Made in Richmond

The following took place after me mentioning a new benefit announced at my work today…

Ross: Do you work in God’s throne room?

Me: Apparently

Ross: Dag.

Please take a moment to read this.

Please take a moment to go here and here. These are blogs that I have unforgivably left of my roll for far too long. They belong to two of the people that I spend much of my day corresponding with via the Internets, and I am forever shameful of the fact that I haven’t listed them until now. You can use the links above, or please refer to the annotated version below. Thank you.

Awkward Things I Say to Girls: I love this blog with my heart, just as I love it’s author. The best part about it is that everything on this blog is true. Painfully and wonderfully true.

Ol’ Stomp and Shout’s Misanthropic Review: Darling Susan loves/knows more about movies than I do. Yes, I know I might as well have told you that chocolate comes from ostrich eggs, but alas, it’s true. I trust very few people’s opinions on movies (because I’m like that), but I always trust hers. And she can quote lines from such classics as Look Who’s Talking and she will put obscure references to The Natural in our works of fiction as a tender, loving message just for me.

Go here to read a new blog from our church, Franklin Street Community. I’m currently the only one posting, but hopefully that will change as people from FSC see it.

If you go to FSC and want to contribute something, gimme a shout at franklin.street.community@gmail.com.

Seriously, email me. We want to make people *want* t come to the church, not run for the hills what with all of my babbling (jk, the babbling is kept to a minimum, except for when I imagine James Murphy feverishly writing part of the New Testament).

Friday: Good day at work. Home for a spectacular nap. Dinner from Arby’s. Watched The Birds. Read. Slept.

Saturday: Slept in. Gym for a bit. Home to shower. Lunch at Can-Can. Shopped for hardwood floors. Home again to putter. Party on Forest Hill Ave. Capital Ale House for late night snacks. Home to bed.

Sunday: Loaves and Fishes. Home for lunch and quick nap. Church for a good sermon and to love on the cutest baby ever. Taco Bell - Big Love Sunday dinner. Watching American Psycho. Falling even more in love with Christian Bale, even though he plays a serial killer in this movie. To bed in a bit.

Ross, my mother-in-law, and I went to go look at hardwood flooring today (after lunch at Can-Can and seriously, there’s nothing better than a Saturday lunch there). We drove all the way out to the end’s of the earth to Lumber Liquidators near Southpark Mall. After telling the very nice salesperson what we needed (A. Cheap, B. Hard enough to handle two stupid dogs, C. Still cheap) we narrowed down our choices to a nicely priced Beech (or maybe Birch? I obviously was paying a lot of attention to that part). We would loved to have gotten a wide-planked dark wood, but the fact that we are poor and our dogs have talons AND we’ll only be in this house a little longer means that we shouldn’t go all out at the moment.

Anyway, I made the decision in about 3 seconds, which I seem to do with every major decision - this house and my car are the two biggest purchases we’ve ever made and that took all of 10 minutes each for me to decide on. I mean, it looked nice. It’s on sale. They deliver. It needs to be in our house for a week before we can lay it down the weekend after Labor Day. All signs pointed to handing the nice man our credit card and calling it a day. At least I thought they did. I had fully accepted the fact that this project would be costing us a couple thousand dollars, as do most things that add value to your home. Well, the hubs just couldn’t bring himself to make the purchase today. He needs to sit on it, even if just out of principle. Honestly, I can’t really argue with it because, after all, out of the two of us he will be the one doing most of the work on this. If I’m spared from hours of back-breaking work, he can take all the time he needs.

Ross went at the Phillies/Nationals game tonight. So, it’s just me and the pups. It’s storming out right now and, of course, Zapp is curled up in a tight ball on the bed and trembling so hard she might actually make her teeth fall out. Meanwhile, Shooter is pacing around the house, growling at every clap of thunder and flash of lightening. Ross has never seen him act like this because Shooter only gets so protective when I’m here by myself.

It’s really pretty sweet. When I’m home alone, Shooter stays close the front door where he will bark at every sound coming from the street, from the toilet, from nothing that the human ear can perceive. That is until I go upstairs where he will essentially sit on top of me until Ross gets home. He’s gotten even more protective since we got Zapp. I guess he thinks it’s his job to protect his girls. The thing is, I think if we were actually in a dangerous situation and he were presented with the opportunity to attack someone, he would probably just jump up and give the person a hug…or try to herd them toward the closet where we keep the food.

Let me leave you with a picture of him taking a rare rest from protecting our estate…

(C’mon. You know you want to bury your face in his soft, fluffy neck.)

I had 5 Diet Cokes today.

I now have enough energy to power a large city.

My sister, her husband, my brother, and his wife are all on vacation in the Outer Banks right now. They left last Saturday and will be staying the rest of the week. The start of my new job prevented me from being able to go (at least for an amount of time worth the drive down there).

We went there pretty much every summer when I was little. Each year we would go to a restaurant called The Dunes and get hush puppies. I think I put The Dunes as my favorite restaurant on every “All About Me” poster I did in elementary school.

Being the ever-thoughtful lady that she is, my sister sent me this:

I hope she knows how much I appreciated it. Actually, I know she knows because she would have appreciated it, too. That is why she is my sister.

I am hearby declaring August 14, 2007 to be known as The Day of Sh*t. I’ve had a really bad day. No need to go into it because that doesn’t accomplish anything. Instead, allow me to make a list of current things that *could* apply to me right now but, thankfully, don’t.

And here they are:

I am not Lindsay Lohan.

I do not live Antarctica.

I am not one of Britney Spears’s children.

I never have to do a take-home exam again (at least in something really hard).

I will not get called a bitch at work anymore (unless I really eff something up or take the last Diet Coke without putting a new case in the refrigerator).

I am not Michael Vick.

I do not have psoriasis.

There is no reason why I would ever have to speak to Bill O’Reilly ever.

Any other suggestions? Please share…