One more thing.

I read that it is nice to have a running log, or blog, to keep track of your training and stuff. I guess it's nice to look back and be able to see progress, etc. Anyway, in case anyone ever wants to check it out, I made one. I'll have to see how it goes and if I keep up with it. It won't be interesting, just a run down of my work-out, nothing fancy. But if you're interested it's http://marathonmissy.blogspot.com/. I felt like I was sort of cheating my naming it "Marathon" Missy since I haven't actually already run one, but I figure it will be even more motivation. :) Plus if anyone doesn't like it, then they can take it up with Spreckles (the new fish who seems more Phirrana then Damsel). :)

I finally made up my mind . . .

No - not about a dress. About running a marathon this fall. You see, for some retarded reason, unknown to even myself, I have always wanted to run a marathon. Why someone would want to put themselves through that I have no idea. Then I started running half marathons. Since moving to STL I've done two and have another one in a few weeks with Marissa (it's September 17th if anyone wants to know - it's in St. Charles if you want to come cheer us on). Then I talked to my friend Kari in April (she ran the New York Marathon!!! How cool is that?!?!?) and she got me really excited about i. Then decided I wanted to run it before I got married.

Well, I was going to the Chicago Marathon in October but I wanted to wait until we got back from Germany to sign up because I wanted to see how my stress fractures in my shins cleared up. Well, they're doing decent, but the Chicago Marathon is full. So, on to find another. After a lot of running to see how my shins are doing and a lot of internet searching, I have finally decided to do the Memphis Marathon on December 2nd. I hope it won't be too cold then and I won't be miserable for the race and I hope the training runs aren't too cold either, but if I want to do it, now's the time. Now that I've made up my mind and am not waivering around anymore I am getting really excited! I can't wait for the half to be over so I can really start training for the marathon! Don't worry - I'm sure I'll keep everyone posted. :) If I like it I think I'll do the Nashville one in April (after the wedding). Sounds fun, right? Yeah, right!

It's that time again.

Fall. Football. Cold weather.

Wait! Hang on! Already? It's still AUGUST!!

Yup, folks, that's right. It's all here in Cold Corn Country. First, football. I used to always think of football as an after Labor Day thing. Not anymore. Football officially started tonight with South Carolina v. Miss. State - yeah, there were other games on too, but no one really cared. All we cared about was watching Spurrier play. Too bad we couldn't "watch" the game, since we have "baby cable" and we don't get ESPN (we get ABC, NBC, CBS, TBS, FOX, WB and that's about it - only $5 a month though!!! We rarely watch TV.). I would seriously trade every channel but one of the big four (so I can still get the news) all for ESPN. I would even pay extra for a "sports package" in order to just get ESPN, but nope, can't do that. You have to get the HUGE cable package to get ESPN and in order to get any extra sports channels you have to first have the huge package and then pay more. So it's not happening, we're not getting ESPN, so we had to "watch" the game on ESPN.com's GameCast - for the Gator games we just go watch them somewhere. Anyway, cable companies, if you're out there, here's what I want - ABC and ESPN, and I'll even pay $10 a month for it! That's it. No more channels. Anyway, football's back. Gators play Girl Scout Troop 109 on Saturday and FSU opens with Miami on Monday night! I LOVE football season!

Second, chilly weather. "Chilly?" you ask - it's only AUGUST! Yes, fall. For three days in a row now I've worn a jacket/coat and long sleeves. We went to the Cardinals v. Marlins games on Tuesday (with Meghan, Danny and Elizabeth - thanks for the tickets!!) and Wednesday (ate yummy pretzels with Marissa and Cassidy) and both nights it was quite chilly. I sat on my hands most of the game because they were cold and that was with a jacket on. At work it's even been a bit too nippy to sit outside for lunch. I can't believe it's this chilly already and we haven't even passed Labor Day.

And finally, fall. Yup, Labor Day is only a few days away, marking the official end to all things fun, laid back and well, fun, in the north. Summer is considered over and fall begins it's slow decline to winter. Everything cool closes at Labor Day and from here on into Memorial Day you pretty much just work and try to make it through the winter. While I love the feeling of briskness in the air and I really love Halloween and pumpkin carving (check out the carvings from last year on the webpage), fall is terribly depressing as it only leads to the end of Daylight's Savings Time (I see no reason it should end - it makes my life so happy) and winter. And everyone knows how I feel about winter. I HATE the cold! HATE really isn't a strong enough word for my dislike of winter. I am miserable, cranky and more miserable in the winter. Luckily I can rejoice that Cody is open to moving to a warmer climate at some point. :)

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day! We're off to Wisconsin for Cody's cousin's wedding in Appleton (it's near Green Bay). It should be a great time. We get to see his mom's side of the family - his Aunt Jackie (amazing lady - and hillarious!), Uncle Fred, Uncle Harold, hopefully Kristy, Cory and Cory's family, and Bev and Matt (very cool guy our age). It should be nice to get to hang out and get away from STL for a few days. It's just too bad we're not going somewhere warmer. :)

New Pictures.

