i'm sitting in the office while jeff is outside watering some plants. with a hose!

oh the little joys of living in a house.

while we are nowhere near ready to throw a housewarming party because we still have to unpack, paint, and do a few more little things to make it our own, i present the mini tour...

there had been a little concern that all of our furniture wouldn't fit into the living room, but it's much more spacious than our old place, and there was nothing to worry about.

walking past the living room, you get to what is technically the formal dining room, but we are planning on making it our bar/lounge. if (WHEN) i get a piano, this is where it will go.

i was standing in the dining area here, where a dining table will go whenever we actually own one again. the cabinets are kind of dated, and the brick is pretty terrible, but once we paint and fix some of the lights, it will be nice. that's one fancy oven they left behind. anybody know how to work with convection?

the room i'm currently sitting in. the office/den. jeff will be putting his robots and possibly some video game consoles in here. we've got a total of 4 bedrooms, but i didn't bother taking photos of all of them. one will be a permanent guest room. another will be my craft room and backup guest room. and we've got the master, of course.

were the previous owners smoking crack? quite possibly, as evidenced by the paint in the master bathroom. white with green dots, purple flowers, and ivy border around the door? nice. the master bedroom isn't much better with it's glossy, dark red paint. that will be one of the first things to go.

a little hot tubbing action, anybody? it's in decent shape, and has a built-in stereo plus all sorts of weird lighted water features. my brother-in-law joked that this kind of spa comes with a free lower back tattoo. :) we'll be emptying it and refilling it when we get a chance.

people have asked if this is a big house? and does it have a big yard? i'd say it's a normal-sized house, with a normal-sized back yard. fine by me, because i don't have any desire to do any big-sized chores. you can see there is plenty of room to run around, and we've got plans for veggies and fruit trees. and look at that view! we are situated on a little hill, so the neighbors behind us are nowhere in sight. it's pretty wonderful.

i've got to run. i've got a mexico trip to pack for and a hungry husband wanting dinner and a stop at the grocery store (which is a VERY rare thing, indeed).

as long as everything goes well, i'll be back sunday night, with stories of race cars, beers, and maybe banditos to share.

camilles (6:06pm, 3.24.09)

exhausted.

but thrilled beyond all measure.

waking up the first morning, i was struck by how quiet it was. no freeway noises. no sound of the neighbors doing their laundry. no vibrations coming through the floor as somebody opened their garage door.

just quiet. and the daylight peeking through the blinds.

while i was lying in bed yesterday afternoon, getting ready to take a nap, i was admiring the completely clear, unobstructed view across the valley and the mountains in the distance. i was thinking to myself how happy i would be to get to enjoy that view indefinitely.

i'll have to take a picture.

actually, i'll have to take pictures of more than just that...but sometime later, when i'm not exhausted and trying to figure out how to get everything i need to get done in the next few days done.

because in 3 days, i'll be in mexico. yikes!

thank you, to all my friends, family, and especially jeff, for making this happen.

camilles (9:56pm, 3.22.09)

when i lived at my parents' house, there was a bird that liked to perch outside our bedroom window. it wouldn't start chirping until late, maybe 11pm, but then it seemed to chirp until 5am.

the noises it made seemed like there was a pattern to the twitters and beeps, but the moment i would think i had figured out the pattern, it would change it up. it would be very frustrating at midnight, after an hour of listening to it chirping and trilling, trying to fall asleep.

eventually my sisters and i figured out it was better to try to race to sleep before the jungle bird decided to start making noise for the evening.

things have obviously been a little stressful as we get ready for the big move, and i'm anxiously awaiting all the fun and exciting things coming up. i've been having a rough time falling asleep, and last night i spent about an hour tossing and turning listening to the neighbors' washer and dryer, which seems to run 24/7. i fell asleep around midnight.

at about 5am, i suddenly woke up to the sounds of my own, brand new, san diego-based jungle bird.

it kept me awake for another hour, before the sun started to come up and it finally flew away.

i'm pooped, and looking forward to getting to bed early tonight.

camilles (9:21pm, 3.16.09)

i've LONG been an advocate of drinking while performing tasks that would otherwise be unpleasant. particularly things like housework, and specifically for today, packing house.

