Category: Random

Get Organized

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If I had the option of becoming a horder or death, I would choose death. My cleanliness and organization skills border on OCD and honestly, I’m ok with that. I’m ok with the fact that I was known for having my own vacuum in the sorority house – people may have made fun, but when Mom and Dad were coming to visit, I was their best buddy. I like to know exactly where everything is but I never want to actually see it. I want everything to be functional, organized and pretty.

Thankfully, I married a man who feels the same way. Maybe not to quite the same level, but he has his moments and if I strike at the right time, I can coordinate his urge to organize with a place that needs to be organized and BAM! A beautifully organized space.

That said, we have an area of our house that tends to fall apart often. Our garage is a constant project. It’s contents are eclectic as they are evolving and therefore keeping it organized is a full-time job. That said, it was in desperate need of a clean up

What could be so bad behind such a pretty door?

Ooooh, yeah. That’s bad.

Yikes….

I forgot to snap pictures before Peter started to hang the fancy new, modular peg boards I found so pretend they aren’t there. It doesn’t make it  much better, but still. So after Peter’s hard work and some ruthless organizing, we have this:

And this!

And this!

Geeze, you’d think we go to the beach far more often than once a year….

So until the next time all the crap piles up and the garage needs a face lift, it’s so pretty!

The Good, The Bad and The Punishment

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I came home to find this yesterday:

The good news? Bear’s breath has never been fresher.

The bad news? I have no idea if this stuff will kill him. But since it was yesterday and he’s his bad/usual self, I think we’re in the clear.

The punishment? The EARS

“Whatever. You think you’re sooo funny. First this stupid haircut and now the freaking bunny ears. Laugh it up guys. Laugh. It. Up. Because I’m so peeing on the rug tonight.”

The Wine-o that I Know

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It seemed fitting that I imbibe a glass (or two) of wine while I write this post (p.s. it’s the evening when I’m writing. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m drinking wine out of a coffee cup, thankyouverymuch).

My mom and step dad left for Montana, their summer home away from home. They run a guest ranch (www.hubya.com) just outside of Yellowstone and it’s the time of year that I hate when they go back to start getting ready for the season. We visit around the 4th of July and meet my mom in San Diego in the late summer, but that’s it until October each year.

The good part about them going? They unload their refrigerator, pantry and most importantly their wine collection on us! I left my mom’s house the other day with not only office supplies for the family business we run, but a ridiculous amount of wine. Not to mention the delicious things they purchase at Costco and AJ’s are now happily waiting to be ingredients in our next meal. The wine consists of either labels they’ve bought and decided they didn’t like (never had that problem myself) or gifts of a vintage they don’t prefer. But despite their origin, they are all happily at home in our modest wine rack.

While the influx of fermented grapes is wonderful, there are a few down sides. The first is we now have a great excuse to pop the cork more nights a week. And while this makes the night very enjoyable, my productive projects that I schedule for after Baylie is asleep like ironing, blogging, mopping, etc, are shot. While wine fueled posts are generally funny, they usually prove to be too much work to edit the following morning. And wine fueled mopping is dicey at best.

The second problem is that  is that I think the cheap wine we usually buy is a little self conscious. Peter pointed out that one of the bottles from my mom was from 2002. It occured to me that I never pay as much attention to the date on the label as the number on the price tag.  Therefore the bottle(s) of Rex Goliah ($4.99) is feeling a bit inferior to the bottle of Monte’s Alpha (not a clue on the price since I shop the shelves from my waist down) that I’m quite certain cost at least four times that.

But! Not to worry my pretties. I will drink you all and enjoy you equally. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell you.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

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Remember this?

The  beautiful lettuce table that Peter built for me in January? Well! Now it looks like this:

It’s lush with lettuce and strawberries! I feel like our gardening adventures are serving their purpose too – when I asked Bay if she would like a strawberry, she ran out the back door to the plant! The lettuce is very tasty too. We’ve had salads at every meal.

The Freesia  and Star Jasmine scent the backyard with their sweet smell. We have blooms and fruit on the tomato plants and the Ocotillo is in full bloom too. And I also found a new addition, a tomatillo plant! Can’t wait for Peter’s delicious salsa verde. In short, our yard is smelling and tasting pretty delicious right now.

Freesia

Jasmine

The Ocotillo. It’s the lone survivor from our remodel. To give you an idea of its size, the wall next to it is 15 feet tall.

