuff at work and got our thank-you notes finished.
I had a chance to redeem myself on Sunday, but I woke up and had a bit of a panic attack. I convinced my self I was pregnant and wallowed in self pity. I puttered around the house for a few hours and cried in the shower. I ate some cookies and drank some coca-cola. I ate some potato chips and complained about how much my boobs hurt.
I'm not sure why I always jump to "pregnant" when PMS is clearly the likely culprit. Long story short, I am absolutely not pregnant. Sunday night I was in bed by six-thirty and asleep before ten.
The week before Josh and I made things official I challenged him to do a little experiment with me.
For one year from the date of the wedding, to buy only secondhand. I was inspired to do this by a piece I heard on NPR, and while the woman who lived this was way was decidedly more of a hippie than I am, I like her attitude. The second hand shops in our neighborhood are awesome, funky and stylish, and I like the idea of recycling more and spending less.
Josh declined the challenge and brought up a few key points which highlighted some pretty notable exceptions. Some things I will continue to buy new include:
Undergarments and socks
Make-up
Technical and electrical goods (such as CD's for backing up computers)
Gifts for other people
The new couch we are already saving up for
We got loads of beautiful wedding gifts (thanks!), I have plenty of clothes considering I wear jeans and a sweaters five out of seven days a week, I can live without any new shoes (even though I will lust after some pretties), and I really have all of the things I truly need.
We'll see how long it lasts, and if there are any surprises lurking around the corner. I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on my spending habits (clothes and shoes... clothes and shoes...) but I guess I'll find out for sure.
When Josh turned me down (and he had very good reasons), I suggested a new challenge. Let's go on a money fast this weekend. Starting tonight and ending Sunday night we will spend not one red cent. This is a much more accessible goal. We have games and movies and books to entertain us, we have cleaning and writing thank-you notes and finding homes for wedding gifts to occupy our time, and we have each other to laugh with.
Sadly I think this weekend will fly by just like every other weekend. Only, less spendy.
UPDATE: I had my first fail. The bird wall stickers from Ferm Living I've had my eye on forEVER are on sale $20 down from $100, so I bought them. Hey, everybody falls off the horse, I just can't believe it happened so quickly. If this were a goal at work we'd say we need a "culture change," and that takes time.
I didn't read any bridal magazines when we were planning our wedding because I had a pretty good idea of what kind of wedding I'd like, and I knew that it wouldn't be found in those glossy pages.
We wanted to keep the focus on friends and family and each other.
That said; things still cost money. We decided to spend money in a way that made sense to us, on goods and services from local vendors, many of them friends, and many of them Josh's clients.
I believe that these decisions, the energy we put out into our community, and our little bit of local economic stimulus are the reasons we had such a beautiful, and authentic-to-us wedding. Go karma!
A lot of other people have the same wedding planning "philosophies." And while they haven't taken the mainstream wedding planning media by storm just yet... they can be found in force on the internet. There are a number of blogs and forums where creative and thrifty people are sharing their ideas. Today, one of my favorite wedding-themed blogs, A Practical Wedding, is sharing our wedding with the whole wide internet.
Last night Josh and I are watching Law and Order: SVU. well, really I'm watching SVU, Josh is sort of bee bopping around the house because he's drunk following a client meeting. Nice work if you can get it, huh?
So Josh is chowing down on some pizza, and I'm in bed already, in my pajamas drooling over Detective Elliot Stabler. See, Christopher Meloni is one of my five. You know, one of my five celebrities I'd sleep with even though I'm married. (See how weird that sounds, I'm married. Still getting used to that.)
Josh looks up and asks "now that we are married would you still leave me for Christopher Meloni?"
To which I respond, "I'd do Meloni on the floor in front of you. Sorry, but it's just one of those things."
"Wait, would you do Meloni or Stabler?"
"Good question. Stabler I guess." See, it's the hot cop thing with a little renegade rule breaker and a bit of that sexy catholic repression thing thrown in.
Josh nods, and I can see that he is a lot more comfortable with the idea of my having imaginary sex with a character than he is with my having imaginary sex with a celebrity who I'll never meet and who, by the way is happily married and completely out of my league.