More new pictures of Malhia on the webpage!

Maliha!!!

I finally got to see the baby elephant on Sunday!!! She is so amazingly cute!
Check out the adorable picture! She's about 3 feet tall and 350 lbs. She was born on August 2nd (Bo's birthday!), but they've kept her away from the public until last Friday. Unfortunately she is only outside from 9am to 11am and then 4pm to 7pm, so I didn't get to see her while my mom was here. So after we took her to the airport, we rode our bikes to The Zoo (we only live about a 10-15 minute bike ride from The Zoo) and checked her out! Just so cute!!! We found out today that the naming contest resulted in her being named Maliha - I voted daily for this name so I was happy!

Wedding Dresses.

Well, a quick update. My mom came in town last Thursday, we hit four dress shops that day. Friday, we got our hairs cut (Mommy cut over 9 inches!!) and then hit up a few more shops. Saturday, we got up yet again, gathered my friend, Marissa and hit up three more shops for a second shot at a few dresses. When all was said and done we think we've narrowed it down to five dresses (see http://www.cody-missy.com/Aug06F.htm). There are seven listed, but I think we've knocked off two. Then we found one more was discontinued and I probably can't order it, so now it's likely down to four. Yes, that's not a choice yet, but at least it's progress - it's much better then having 20 I liked and couldn't narrow down at all. :)
As for the voting, I'm still tallying all the votes! Thanks so many people for voting! So far dresses #2, 4 and 6 are tied with the most votes (11 each)!

Wedding Dresses.

Busy right now but wanted to post the most recent wedding dresses. I think I've narrowed it down to 7, probably five. I put them on the website so everyone can look at them and provide an opinion. My mom was in town this weekend and we pretty much did nothing but dress shop - crazy stuff. I just don't think I'll ever find "the one." Anyway more on that later. Let me know what you think.

Game Over.

Well, we worked and worked in all our house "zones" and got the house as good as it's going to get before my mom comes. She gets in here in about 9.5 hours so we figure we might as well rest, get some work done (at work in the morning, not more work at home) and what's done is done and what isn't we'll hide. :) We got the downstairs done and part of the upstairs but none of the spare room - since that's where we dumped everything it looks like a tornado hit it but unless she wants to (a) play on Cody's computer (with Linux), (b) play with my scrapbooks, (c) work on on the gym thing or (d) do the treadmill or bike, she really has no reason to be chilling in there. And if she wants to do (c) or (d) she can always go to my gym as me for free. :)
So, for the next three days Cody and I are sharing a bathroom. He likes the downstairs one and I like the upstairs one - it works much better like that anyway. :) Not that we don't share well, or don't share bathrooms at all, just that he likes his stuff downstairs and I like mine up. Plus, he likes the shower downstairs (it's just a shower stall, no bathtub), where I'm a more traditional, want my bathtub and space girl.
On another note we got a new salt water fish today. He's pitch black like no fresh water fish you'll ever see with two white dots. It's just a little cheap Damsel fish but he's cute - I'd hate to buy a $65 nice salt water fish and have him die on me. I really wanted to name whatever fish I got "Nemo" - yes, I know I'm SO original - but now I don't think it fits him (he's NOT a clownfish - those are at least $20). I'm thinking maybe "Spot" or just name him "Bubbles" again. But I don't think that would be fair to our lost Bubbles. "Mr. Pickles" is already taken so that is out of the picture. Any name ideas for my new fish? :)
Well, better get some rest before Mommy gets here and we go wedding dress shopping mad. I am determined to find a dress this weekend!

Cody emailed me this today.

Another reason I love my new computer!

