we went to magic mountain at the end of last week, which was a pretty intense experience. there were really no lines and it was very hot, so there was a lot of brain rattling in a very short period of time.

then a few nights ago, the dog was especially antsy on the bed and kept waking me up. i was flip-flopping all night and didn't get much of a sleep.

tuesday morning, i was sitting at my desk and stuck my arms in the air for a stretch, when all of a sudden there was a pop in my upper back and i couldn't move my neck around.

i went for a few days doing the heat and ibuprofen routine before finally going to the doctor today. he said he could see the knots running along my spine and strongly suggested i take some time off from work to recover.

ha! not this time of year.

so i got muscle relaxers and some hard core pain killers and have spent the night sitting on the sofa with the dog, watching netflix on demand, and hoping that i'm feel better within the week, since i'm going to be on my feet all day long in las vegas very soon.

*sigh* as my manager joked at work after he heard the diagnosis, timing is everything.

jeff and i are celebrating our 5 year wedding anniversary tomorrow. i'm a crappy wife and didn't pick up a gift for him, but since he is my sweetie and anything i would give him for such a special occasion shouldn't be something i just run out and buy for the heck of it, i hope he understands. this has been a crazy time at home and at work, and i'm just forever grateful to have such a wonderful life with a wonderful partner.

camilles (9:59pm, 10.22.09)

there was a sale on shrimp, so i picked some up and decided that i'd give a hawaiian garlic shrimp recipe a whirl...and try to approximate the deliciousness of romy's kahuku prawns & shrimp.

i had tried out a recipe last year that was kind of meh, but after searching around online, found promise in this one. i made a few minor changes, including adding a little soy sauce and sriracha before adding the shrimp, and then after plating, cooking the garlic remnants at higher heat until they started to get a little toasty. jeff and i were pretty happy with the results. not quite the same as sitting in the warm, balmy awesomeness of hawaii, but at least it tasted good.

when i had been at the butcher shop, i picked up a bag of frozen marrow bones. the night before shrimp night, i bruised some fresh rosemary in a little olive oil, rolled a couple of marrow bones around in it, and seasoned them with a little kosher salt and cracked black pepper to let them sit in the fridge overnight. while i was cooking the shrimp the next evening, i roasted the bones at 450 degrees for 20 mins. parsley salad is kind of the typical accompaniment, but instead, i chopped up some fresh radishes and dressed them with some fresh lemon juice, a splash of olive oil, and kosher salt. spread some marrow on a slice of bread, sprinkle a little salt, pile on a little radish, and you've got a delightful, meaty, tasty snack.

cooking is fun. eating can be such a pleasurable experience, why not make the most of it?

camilles (7:42pm, 10.20.09)

i've mentioned it before. i like dressing up for work.

in my line of work, the men highly outnumber the women. in my office, it's about 5 guys to every 1 woman. so with that ratio, dressing up isn't too hard. while i can do the professional thing, more often than not, i dress like i'm going to afternoon tea.

the problem with dressing up and working in the industry i'm in, i'm often doing manual labor wearing a party dress and heels.

sometimes, when i'm out in the warehouse moving inventory around or packing/unpacking big boxes and getting dirty, i think about how funny i must look.

camilles (10:21pm, 10.15.09)

jeff and i committed ourselves to our very first home together back in early 2004. unlike most people we know, we actually did not live together until after we got married, although this might not have been the case had our townhouse been completed on time...at which point, we would have possibly lived under the same roof for a month or two prior to the wedding.

as it was, we didn't move in until a full month AFTER our wedding. we camped out on my twin bed in l's empty condo up the street for as long as we could before she was going to put it on the market for a real renter, thinking we'd be out in plenty of time. our first walkthrough was a disaster. they had put in the wrong appliances. our mirrored doors were missing. our closet had no door at all. there were holes in the drywall. when we finally got the keys, we still weren't allowed to spend the night because the fire marshall hadn't given his final approval, so we camped out on an inflatable mattress back at ben's place.