I might feel worse about the whole thing if Josh hadn't cried in his beer the other day when Lisa Loeb got married.
Five months ago yesterday I woke up at 2 in the morning, loaded Murph, Kitty and a sleepy Josh into the car and drove to Chicago.
Five months ago today I woke up, my first day living in a new city. I had left over Chicago-style deep dish pizza for breakfast and began cleaning, unpacking and settling in to our new apartment.
For the past five months I've marveled at how strange it is that I can live in Chicago, but not really feel it. I still felt like I lived in Denver, and this Chicago thing was some kind of dream or maybe vacation.
In the past five months I have had a lot of stressful days adjusting to a new city (it is so loud here) and a new job (working in a steel mill is like working on mars in Total Recall) a new commute (sigh) and a new marriage (which admittedly happened a little quickly). Yesterday was another one of those stressful days. I woke up to find that my new car wouldn't start. This was less stressful than the realization that I knew not one person that I could call for a jump. Not one person (and now I'm joining AAA). I thought of my parents and my friends and how happy I was to see them all last weekend. I thought about it all morning and it made me sad and a little more stressed out.
When I finally made it to work I had so much to do I forgot to be sad. I got lost in Very Important Steel Mill Business, and forgot to feel sorry for myself.
Later that night, when I was driving home form work later than usual I was struck by the beauty of the Chicago skyline.
For the first time in five months I wasn't stressed out by my drive home. I wasn't crabby when I walked in the door, and I didn't need twenty minutes to decompress. I didn't mind all the traffic or the fact that I missed my turn because some jackass cut me off. I got home, ate dinner, made my lunch for the next day and watched a little TV with my sweetheart.
I used to feel extreme anxiety at my sudden freedom from deadlines. If I'm not waiting for the next thing, how will I make it through the next 30 years? Last night I drove home and listened to NPR and let this very foreign calm wash over me. I finally felt like I LIVE HERE and THIS IS MY LIFE. And it wasn't stressful or depressing. I live here, and this is my life. And it's good.
I'm having kind of a rough day. My *new* car had to be towed to the dealership this morning to have the battery replaced. This little treat is not covered under the extended warranty I bought for the car since it is considered maintenance. I have to admit I take issue with this as I certainly have not been lax on maintaining a car that I've owned for less than 2 weeks. Pardon my language, but screw that.
Second, when I called the Toyota service center this morning, they said they would pay for the tow, but when I talked to them a few minutes ago, another man said that was just not true. Screw that too.
So, despite my very best intentions, I'm late for work again and out several hundred dollars, all before lunch on Monday.
I am still sick. I am going to have to work late. I yelled at Josh for pretty much nothing this morning. Well sort of. I know he was just trying to help, but when I said I couldn't get the car started, he asked for the keys so he could go double check. As if I might just be trying to start the car, MY CAR, the wrong way. Like I'm some kind of an idiot.
See, I just said I know he was just trying to help but my pulse just quickened and my blood pressure just shot up again anyway.
In attempt to fight of the raging case of Negative Nelly I'm catching, I'm going to brainstorm a few things that are good about this Monday.
Hmm...
Let's see...
Tonight there is a new episode of Heroes and Chuck in 3-D, so that should be cool.
While I was waiting for the tow truck this morning I threw a pot of chili together so now, when I get home from work late tonight, dinner will be ready.
I will eat said chili with some spicy lime sour cream I made yesterday and I will drink an ice cold beer.
I got to drink good coffee at home instead of nasty work coffee at work.
Today's Groupon was for Crust in Wicker Park, a $30 gift certificate for $15. If you live in Chicago and are not yet signed up for the Groupon emails, what are you waiting for?
Even though I still have a wicked, rumble-y lung cough, I am actually starting to feel better, and I'm looking forward to heading in to work, even if I'll have to work late and try to convince my boss that I really do have bad luck with cars and I have been really, really sick; I'm not just trying to scam days off. Though I have to admit, I wouldn't believe me.
The dealership has a free shuttle service, so even though I am out hundreds of dollars for a repairs on the car I just bought, I won't have to spend $15 on a taxi to get to the dealership to pick it up.
OK, that turned out a little less positive than I meant for it to, I'll work on an attitude adjustment. Have a great day.