I love my new computer! First, I swear the monitor is bigger then our TV (yes, this is an exaggeration, but we do have very small TV's - on purpose). Second, it's wicked fast. I'm mean super duper wicked fast. I hava tendency to have a lot of programs running at one time (7 internet explorers, outlook express (yes, my computer friends, I do know it is a crappy program, but I like it so leave me alone about using it), Word, Excel (wedding guest list is always open for edits), and Front Page) - my old laptop would freeze up and run really slow. But not new super fast computer - it's great. Third, it's super light. I love laptops and I love light ones even more. Forth, the keyboard rocks. I type a lot, thus I love keyboards that are nice. This one is nice.
I figured out even another reason to love it tonight. As the whole world knows, I take a lot of pictures. I mean, A LOT. On the old computer, I would have to find my cord, hook the camera up to a USB port and download them using a very crappy Kodak Gallery program. First, the cord was always missing. Second, the camera had to stay on throughout the download so if the batteries were low it would shut itself off and all the pictures wouldn't download. Third, since I don't use Kodak as my editor, I would have to download to that program (because I have a Kodak camera), and then move them to Picassa - I love Picassa. Now, I just take my SD card out of my camera, put it directly into a slot on my computer and instantly the pictures upload to Picassa. No cords, no downloading, nothing. Just inset card into slot and done. FABULOUS!

Our First Nice Dinner

Cody and I are kind of weird when it comes to eating out. We typically don't go out to eat a lot and when we do we like good food (not fancy but relatively good for you -I'm pretty picky about what I eat out) but aren't really into fancy stuff. Our favorite restaurants are Crazy Bowls and Wraps, Subway and Bandana's (it's southern BBQ). Cody loves BW3 (Buffalo Wild Wings now, I think), but there's really nothing I like to eat there. Our average restaurant bill is probably around $20. We're usually just not into spending a ton of money on going out to eat. Going out with friends to bars, is another story, as we can drop quite a bit of money there. Anyway, the last "nice" restaurant we probably ate at was Anthony's in Tallahassee where he took me for Senior Prom in high school. He took me to a nice place here when I was up visiting but they served pizza which knocks it off my list of "nice" places. :)
Anyway, we've been trying to get together with some old friends for quite some time and finally all found a date we were free - Friday. Someone wanted to try a new place in the Central West End - Savor. I was quite excited to get to eat somewhere different and nice. We got their early for the drink specials - two for one wine pours and $5 martinis. I got a great Reisling from the Mosul river area in Germany (I'm a HUGE fan of German wine - sure, their beer is fine, but their wine is fabulous!) and Cody got a regular Martini (with Tanqueray). Cody, of course, liked the martini because it was almost pure booze, I thought it was one of the grossest things ever. I took a sip and then rubbed my tounge to try to get the taste off. :) Anyway, after drinks was dinner. I got an AMAZING salmon with a crap stuffing stop and Cody got some kind of pork thing with great mashed potatoes (but of course they didn't call them "mashed potatotes" they called them something much more fancy but that's what they were). I really enjoyed it. It was great to see our friends - they were two couples we used to see a lot more but just with life being busy we haven't gotten to see as much. We got to talk a lot about weddings since one couple is getting married in March, us in April and the third in May. Of course the other two girls have already found their dresses, but not me! It was a really great time. We did spend more on dinner then I think we ever have before (we did order a bottle of wine too with dinner), but I think one in a while, it's worth it. Now if we went every weekend and spent a ton of money on dinner I think we would have problems, but every now and then it's nice to go somewhere insanely nice and fancy and share good food with good friends.

Float Trip!

In reverse chronological order, on to Saturday's events (those I suppose on the blog this will read in chronological order).
Saturday we went float tripping. Or on a float trip as most people say - I love the phrase "float tripping" though. Anyway, for those not from Missouri, let me explain. Down in southern-ish MO, there are a bunch of "rivers." These are not like the Florida rivers I'm used to like the Suwanne, St. Johns, Appalacicola, etc. They are more like glorified streams, just deep enough in most places for a canoe to travel. You really can't boat on these "rivers" because they're just too shallow. Anyway, people here like to get a bunch of beer, Jell-O shots, booze, whatever will possibly get them the drunkest the quickest (lest I remind you I live in the state that is the nation's leader in meth so these locals like their substances), rent canoes/kayaks/rafts and float down these "rivers" - they call it going on a "float trip."
Anyway, it's actually quite a fun time once you get over the drunk/obnoxious locals. The rivers are really pretty and it's nice and relaxing to get outside and get some sun (something I sorely miss living in Missouri). I typically like to go "float tripping" on Sunday's to minimize the locals disturbance, but since soccer has been every Sunday it just hasn't worked out. So we got together with Dude and went canoe and kayaking yesterday on the Big Piney river. It was a great time. Everyone got a good bit of sun and Cody and Dude got a good bit of drinking in (I was the driver for those two fools - lucky me). We managed to gather quite a few rocks for the turtle tank as well as about 8 minnows for the tank. They will end up eating some of them (which is fine since we forget to feed them all the time), but some will live happily with the turtles.
We did have a good bit of shallow parts/mild rapids due to the draught we have going on and we even managed to tip the canoe over, cooler and possessions included, once. We were going through a particularly swift part, hit a branch, the canoe and everything in it tipped over. We all got dragged along the rocks since the water was only about a foot and a half deep and lost everything down the river. Cody grabbed the canoe, got it on shore. I chased the cooler, kept it closed and got it on shore farther down and Dude got the kayak and collected all our floating belongings. So far all we've realized we're missing is one of my shoes. Not a huge loss - I have dozens of flip-flops. :) So, we're all a bit scraped, bruised and cut up today but it was all in good fun. :) It's a good story to tell at least.

