It's.....registration day! Yay! The best part! Where you get to ask other people to spend money on you, rather than having to spend the money yourself! Exciting! We'll be keeping it pretty safe and hitting Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond. Typical, I know. Pretty sure Pier One and Macy's won't get looked at as much, and I sure don't want to get my hopes up on any items there! Although we're still joking (being serious?) about registering at Lowe's. If anyone is up for buying us a toilet or a portable dishwasher....just let me know!

My new(est) boss stopped by yesterday to sign his travel authorization form for an $8,000 trip to Sydney. $599/night for the hotel. Wow. I'm working on trying to convince him of the major benefits in taking me along. Like carrying his luggage for him (as long as it's not too heavy), making restaurant reservations on his behalf (that include me), and planning out sight-seeing adventures for his free time (I'm sure he'd love to hold a koala!!). Yes...I think I can do it. There's got to be SOME perks to working for a ridiculously overpaid 35-year old, right?

He asked me if I watched South Park yesterday. When I told him "no", he proceeded to repeat several lines of his favorite episode in high-pitched voices. Which inevitably resulted in me giving him a look of amusement/confusion/pure ridicule, while informing him of my surprise in his choice of spare time activities. He informed me that South Park was created by an economist. Right. Thanks. Now that makes perfect sense. *rolls eyes* Good news is he's not coming until August 9th (I thought he would be here for good on Monday). So I have this weekend to focus on wedding registry, next week to focus on VBS, and less than 2 weeks trying to figure him out before I take off to get engagement pictures done and a week (plus some) long trip to Holland. August should be fun. :)

Per Kara's request, here are some before/after pictures of the dining room

And the kitchen:

I forgot to take the final picture of the living room - so that will have to come later!

I'm one of those people who has always been too afraid to call into a radio station for any reason. Prizes and giveaways included. But last week, one of the radio stations I listen to announced that they were giving away a $500 cash card to the 105th caller. No questions, no games, no trivia to get through...you just have to call. So I began calling! No luck the first day. Just busy signals and an annoying beeping sound telling me that all circuits are busy and my call cannot be completed at this time.

Then I recruited Chris in on the calling spree. Me from work, and him on the cell. They are doing this 3x a day....for at least the next week. Chris calls on Friday and gets the 100th caller. So close!! This morning I call and am the 10th caller, but am never able to get through again. And just now....attempting to win for the 3rd time today....I was the 101th caller. Ugh! My heart started pounding and I had already spent the money when I heard her say "You're caller one hundred and..."

Let down. I will win. I will accept a gradual step up in the call line everyday (102, 103, etc.), so that by Friday, I'll be on the radio for the first time accepting a $500 cash card. :)

I played hookie this week. I couldn't help it. I woke up Monday morning, and was truly stressed, tired, and overwhelmed with stuff that needed to be done. So I called in sick. Or emailed in sick. Same thing. :)

I had gotten my water bill the day before. My budgeted $20 water bill was an outrageous $258. Problem with the pipes? I think so! I called the water company and then my landlord and found out that the main pipe under the house had busted and water has been running constantly for several weeks now. Awesome. Landlord fixed the pipe, and the water company reduced my bill. But not down to unrealistic hope of $20. Blah.

The majority of the day, though, was spent finishing the house! I just wanted the house done, floors cleaned, and open for company. Which Chris and I were able to accomplish, finally! My once over-crammed box of a house suddenly feels empty, now that boxes are unpacked, items are put away, and unnecessary clutter is thrown out. But at least it's clean!

Tuesday I went to work, and my lingering treadmill wound began to burn and itch extremely bad underneath the bandage. When I took the bandage off, my knee was slightly swollen and covered in bright red bumps. Slightly worried, I told one of my bosses about it. That boss looked at it, and suggested I go to a clinic during my lunch break, fearing it might be a staff infection. So I went to my other boss, explained the situation, and was told that if I decided to go to the doctor, not to worry about coming back.

Well....I didn't think it was an infection. So I worked through lunch until 3, then went home and went to bed. :) Money well-saved! I've been putting rash cream on it for the past few days, and it's clearing up nicely. Comically, it's a prescription cream, so there were no questions asked the following day about my doctor visit! If only they had checked out the label...

I had to wait a few days to write this post, as I didn't want to the treadmill to have the last word!

It seems my mind is a lot more progressed in my physical ability than my muscles are. I've been dieting for a month now (up to 15lbs. lost now), but got stuck at a plateau. So I decided it was time to bring in the exercise. I got revved up, came home during my lunch hour at work, taped my 30-minute fat-burning workout plan to the treadmill, and started her up!! I began with a 5 minute warm up, before the instructions told me to increase to a level 8-9 speed for "1 minute of intensity". I was set on what speed I needed to go to be "intense". I was ready for it! So I punched up the arrow button to increase my pace. Whew! I was flying! Figuratively at first...then literally.

I walked for about 45 of the 60 seconds before I realized this was wayyyy too fast for my legs to keep up with. I started to panic, knowing that I was quickly losing the ability to keep up with the belt. And when I let go of the side of the treadmill to decrease my speed, I lost my footing all together and got swept off my feet into a pile on the floor, at the end of the treadmill. Unfortunately, I lost the safety key during the move, so I had a magnet in the safety key spot to be able to start up the belt. Which means, when I was flown to the floor at the end of the belt, the belt continued to run and create a nice line of burn down the back of my neck and back.

Chris happened to be painting in the kitchen and ran in to shut the treadmill off. I was bleeding and hurting pretty bad, and found that I had skinned both my knees, my elbow....and nicely bruised another part of my leg. Well....a 6 minute workout on the first day isn't so bad, is it? :)

Luckily...I hurt myself a lot. So I got back on for another try the next day. Success! No treadmill is gonna keep me from reaching my wedding goal weight. :) I've just learned to increase the incline, rather than the speed. Maybe in a few weeks, I'll be able to get up to the speed I was prepared to start out with!

It's quite different living in a house by myself, rather than an apartment or mother-in-law suite. I'm a bit more jumpy at night. Sleep hasn't come the easiest....and for the first time (ever?)....I'm waking myself up in the middle of the night, convinced I heard something outside. Mind you....I NEVER wake up in the middle of the night....not even to pee! So suddenly waking up at 3:30am for nothing other than my obvious paranoia hasn't been too great for my energy levels lately. This morning it was 6:00am. Thought I heard something....got out of bed to look out windows and check around the house. But there was nothing. I wonder how long this is going to last.

On the humorous side...the longer I live in this house, the more I'm convinced it's an old funhouse. Chris and I have been working on the kitchen the past week or so, and have found that the kitchen floor slightly slopes down to the center of the floor. So the refrigerator can't be placed straight against the wall, and the cabinet doors on the kitchen hutch won't stay closed, due to the forward tilt of the structure. All appliances will have to be rigged for proper usage. Fun, fun!

And to make living in my house even MORE fun....we have to schedule our potty breaks at least an hour apart, as the water pressure is currently not great enough to handle two flushes in a row. Yay! Who wants to come visit???