btw...the night that we finally got our keys, a woman handed us an envelope full of $1000 for our troubles. no strings attached. no paperwork to be signed. that was to keep us quiet about how horrible our experience had been, i'm sure, since at that point, the complex was only about 10% built and 50% sold.

the morning after the first night that we spent there, i went walking down the stairs to the kitchen, only to find about 3 men standing in our patio with their faces pressed up against the glass of the sliding door. this was because we were the weirdos that were living in a construction zone. we were the very first people to move in, and other than the on-site security guard, the only people to live there for about 3 months.

in those first few months of living there, jeff's jeep was broken into right outside our front door, i got a screw in the tire of my vespa, we had a few restless nights while the wind blew the security fences all around the complex and broke doors off of utility closets, we found our HVAC system had been incorrectly installed and was draining right into the closet it was in, which ended up filling with mold, needed to be torn out and be replaced, with the whole plastic ET bubble and the giant vaccuum tube running out the side door and everything.

eventually we got neighbors. our upstairs neighbors had hardwood flooring, and seemed to enjoy pacing back and forth wearing lead shoes for hours on end. our next door neighbors liked to rearrange their kitchen furniture every morning, and our bedroom shared a wall with their kitchen. our bedroom was also right above one of the neighbor's garages, and everything vibrated anytime they opened or closed their garage door.

one day, jeff came home to find our kitchen chandelier full of water. one of the neighbors hadn't watched their kid close enough, and the kid had decided to run the 3rd floor bathtub until it overflowed...and the emergency drain wasn't properly installed, so the water leaked all the way down through the floor, ceiling and walls down to our 1st floor. more repairs and mold remediation followed.

we had cracks and creaks and doors that started to not close. a hole mysteriously appeared in the bathtub of the guest room...a bathtub that was rarely ever used. some people at the other end of the complex had a couple of dogs that screeched and yipped at 4am every morning, just about the same time that the random jogger would come jogging by, which i had to listen to because we had to keep the bedroom windows open. we had repaired the A/C three years in a row, because the freon leaked out because it hadn't been installed correctly.

i could go on and on, but the bottom line is that it was a terrible place to live. we spent a lot of money on it and had expected it to be an exciting experience for us to own our first home, and it was pretty much miserable.

so when we got the opportunity to get out of it, you'd better believe we did not hesitate.

last friday, escrow closed on the short sale of the condo. yes...a short sale. we've waited the past 6 months for it to go through, and jeff deserves all the credit for dealing with the bank and dealing with the phone calls and everything. let me tell you, folks, that it ain't no walk in the park. we've ruined our credit and have to live with the reality that we've shirked our responsibilities. we also have to accept the fact that all of the money we put into it (and it was a lot) is gone forever.

but you know what?

it was all worth it. coming home to our real house is a joy. every time i walk in the front door to peace and quiet and my own yard and my own space, with nobody above or below or to the side of me, i thank our lucky stars for all the help we received to be in the position we are in. there is nothing like it. our house isn't big or fancy or super modern, but it's a place that we see all the potential in the world in, and we look forward to continuing to make it our own.

this place is our little castle, and now all we have to do is look forward!

camilles (9:41pm, 10.12.09)

can you see our problem? ha ha. and it isn't just the light. they really are all black.

we definitely could do with shedding a few, but for now, it's fun.

kind of a dry spell for wanting to chat much.

it comes and goes. it's pretty amazing that i've gone for so long without skipping a month. not since may of 07.

so what's the deal these days?

house projects. hanging with the dog. seeing friends. enjoying the changing weather.

it's back to the busiest time of year for me, and as far as i'm concerned, it's pretty much january or february for me.

every year, it's the same thing. every year, it feels the same, and feels different. every time this time of year rolls around, it makes me reflect on how precious every day is.

every day is precious. every loved one is precious.

camilles (9:02pm, 10.6.09)