Nostalgia

I stepped out of the car after getting home late from a class tonight and was overtaken by the smell of honeysuckle. I was taken back to childhood memories of playing out in the yard on warm nights and how the smell of honeysuckle was so thick you could almost taste the sweetness in the air. It was a nice memory.

Jacene

Squat update

I am holding at 150lbs on the squats. I feel like I get shorter every time I do them and I make noises that sound almost like barks trying to stand back up. It is sort of sad. I did bust through pretty mightily on that 135lb plateau I was stuck at for a while. I think that now if I ever get in a bar fight with a very light and rigid person, I could take them...or at least squat them. It could happen, there could be rousing game of Ouija at a bar somewhere..."light as a feather, stiff as a board." :)

Give me an inch and I will take a mile

I have been troubling a coworker (not the same one I am going to bother about the LEED exam in the previous blog post) for new music to listen to. It started out as something sort of funny. Every band he ever spoke of listening to I had never heard of. It isn't that I couldn't place a song of theirs...I had never heard of the band name. I felt very old and unhip...well, I have never felt very hip. So anyway he let me listen to a couple of CDs and now I badger him occasionally for other bands to try. I have found some that I like so much I have added them to my "favorites" play list on my Ipod.

I started feeling a little bad about it for two reasons. One, I am now asking for new bands instead of him offering...crossing the line to pushy. Two, I am listening to them on my Ipod which means I have copied them and I need to purchase the ones I like and am listening to so that I am not one of THOSE people. I have been trained over the years on this point.

I will share some of the band/artist's names that I have recently heard and really liked but you can't make fun of me for not knowing about them before if they are common to you. Remember, I live my life in a little hobbit hole and don't venture out much. There are others that I like too but I need to listen to them more before making final judgement.
Morphine
Hothouse Flowers
David Garza
The Beautiful South

I did it...well a little bit of it anyway

I finally studied today. I had to leave the house to do it. I retreated back to my old study haunt, Panera's on the strip. I studied for 2 hours before becoming freaked out by what the test was going to cover and deciding that I really needed to talk to one particular coworker that recently took the test. I am hoping he can point me in the right path of what to study so I don't spend time on rote memorization of the wrong areas which is what it looks like it mostly is made up of. Good googly moogly...if that is what it is, I am doomed. It is a whole bunch of tables of information, ick.

It was enough to kill the momentum and I downed two tall cups of coffee in the process. Don't worry, since it was after 4pm, I only had decaf. :)

Jacene

John's Ceramic Artwork

Bear in mind these are not complete. Heck they haven't even been fired yet. This is what John and I worked on last weekend when I forgot to bring the camera into the studio. I went back yesterday and took these photos. He is on his way to fame, not fortune, as a potter hobbiest. :)

Jacene

Does this house make me look fat?

Over the past little bit I have been trying on houses...some were too big, some too snug, and some were just down right scary, but this one seemed to work. I put an offer on the house a little over a week ago and so did two other families ON THE SAME DAY! So my realtor, I love her and recomend her to anyone wanting to buy or sell a house, said "give me your final and best offer to bring to the table tomorrow". *gulp* I gave it to her and waived a home warranty...didn't get it.

To continue the story, I look at more houses and am a little sad but hopeful to find another house that fit as nicely as this one seemed to. Low and behold, I get a phone call in the women's restroom in the Denver airport and it is Laura. No, I wasn't in a stall, thank you. The other buyer backed out and I was runner up. Yippie. I said that I was still interested and by the end of the day when I was back in Ktown I had signed updated offer papers and am on my way to being a homeowner in a west Knoxville neighborhood. All you soccer moms...beware! Hopefully I will close at the end of the month and John is SUPER excited about having his very own bathroom which is the biggest one in the house.

Jacene

Where in the world is...Jacene?

Hi! I am still messed up from the latest trip last week. It is amazing what a few days on west coast time will do to you. I was up really late last night and took a nap today. I have to be straightened out by tomorrow morning or I will be in trouble. So anyway, to answer the question in the post title, I was in Palm Springs California last week for a couple of days on business. Sometimes I REALLY like my job.

I am attaching some photos; one of the Rocky Mountains (from the plane of course) and a couple of the view from the resort where I stayed. I am making this a quick little post because most of the trip was social events and what happens in Palm Springs...stays in Palm Springs and besides, it was pretty uneventful. I did hopefully make some good contacts and will get some restaurant work out of the deal, heck, that is what I went there to do.

Jacene