Whoa! Who's That Chick?!

Whew! It's been a bit of a whirlwind since I posted that I wouldn't be blogging for awhile.

After the break-in it was rather jarring and hard to calm down and be excited about anything.  But it was really easy to be upset about a lot of things. So here is a re-cap of the good and the bad things that happened since I last blogged.

After the break-in we were scrambling around to protect our identities because one of the laptops that was stolen had our recently completed taxes on them, as well as some other documents that were useable for stealing identities. We also had to clean up the mess they left behind, then the mess the police made trying to help catch the guy.

Adam had recently decided to leave working on his PhD full time and find a job. He was on an interview when the bastards broke in in February. A month later he was offered all three jobs that he interviewed for, and he accepted the place he was most excited about. I'm very happy to report that he loves his job and he can't imagine being anywhere else.  He can't believe that he's been there 6 months already.

In March I was selected to interview at a non-profit. At the end of March they offered me the job and I accepted. It is a great job, a new position, and I love it. It's a very small office but we are doing good work. I've been there for 5 months and I can't believe it either! We're doing a lot of exciting things and hopefully there will be room for even more expansion soon!

Around the same time however, we learned some bad news. My Dad had been diagnosed with cancer. Cancer sucks. They caught it very early and he's going to be fine. At his last check he was cancer free. So, he's been cancer free for close to four months now.

Once Adam accepted the offer for his job, we started looking for a house.  We found one, made an offer, then another, the second offer was accepted and after many issues with our loan officer being incompetent, we closed on a single story ranch house with a full basement in a suburb of Lansing on Adam's birthday. It is a fantastic house and we love living here. How we moved in was very complicated, because we had planned to stay out our lease at our rental house on Lansing's east side.

And then it was burglarized again.

The second burglary happened the Monday after Adam's birthday, which also was the Monday after we closed on the house.  We didn't spend another night in the house. We stayed with some friends in East Lansing for two weeks, and moved out the Saturday after the second break-in, and into a storage unit and into the sun room of our new house. The former owners were kind enough to let us move a bunch of our stuff into the sun room while they were still living here.  After two weeks with our friends, we decided we didn't want to impose on our friends for too long, because we weren't sure when we'd be able to get into the new house. So we moved into a dog friendly hotel near our new house for two weeks.

Thanks to my father-in-law, we had installed a security camera system after the first break-in and were able to give the footage to the police which aided them in catching the kid who broke in. I can't say anything else because the court case is still in progress.

It was a very stressful time in our lives and we are glad to be past it.

We've been living here for four months and I think it's starting to sink in that we get to be here, that this place is ours (and the credit union's) and we just can't believe it. We are close to being done with furnishing the house, and there are curtains and shelves up and as many candles as I can get in!


Unfortunately, during this time, I also learned that a childhood friend was losing her second battle with cancer. This has been incredibly hard on her, her family and friends and I am kind of in shock. You don't expect to lose friends when you're 25. I hope that she beats this thing every day, but I cry a lot about it too, when I'm not in numb shock. Cancer really sucks.

That pretty much sums up the highs and lows of the last 6-ish months. I am hoping to get back on a regular schedule of blogging, but it won't be 5 days a week. I also have to fix how this blog looks in Chrome on Mac, because it looks funky.

Hug your loved ones, and tell them you care.

Here's a cute picture of Tesla.

It's fixed!!

Last night I posted a plea for help with the header of Fondant is Gross.  And two people offered their assistance.

First, Niki posted on Facebook, that if I sent her the code and what I wanted she'd fix it for me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to just let someone else do it, because I was so freaking frustrated with it or continue the learning process so I could fix it later, if when I break it trying to do something else..  So, I slept on it.  I awoke with the desire to continue beating my head against the brick wall that is web design.  But I still want to thank Niki for the offer, so thanks Niki!!

Fortunately, I also woke up to an email that would assist me in my fight.  The email was from my friend Charlie (one of our groomsmen) who does some computer support things for a company in another state.  Our relationship is very weird.  I spend a lot of time telling him to shut up, because he deserves it.  I swear, we must be brother and sister in another life.  Many times when we lived in the same state and city and were hanging out, many household objects became weapons of destruction.  One time I ended up falling over the pile of logs next to the wood stove in an attempt to get to the slipper first.  Don't ask.

