OMG GUYS! I GOT A KITTY!

Isn't he just the cutest little thing ever!?!?!?!??!

Everyone, meet Sam.

Saturday afternoon, after stopping by a charity car show my sister was working, we decided to stop by Petsmart to pick up the stuff we would need for when we decided to get a cat. We, in no way, shape, or form, expected to get a cat on Saturday. I just figured it would be best to have all the supplies, like a catbox and food dishes, in case we decided to get one. Knowing me, it would have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. And it was...

Anyway, so we're in Petsmart, with a full cart, and I talk Dan into viewing the adoptable cats that they bring in on the weekend. Yeah, he should have known I wouldn't leave empty-handed at that point.

Well, they had a kennel with five little kittens, all about eight weeks old. In this kennel, four of the kittens were going crazy playing with the toys. The fifth one just sat in the back, looking at them all like they were crazy. Yep, we found our love. His name was "Dane". We didn't originally want a boy cat, but you guys, he is the cutest little thing. Once the lady put him in my arms, I started crying like a crazy person. I think it has been well-established that I am, in fact, a crazy person, but this is when I am my most crazy. I can't go into pet stores without tearing up because it breaks my heart to leave without them all. Even though I knew I was taking him home, I was still silently sobbing in a glass room at Petsmart. I am such a loser.

So as I stood there crying on a kitten that can easily fit in my hand, Dan filled out all the paperwork. Because this was a last-minute decision, I had to call my mom to meet us at the store because we drove the Jeep and I wasn't going to scare the crap out of the love of my life in an open-top Jeep. We put him back in the kennel as we grabbed the last of the supplies, purchased a cat carrier, loaded him up in my mom's car, and drove him home.

We decided, since he's just so little, to let him explore the house little by little. At first, we set up everything he needed in the hall bathroom. He's got his carrier/bed, his cat box, and his food and water in about a 3 foot radius. Using a cardboard box, we blocked off the end of the hall, closed all the doors off the hall, let him loose.

And then, nothing. He sat in his carrier for hours. Granted he had a busy day, but that's when you decide to take a nap? We knew we picked the calm one, but we at least expect a kitten to do something. (Sidenote: we found out once we adopted him that he had been neutered two days prior. This is why we think he was deceptively calm.) Yeah, those hopes that he would do something quickly became a thing of the past because this cat is crazy. I have never met a cat that loves to cuddle as much as this guy. We thought we were getting the independent, calm kitten, but he is the neediest, loneliest cat. He is not happy unless he is in your lap, chewing on your fingers. If you are not using your hand to pet him, he will quickly remind you to by nipping your fingertips. If you leave (or my favorite, if he leaves you to go around the corner to eat), he will cry until he sees you again. And not just any cry, the saddest little kitten mews and squeaks, like you're hurting him by not constantly petting him.

After about four hours of calling him "Dane", we agreed a new name needed to be picked. My brain can't handle a husband named "Dan" and a cat named "Dane". We settled on Sam because Dan and I both had dogs growing up named Sam (mine was a Black Lab, his was his favorite stuffed toy). He does look like a Sammy.

I love my little Sammy.

Fan of Friday: Week of 5/18/2012

Have you ever seen the movie "Cherry 2000"? Have you ever even heard of the movie "Cherry 2000"? Probably not, but you should have because it's awesome.

I'll be honest, it's a terrible movie. A terrible, terrible movie. But at the same time, it has to be the definition of campy. Post-apocalyptic future? Check. Robots and crazy technology that will never exist? Check. 80's futuristic fashion? Check. Car chases through desert? Check.

The first time I saw it, it was on accident. The movie I was watching on one of those high numbered digital channels ended (like 11-2 or something) and being too lazy to change the channel on a Saturday afternoon, I caught the first 15 minutes before having to leave. Luckily for me and the rest of humanity, they replayed it the next weekend. Yay!

Here's a basic breakdown. It's about this rich guy who accidentally breaks his robot wife. To find the replacement parts for her, he hires a bounty hunter to take him through the wasteland desert outlaw country to a rumored robot warehouse.

Oops! Broke my robot wife

For some star power, the bounty hunter was played by Melanie Griffith, who would skyrocket a couple of years later in the movie "Working Girl".

Random fact: the movie was supposed to be released in the summer of 1986, then postponed until spring 1987, then fall 1987, then finally ultimately being released direct to VHS in fall 1988. Because of the shifting of the schedule, the soundtrack became a collectors item as only 1500 were sold when it was released in 1986, without the movie itself being released. 

So, if you're one of those hip people with a DVR or Netflix, search it out. You will not be disappointed.

