Mobius One Escaped

Yesterday someone made a very interesting observation about a well loved Christmas tune. It introduced just the right amount of creepiness to make it worthy of a post. The song is Baby its Cold Outside. Cute little duet, right? I bet you picture a couple in love, ready to settle in for a cold night. Well, get a load of this:


I really can't stay (baby its cold outside)
My mother will start to worry (beautiful what's your hurry)
My father will pace the floor......


Setting a creepy stage, eh? There's more:
But maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour)
The neighbors might faint (baby it's bad out there)
Say what's in this drink (no cabs to be had out there)
I ought to say "no, no, no sir" (mind if I move in closer)
At least i'm gonna say that I tried (what's the sense in hurtin' my pride)
I really can't stay (oh baby don't hold out)


Hmmm...this ditty was written in 1944. Creepy. Creepy like the oh so popular Young Girl. What is curious is everyone sings along to these types of songs with glee and zeal, but if a song along the same theme was written today, people would go buck wild. RJB noted that he has read an analysis of Baby its Cold Outside. My innocent self was unaware of such horrors in popular oldies tunes. 


On a completely unrelated note, one of my mentors had his final day with the firm on Friday. While I am far far away, there is something sad about knowing one of the good people in the Dallas office has moved on. Clearly friendship and great advice transcend the walls of the office so while I lost a colleague, I still have a friend.  Honestly, it is bettersweet: I am terribly sad that he is not a fellow lifer and I know the firm just suffered a great loss, but I am also so excited for the new opportunities and refreshed energy he and his family have in their future.   

Frolic and play, the Eskimo way?

So, as a starter, yes it occurred to me that my blog background is Halloween themed. Please look beyond those little pieces of candy and focus on the cuteness and wiseness (likely not a word, right) of those owls.  While I've seen many-a-cute winter holiday blogs, I have quite the winter wonderland scene right out my window thank you very much. And whoever penned that "walking in a winter wonderland" is in any way fanciful had to be from the south or is one of those odd winter lovin' Cheeseheads. I actually work with people that claim winter is their favorite time of year. Right.

As many of you know (or may not know) each year I'm in Chicago, I make a valiant attempt to force myself to embrace the winter. Sorta like a northerner tempting the deep south in August with no A/C in their car - you know, the real miserable experience. Anywho:

Year 1 - shuffling through the Shamrock Shuffle in a wet wintery mix (I discovered this weekend that people 'in the know' still talk about the race that year...and yes, I smile with pride).

Year 2 - attended a ND game after a huge snow storm. We sat in snow packed stadium seats for a solid two quarters. This was also the year I walked about six blocks round trip to a client in sub-zero air temps. Kind that makes your teeth hurt.

Year 3 - I decided unintentionally to jump start my winter embrace experience. I volunteered to work the pre-registration tent at the Rudolph Ramble 8K on Sunday morning (this was really a double challenge - I had to check in at 6:45 am. Why do I do this to myself?). This was Sunday:

The caption for this one is "not that bad". Oh these hilarious Midwesterners. See the scrunched shoulders, death grip on the bag, unflattering outerwear, and the look of misery on the face...yes, it IS a winter wonderland!

 This one is just for Mom - the puppy looks like her Belle! And a flying nun.

Sunday brought sleet, snow, wind (gusts up to 50 mph...are you kidding me), and a sad little Texan sitting in a tent handing out bibs to crazy runners.  But I did it and as my Dad would say, it put a little hair on my chest. Character building? Misery inducing? Whatever you call it, seeing this beautiful skyline immediately makes it worth it to me. Can you have a love affair with a skyline?

Pictures courtesy of Chicago Tribune

Have I mentioned I like to eat?

Happy Thanksgiving! RJB and I have continued with our tradition - Turkey Trot in the morning, dinner with the in-laws in the evening, then out to FdL for our second round of turkey lovin'.

Mom with her bird

Dad doing the honors of surgically breaking down Mom's bird

It was good times all around though I cannot believe Christmas is right around the corner! Hopefully work will let up a bit so I can enjoy my favorite time of year! 

