Go Rockies! and other Memorial Day weekend things

Friday
Friday morning I had a Mary Kay appointment and of course Ryan worked all day. Friday evening, we went to a "meet and greet" at Redemption Denver - the church plant we have been going to for the past few weeks. If you want to check them out, their website is http://redemptiondenver.org/

Saturday
On Saturday, we had a very full day!

In the morning, we walked Grover across the street at the Cherry Creek State Park. We also let him swim in the lake and chase sticks and he had a blast! We were gone for only about an hour but that Colorado sun did a number on us both. Our shoulders and necks were fried! They still are fried. Our lives have been revolving around when we get to put lotion on next.

Cheery Creek Lake - I didn't take this picture...stole it from Google

In the afternoon, we headed downtown about 2:00 to get in line for Rockies tickets. They have "Rockpile" tickets which are general admission and only $4 so they go fast. Our friends got there before us and actually stood in line for us. Come to find out, the Rockpile tickets sold out just as our friends got to the front of the line....so we ended up paying for regular seats. Section 304. Last row. :)

For the next few hours while we waited for the game to start, we explored downtown. Denver was having a "Denver Day of Rock" where local and not so local bands played all day on four different stages. It was a fun day date for us and the weather was nice.

Then it was time for the game! It was my first major league baseball game and it was against the St. Louis Cardinals. Of course, the exciting thing about seeing the Cardinals play is that we got to see Albert Pujols play. If you don't know who he is, shame on you and Google it! The weather turned as we headed into the stadium and when you are on the highest row in the stadium, it is breezy. We were freezing but we had a great time! Rockies 15, Cardinals 4. Go Rockies!

View from our seats

View of the skyline above the stadium

The scoreboard: Pujols was up to bat. Note the ever-present mountain backdrop - love that about living here!

Are we at a Rockies game? Are we at a State game?

Sunday
Sunday was a lazy day and then we had a cookout at church. Pretty laid back kind of day :).

Monday - Today
Today was also a lazy day. We did go out for a lunch date to get some sushi - my first sushi in Colorado. It was quite good. Nothing beats Tasu in Brier Creek (NC) but it took care of my sushi fix for a little while. Tonight, we are just hanging around getting things done here and there. Ryan is getting ready for the work week and I am getting ready to start my second full month as a Mary Kay consultant. :)

Update on Apartment Life

Dryer Situation
I fixed the dryer! This is how I did it:

Step 1: Stare at it.
Step 2: Turn dial from "Normal heat" to "Medium heat".
Step 3: Witness the magic of repair.

My thought process was "Maybe just THIS heat setting is broken..." so I switched it to a different one and it the heat started working again. Then I switched it back to the original one, and that one works too now. Go figure!

Flooding Situation

Since Saturday when this all happened, there has been a maintenance person here everyday but Sunday I think.

Saturday: Flood occurs. Guy #1 shuts off the water. Guy #2 unclogs the sewer line. Guy #3 comes to suck up the water and clean the carpets.
Sunday: Maintenance day of rest?
Monday: Guy #1 comes back - shows up at 4:30 to replace the seal under the toilet, works until 5:00 and says he'll have to finish tomorrow because it's 5:00 and he's done working for the day. *Inefficiency alert* Just come on Tuesday at a reasonable time to complete the job in one day. But I digress...
Tuesday: Guy #1 comes back - finishes sealing the toilet. Bathroom smells awful so Girl #1 (me) disinfects entire bathroom and the smell goes away :) I also get a call that Guy #3 is coming back on Wednesday to clean the carpets and they ask what time works best for me. I say "The morning please!".
Wednesday 11:55am: No Guy #3. No phone call. Nothing. I'm so glad I was able to not run the many errands I need to run and that I can continue to wait for Guy #3 to come when he so desires.

In other news, I did get a knock on the door today. I answered it with Grover in hand and was surprised to see a police man. He looked surprised too. I had to speak first. The conversation went something like:
Me: What's going on?
Po: You're not Kimberly.
Me: Nope. *Really? Those are your first words to me Professional Law Enforcer?*
Po: Did you just move in to this apartment?
Me: Somewhat recently, yes. Why?
Po: Have any of Kimberly's friends come by?
Me: No.
Po: And you just moved in? Like when?
Me: *No response because this is weird.*
Po: I mean, you don't have to tell me an exact date. But like, after February?
Me: Yes, it was sometime after February. If you need to find Kimberly, you should go to the office, they probably have a forwarding address.
Po: Oh do you know Kimberly?!
Me: No! And you are starting to freak me out.
Po: I don't mean to scare you, there was just an incident in this apartment a few months ago and I ran into Kimberly recently at an unrelated event so I was coming by to see her.
Me: *Insert some sort of look of judgment and confusion.*
Po: So none of her friends have come by?
Me: No. *Insert more looks of judgment and growing irritation with weird cop*
Po: Well if they do, you have him *points to Grover* to take care of you.
Me: That's true. Ok bye.

Aaaaaand double dead bolt.

Perhaps Po is seeking some non-work related interaction with said Kimberly? Hence his confusion, seeming lack of control of the situation he put himself in by coming here, and his suspicious questions. Then I saw him asking another man outside some questions. Well Po, I hope you find her. This is what great romance movies are made of. Girl murders boyfriend in apartment, Po responds to the scene, falls in love with the misunderstood yet violent-natured girl, she then disappears and he searches for her the rest of his life.The End.

Ok, I must get back to waiting around for the carpet guy.