The Trial Run

This past weekend, my aunt, my cousin, and her son (my second cousin) came down to Tucson for Mother's Day. My grandpa's health hasn't been great lately and it was a good excuse to spend some time with my grandparents. And because my sister moved back in with my parents and my grandparents recently moved into an assisted living facility, guess who they stayed with?

Yep, someone besides Dan's parents finally used our guest room. This would absolutely not be noteworthy, except did I mention that my cousin's son is 18 months old?

I will be the first to admit I am not good with kids. I think they can smell my nervousness on me and they don't tend to like me either. So, for the longest time, I had this horrible fear of kids. I would actively avoid the baby aisle at Target. I'd panic when someone I knew from high school had gotten pregnant.

However, something in the last couple of years has softened my nerves. It could be a lot of different things. It could be spending time with the kids of my friends and family. It could be that I'm married now so an accidental pregnancy is no longer on the top of my list of worries (wouldn't that be a fun blog post?). Or, most likely, it could be that my own hormones have betrayed me, trying to ready me for the day I'm stuck with a bunch of rugrats.

Anyway, Dan and I were both pretty apprehensive about having him in our house because we had no idea what to expect. Would he be walking well enough so that we wouldn't have to foam the edge of the stone seat in front of our fireplace? Would he know enough words and language at 18 months so that we would have any sort clue what he needed? Was he a crier? What kind of food do you stock for a toddler?

After some last minute emails to my cousin, we kind of just winged it. And things went well. He had a bunch of dietary restrictions I couldn't have predicted anyway, but some trips to the grocery store solved that no problem. My grandma had a pack 'n play from the last time he visited that double as a baby bed. No, he wasn't a crier, but a bit of a happy shrieker. And while his vocabulary was mainly limited to bah (ball) and cah (car), he understood when we told him not to go somewhere or not to touch something.

The biggest shock to me was how well we handled it. Yes, we didn't have to do anything hard like feeding him, bathing him, or changing any diapers, but I don't think we felt overwhelmed by his presence. He warmed up to us fairly quickly. He would walk up to Dan and put his arms up near the Jeep, wanting to be held so he would have a better view. When he had his first swimming experience, he wanted to be bounced up and down by me in the water. I made up a game he loved called "We're on the floor". Pretty simple: lay on the floor, yell "WE'RE ON THE FLOOR!", wiggle and roll around like a crazy person, and listen to the shrieks of laughter as he falls over next to me and tries to wiggle.

Dan and I have always planned on having kids down the line, hopefully around the time we turn 30, but I've always been very tentative about the idea of us having kids. Between me not liking kids and Dan being an only child, how could we possibly raise tiny humans? I'm a total slob with a short fuse who likes to yell. Dan works crazy hours at work and is incredibly unreliable at getting home when he says he will, even if it is after a 10+ hour day. How could we possibly have the time, energy, patience, and coordination to have kids?

And yes, all those things will probably be true for a long time, maybe even once we have kids, but at least now I know we can make a toddler laugh and that's what's truly important, right?

Apparently I Dress like a Television Star

Once upon a time, I dressed like Sue from "The Middle". Now, apparently, I dress like Nell from "NCIS: Los Angeles".

I have the exact same horse print skirt from H and M. I love the skirt, but it always looks funny on me. Maybe it's because I don't know how to style it or my body shape, but it always feels odd. Perhaps if I took a note from Nell and paired it with a clean white blouse (which I already do), a pair of dark tights, and a cardigan, it'll feel less awkward. The tights should be a definitely because it's kind of like a wrap skirt and likes to fall open when I sit. Adding some tights would increase its modesty at work.

Witness it for yourself here in episode Neighborhood Watch.

Finally, As Promised...

Ok, things have been crazy busy. Well, probably normal busy for most people, but I live a simple life, so it's crazy busy for me. Between a weekend trip up to Phoenix to go to Ikea, painting more of the house, actually hanging out with friends, appointments and meetings after work, and frantically cleaning for my extended family coming into town this weekend, my time has been a wee bit stretched. Hell, it's been almost two weeks since I've posted! I haven't even posted in May yet!

Anyway, since things won't be slowing down anytime soon, I'll keep this short. In the aforementioned trip to Ikea, I finally bought a frame for my Zack Morris poster (once I stole it back from my sister). I've talked about my poster before because I had no idea how to fit it into my house with the overall style I wanted.

Well, I came up with the perfect solution. I found a place to hang it so that I would be able to love him, but he wouldn't freak out visitors.

Yep, Zack Morris now creepily makes eye contact with my husband while he's peeing. And it's just about the perfect size for our small master toilet room (what do you call the separate room in the bathroom for the toilet?)

The frame makes it classy, right?

Fan of Friday: Week of 4/27/2012

"Fringe" was picked up for a final season! YAY! You have no idea how happy this makes me! It's just, so, good!

