Goodbye World

So, the picture has nothing to do with this post... It's just one we took while we were at the Outdoor Swap Mart this weekend. I don't like calling it Swap Mart; I think it should be call Swap Meet but everyone in Phoenix seems to think otherwise. While there, we tried on these really nice hats, but decided not to buy them. Thanks, Tom, for the picture! I think my favorite part is our expressions...we clearly didn't communicate the mood of the photo to one another :).

Anyway, on to the subject of this post, which kind of has a double meaning...

First, we're heading out on an adventure through Southern Arizona for the holiday weekend. Shane won't share too many details, but I think we're staying in Bisbee all weekend and visiting other places (like Tombstone, Kartchner's Caverns, and possibly Mexico) while we're there. It should be fun to get away for a while.

The second part isn't so exciting... My "busy season" starts in a week, right after Labor Day. That means I'm back to 50-hour work weeks so I may neglect the blog for a while (which, I know, is simply devastating to my many loyal readers...). Luckily, I think my Vegas trips are done so I only have Albuquerque and a brief stint somewhere in Colorado to look forward to. So, goodbye world! I'll see you in February (or March...)!

Casinos...

So, I need to take a moment to vent about casinos...I'm in Vegas right now, auditing one of the casinos on the Strip.

I've had my fair share of casinos lately. Every morning, evening, and around lunch time we get the pleasure of walking through the casino to get to our car. Also, anytime I have to use the bathroom, I have to go back down to the casino floor. Then, last night, we wandered through Planet Hollywood, Paris, and Bally's looking for a place to eat dinner.

Luckily, we're staying in a hotel off the strip that doesn't have a casino in it and I'm quite relieved.

I just don't get it... I see all of these people just sitting at slot machines, smoking their cigarettes. I really don't see the fun in it. Nowadays, instead of pulling the arm on the machine you just push a button and instead of hearing all the coins clink out of the machine, your points get racked up on your card. Honestly, it looks quite boring to me, just pushing a button over and over again watching your money disappear.

Anyway, those are my ramblings for now. I hope I survive all the smoke I'm inhaling...

A lesson on listening to the doctor...

So this is how Shane's arm has looked for the past three days...


And this is Shane, knowing that he should've listened to the nice nurses that said he shouldn't take part in overly physical activities shortly after giving blood...


I got a call from the Wednesday basketball crew asking me to come pick up my husband. No one told me what was wrong, just that he was "ready to come home." So I hurried to the church to find him with a HUGE reddish/purple lump on his arm. Our neighbor, who is a very kind nurse, looked at it and gave us some tips on how to deal with it. Now it's a matter of waiting out the bruise...

Shane spent the day today trying to convince people that I stabbed him with a fork. Sadly, some people thought he was telling the truth. What does that say about me???

Happy Birthday!

So, Shane's birthday was on Tuesday... I didn't forget (we had a party for him last Saturday), but I never got around to posting about it, so here's a few pictures and some video from the event. The party was mostly just family and one family friend. It was a good day! (P.S. the video is from our regular camera because our video camera battery was completely dead, so sorry for the pixelation...)

Smells like home?

So, we've had some pretty funny smells in our house lately... I think we forgot to run the disposal or something so it got a little rank. Anyway, I bought some refills for our air fresheners (the plug kind) at the store last night. I know Shane wouldn't like it if I bought any fragrance that looked pink or smelled like flowers, so I settled for one call Fresh Rain (which is clear).

I plugged them in and went about my business. Then, whenever I got a good whiff of it, I got this strange feeling like I was somewhere else. Finally, I stopped right by one of them, closed my eyes, and sat there until I figured it out...my mom uses the exact same air fresheners. It was a nice little moment of nostalgia (and a little sad moment of missing my parents' house). With my eyes closed, it was almost like I was back there, sitting in the basement. (On a random side note, my parents house smelled nothing like this when I was there last thanks to the stain and lacquer). It was nice coming home (to my home) today after work and having it smell like home...

Similarly, whenever I wash my hands with the cocoa butter soap we currently have in my bathroom, I'm transported back to the bathroom in our apartment in Baltimore. Even though we only lived there for a few months, that must have been the first time I'd used that kind of soap so it will forever be the smell of our Baltimore bathroom.

Maybe I'm strange, but my mind (and my memory) apparently pay extra attention to smells. Anyway, I guess that's enough of my very random post about smells. Really, I didn't think anyone would really be interested, but I've been thinking about it all day today. Enough of my randomness...

Hello from (almost) Mexico...and other random updates

I'm in a hotel in Sierra Vista, AZ... I drove for a little over 3 hours last night to get here. I think if I drove straight south of Tucson (instead of the southeastern direction I did travel), I would've ended up in Mexico, but I'm not quite there yet. Apparently the elevation here is almost 4000 feet so the high today was only 87 degrees!

This trip marks the beginning of my travel-full (I know, not a word) busy season. I'll be home for two weeks and then I'm off to Vegas for 4 weeks. Shane might be have to find another hobby to get him through this year's busy season...maybe more seeds.

Anyway, my post about bus rides seemed to entertain some of you. I'm happy to announce that my week of bus rides went so well, it turned into two weeks of bus rides! I'll be back in Phoenix on Tuesday night so I'll be riding the bus the rest of this week too. It's really such a great deal...I don't have to drive, I get to read my book, I don't have to pay to park, and I don't have to pay for gas.

I think the happiest news for me lately was that I passed the CISA exam!!! For those of you not in my world of auditing, that's Certified Information Systems Auditor (I know, super-nerd). I took in on June 14 (a great way to start a birthday weekend), and I really wasn't sure how it went, but apparently I did well enough to pass the test (granted, you only need a 55% to get a passing score)! I can't be certified for two more years, but I guess the exam is really the hardest part of it all. At least now I can say that I might be done with standardized testing forever!!

In other news, we had the Bakers stay with us for a little bit. We're SO excited to have our old friends back in the same valley as us. They only stayed for a few days (we were sad to see them go), but they probably are happier having their own space rather than being crammed into our two extra bedrooms. Either way, it'll be fun to spend some time together like the good old Wymount days...

This is turning out to be a very random post. I guess I just had a bunch of little things to write about and didn't want to make separate posts for each... We have some pictures to post of our new bathroom, but we've been slacking off a bit. Maybe someday soon!

Lean, mean, bus-riding machine

Today I rode the bus to work. When I first considered riding, I thought of the old UTA buses I'd ride downtown to visit my dad at work...but these buses are totally different. All of the seats face forward (like a charter bus) and each seat reclines and has its own light and air vent. It stops right by my house at a park and ride and goes all the way down the freeway to downtown without stopping. Plus, I get to read during my commute! I'm working my way back through the Twilight series in preparation for Breaking Dawn (I read Twilight on Saturday...I couldn't stop). I think I got off a little too early today (I walked about 4 blocks) so I might try the next stop tomorrow.

I got a free pass from work that lasts through 2011, so I decided to try it out. I'm a little wary to ride the bus to any of our client locations because I think I'd be riding the regular buses which may not be as reliable but it's awesome for riding to the office so I don't have to sit in traffic, pay for gas, and pay for parking (which is $5-$10 a day). Plus, it's a good excuse to leave work--most people won't keep you if you say you have to catch a bus.

Anyway, I'm planning to ride all week...it should be a fun, new experience.