RJB and I continue to make home improvements. The third plumber was a charm in fixing our forever leaking faucets, a home theater (or something) guy is mounting our TVs this week, we purchased some uber cool and modern fixtures (lamp and bookcase to hold TV components), and are in the market to buy more furniture. We are selling my old TV stand and arm chair and plan on replacing the chair with some goodies from Design Within Reach. Thank goodness RJB also likes mid-century modern design.  Nonetheless, we are making progress but as we bring in new furniture, our old stuff looks bulky. Perhaps this is all part of the consumerism plot to get people to buy more. 

We are still considering whether or not we will put up a tree this year.  I noticed that a lot of people in our area have their decorations already up.  Not sure if they are really motivated or just taking advantage of no snow and abnormally warm weather.  I, however, am currently too lazy to open my Christmas decoration boxes. :-(

Tomorrow is the much awaited doctor's appointment for Dad. Cross your fingers and pray for a big zero on the test results!

Yee Haw

A few weeks ago the gals met in Austin for a brief (too brief!) weekend visit. ADF got a fancy new camera and was our weekend photographer...enjoy!

Fun at CCs

At Salt Lick. ADF asked some poor guy to take

about 50 shots of us like this. In a way, it is a little creepy family photo-ish...

As it turns out, Salt Lick is BYOB, so while we

waited, we took care of a nice bottle of red.

KH and YM...hee hee hee

The glorious meat

Walking around a lake downtown. no idea what lake it is. 

Dressed up for Sushi..again, we are all prepped for staged family photos! FYI, I was the only one in flats; I'm not really THAT short. 

Heartbroken

The last month and a half has been a whirlwind of emotions.  If there was ever a time in my life to give me pause and actually listen to what my Dad tells me year over year ("Julie, don't waste your youth on work" or "Julie, you need to learn how to manage your stress" or my personal favorite that generally comes after my reporting of a stress-induced ailment "Julie, you need to take a look at your life"), the time is now.  My family is dealing with a reality that was unexpected and baffling.  Frankly, I'm not sure how to help but I think doing more than acknowledging that my Dad is right and start making a change in how I handle work is a good start.  So, be patient.  I'm not sure how to go about making the kind of change you encourage me to make, but I'm working on it.

Starting to look like a home!

Yesterday was a big day. I finally cancelled my gym membership after not visiting this gym for too long to mention. Sorry RJB.   It was the easiest gym break up ever. Manager was working the desk, she didn't work me over, and I was in and out in 5 minutes. Ah, customer service.

We also had our new bed frame delivered and our table and chairs. Everything fits well and we are quite happy with our purchases. Sylvester was pretty upset when RJB took the old bed apart and there was nothing for him to hide under...so he hid under hanging clothes in the closet. The new bed has fairly low clearance for him to get under but when there's a will there's a way. Sylvester can flatten out like a roach to get under there!

We do have a little bit of furniture rearranging to figure out in our main living area, but for now it will suffice. The last big purchase will be a day bed for the second bedroom. Then its painting, new curtains for the master, and hanging things on the wall.  Maybe by year end we will be settled!

New bed, old sheets (if you have good ones to recommend, please let me know. These have pilled.), and summer blanket. Notice the yellowish gold curtains. High quality - I am pretty sure they are custom - but not our favorite color. 

Here's the table sans leaf. The buffet hanging out back there is what needs to find a new home.

Yes. Completely Random.

A few observations from the past week:

1. Having someone wash your hair is the best treat ever.  I think it is my favorite part of going to a salon and if I were super rich, I would hire someone to wash my hair everyday.

2. Sometimes sharing with your friends makes you feel more powerful when facing stressful situations.

3. I continue to be baffled by people who eat snack foods with powder flavor while on public transportation. It is stinky, the incessant crinkle of the bag makes me crazy (keep in mind this is during rush hour so the train is packed with people standing on top of you), and then when finished, the powder flavor is all over your hands!!! yuck.

4. I will always walk hard - heavy heel strikes - and don't think I can every change this. But I am all for some nice slippers to reduce impact......size 7 or maybe 8....just sayin'.

5. The kiddos (born, say circa 1984 - 1990) continue to baffle me. How can a generation so near to mine have such a completely different work ethic? Probably history repeating itself, but the latchkey generation is light-years away from the helicopter-parent generation.

6. The guy who wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde also wrote Treasure Island. I had no idea. It is also poetic that I read Jeykll and Hyde right after busy season. Gives you pause about what anger and hatred can do to your soul.