Blooms up close

Yummy heirloom tomatoes

Tomatillo – heloooo green enchiladas!

It’s The Little Things

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It’s the little things in life that bring the most pleasure. Sometimes it’s hard to see those little things, or even remember what they are, but once in a while, I get smacked in the face by one and I remember how great it is.

Last week, Baylie went to “Camp Mamie” which means she goes to her Godmother’s house to play for a little while and I set out to run a few errands.

On my way back from the last stop, a song I haven’t heard for a while came on the Ipod. The Killers’ All These Things That I’ve Done makes me think of the summer before Peter’s third year of law school. We were in Phoenix while he did a summer internship for a law firm. It was almost time to pack up and drive back to DC. I woke up to the clock radio playing this song and I was hooked. I had no idea what it was, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had to (embarrassingly) sing it for Peter so he could try to find it on Itunes. Once it was securely on my favorite playlist, I practically wore out my Ipod listening to it. That same week, Peter got a job offer from the firm he had been interning for. Suddenly it was like our entire future was clear; we were going to get to come home to Phoenix. We could think about where we would live and make plans for the following year instead of having to say “we’ll see where Peter gets a job and then we’ll see”.

When my sister Ali and I got our first car (a ’94 green Volvo named Alfie) our favorite thing to do was drive with the windows down and the music cranked up. The feeling of freedom was only amplified by the wind in your hair and the bass in the speakers.

Remembering that feeling, I rolled down all four windows and turned up The Killers to an embarrassingly loud level and drove.  And enjoyed the simplicity of  the sun and wind and memories.

Where Time Meets Creativity

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When creative energy meets a quite space of time, it produces great blog posts, chapters in a book I hope to complete some day and many things checked off of my work to do list.

Getting these two things in the same place at the same time is not only tricky, it’s damn near impossible it seems these days. The result? Painstakingly painful posts requiring much more work than what the result would lead one to believe. No work done on a book other than dreams of what I will wear to the book signing and raised anxiety levels over the fact that my list is growing rather than shrinking.

My new goals? Sleep less, push to make the most of nap time and find an additional hour a day where I encourage the kiddo to play quietly while I get a few things done. Prioritize my to do list for life, for work and for myself and stick to it and not freak out when it doesn’t all get done some days (ha. I laughed when I wrote that one. But writing is the first step, yes?). Carve out more structured play time/learning time with Bay and not feel like a horrible mother when her big activities for the day are a trip to the grocery and vacuuming. And to take a deep breath.

iiiiiinnnnnnn aaaaaaannnnnndddddd oooooouuuutttttt

Lack of Sleep is Funny Stuff

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Peter and I have always each been chatty sleepers (apparently what is true in wakefulness is also true in sleep). We both tend to talk in our sleep and I have a habit of walking. It seems to get worse for both of us the less we sleep and or the more we have going on in our lives.

As a kid,  I repeatedly scared my mom by walking into her bedroom at night chasing foul balls. Playing second base obviously extended beyond the field and into my dreams. I would be chasing a grounder, running the bases or headed back to the dugout. I usually woke up at some point and stumbled, confused, back to bed. Later in life, I have dreams where I need to be somewhere so I go to the closet and get different clothes to put on. This was particularly bad in DC, I would wake up with piles of shirts next to the bed. The worst part is I tend to wake up somewhere in the middle of finding the perfect outfit and suddenly become paranoid that Peter is going to see me in the closet and I’m not going to be able to explain what I’m doing there.

Since having Baylie, my walking has more to do with her whereabouts. Peter just informed me that while he was working on the couch the other night, I came out of the bedroom convinced he had forgotten to put Baylor to sleep and that she was still awake somewhere in the house. A few nights before that, I walked out to the couch, woke up a little, was confused at what I was doing there and made up something along the lines of “I forgot to tell you good night”. Something about getting caught in the act of sleep walking is apparently very embarrassing for me.

In my daily thought process of “how can I get more done in a day?!” it hit me – I need to sleep clean. If I could just pick up a mop or the vacuum on my way to the closet or where ever else I travel in my dream state, I’d have a much more productive sleep schedule…if I could fold the laundry instead of piling it up next to the bed, I’d be in business.

House Happenings

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There’s always something amusing going on at our house. I’ve never really figured out if it’s actually funny, or if we’re so deprived of quality time outside of each other that we just think we’re funny.

