Gather Ye Rosebuds

Welcome emevol to my journal.

Oy! So much email is piling up now that I cannot check it at work. I am nearing the 200 message mark (no spam here-kow!). Tonight I just changed my yahoo groups settings to daily digest instead of individual emails but I don't know when it will take effect. I am not concerned with the storage now that yahoo has upped me to 100mb. Even lj is getting behind. I am checking my friends through a filter so I won't have tons of community posts to pour through just to see what my friends are up to. Eh, I should catch up some more while Chas is out.

We went to OSC (Orlando Science Center) last night for an event called Cocktails and the Cosmos. The also had Sci-Fridays as the theme. So on the one extreme there were people all dressed up like Klingons and Star Troopers, and on the other they also had rich hoity toities scampering around. There were lots of families with kids too. And people like me and Chas. It was definitely a diverse crowd. We wandered around the science center and popped in the Darden theater where they showed B-Movies all night. We saw a movie filmed in Orlando (and at OSC) called Mon Star (the quicktime clip shows a bad model of downtown Orlando being stomped on by the mon star and the cover of the dvd had OSC's observatory on it) and we saw part of a Korean film called Yongaray: Monster of the Deep. We went to grab food afterward. The dinner in the cafe was tasty, but a bit overpriced for the amount of food given. Chas had andouille with caramelized onions on an etoufe based pizza (individual sized) and I had a ricotta napoleon with Mediterranean vegetables. Both were good. For dessert we shared and espresso mocha cheesecake. They also had salmon mouse with endive and thai peanut noodles. Each dish was $7 and the dessert was $5. For the portion size I think it could have been $1-2 less but oh well. It was still rather good. I especially enjoyed Chas feeding me the dessert. :) We wandered around a little more...I experienced a 5.5 scale earthquake and we saw a tornado form. We went back to the B-movie theater and saw Journey to the Seventh Planet. What a waste of film. It was Danish though, and while I like things Danish, the films are almost always awful. Good thing about this room is that it was filled with MST3K junkies so we were all yelling back at the screen. It was about exploring Uranus, so you can imagine the jokes and hilarity that ensued. Finally we went up to the observatory again. This time when we saw Jupiter we could see 4 of its moons. Neat. Came home and watched the carrot battle on Iron Chef and went to bed.

Today I go to an iced tea market research thing at 1:30. It pays $30. Woo hoo!

We decided not to go to the bank and make a scene because now it is an issue with the branch manager and he will not be there today so no one can really do anything. He never returned my call last night either. It's no longer an issue with whether or not they refund NSF charges as a policy, but it is an issue with the teller telling me they would re-credit me those charges as a courtesy to keep me a customer and stop me from canceling my account with them. They offered it and now they are backing down. No one has called me back on anything...I am the one doing all the work. Is it really work the $120 to do this? I am beginning to think not.

Blech.

I love how easy it is to please Chas sometimes. Just cook a good, tasty, simple home cooked meal and he is putty. :) Apparently he really loved the vidalia onion braised pork roast and mashed potatoes I made tonight (though technically I made the pork a few nights ago since I knew it would take a while to cook). He especially loved the potatoes. I don't know what I did differently tonight than I normally do, but he loved them nonetheless. Both were easy peasy. For those who want the recipes, comment me or email or what have you.


I think I am going to have myself a nice hot bath once my stomach settles. It's been wonky since I got home. I should relax and be good to myself for a little bit. :)

I haven't had the best day. I'm in a foul mood.

My head hurts. I need some Excedrin. Or something.

I think I am PMS-ing, but since I switched from the pill to the nuva ring, my mood has gotten better and my PMS has practically vanished. So I don't think that is it.

Grr.

Yee gads I am still tired and sore from yesterday! We got up just before 10:00 so we could go to the leasing office and renew for another year. Normally our rate goes up $10 a year but this year it went up $15, except they have this incentive program if you renew early you get a break on the renewal rate. So by us renewing yesterday (the last day for this break) we saved $10 off the original $15 a month extra. So starting in August our rate will only go up by $5 instead of $10 or $15. They did not do that in the past so it was pretty cool. One of these days I really want to move to the back of the complex to the 2 bedroom/2 1/2 bath townhouses. The porch and upstairs balcony in the back overlook a lush tree-filled area. It is really beautiful. I mean, our complex is part of a wildlife preserve. And there are w/d hookups in the closet under the stairs so no more paying for it and hauling our stuff to the laundry facility! But anyhow, I don't think Chas and I can afford it on our own just yet, and it is smaller and one room shorter than our current apartment (but about the same price) so I don't know if we could squeeze Chas' office and our current roommate in at the same time. Something to think about. I suppose there is no harm in taking another look at the layout and space again now that we know what we need. We saw a 2 bedroom/1 1/2 bath unit when we first moved in here, but ended up with a 3 bedroom apartment instead, and that was 3 years ago. Oh well.

( Anyhow, after the lease stuff... )

My training class is full of monkeys. :)

It's too fucking hot ouside. It's sad when you go down the road a small distance and back, and you're already tuckered. Maybe I'm just a wuss. I want to go out. I want to get together with friends. I want to do things. But I feel like I am ready for a mid-day nap right about now. Sheesh.

Hurray for Betos! Hooray for 24 hour Mexican food! Hooray for cheap, fast, and tasty food!

Was about the only place open last night.

Not much to say really. The first week of training is over with. We got into the billing parts and it is quite complicated. I was very proud of myself when I got the answers to the workbook questions on pro-rating service right. I admit I did get frustrated though. It was the same frustration I get with balancing my checkbook, the feeling of doubt and helplessness that I can't do it. But I did do it, and I was right too. Even better. I know that once I get a hang of it all, it will be an incredibly valuable skill to take with me, as billing is pretty similar everywhere you go.

Later today we will be going over to my parent's place to watch the Red, Hot, and Boom display of fireworks. They always do it the day before Independence Day, because of the rules of the displays and stuff in this area. The display is at a park with a man made lake near the mall, and my parents live across the street from the mall so we just pull out chairs on the sidewalk and look up at the display. We'll have to leave asap because we have to get to shyystarr's birthday party. She doesn't live that far from my parent's but the traffic is atrocious before and after the display, which is one reason we will be going to my parent's place and hang out a few hours prior. Leaving will be hard, but if we leave as soon as they end, we should get a 5-10 minute head start (while others get to their cars) to beat the traffic. We hope.

I hope Chas gets home soon. I want to see our new laser disc player that arrived earlier this morning. Our new dvd player arrived the other day and it is so small compared to our other one, and our old laserdisc player is monstrously large so this should be an improvement also. The current one was one for school use with no frills. The infotainment omniplex is growing and shrinking at the same time. Heh.

Guess I should try to finish reading as many posts and emails as I can while I wait for him to get home.