7. Almost two months in the new place and I still haven't figured out commuter footwear. Train is slightly too far away to comfortably walk in heels and the walk is long enough to cause premature wear to my lovely kicks. Problem - wear heels in the office so pant length is for heels. Flats to the train with said pants equals pants dragging on the ground.  Not cool. This is the ONLY reason why I am looking forward to winter. I can tuck those pants into my winter boots. And yes, it is a fly look. :)

Froedtert

I made it through busy season alright - just the same ole paper cuts, CYA stacks of paper, signing my name to probably too many returns, and eating more sugar than a person should be allowed (given how tired and hopped up on sugar  I was, I would tell myself "only three pieces of Halloween candy today" like I was a child...however like an adult I ate about a fourth of a pound of candy a day.)

There are times in your life that give you pause: phone calls from home, realizing that in a 7 day period you've eaten more McDonald's than you have in the last 14 years, not knowing what day it is because they blend together, and buying your first serious piece of furniture. Yep. Serious. Furniture. As in, we will likely have this until the end unless RJB wins and we upgrade in size. We bought a bed frame. This is very exciting for me because I have wanted a sleigh bed since I was a little girl AND RJB liked it without my suggesting to him that it might be a great design. Between a bonus and store sale, we will be proud owners of this in 1 - 2 weeks:

Uncle Grant wasn't generous enough to also allow us to get new dressers so we will still be mis-matched but I really don't care. And RJB is secretly happy that the rubbermaid bins I currently have under the bed will need to be moved (why it bothers him to have a few of those under the bed is beyond me). 

RJB and I were planning on going out of town next month to officially disconnect from work but decided to save on $$$ and stay in town instead. So we will do dinner, shop, catch up on movies....(by the way, RJB just asked in a suspicious tone "what are you writing about me?" ha ha!). I am actually excited because I haven't been in the new crib very much since we moved it. Perhaps I can actually get settled!

Speaking of the new crib, we finally ordered bookcases - we got two so we are officially at 3 in the house and need more (quote "we cannot possibly sustain this growth"). I guess we are all set if we get snowed in for a few weeks. 

Boxes of my beloved books!

 

Of course about a week after these guys were delivered, we got a "welcome to the neighborhood" coupon from Pottery Barn. Thanks.   Next on the list, kitchen table (we discovered the one we love is way too big for our space), a bed for the second bedroom, then new dressers to match the new bed! We got a ways to go, that's for sure. 

Going through the Big D and I do mean Dallas

Somehow I never posted pictures from my brief trip to Dallas in July! It was great times and I cannot wait to see the girls again in November (yay Austin and seeing little Luna!)

Ok, so this wasn't in Dallas but at Karen's wedding. But man alive is it funny!!

Just another day

JMB: sitting at the coffee table working (at least i was home). 
         "Hi, babe."

RJB: "ugg, sorry I was sleeping." (it was like noon, but he was up at 5am to run 18 miles)

JMB: "no problem."

RJB: "no really, I shouldn't have slept so much. I'm just so tired."

JMB: "not a big deal, really."

This conversation seems to happen every other weekend with the apologizer going back and forth between the two of us. Its weird, when I sleep in, I feel so guilty but I never put guilt on RJB if he does. I like to think he feels the same. So why do we feel it necessary to apologize? Hmm...could it be we are still in the sweet honeymoon phase?

Last Thursday I met up with a friend from the Dallas office. He was up here for a new promote training and for work. How refreshing it was to be with a co-worker who is full of excitement about the future and career and has that same historical foundation of, uh, work "noise". Have to say, his renewed spirit and attitude really influenced me (helps that I know he is sincere) and my Friday was much more inspiring.  Thanks for giving me that lift, JM!

Heaven on Fifth

RJB and I moved in to our new home last week. Everything went fairly well - movers arrived timely, Comcast guy arrived "early" and got us up and running, neighbors in the building are nice...so far so good.  Packing was an adventure. I've never packed and moved with someone before (college doesn't really count as there is very little common property).   RJB and I have a very different opinions around packing fragile items and glass. I am pro bubble wrap, RJB is pro brown paper.  However, I let go of control just a bit but not without mentioning that RJB would buy me new kitchen stuff if anything breaks (nothing is broken of which we are currently aware).