Cardinal Sin

Since I've been told my blogs are too long, I'm going to break this one into several installments. The first is our adventure in Wal-Mart today.
First one of my biggest pet peaves, when it comes to myself, is making the same mistake twice, or three times or even more. I have no idea why I tend to do something stupid and then months later think it's a great idea and won't be stupid this time. Yeah right. Anyway, case in point - going to Wal-Mart on a Sunday evening.
I would love to get all my errands done on the weekdays. Every week I say I am going to save the fun stuff for the weekend and do all the tedious errands during the week. But sure enough, every week we end up at Wal-Mart Sunday afternoon, after Cody's soccer game. The Wal-Mart we got to is horrible on Sundays. It's packed, they're totally out of everything I ever need and it's just a stupid madhouse. But once, a while ago, we didn't make it there until the evening, not the afternoon as usual - it was 10 times worse. Absolutely horrible and I vowed never to do it again. I also vowed last year never to shop at Wal-Mart in late August/early September because of the insane "back to school" shoppers. I hate back to school shoppers.
Anyway, today Cody's team played their second playoff game, won, and then had to play in the Championship Game. Good news is they won the Championship for the first time, bad news was that put us leaving soccer later and thus getting to Wal-Mart around 7 or 7:30. It was miserable. The play was a wreck. They were out of most of the items on my list (yes, I'm a dork and go to the grocery store and Wal-Mart with a list), including fish filters, cat litter, toilet paper (the brand I like at least), the soap I like, etc. So, I committed my Cardinal Sin of making the same mistake twice (or more) - I should have known better then to go to Wal-Mart Sunday evening. Never again. And if I have to then I'm going to the one in Kirkwood and not in Brentwood (for all you STL people you'll get why).
On a less frustrating note, we went to Target afterwards and it was an amazingly peaceful experience. Plus they have this super cute gray pinstriped suit for $70. Unfortunately I left my giftcards at home and will have to go back - hopefully when Mommy visits this week - and try it on.
Congrats to Cody's soccer team, Tap This, for being the Champions in the Budsports Co-Ed Soccer League! Great job!

Back to School.

So, I'm debating going back to school - again. I'm not sure exactly why (maybe I should figure that out before paying even more money for a useless education), but I want to get as much education as I may need before I get too old to go back or have kids and not have enough time/money, etc. And I figure I may not always want to do law so I'm considering things that might expand my career possibilities. I think every time I get far enough out from being in school I miss it and want to go back, hence the law degree (and the inability to spell - is it "hense" or "hence"???). :)
For instance, I can get a Masters in Math, then I could teach math (in college, not K-12) or stay in law. I could go for a few more classes and get a Bachelor's in Engineering, then I could do engineering stuff if I ever so desire, or I could sit for the Patent Bar. I could go for a Masters in Computer Science (provided my minor in CS will get me into a program without too many prereqs), then I could teach math or computers, or sit for the Patent Bar. I could get an MBA, then I could do law or do law type business things. So many options. And such expensive options. I was looking at UF's online MBA program and knowing how affordable undergrad was I figured it would be as well. Nope. $39000 for the two year, online MBA program. Not what I call cheap. If I do go back to school, I would not be leaving work. I would want to do an evening/weekend/online program. It would be neat if Cody and I could do a program together and we could both get a degree, help each other out and have Boeing pay for his! Of course we'd still have to pay for mine since, aside from a great office with a view of Busch Stadium (and my rockin' secretary who can spell better then anyone you've ever met), I really get no perks at my job. None. Not even free internet time. But that's another story for another time. Anyway, that's my current debate.
Oh, today's "zone" was supposed to be both bathrooms, but I only finished the upstairs one. I figured we could not touch it until my mom gets here and only use the downstairs one and then I can just clean the bathroom downstairs right before she gets here. :) I did get both fish tanks in the living room clean though. So now we have all clean fish tanks - not counting the turtle tank though. :)

Is it murder if you kill a rock?