If you aren't watching it, what's wrong with you? Geez. Watch it tonight! Or, if perhaps you have a life and don't play The Sims and watch TV on a Friday night like some people (DON'T JUDGE ME!), DVR it or watch it on hulu. But, if you can, start in season 1. It's so well written, but damn if it isn't hella complex and confusing at times (Not like "Lost" confusing where everything just fell apart the last two seasons, but confusing because it's just so deep and detail-filled that it's easy to miss something important).

Trust me, pure awesomeness. I cannot emphasize this enough: it is the most well-written and the most underappreciated show on TV right now. Get on board people!

A Day in My Life

So, here's what I basically do everyday. I figured I would write it down so, someday, when I've got pets and kids and a promotion and no time and no sleep, I can look back at my wonderful life at the age of 25 and laugh and laugh. This was all I did and I was tired all the time for no apparent reason?!?!? Hahaha...

• 6:34 AM: Alarm goes off. Radio. Hit sleep button
• 6:41 AM: Alarm goes off. Get out of bed. Sneak out without waking up Dan. Bathroom. Make oatmeal and pour a glass of milk. Turn on "Good Morning Tucson" and check in on Facebook.
• 7:05 AM: Brush teeth. Wash face. Put in contacts. Lotion. Get dressed. Do hair. Apply make-up. Jewelry.
• 7:45 AM: Rush to put shoes on. Throw a lunch together. Tell myself I'll be quicker tomorrow. Head to work.
• 8:15 AM: Arrive at work. Check to make sure I'm not the last one in. Declare it a victory when I'm not. Check email and start my day. 
• Work: Meetings. Check on machines. Fix machines that have inevitably decided to stop working. Maybe actually get some design work done if there is time. 
• 10:00 AM: Snack at my desk. Usually some yogurt or a granola bar.
• More work
• 12:00 PM: Lunch at my desk. Typically left-overs from the night before, or a frozen dinner, or if we were really low on food, I head to the cafeteria to buy a pre-made salad and eat it at my desk. 
• More work
• 2:00 PM: If there isn't a meeting conflict, take a walk around the site with my dad. 
• 2:30 PM: Snack at my desk. Maybe a piece of fruit or yogurt (if I hadn't had it in the morning).
• More work
• 4:45 PM: Head home. 
• 5:15 PM: Arrive at home. Bring in packages that have been delivered for Dan during the day. Water my plants. Check in with Facebook again. Watch "The Big Bang Theory" reruns on TV. 
• 6:15 PM: Start on dinner. Cook so everything is ready around 7. Watch "Wheel of Fortune" and feel like an old fuddy-duddy by how excited I get when I watch it. Contemplate signing up for their contest because I watch it almost everyday and I could totally win.
• 7:00 PM: Eat dinner. Watch prime-time TV. More interneting. If I'm feeling ambitious, laundry, dishes, general cleaning and chores. 
• 9:00 PM: Work out. (I only do this every other day, don't think I'm crazy or something.)
• 9:30 PM: Shower.
• 10:00 PM: Get ready for bed.
• 10:30 PM: Crawl into bed and read.
• 10:45 PM: Lights out. 

Yep, that's my life. It's a double-edged sword. I love having a routine because it's how I know things work beset for me. I'm most productive when my day looks like this. But at the same time, routines are just so boring, aren't they? I really should try to switch it up on the days I don't work out more often, but things like that cost money and I'm cheap and lazy and ...

No One Wants to Be the Loser at the Reunion

I found out a couple of days ago that the film of a guy I went to high school with was accepted at this year's Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most prestigious film festival in the world. And while I'm happy for him, I barely knew him in my fairly small class (only 150 people) and all I can think about is how its going to make my ten year high school reunion that much crappier to attend.

Granted my reunion won't be for another three years, I'm already dreading it. With the invention of facebook, I am in constant knowledge of how everyone is doing after graduation. The nice thing about facebook is I can hide feeds and ignore people. I imagine it's a little harder to do that at a reunion.

There's something you need to know about my high school: it's a national ranked high school. Like a top ten nationally ranked high school. Yes, I got a great education, yes, it opened doors for me, blah blah blah, but it also bred snobs like you would not believe.

You could probably divide my graduating class into three groups. About 50% of us (myself included) went onto college, got our degrees, got jobs, and behave like fairly normal people. Some of us are married or in long term relationships. We have jobs in our desired fields and don't live with our parents.