We have already had our new homeowner hazing. Our A/C conveniently broke, meaning the last four days it has been in the 80's inside our crib.  It was quite the hit to the pocketbook, though fortunately the closing costs were much less than we budgeted for, so while it hurt, we can recover soon.

Enjoy the photos! I can't wait to be officially settled in with furniture it its place!

Kitchen with room for a table - finally! Now we just need to buy one.

Living room - plus a nook for RJB's desk - and as you can 

see, we already have cat toys out.  To the right is the fireplace.

Master bedroom - needs painting and new window treatments

The infamous "second bedroom"

Our porch

Yes, No. 10 made it. 

Bubble Wrap

Well friends, our closing is quickly approaching. Hard to believe that in three short days, we will be homeowners.   Lucky for me, I get to spend my last two weekdays as a renter in beautiful Temperance, Michigan.  And what will I be doing in beautiful Temperance? Why, checking out an alloys plant of course! (yes, this is serious).

Packing your house is a weird thing. At the onset, it is all about cleaning things out, being thoughtful when you stumble across a sentimental item (with me, that's about every third thing I pick up. I sometimes worry you will see me in 20 years on those hoarder TV shows or in the paper: "woman found dead in house among six feet of trash"....) I digress.

Packing is a bit of an art, a joy of carefully packing your beloved possessions. Then it starts. You become tired of packing - holy cow, I own a lot of stuff! No, I NEED that for my hobby, granted it hasn't seen the light of day in 2 years but I NEED it! - and the boxes start looming. You start sensing the impending doom of becoming so desperate to finish packing that you become careless or more apt to trash items because you don't know what to do with them. Or, horrors of horrors, you find a box from Dallas that was never unpacked. Oops. But I swear I NEED all those old cooking magazines. Cooking library, anyone?

Sadly, on the flip side, the  "where do I put this" drama will unwind in the new house. This will be the first time that RJB and I enter a space that neither of us have lived in or moderately set up. (RJB lived in our currently place for 2 months before I moved in.) This will be interesting.

Sylvester's short term memory is saving him a lot of pain. He has yet to start to act as the stressed kitty even though there are boxes everywhere. He did wake up us last night but jumping into a half-filled box. Somehow he got under the box flaps and was literally packed up!  His little cat brain will perk up, though, when his carrier reappears. Sigh.

Running of the Gals

I'm not sure about yall, but when July rolls around there is a lot of excitement in the B household for le Tour de France. Dedicated watchers. Provides me with more mental gusto to think "viva le tour!" when I see an idiot on the bike path in a sponsor jersey (sky or saxo bank, anyone?) speeding past so fast you feel the whoosh! Sadly neither Lance nor Schleck won. :(

Nonetheless, I finally ran my first "race" of 2010. For me, not so much racing as an organized run since I am in no way actually racing.  I once again did the women's run and it was the best organized run I've completed. Ever. And to celebrate, I then took a week off of running. Sabotage! However RJB and I are heading up to Madison next month for a race (5K for me, half for him) so at least I have some motivation to keep in shape. And yes, August - in the throes of busy season! See, trying to live that work-life balance. No pictures to share of the women's run which is probably a good thing. Promise I will start posting more photos soon - those are what make blogs fun after all!

Lets get on the big yellow dog

If you are anything like me, you have ventured into the world of Facebook and stumbled upon old friends and acquaintances. From the comfort of your home, you have had the good ole slide show (fortunately sans a slide projector and having to listen to a monologue about how wonderful a particular outlook point was) and discovered that all these kiddos from high school are, some 13-14 years later, still friends. Like good friends, not Facebook voyeurism  friends.

This strikes me as odd. My mom is BFF with one of her high school friends. Otherwise, my folks are not chummy with all those kiddos from the "fun-filled" days of high school.  I am not sure about my brother, but I'd guess he is the same.  I maintained one "solid" friendship for a whopping 7 years after graduation only to lose contact once I moved BACK to Texas and was finally in the same state as this friend.

Perhaps had my folks stayed in Texas things would have been different. Though let's be honest. I likely would have never moved back to Houston had my parents stayed. Nonetheless, I'm sure I will continue to be surprised to stumble upon who is still friends with whom. 

PS - I was going to scan a high school photo for this post but alas, all my high school photos are at my parents home...ha ha, how poetic. Instead, I'll pay tribute to Big Al. 