Tonight's "zone" was our bedroom. We picked that since, after the living room, it's pretty much the easiest room in the house to clean. Since it's crazy hot upstairs in the summer, to save on electricity, we sleep downstairs on the futon in the Boy Room - plus Cody swears the futon is better for his back. So the bedroom is pretty much just a big closet all summer. Anyway, we wanted an easy room tonight because (1) we're generally lazy if allowed to be, and (2) tonight was Party in the Park and we figured we'd better go, lest they cancel it again.
A quick Party in the Park lesson - for those of you not from STL, people go crazy here in the summer - the winter sucks so bad they try to fit in everything cool and fun into the few short summer months. One of those fun things is Party in the Park - it's just what it sounds like - in Shaw Park in Clayton (a really nice part of St. Louis) they set up a band, some food and beverage (read: beer, wine and booze) vendors and throw a party from 5 pm until 8pm - it's a sort of after work, extended outdoor happy hour. Anyway, it's the second Wednesday of each month and this summer it seems it always storms on the second Wednesday of the month so they cancel it and move it back to the next Wednesday. Unfortunately in July, the third Wednesday was an amazing heat advisory so they cancelled it all together for July. So we figured we better get one in before they're over or they cancel another one. So after work we headed up there and met up with friends - as usual a good time was had by all - especially since it was amazingly nice outside tonight!
Okay, back to cleaning. So tonight was our bedroom, which consisted mostly of putting away the multiple baskets of clean clothes and gathering the baskets of dirty ones. Then we put up my "pet net" a net type contraption that hangs from the ceiling/wall to put stuffed animals - yes, I still have a ton of stuffed animals and just not enough room to store them so the "pet net" works great - I get to keep my keepsakes and they're out the way, but not just sitting in bags in the basement.
Finally we had to deal with the salt water tank. Up until January (yes, JANUARY, 8 months ago), we had a salt water fish in the tank, Bubbles, who lived with just herself and her live rocks. You see, in salt water tanks, you put rocks that are alive - they actually are members of the salt water community and contribute to the tank environment. Well, in January Bubbles died - she was a few years old so she lived a good fish life - but instead of getting around to getting another fish we just left the rocks in the tank to live by themselves. Of course, in the past 8 months I haven't done much to keep that tank up to par, so it's sort of fallen in disrepair, if you will - until today while on my cleaning binge I decided we needed to do something with the tank. We had a few choices: (1) clean the tank (a big pain), change the water (an even bigger pain because now that I live in the Midwest I have to MAKE saltwater), and get a new fish (which then I would have to feed) or (2) be happy with the three tanks we already have, clean the tank and put it in the basement. The problem with (2) is what to do with the rocks. I would pretty much have to "kill" them. To "kill" rocks you either put them in bleach or put them in the sun outside a few days and that pretty much kills off anything living on them. For whatever stupid reason I just hated the thought of "killing" my rocks.
First, as an old anti-war friend described me during our war discussions, I'm pretty much a pacifist and hate killing - including rocks (thanks Adam if you ever read this!). I guess I could have donated them to a pet store to live in their tanks of for them to resell, but then it's like taking your cat or dog to the pound because you didn't think hard enough about the responsiblities of pet ownership when you got him/her and are now too lazy to take care of it. I didn't want to be THAT person. Second, live rocks are expensive and I just knew if I killed mine then I would decide in two weeks that I wanted to reset up the salt water tank and I would want to buy new rocks.
So, what did we do? We spent the better part of a few hours, draining the water, cleaning the tank, making new salt water and setting up the tank all nice and clean again, all so I wouldn't have to "kill" my rocks. Now my rocks are happily living in clean water, with a clean filter and light system. Yippe skippy rocks. So hopefully this week I'll find myself a salt water fish store in St. Louis (someone in the Midwest has to have salt water tanks, right?) and buy a new fish. On a less pain in the butt note, salt water fish are crazy beautiful and I look forward to picking out a very pretty one. :) Maybe I'll name him Bubbles 2 or Nemo. I LOVE Nemo!
Now, remind me who ever said rocks can't be pets??

