hot, hot, hot!!!!

My parents are coming over this weekend. I just got off the phone with my mom who was asking if it's going to be really hot here this weekend. "A little", was my response. What do you think?



To my defense, that was sort of a silly question. I live in Arizona. It's hot here in the winter, what would she expect during the summer?

. . . . . but it's a dry heat.


feeling: I guess I'll be indoors this whole weekend
listening to: Santigold (Lights Out)

experience the warmth

We had record breaking heat yesterday topping off at 91 degrees. That's right, in February. I know to a lot of you that would be super hot weather. To me, all I could think was "ahhhhhh". It felt like a warm hug.
I'm neither bragging nor complaining. I'm telling you all this because of Alec. He hasn't wanted to have a haircut in a while. He says he wants "hair like Joe Jonas". Yes, those were his exact words. I thought it was cute at first and went along with it, but it's hot now and he's sweating. My mom says he's five and shouldn't even be allowed to make decisions about if or when he gets a haircut. I get it. I mean, I'm not going to have him in blue hair if he suddenly feels like it. Or if he suddenly decides he wants a perm or a mullet, I wouldn't let him. I just sort of thought this was cute and not tremendously out of the ordinary. Plus, it's really hit or miss at his school right now. Little boys either have a crew cut or they're letting their hair grow/have long hair. He kind of looks up to a couple of Brianna's friends right now, both of whom have Joe Jonas-like hair. I guess we'll see how it goes. If I see that he's going to be dripping in sweat, that's too bad for his longish hair. It'll have to go. For now, let's just hope he's not, uh, burning up (rimshot). <-- Consider yourself lucky if you don't get that.

feeling: I think we're going to have a HOT summer
listening to: Depeche Mode (Wrong)

autumn envy

The teaser that the meteorologist used last night right before commercials was, "Say goodbye to the 90's". Of course Rodrigo and I started being dumb saying that he meant things like "Stop wearing the clothes you wore in high school. Time to stop quoting Seinfeld. Quit listening to Pearl Jam.", but we knew that he meant the weather. Today is supposed to be the last day that we reach 90 degrees. Whew! Yes, I know I always go on and on about how "I leeve in haat weather" (doing an Uli impression). It's time, though. I am sooooooo ready to wear something other than summer clothes. I'd like to wear pants and closed shoes. I'm ready to bake without dreading the heat. Plus, I keep seeing all these cooking shows that talk about "Now that it's cooler . . . .". ARGH! Not here. Here you still want to be drinking liquids all day. Anyway, it seems that we'll be cooling off to the 80's at least by the weekend. Hey, it's something.
Speaking of things that happen elsewhere but not here . . . daylight savings time. We don't do the time change here in Arizona. Nope. So during the summer we're in Pacific time and now we're in Mountain time. Everybody changed and we didn't. It's pretty cool that we don't have to get used to time changes, but . . . . our t.v. viewing schedules change. Only the local channels stay the same. The other channels we watch (Bravo, Food Network, Noggin, Disney Channel) all change so if we usually watched something at 9:00 pm, now it's on at 10:00 pm. Suck! I'm looking forward to Project Runway which won't be airing here until 11:00 pm. Blah, blah, blah . . .

feeling: whiny
listening to: Shivaree (Goodnight Moon)

weekend wrap-up

Friday:
We finally made it out to In-n-Out Burger. The crowd wasn't as bad as it had been. We took just a little over a half hour to get our order. The first day it opened, people were waiting four hours. FOUR! That didn't make any sense to me, since I could drive two hours and be at the next nearest location.


Saturday:
We took the kiddies to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We all really liked it. It's out in the middle of the desert and is part museum, part zoo and part botanical garden. At 103 degrees, the zoo and hiking part was, uh, interesting. Let's just say that we were looking for a "real desert experience" and we definately got it. Pics here.


In the evening, my lovely family took me out to Mother's Day dinner here. Yum!


Sunday:
I got exactly what I wanted for Mother's day, to go nowhere! Yes, an entire day of not having to go anywhere. Ahh...... We cooked, baked, sat around and watched tv, you know those lucky, lucky days when you don't have to go out.

Well, that going nowhere, doing nothing feeling is over today. I have some more packing to do.

feeling: like I should get up and do something now
listening to: Interpol (The Heinrich Maneuver)

hot, hot, hot

. . . and so it begins. . . .





Ask me how I'm doing in July or August.


feeling: I have a busy day ahead
listening to: Tim Armstrong (Into Action) <-- oh no, I don't like this song and now I'll be singing it all day

exciting news!

Let me tell you about the things that have made me giddy the past few days.

-On January 15th I MET INCUBUS! That's right. I met Incubus. My Christmas gift from Rodrigo was tickets to the meet and greet at the Phoenix concert. Now, I could've thought of about a million witty and clever things to say, but as I was about to enter the building, I blanked out. When I was with the band (especially hot, hot Brandon) all I was saying was something like "Duh . . . er . . . ah . . (giggle, giggle) daaaaa . . .uh . . . " Something like that. I sounded like a total moron. Anyway, they were all really cool. Really cool. I guess since I think Brandon is super attractive, I sort of expected him to just be there posing so for him to be joking around kind of threw me off. We got an autograph from all of them on a picture designed by Jose (drummer). I also hugged the band members and was able to touch the subject of quantum theory with Brandon (long story).
After the meet and greet, we had to wait a little while before the concert started. It was funny to hear a lot of the people talking about it. A couple of girls were adding and adding things to their story. I kept thinking "I was in there and that did not happen". So, if I were like those girls, the meet and greet would have been more like . . . . . I walked in and then I tripped and all the band members ran over to pick me up. Then I was so excited that I fainted and Brandon carried me. Then we made out and now we're married. How's that?
Once inside, since we had V.I.P. tickets, we were right at the front of the stage. Uh, this was alright when I was like 19 but I was in no mood to get trampled or squished. I told Rodrigo that we should stay there for a few songs so that I could some good pictures then after that, we'd go to the back. Sure enough as soon as Incubus started playing, we were crushed. I got several pictures then jumped the barricade and went to the back. Even now over a week after the show, I still have my legs bruised up from the pushing crowd. I'm way too old for this.