There's a song for everything

Well, who knew buying a home is the most boring big event of your adult life. Our attorney is still pushing on the brick sealant and we are just ready to move on. So hopefully next week it will be a done deal and we can move on to finalizing the mortgage.

We spent our father's day away from our fathers (well, RJB went to see his yesterday), but poetically we spent the day doing what my dad does best - cleaning out/throwing out/clearing clutter. Tribute to father's day, perhaps? We are working very hard to not bring a bunch of junk to the new crib. After about 6 full trash bags of garbage and 5 grocery bags of charity donations, we are making good headway. RJB found a place that destroys old computers and reuses or does something with old cell phones (a place = Best Buy). Check out this old fella from circa 1997.   Hard to believe this laptop was small back in the day. It had a super cool CD-ROM drive and an external floppy drive (2 drives were state of the art!).  Compared to my nerdy mac, this guy was a fat daddy!!

 

RJB and I had a happenin' week in the city - saw Adam Carolla on Thursday (I look way crazy in the photo with me...no need to share that with the hoi polloi) and went to the CSO on Friday. Look at us getting out of the house, eh? Of course we will now do nothing until next month but that's okay. Ahh...old married life....

I hope all you fathers and fathers-to-be had a nice and relaxing weekend! 

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I'm Singing in the Rain

Holy rain! I think it has rained about 3 times a week every week of June (though apparently per weather.com, we've only had 4.48 inches of rain, right about average...really?). I'm getting a little tired of it, plus I can't sport my open toe shoes when it is raining. Woe is me, right?

On Friday, we had quite the storm blow in from Iowa. Apparently Iowa saw hurricane force winds, some tornados spun out, and the storm was due to hit Chicago during rush hour. For the first time since I arrived to the city, the building sent a notice to the tenants warning of impending doom. Well, the storm came and went. It was cool, quick, and didn't seem quite as bad as our Corn Belt friends to the west had it. However, I did see on my Saturday run downed trees near Major Daley's house. Good thing Johnny who sits in his car outside the Mayor's home all day didn't break a sweat moving branches off the sidewalk.

Since I slacked and took Friday off, I was able to take these pictures from our apartment. Pretty dark for 4:30pm.

Bonfire on South Quad

Good news! The inspection went really well. There are some handyman things to take care of - leaky faucet, dimmer switch repair, and general annual maintenance on the HV/AC make up the main "concerns". There is a bigger issue around sealing the the exterior half-block (probably saying this completely wrong).  Half the building has already been sealed, half hasn't. So the attorney is going to work on this.  Interestingly enough, IL requires the buyer or proxy to attend the inspection - the RE agent cannot do so on your behalf. Good ole Illinois.

We did not get any pictures unfortunately, mainly because it would have been a little awkward and we were poking around the house quite a bit. I mean, the home.  But here are a few photos from the listing. Good news is that RJB and I really do like the place quite a bit, especially after spending more time. It is so nice having windows on three sides, though we are very lucky now to have windows on two sides of our current place (yay corner unit!). I think Sylvester will really enjoy having the french door open that looks out on the Juliet balcony.  There is a screen door there so he can lay around there all day.

  

Next steps: get the financing going. We are meeting with the broker again on Monday to move ahead with valuation and all the paper work. The joys of PA require us to put a right of first refusal on the sale of the mortgage. I'm sure this will somehow be a pain to work in. Then we have a big check to write on Wednesday (yes, IL requires a preeeeettty pretty big good- faith deposit right away.) No worries, we get the cash back if the deal falls through and we filled out a W-9 so interest is being earned on the money.

Tomorrow we are taking RJB's car to carmax hopefully to sell it. If we only get a few hundred for it, we may sell it on our own (ugg). Then we just need to pack, figure out what we want to move and what we don't (extra bed, furniture, TVs), and basically get our shit in order. Part of me can't believe I have to pack again. I think we all remember how much I drag my feet with that type of task.  Time to clean out again!

Happy Friday!

Forging Ahead

Well, we have a verbal on our potential new crib. We have scheduled an inspection on Friday and have an attorney all lined up. Money is moving among accounts and packing plans are being discussed. Like I said, a Big Decision that will happen quickly.  Kinda hard to believe and a little unsettling in a way.  I am trying to keep my excitement in check since I know this can still fall through. I'll take pictures at the inspection.