Missy's House Cleaning/Prepare For Guests Strategy

My mom is coming to visit next week, actually in exactly 10 days, to hang out and help with the wedding. Mostly, I need her help finding a wedding dress, so I called whining and begged her to come help. Our objective? Hit as many bridal boutiques as necessary to find "the one" or at least "the good enough one because we're tired of looking at dresses." Anyway, whenever a family member comes to visit I get very excited. We don't get to see our family often and they get to see our humble home even less often, so I get excited that they're coming to see us in our house and our city. And I want everything to look as nice as humanly possible for their visit. You see, they get to see our siblings houses all the time but ours only once in a blue moon, so I want to make a good impression and at least trick them into thinking we keep our house this nice all the time. So I have a plan when family is visiting.
I divide the house/property into rooms, or "zones," if you will. And there are 10 "zones" - Living Room, Dining Room, Kitchen, Boy Room, Bedroom, Spare Room, Bathrooms, Hallways and Stairs, Basement, and Yard (front and back) and Porch. So each day I have a list of things I want to do in the "zone" I have assigned to that day. For instance, today's "zone" was the Living Room. So I came home from work, painted the trim around the window (the rest of the room was painted last June but for some reason I hadn't finished the trim yet), got started on the trim around the doorway (actually Cody did this part), washed the couch covers (in a feble attempt to remove the cat hair), vacuumed the rug, cleaned/dusted the coffee table, book cases and fish tank stands, reorganized the bookcases totally (we have an enourmous amount of books filling bookcases in ever corner of this room), swept and washed the wood floors, cleaned the blinds on the front windown, and then just general straigtening. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to put the second coat on the doorway trim or clean the two fishtanks, so that will have to eat into another "zones" time later in the week. I can't wait until I have all these little chores done and the house looks super nice.
We also found out that Cody's parents are coming to visit next month! I'm super excited because they came up with us last July when we moved my U-Haul of stuff into the house and did a great job helping us paint, but they haven't seen the house since so they've missed the house looking like an actual lived in house! I can't wait to show them all we've done and they can see how we've organized everything. I think they'll really like what we've done with the place - especially since the last time they were here there were boxes in every room and we were still sleeping on the floor. :)
Well, off to shower after a totally grueling 45 mintues on the eliptical today. I don't know how 45 minutes on that damn thing can seem harder then running 7 miles. Go figure.
p.s. Wow I love the new computer - the monitor is ginormous!

Palpable Happiness

Wow - I get a new computer and I go blog crazy. One more for good measure - a quick update. This past week was crazy busy, as they usually go for us. I worked my butt off redoing our dining room and Cody had to work a lot of extra time at work. I got the entire chair rail up, nailed in, caulked and painted all by myself. All I really have left to do in the dining room is paint one section of the chair rail and one coat of paint on the doorway leading to the living room. Yippe! Another project almost done!!
Saturday we had the SEC Softball Tournament with the Gator Club. Cody played on the team, after not playing softball/baseball for about 10 years. He was actually quite good - being a natural athlete and all. After the tourney (which the Gators won I might add), we headed to Greg's pool party. More fun in the sun! Saturday night we headed downtown for the LIVE concert at Live on the Levee. Yes, we've seen them in concert quite a few times before, but as usual, it was a great show. There's just soemthing about seeing that band in concert that is just really amazing and moving. They do a really great show and it really gets the crowd moving. After the show we watched the always wonderful firework showcase. Sometimes happiness is practically palpable.
Sunday Cody's soccer team had the first game of their playoffs. It was a hard fought victory, but a victory nonetheless. Great job guys! Now they play next week for the Bud Sports championship! The rest of the day we ran errands, did chores, etc.
Today I went wedding dress shopping . . . . again. Still no luck. I think I'm destined never to find "the one" and just have to settle on something that looks decent. We'll have to see once my mom comes up. After dress shopping, Marissa and I ran 7 miles in preparation for the half marathon next month. Getting closer . . .

Happy 10 Years!