Another 40% composes the group I call the "high and mighties". These are the ones that love to talk about the Ivy League schools they went. The ones that offhand mention the thousands of dollars in national grant money they won. The ones that talk about the time they spent overseas, either researching classic literature, building schools in third world countries, or teaching English in Asia. The ones who talk about the big cities on the East Coast they now call home. The public office that they ran for (he lost, so I wish he'd really stop mentioning it.) And before you think I'm just being bitter (I'll admit it, I am a little), it's the fact that the snobbery feeds of off the snobbery of others. They have to one-up each other. They have to rub it in your faces that they are better than you. Things like they wish they could settle down like you, but with their fancy job/doctorate/saving-the-world and constant traveling, how could they? They wish they could have a simple 8 to 5 job like yours, it sounds so relaxing. We've had several unofficial reunions through the years, so trust me, I'm not just making this up. They just have this way of getting under my skin like you wouldn't believe. Making me doubt my amazing life and the decisions that have led me here. I hate them for that.

Lastly is the remaining 10% of my graduating class. These people cover the spread. They are the ones that dropped out of college to get married and moved back in with their parents once it fell apart. They are the ones who do build schools in Guatemala but would never mention it unless you brought it up. The one that ODed. The ones that are bartenders and waitresses. The truly nice, innocent ones and the ones that life wasn't so nice to.

And who knows? I'd imagine my group will be larger in three years at the official ten year reunion. The unlucky ones get their lives back on track and the "high and mighties" start to slow down and realize what we have.

But seriously, if this guys wins his category at Cannes, there will be no escaping the brown-nosing in three years. Ugh...

Fan of Friday: Week of 4/20/2012

Another blogger turned me onto this wonderful make-up tutorial channel on YouTube by this British make-up artist named Tanya Burr. She does things with make-up that you won't believe. It's incredible. She breaks down celebrity make-up tricks and, more importantly for me, actually shows you how different sorts of make-up are supposed to be used. But if you want to look like Beyonce, Zooey Deschanel, Rihanna, Adele, Jennifer Lawrence (speaking of Jennifer Lawrence, I found this today. I swear if it weren't illegal, I would stalk JLaw until she was my best friend.), Audrey Hepburn, you name it. She can do it.

It just makes me wish I had a wedding or something to attend in the coming weeks so I would have an excuse to try out some of these looks. I don't think most of them are work appropriate for the lone female mechanical engineer at my work.

I fully plan on spending most of this weekend trying out these techniques. Tonight is date night after all, maybe I could make a smoking eye work that doesn't make me look like a crackhead who just woke up with these videos...

And she has her own website and video blog, too, but I'm pretty wrapped up in the tutorials for now. 

Project House Update: Ghetto Trellis

In a spur of the moment decision a couple of weeks ago, I bought a seedling kit at Target. It was only $8 and seeds were like $1 a pack, so I thought I could grow a bunch of types of produce for Turtle to eat. Being so cheap and given how bad I am with plants, I didn't expect much to grow.

Man, was I wrong!

Two types of lettuce quickly took over each box. Then, as if overnight, my sweet peas shot up, out of the dirt packets (don't buy the kit I did from Target, it's just crap. Almost none of my dirt packets behaved like they were supposed to.), and inches into the air. It took a couple more days, but my cilantro and parseley sprouts finally emerged, too. Almost every single pod had seedlings.

And then panic set in. I had plants. A lot of them. And absolutely nowhere to put them.

First, I found this idea on Pinterest. It lets you turn a plastic bottle into a planter. I didn't have any big 2 liter bottles of soda, but I did have a couple of water bottles...

But when I say I had a couple, I seriously only had two water bottles. So it didn't really solve my problem. Even though it was risky because they are so tender and fresh, I decided the rest of the sweet peas would have to fend for themselves in the garden. However, I could give them a little protection in the form of chicken wire. I have enough of it sitting around from the previous owners' landscaping.

No, this isn't how they landscaped. This is how we piled it when we undid theirs...

I figured I could unroll one of these bundles, prop it up against the wall in the garden, and plant the peas under it. That way, when the grew larger and stronger, they could climb it as a trellis.

So, I transplanted the majority of my sweet peas. Easy stuff, except for minding the roots that were already growing out the bottom of my little tray. Then I propped the chicken wire up against the wall and disaster struck. The pre-cut lengths are just short enough that they can't reach the top of the wall and the soil at the same time! I tried just leaning it against the wall, but no matter how I tried to flatten it, it just coiled up and crushed my sweet peas underneath it. I decided I had to anchor it to the top of the wall. It's just bent over the top of the wall, but it does grip to it remarkably well.

But now, it doesn't cover the peas at all! And it's inches from the peas, so even if they grow, odds are they would flop over and never reach it. However, I am an engineer for a reason, so combine some string and skewers and you get this!

The skewers support the peas as they acclimate and once they grow, they can follow the string up to the chicken wire.

So my peas aren't doing so well, but a record heat wave for April in Arizona definitely isn't helping (I may have to start watering twice a day). Hopefully they'll rebound and I'll have a pretty wall of sweet peas until Turtle eats all he can reach, probably including the base stems...