i'm 4 tecates in at this point, and really feeling no pain as i take this break to record this moment in time. when was the last time i graced the internet with some slightly drunken rambling?

the guest room is >this< close to being as packed up as it possibly can be before we start moving things out, and i'm becoming more and more pleased at the thought of escaping this crap hole by the second. don't think for a second that i am underestimating the amount of work that we'll be subjecting ourselves to once we become official HOME owners, but i am absolutely thrilled.

it was a rough week, and jeff and i slept hard all night. we got up, hit the swap meet, grabbed turkey, cranberry, and stuffing sandwiches and 36 beers, came home, and started working. at some point today, i've got a date with l to go shopping for jeans, and tomorrow we are getting brunch and seeing BODIES. YAY!

ok. back to work. i need to take advantage of this buzz while it lasts, before i need to sober up and clean myself so i can go out in public again.

camilles (4:03pm, 3.14.09)

i got word that a girl i know has up and left everything behind to run off to be with the man she loves.

utterly romantic?

or completely ridiculous and irresponsible?

i would be torn if it weren't for the fact that a few too many people will be stuck dealing with the fallout. it really isn't any of my business, so i'll just say i hope it all turns out.

one thing this little episode has made me reflect on is how OFTEN i hear about stories like this. and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't.

bet you didn't know...there was a point in my life where somebody that i wasn't dating suggested i leave it all behind for him?

it was a romantic notion. but it was only a notion, and the serious, logical, feeling in my gut side of me knew that this time, it just wasn't meant to be.

but, ah...the romance.

camilles (11:20pm, 3.12.09)

jeff, t, l, and i were having a conversation a while back about the famous people we found attractive. l and i had all sorts of ideas about the guys we'd probably run off with for a period of time. the only girl we suggested to the guys that was met with much enthusiasm was for megan fox, that chick from transformers.

the thing that struck me about the differences between our lists (well, non-lists since the guys couldn't really come up with anything), was that while l and i were picking men, the one girl the guys liked is barely beyond being a teenager.

i know it's some sort of biological quest on both sides to find the best mates for populating the earth with babies, but sometimes it's really striking how strongly we are driven by those subconscious desires.

as i've gotten older (and i've continued to do things to try to stay young like always wear sunscreen, put wrinkle cream on the crinkly spots under my eyes, and exercise), i've noticed that i find older men more and more attractive.

in particular, i have a thing for graying hair.

take george clooney, for example. back in the ER days, i had absolutely no interest in him. but from about 2001 on, once his hair really started graying and his scruffy beard got silvery, i really started to like him. he certainly isn't on my list (you know what list i'm talking about), but i don't mind giving him my undivided attention every now and then.

camilles (10:53pm, 3.10.09)

ugh.

it's about as horrible as i expected it would be. we've already gone through most of the boxes the in-laws dropped off, the newspapers l had been saving for us, and the 5 newspapers i picked up at the drug store tonight.

while it feels like we've barely made a dent, i suppose it's coming along.

one bonus of clearing out the cabinets...i found a $25 gift card to a local nursery that the design company for our current crummy place gave us when we moved in 4+ years ago. as jeff pointed out, giving the (back then) proud new owners of a condo with no yard a nursery gift card doesn't make sense...BUT i know we'll be putting it to good use in the next few months.

camilles (10:09pm, 3.9.09)

our favorite helen came into town on friday night, and we subjected her to a weekend of hiking up iron mounting, eating, drinking, and family time with the in-laws.

since the in-laws were staying last night, jeff slept on the couch, and helen shared the bed with me. we haven't had many opportunities to fall asleep talking to each other about random stuff since the end of our years of being roommates (she moved away in 2000), so it was kind of fun. of course, when i started having funny visions in my head of people riding plaster circus animals around a big field, i knew i was falling asleep, and told her i'd better stop talking before i said something that didn't make any sense.

in a way, this weekend gave us a chance to procrastinate, because we have the huge chore of packing upon us. like, i probably should be downstairs packing at this very moment.