10 years. Wow - that's a long damn time. As a matter of fact, that's how long Cody and I have known each other this second time around. Second time around? You see, we first met on the Deerlake Middle School 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. He and his friends were on the same bus as my friends (hey there Meghan, Christine and Rachel!!!) and I on the trip up to D.C. Anyway, I had a HUGE crush on him so we sort of middle school flirted a bit here and there on the trip. Actually my friends and I pretty much stalked him and his friends because some of my friends also had crushes on some of his. I have about a zillion pictures of his butt from the trip because we were always following him and his friends around taking their pictures. Okay, we were lame. :) I do have one really great picture of him on the bus with his huge glasses. As soon as I figure out if my scanner still works, I'll scan it onto the website. :) Anyway, we even had a bet on the way back to Tally as to who can stay awake the longest and wrote notes the whole way back - I think I even have some of the notes. Anyway, upon returning to middle school, he went back to his friends, I back to mine and we really never talked again.
So that leads us to the second time around. 10 years ago this week, I got a job working at the grocery store where he worked. I had already worked for the store (Bruno's for those curious) at another location so got hired at his location working with him in Customer Service - where you buy lottery tickets and make returns. Anyway, I hated him because he didn't remember me. I refused to talk to him or really even be nice to him. I was really mad/hurt that he didn't even remember me when I had such a huge crush on him back in the day - come to learn later that it wasn't personal, it's just Cody and his faulty memory. :) So, when I first started working there not only did I hate him for not remembering me but I was dating someone else. When that relationship sort of fell apart, I noticed that Cody wasn't such a bad person after all. He trained me one Friday night on the office closing procedures (I was "promoted" from Customer Service to Office) and was really quite a funny guy. Anyway, jump forward a bit and he came into the store one evening while I was filling in as cashier and said he had to see the movie "Romeo and Juliet" for extra credit for English and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Obviously I said yes. To be continued . . . .

New Computer!

After months and months and months of pleading my case, I finally talked Cody into letting me get a new laptop! Actually, I just saved and saved my mileage checks until he couldn't argue with me anymore about the necessity of a laptop. You see, I get paid mileage for every out of town docket I go to so in the past I usually put half in savings for us and the other half I spent on whatever I wanted - clothes, etc. But since the old laptop finally broke, I've been saving my mileage checks for a new laptop. Well the time finally came and Cody went and got it this morning. You see, Cody is a desktop guy. I'm a laptop girl. Though he probably uses my laptop about 90% more then he does his desktop, he sees a desktop as a necessity and a laptop as a toy. I'm the opposite. I don't see why anyone in the world would want a dumb desktop - they're practically useless (especially ours since it's upstairs where it's currently too hot to even hang out and plan on the computer) and totally immobile. Laptops just rock. They're mobile, I can take it around the house whereever I need it. They're just cute too. :) In any event, I got a new laptop and am thrilled. . . though Cody's being insane about making sure we're careful with the hinges (I have a thing with hinges - they always break around me - cell phones and laptops being the big ones). :)

More Paper Towel Wisdom

A while ago I posted about my cheap-brand paper towels (Sparkle, for those interested) and the wisdom they have recently attemted to pass on to their users. Well, I bought some more paper towels and low and behold they have more wisdom to empart. Here goes:

"If you love life, life will love you back."
- Arthur Rubinstein

"The greatest happiness in the world is to make others happy."
- Luther Burbank

"With every rising of the sun, think of your life as just begun."
- Anon

Thanks, cheap Sparkle towels.

I'm a home improvement godess!

It really hit me right before we left for Germany that we'd lived in our house for a year now and still haven't finished painting or unpacking and really hadn't gotten a start on all the projects I had such high hopes of accomplishing the first few months in the house. Life just got busy and there was always something else to do . . . . until this last weekend. Friday night I decided that come hell or high water, I was determined to get something done on the house. So we went out Friday night and started working bright and early Saturday morning on the dining room. Since we bought the house I knew I wanted to do something different with the dining room, but didn't really solidify any ideas for a while. Cody was actually the one who thought of the idea for the dining room paint decor and we actually bought the paint, I think, last Labor Day, and until now just hadn't gotten around to it. Anyway, Saturday we primed and painted the dining room. Add in Sunday in there and we primed the whole room, painted the top part a tanish colour and put three coats of burgundy/red on the bottom. There will be a white chair rail where the colours meet. Oh, and yes, I said THREE coats of red. The first coat was just awful and the second made the room look very Aztec or something - like a Mexican restraunt - but the third coat made a nice deep shade of burgundy which really adds a richness to the tan and white in the rest of the room. So after working so much on that project I was obsessed. After work I came home and painted all the baseboards and trim around the doorways white to match the chair rail (which we picked out but haven't purchased yet). The house is a zillion years old so not only does it have a ton of trim, but it's very thick trim. I'll have to post a before and after picture when I get the chair rail up. Anyway, in line with my general dorkiness, that has been what I've been up to - redoing our dining room so it looksl ike grown-ups live here instead of a bunch of lazy college kids (no offense to my college friends). Next up is to paint the entry way/hall way, then tile the back splash in the kitchen, redo the carpet/hardwoods, and then redo the downstairs bathroom. :) Sounds fun, huh? Oh, the joys of homeownership.