- Huge news this past Sunday/Monday was the snow. IT SNOWED IN ARIZONA. That was all you could hear about on the news. We were hanging out on Sunday afternoon. It had been raining all day. I looked out because I couldn't hear the rain anymore and noticed that it had started snowing! It took me a while to process what was happening. Of course the kids were really excited.
Here is one of the pictures that was on Yahoo's Most emailed pictures . . .

There are a lot of cool pictures here.

- Also, in not so exciting news, I'm coaching cheer again. Yup, I'll be the coach again for the winter season. What can I say? Brianna loves it and since I'm going to be there anyway . . . . Besides, I at least know what I'm doing this time around. I have 11 new girls but they all seem to be picking up quickly. I should be getting paid for this, though. It takes a lot of time making all the team rosters, snack schedules, newsletters, formations, printing out cheers with moves, picking up and sorting uniforms, calling all the parents, etc. Oh well.

- Oh, I almost forgot . . . . our house! I had told you before that we were supposed to have moved in December but the house was not ready at all. So, the construction finally well under way. We had a meeting with the builder and everything is going well. They asked if we would consider renting it to them to use as a model. We're sort of hesitant about that. On one hand, it would be extra money. On the other, it's kind of weird to have people going through your house. I think I'd say yes on the condition that after they decorate it as a model, they leave everything in there for us. Yeah right. I wish! I'll post more about the house as things develop.

I guess that's it for now. I have about a million emails that I need to reply to and 75 million pictures I've promised to email and still haven't done. Take care, all!

feeling: busy
listening to: Augustana (Boston)

bad news/good news

When we moved to Arizona I told all of you that the house we are currently living in was going to be a temporary home. We moved in July, are having a house built and were supposed to move into the new house in December. Well, that's not going to happen anymore. We're still having the house built but it is going to take about five more months for it to be completed. Suck.
This was bad news to me because I can't wait to move to the new house. I love, love, love our house we're having built. Oh . . . I just can't wait to decorate it, to be able to use that kitchen, to walk in to that view, there's just so much I want to do. As it is having to wait six months seemed like torture to me but now we're going to end up waiting almost a year total. Yeah, that's what I get for complaining so much about six months.
Another thing that I thought was bad was the whole credit change thing. Since we are already approved and in the middle of the whole contract thing, we can't make any major changes to the credit. That means we can't trade in my car or make any major purchases.
Rodrigo, on the other hand, thinks that it is really good news that we have this extra time. He sees it as extra time to save more money for a bigger down payment, for furniture, etc. Hmm, I guess. I'd just really like to be getting ready to move now rather than know that it won't be for a while. I mean, I purposely didn't unpack a lot of things since we were only going to be here for a short while. We don't have a lot of decorations up, no pictures on the walls. It all looks very sterile. I had thought that we would be spending Christmas in the new house. I didn't even send out change of address cards since I thought I'd be having to send some out only a short time later. Oh well. . . All I can do is wait.

feeling: anticipation
listening to: some Chris Cornell song

botanical garden

We took the kiddies to the botanical gardens today to see a butterfly exhibit. They LOVED it! I did too, of course. Ok, time to upload the pictures.

feeling: tired
listening to: Incubus (Anna Molly)

arizona autumn

It seems almost impossible for me to believe that we are already in November. I'm LOVING this mild Arizona weather. I know that I've said this before, but you would really have to be here to believe it. People are still walking about comfortably in shorts and tank tops. You can wear a light jacket really early in the mornings, but you better be wearing something summery underneath. The afternoons are at least in the mid 80's. Brianna and the rest of the cheerleader girls are still not cold in their uniforms. This picture was taken earlier today. Yes, today. In November.

On Arizona: Mountains. Blue skies. The air was like wine and the winters were like spring. - J.R. Moehringer

feeling: sleepy
listening to: Cary Brothers (Ride) <-- I listen to this song a lot

autumn?

Had it not been for Ani, I would've have no idea that it was already Autumn. For some reason, I was thinking it was in October. I don't know why. I should know better than that. If I were going to say that it is already Autumn just by the weather, I'd still have no idea. Look at our seven day forecast. . .

I have to admit that I'm freezing in the morning. 70 degrees is sweater weather for people like me. For those of you that live in places where it's actually cooler and you're able to see changing colors, falling leaves and such, enjoy. I'll be looking at a cactus. In shorts (me, not the cactus).
On another Tucson note. . . do you remember the movie Can't Buy me Love? Yes, the one with Dr. McDreamy as a high school kid (for all you Grey's fans). It was filmed here. It's funny because when we came looking for houses for the first time, our realtor pointed out the "airplane graveyard". Immediately I thought of the movie but it never clicked. They ran the movie a few days ago, I noticed the letterman jackets read "Tucson" and it all made sense. Funny huh? Apparently, a a lot of movies were filmed here. I won't even look up to see a list of westerns.

feeling: hot
listening to: Snow Patrol (Chocolate)