Another time poor Jeff, Adam's roommate at the time, was on the receiving end of the slipper attack in a rare moment of united weirdness. Long story.

Ah, memories! (Anyone singing CATS here will be shot. I hate that musical. Ugh.)

Aaaaaaaanywaaaaaaay!  Charlie lives with his wife, Rachael, too far away from us, but it is what it is.  Charlie kindly spent some time answering my questions and helping me wrangle and beat the CSS into submission this morning/afternoon.  After several hours of chit chat while CSS. HTML and Blogger put up a valiant fight, Charlie and I finally, finally beat them down.

I couldn't have done it without you, Charlie.  

I would spend a considerable amount of time talking Charlie up now, but since he already has a full-time job, I don't think he would want to be embarrassed on here, but if he tells me otherwise, then I will write more.  Basically, just having him point me at the appropriate W3 Schools CSS tutorials and telling me how to  fix my improper coding (when I tried to adapt the example code to what I needed, and broke the code) was a huge help.

Thanks again and give my love to Rachael!

P.S. Everyone please keep your fingers and toes and eyes and arms and anything else you can cross, crossed, I should hear on the job I interviewed for earlier this week very soon! 

30 Days of Truth - Day 21: (scenario) Your Best Friend is in a Car Accident and You Two Got Into a Fight an Hour Before. What Do You Do?

First, this is my last 30 Days of Truth post and it makes me all caught up!! YAY!

Second, this is so sad!  I don't want any of my friends to get in a car accident :-(

If I argued with one of my besties an hour before they got in a car accident, I would, no matter how severe our argument, get to the hospital immediately. Or their house, wherever they were.  Actually, I'd probably have to have Adam drive me, because I would be so upset.

I would find a way to get there, no matter what, fly, drive, run, anything.  I take my friends and family relationships seriously, I don't screw around with those.  They are the most important people in my life.  Whatever disagreements we have are superficial to life and death.

I'd probably also buy them something, but not anything that could mean anything more than my being there for them. 

I hope I never have to find out though.

30 Days of Truth - Day 20: Your Views on Drugs and Alcohol

I personally have never experimented with drugs.  I have taken drugs prescribed to me for various things and some of those have been... interesting... but I have never purposefully taken a drug - legal or illegal - for a high.

Alcohol is fine in moderation.  I enjoy an alcoholic beverage now and again.  I think some of them are rather tasty.  There are others however that are not so tasty.  The tasty ones are the ones you have to watch out for.  I have been drunk - really, really drunk once.  And by really drunk I mean I have thrown up once from drinking.  Nicole's birthday of this year (2010) Lee made Piña Colada martinis - never again.  I had fun up until I drank too much, then it wasn't fun anymore, everything was fuzzy and moved way too fast.  Never again.

Anyway, I'm not here to judge, but drinking just to get wasted and forget is not the way to go.  You know how you forget when you do that?  You kill brain cells.  Bad news bears.

Also, please, if you choose to get effed up on alcohol and/or drugs, don't get behind the wheel.  Save a life and take a cab. 

And eat Cabin Sticks - YUM.

30 Days of Truth - Day 9: Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted

When I first looked at the title for today this morning, I couldn't think of anyone particular off of the top of my head.  But as I was walking home from Costume Shop and Pita Pit this evening, I had some time to really think about it.

Every year, for as long as I can remember, my family and I have gone on vacation in August, just before school starts up again.  We go to this little campground called PH Hoeft State Park outside of a tiny town called Rogers City in Northern Michigan.  And every year for a number of years we would see another family and all of us kids would play together.  As we grew up, and as our schedules would change when we would go, we didn't see them as often and now we never see them.  Unfortunately, I have kind of stopped wondering if we'll see them there.

We had a lot of fun for those two weeks-ish every year.  We would play cards, run around, ride bikes, play capture the flag, run around the natural forts and just be kids.  Even as we became teens we would still chill out together and have a great time.  There were attempts to keep in touch over the year until the next summer, but it never seemed to work.  I regret this so much, and I can't find them on Facebook, even though I have tried.  And all I can remember is that their parents owned a Sporting Goods store and that their first names were Sam, Chris and Sarah.  I also remember Sam's last name, but in the sake of her privacy, I won't put it here.  All of the rest of the info should be enough for them to be able to know that it's me and them and try and contact me, if they want.

I hope that eventually, we'll re-connect, I don't want to let go completely.