On another note, I was all excited this weekend because it was tax free weekend in MO (on "school" items), so I was going to go ahead and get a new laptop while there was no tax (for you Florida people, our tax here is over 8%). So we searched the ads to find one I liked, that was cheap enough but still nice enough. We knew we wanted at least 1024 MB of memory, a fast processor and as much hard drive space as I could get (with all my pictures and music). We finally found one we liked at Circuit City on sale, but before running out to buy it we decided to check online at Dell first. Turns out with Cody's Dell discount (another Boeing bonus), it would actually be cheaper for us (including shipping and tax) to buy one on Dell. So it looks like we're going to finally get me a new laptop, just have to pick it out and order it now! :) Yipee! No more ghetto broken hinge!!!

Website Update

The website, www.cody-missy.com is now officially updated with new decor, minus the wedding section which my brother is working on. Also available are recent pictures for July and August, including last night's soiree at Double D's. Enjoy!

Flash.

If you wonder why my house is a mess and I never get anything done, today is a prime example. Today's schedule: Wake at 7 am. Leave for work at 7.30 am (Yes, my goal is to wake up, get dressed and ready to go and out the door in less then 30 minutes - I pride myself on my low-maintenance mornings). Work all day. 5:30 leave work. 5:50 arrive home, change into work-out clothes. 6:00 leave for gym. 6:10-7:10 Cardio Kickboxing class. 7:30 arrive home, call Cody back from the three "missed calls," find out everyone is going to Shafly Brewery (a local St. Louis brewery - awesome Hefeweizen) to watch "Flash Gordon," find out movie starts at 8pm. 7:30-7:45 eat quick dinner (frozen salmon cooked in microwave), take shower because I was stinky, and get in car. 8:00 arrive at Shafly, watch "Flash," laugh uncontrollably. 10:30 pm arrive home, having not done laundry, dishes, vauccuming, sweeping, yard work, or any other possible task I had on the never ending "to do" list. You know though, damn life is good and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Peace.

I'm writing earlier then normal tonight because Cody is coming home soon and we're going to watch a movie (a rarity in our house as we never ever have time for such things) and hang out (another rarity lately with his work and social schedule and my always seemingly conflicting social schedule). But as I was about to take a shower, snacking on graham crackers and Neutella (thanks again Germans for the Neutella - wonderfully delicious!), I realized that amid all this craziness in our lives - work, the house, working out, friends - there really are moments of peace sometimes. They often don't last long (the cat jumped on the counter trying to eat my Neutella, ruining my peaceful moment) as we move to another task or event, but it's nice to know they're out there when you need them.
In other events, it's the kitties birthday's today. They were all born right around four years ago. I got them four or five weeks later, when they were just little bitty things. I told everyone at work today they were all related and no one belived me (Bumpis, the fat one, looks nothing like Wiggles, the skinny co-dependent kitty, or Mr. Pickles for that matter), until I explained that the vet told me that one cat can have a litter of kittens with different dads. I guess the kitties mommy was a little hussy. And Tubby's (aka Bumpis) dad must have been really fat and fluffy. Thinking they are four years old makes me think of four years ago. I had just come back from a whirlwind summer in Europe. Amazing trip - did a lot of thinking and growing up. I also decided to swear off boys forever. I was single and planned to stay that way forever (sort of like saying "I'm never going to drink again" after a long night out with Jose Quervo). So I decided I might want a cat. That thought of possibly getting one cat (to which I am deathly allergic) one day in the future ended up being three kittens. Yeah, I'm a sucker for "They were abandoned. If no one adopts them then they will be put to sleep. One cat will need a playmate while you're in school/work all day. But you wouldn't want to break up a set of three sisters would you? They should stay together." Alas, three cats and four years later I sit here writing about their birthday. So, happy birthday furballs! May you live many more years tormenting Cody (he *swears* he hates the cats - but loves them more then he'll ever admit - proof? See "Mr. Pickles Page" on the website) and making my eyes itch!