Peter and I love to hike. It’s a little more tedious now with the muchkin since one of us has to carry her in the backpack – which totals around 40 pounds, thus making uphill hiking a bit challenging. But Peter has found a great trail with little elevation change which makes for an enjoyable and manageable workout. A few weeks ago we had returned from our outing and I asked Peter (he would say I yelled this at him, but really, he exaggerates) to take off his boots before coming in the house. I am both the energy and cleanliness nazi. When he wants to vacuum and mop (quick Peter! Where do we keep the mop??), he can track in as much dirt as he wants.

About 10 minutes later, I was in the kitchen and noted Peter walking with his boots on, in the back door, across the living room and out the front door. After stepping outside, he proceeded to take off his boots. The following the conversation that ensued:

“Did you just walk across the house with your boots on in order to take them off outside a different door?”

Silence.

“What’s the right answer here?”

Aaaannnd that’s why he’s a good lawyer.

Move Your Phi’t

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The basis for the name of my blog is my college sorority and the lovely little room where we convened to chat – the goon room. Alpha Phi (pronounced “fee” – the title of the post makes more sense now, no?) has given me a home away from home, wonderful friendships and amazing memories. And yesterday was no exception.

The ASU chapter of Alpha Phi hosted a charity 5K race raising funds and awareness for the national sorority’s cause, cardiac care. My good friend Kristin (featured in “I Do! I Mean, They Did!”) organized a group of the UofA Fall 2000 pledge class to walk for the cause. We met at the park, strollers loaded for bear and kiddos and were ready to roll. Pun intended.

We managed to maneuver 3 strollers over packed dirt (not ideal for stroller wheels) and while we were the caboose, we completed the walk in under an hour. More importantly, we got to catch up and actually talk to each other since our kiddos were preoccupied with the other runners and each other. It’s always nice when gossiping can be for charity.

The hero of the day was Carrlene who pushed her adorable nearly 2 year old, AJ – while 8 months pregnant! Thank you also to Stephanie for picking up our registration and “phi’t” shirts (check out Stephanie at her blog: http://www.babycross.wordpress.com). We also got to meet Cuatro – or better known as Carter. The newest of the Phi babies at breakfast with his momma, Michelle. Thank you ladies! As always, it’s never a dull moment!

AJ, Carrlene, Stephanie, Kelsey, Kristin, me and Baylor B

When is it Enough?

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About a year ago, I got a parking ticket in the mail. Well, not me, but someone who’s car was apparently registered to our address. We rented out our house prior to remodeling and moving in ourselves, so we do get mail for past tenants once in a while. But we’ve now lived here for almost 4  years so to get a parking ticket for someone other than PW or myself seemed odd.

I put the ticket back in the mailbox with a big note that the person on the ticket did not live at this address. I’m sure the City of Scottsdale was thinking “riiight. A likely story”. But I never got another copy and it all seemed to go away. Until this past January. Yet another parking ticket for the same person showed up at our door.

Because I’m paranoid by nature, I instantly flipped into “someone is trying to steal our identity! Scam us! Rob us!” mode. So I looked up the motor vehicle department’s number for fraud. I talked to a very nice, albeit confused woman and explained my problem. Without giving me too much information, she confirmed that the city had the wrong address for this guy and that his car was actually registered to an address other than mine. Phew. At least now I knew I wasn’t the target of some elaborate and strange scam. When I asked what I should do, she said put it back in the mail and tell the City of Scottsdale on the envelope that the person does not live at my address. And so I did.

Now, almost 3 months later, yet another notice has surfaced. This time it was a letter telling the parking violator that he now has a court date for not paying the ticket. Crap. Apparently the city does not believe me when I say this offender doesn’t live at my address and they also must not have gotten the memo on checking with the DMV once in a while.

So I’m left with the conundrum; what do I do? I’ve already called the DMV, sent multiple notes back to the city regarding the fact they’ve got the wrong address, tried to look the guy up online to give him a call and let him know what’s up – what else is there to do? I decided last night I would call the city today (in all my spare time) and try to find someone to explain my problem to…but now I can’t find the ticket. My lawyering, “don’t get involved” husband claims not to know what happened to it. I suspect foul play, but I can’t prove it. So now I don’t have the ticket number or anything but the guy’s name, which I’m sure the city will not be helpful with.

I don’t know why I care. But I feel terrible to think this person may get a warrant out for their arrest for not showing up at a court date that he had no idea he was supposed to be at.

All I can say is that there better be some sort of amazing karmic energy coming my way for all this trouble for a stranger…