*sigh*

while we were driving back from dropping helen off at the airport, i commented to jeff and l that for as many times as i have had to pack and move over the years, i'm kind of at a loss as to where to begin.

so a resounding *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!* to packing.

but i'd better go downstairs and get started.

camilles (7:16pm, 3.8.09)

my coworker and i are counting down the days until our trip to mexico with a paper chain calendar. i made it a few weeks ago, and he hung it in an inconspicuous spot in his office (because while we want to celebrate our good fortune, our intention isn't to rub it in to all the people who won't be going), and we spend all day looking forward to the end of the day to get to tear off another ring.

the crazy thing is that i'm ALSO looking forward to the big move. 2 weeks from tonight, jeff and i will be masking off a bathroom and a bedroom. and two weeks from tomorrow, the painting and moving begins.

we've got another crazy weekend ahead. helen is visiting from san francisco. the in-laws will be here saturday night. i'm really looking forward to getting the time to hang out.

camilles (8:42pm, 3.5.09)

debuting my nerdy, indie rocker hair in honor of square root day.

no, not really. it's actually just a coincidence.

the vehicle by which i have managed to work up to being able to jog 1.3 miles without taking a break to walk in the middle.

for some people, jogging a mile is no great accomplishment, but for me, it is a pretty huge deal.

i HATE jogging. i hate exercising in general. and although i have not gotten anywhere near to the point where i could run a 10k, i can comfortably jog 1.3 miles around my house (even mentally escaping the fact that i'm doing such a horrible thing at the time), and i'm pretty sure i could go farther if i really wanted to.

my immediate goal would definitely be jogging 2 miles without a break to walk, mainly because i haven't done that since junior high. it would tickle me to no end to be able to do something consistently that i was barely even able to do 18 years ago.

sheesh. where does the time go? i can distinctly remember the process of moving from the house i grew up in to the house my parents still live in now...and that will be 20 years ago this summer.

my boss was waxing philosophical with me today, off on some tangent that had nothing to do with how the conversation started, i'm sure, and he told me that the current state of the economy and his personal situation of now not knowing when he'll really be able to retire has put things in perspective.

"even if for some reason, i lost it all," he told me, "it wouldn't matter. in the end, material things really don't mean anything. what stays with you are the memories."

he said his father-in-law always told him that he shouldn't work in an industry he loves, because he'd be likely to spend his life working harder for less money.

"ultimately," he said, "i did the opposite of what he advised me. i figured if i was going to spend 40+ years of my life doing something, i wanted to look back on all that time and be able to think of all the great things i was able to do."

he said that is why he is always encouraging me to take every opportunity to experience everything i can.

it got me thinking about this trip to mexico that i've got coming up, and in particular, the trip last year.

it'll be fun to go again, but today i guess i realized again how thankful i am to have the memories from last year, because no matter what, nobody can take those away.

camilles (9:46pm, 3.3.09)

i just want to ride on my motorcycle.

all week we were anticipating the opportunity to take a ride, and the weather just couldn't have been more beautiful.

the poway motorcycle gang (which is what we call our motley crew, even though the vespa isn't really a motorcycle) headed out east this morning, the destination being breakfast at a little place called jeremy's on the hill in wynola, JUST before you get into julian. breakfast (both l and i got biscuits and gravy) was delish, even though i was a little sad i didn't get a chance to try the lobster bisque i know is on the lunch menu. hopefully we'll get another chance to give it a whirl.

over breakfast, we decided that since none of us really had anything planned for today, we were going to just keep riding. first to julian to pick up some apple butter, then all along sunrise highway. i made the request that we actually get a chance to take some beauty shots of us while we are out riding, because for the most part, all the photos i have of my motorcycle are in our garage or right in front of condo...and i feel such a pretty bike deserves at least one good photo outside doing what it does best.

jeff is really amazing on the vespa. i have just never been brave enough to take that thing much faster than 55mph, but he's a monster on it. other than being a little slow going up steep hills, he keeps right up with us, and we were very excited to get a photo opp of it being farther away from home than it has ever been.

as we got to the south end of sunrise hwy, jeff says he heard some guys on red sportbikes hooting as we rode by. either they were hooting at l since she is obviously a girl in her pink jacket, or they were hooting at jeff because he was coming off the mountain on a vespa, which kind of defies logic.

we headed west through all the windy back roads, and the up the 67 towards home.

when all was said and done, we'd ridden about 120 miles...

not bad for a random sunday outing. i'm glad we all had fun, and we all made it home safely.

HAPPY MARCH! SPRING IS COMING! YAY!

camilles (3:36pm, 3.1.09)