I laughed a lot.

Some of you won't get this. Some of you will. Michelle Larson and Jen Armstrong - you will love this.

I got online to chat with Sears about the dryer to see if I could get some DIY advice. I found out quickly that they don't give DIY advice, they just send script after script about Sears doing it for you. Go figure. BUT, look what I discovered:

You have been connected to Ross Geller.
Ross Geller: Thank you for choosing Sears. My name is Ross How may I assist you?

Are you serious?! I was loving this. So I had to have fun with this.


Ross Geller: We at Sears offer the best price for quality service and we also stand by all our products and services. All the repair service comes with a 90 days warranty. That means if you have the same problem within 90 days we will fix it at no cost to you.
Rachel: Ok thanks. I'll keep that in mind
Rachel: Also, have you talked to Monica and Chandler lately?
Ross Geller: I am sorry unfortunately I am not from friends but my name is Ross geller.
Rachel: Oh ok. I was hoping you were the real Ross Gellar.
Ross Geller: Well I wish I was.

Ok so at this point I was like, well that's kind of a sad response...somewhere this guy wishes he was the real Ross Gellar...but still I continued to have fun.

Ross Geller: I would recommend you to have your appliance fixed by our certified technician.
Rachel: Ok thanks.
Rachel: And you never know, Jennifer Aniston could be looking for you right now.
Ross Geller: That's a good one.

And then I REALLY wanted to make sure he knew that we were NOT on a break...but I didn't.


Ok bye.

Apartment Life

On Saturday, Ryan comes to me and says "I think we're going to need to put in a maintenance request. The toilet is leaking." I lovingly responded with "What did you do?!"

So it turns out that the toilet wasn't leaking...the sewer line to the building was clogged and the back up was seeping up through our apartment floor in the bathroom, down the hallway, and into the dining room. Now to ease your imaginations, it wasn't like poopy water coming up but it was a musty gross smelling water. A guy then came on Sunday to clean the floors. He first sucked up five and a half gallons of water before proceeding to clean the carpet. They have been really good about responding promptly - which is good because we don't want to flirt with wet subfloor and mold! They are expected to come today to rip up the toilet and see where the leak originated. Oh and don't worry, ours was the only apartment affected to this degree..:/

Also, our dryer died yesterday - but only after we'd already done two loads in the washer. Ha! Thankfully we were able to dry a load at a friend's house and the rest is hanging throughout the apartment on doors and stuff. Lots of hanging underwear around here. We've tried everything to fix it - we've kicked it and yelled at it. We even threatened it with a screwdriver but then we had to go to church. We haven't actually had time to look at it or look up what to do.

The End.

Ok ok, I'm a bad blogger

Many of you like to point out that I have not updated the blog in a long time. My excuse always goes something like "Well, nothing blog-worthy has happened." But, in response to the numerous complaints and despite the fact that nothing blog worthy has happened, I'll just blog about ordinary things :).

Ryan:
Ryan is still my husband and I still love him a lot. I would even go so far as to say that I like him. :) He works super hard - gets up about 4:30 everyday and gets home about 6:00.

Grover:
Grover is still my dog and he is still driving us nuts. We love him (although Ryan would never admit that) but Grover's little bottom is just so much trouble! He still screams bloody murder when he has a bowel movement so I am attacking the situation from 3 angles:
#1 Topical steroid - everyone likes to make fun of me for gloving up and tending to my dog's butt. Well, you all just wish you were as brave and dedicated as me to daily venture into the no-no zone. He is my boy and a mama will do anything for her baby.
#2 We changed his food - a little birdie named Dr. Bud Keller DVM, DACVS once told me he thought Grover's bottom problems were stemming from a food allergy manifesting itself as a raw rectum. I rejected this idea because Grover is already on "special" expensive food and that would require "super special" expensive food. But we gave in - he was on a Chicken and Rice Sensitive Stomach diet. Now he's on a Grain-Free Venison diet. About $2 a pound for this stuff............we'll see. Except now, the grain-free (which boasts of firming their stool) is firming his stool! And this is a problem because he needs his stool to be soft.........sense the aggravation. Which leads us to #3...
#3 Stool softener - So to counter the stool-firming agents in his new expensive food I'll be giving him stool softeners.

That's a lot of poop talk for one paragraph about one dog.

Work:
I celebrated my one month anniversary with Mary Kay a few days ago. I'm really enjoying it now! Got off to a rocky start....but it is slowly picking up pace and the flexibility of the schedule is still making me so happy! It's much easier to get things done when you make your own schedule!

Living Quarters:
We are still in the apartment, slowly saving to buy a house by the winter. We were pretty happy here until we got some new neighbors upstairs. I'm sure they are great people and all but I also think they might be building small bombs and testing them at all hours of the day and night. It's hard to explain how noisy they are because we really can't even figure out what they are doing to make the noise they make. Our greatest hypothesis is that their kids are continually jumping off the back of the couch onto the floor, or perhaps they are bowling, or perhaps they have a pet kangaroo?

Whatever it is, they are noisy in a way I have never experienced before. This, of course, makes us even more ready to be in a house!

On the bright side, when their baby cries at 4 in the morning, it wakes me up too. I'm really glad I get to experience what that's like before I have a baby of my own to wake me up. If there were a sarcasm font, I would be using it.

So there you go people - hope you enjoyed that un-blogworthy post :). Sorry I don't update this more!! I'm just REALLY busy watching Friends Seasons DVDs between my Mary Kay appointments :).