Rewind

Now that things are slowed down enough for me to BREATHE, let me rewind a bit and get my blog (and my brain) caught up on the month of November.

Going into November I knew it was going to be bad. I had a little sit-down talk with myself right before Halloween, preparing myself for a hectic month in which my laundry would pile up, the house wouldn't be as clean as normal, blogs and email would fall by the wayside and I would have a general feeling of rush and panic for 30 days straight. But - I made it. Its November 30, and the month of December looks MUCH more pleasing. The entire month of November wasn't a loss - but the fact that we had so many things going on, combined with how work went, was what made it so stressful. SO the stress was due to the presence of great things, for which I am thankful...and can now take the time to reflect upon.

The beginning of the month started off hectic at work thanks to the snow storm the week before, and because of the fact that I'd be leaving for Florida for the second week of the month. That Saturday, though, I had a day to look forward to - we were going to Boulder to see the Aggies play against CU! It was SO much fun to be back in an aggie-atmosphere for football. Granted it was weird to be SITTING with the alumni and watching the yell leaders lead the students, but I doubt I could have stood the entire game anyway :) The Aggies played well the first half, then crumbled and lost the game which was in their hands the entire time...how many games have I seen like that? I can't count. But - they're always so fun, aggie fans are always friendly and fun to be around...so it makes the loss a little easier to bear. I really liked the stadium at CU - nestled right in the foothills, mountains all around...if it weren't for the atmosphere more liberal than Austin, I may have been able to see myself having gone to school there. However - you would never find ME digging through trash cans outside the stadium tryin to keep Boulder "green" as people threw recyclable trash in the wrong bins...don't think I would have fit in :)

We couldn't stay and hang out with friends because I had not had time that week to do my laundry or pack for Florida. I was too busy at work as it was, and having a limited number of pants/skirts that I can wear makes weekly laundry a necessity before I can start the next week. Then Sunday it was off to Florida!!!

I'll skip ahead at this point as I am still not ready to tell you about Disney :) It's killing me, as I have the blog written out in my head...but it requires some things I have at home so I better, once again, put that topic aside and move forward. I got home from Florida that Thursday night and had to shift gears from one vacation to the next as we were leaving Friday to go to Estes Park for our anniversary.

To say the weekend was a hit is too much of a pun to pass up :) As we were winding up into the mountains Friday morning/early afternoon a deer jumped out of the trees and was unavoidable - so Austin had to hit him head on with his truck. After I calmed down, there were lots of things in the story to be thankful for...lots of ways we could tell that God had his hand in the situation. (though the cynic in me says "if he had his hand in it, why not just move the deer all together???") We had decided at the last minute to take Austin's truck instead of mine simply because mine was out of gas and we were too lazy to go to a gas station. A deer that size would have done MUCH more damage to my truck, and possibly even ended up on the hood of the truck. That was blessing #1. Then I started to get nauseous as Austin winded around the roads at 55mph (fun for him, not for me) so I asked him to slow down a little bit and turn the AC on to help my nausea/carsickness to subside. So he slowed down to about 35 mph about 3 minutes before we hit bambi. blessing #2. And finally, the roads were empty. We didn't have to worry about anyone behind us or on the opposite side as the deer limped off the side and down the mountain. blessing #3.

We've been asked (over and over) if we stopped to get bambi and his antlers, but the answer is no. He wasn't dead on impact like when I hit my deer in college (i know how to kill 'em) and he limped off the opposite side of the road. There are no shoulders on the roads, so we couldn't just stop in the middle of our lane - we had to continue on until there was a place we could veer off and look at the truck. Lovely sight...smashed in headlights, deer hair sticking out of the bumper, and plenty of dents that looked like dollar signs to me. But, once we got to our lodge in Estes we called Geico, reported our claim, and put it out of our heads...no use crying over spilled milk.

Especially when you can turn that milk into ice cream. Blue Bell at that! That's right...an ice cream shop in Estes Park has seen the light and has begun selling blue bell by the scoop rather than that nasty dryer's crap they used to sell :) Doesn't matter that it was 25 degrees outside and snowing...even for AUSTIN...we each sat there and blissfully ate our ice cream cones. They were so good on Friday we decided to have another on Saturday. Why not?!?! :) Other than blue bell and the BEST massage I've ever had (Austin's wasn't as memorable unfortunately) we didn't do too much. We wandered the town, did some shopping, played in the old-style video arcades, played some shuffleboard, and relaxed in our lodge. We also had mimosas, but mine were a bit dull with sparkling grape juice rather than champagne :) Thats ok though! It was a lot of fun...nice to have a vacation where we had absolutely no obligations to do anything, just kind of walked around and let that be our guide. Quite a concept :)

Then began the week of hell, which prompted my sole posting before Thanksgiving. After having some time to relax and think more on my job situation - I want you all to know that things aren't as bad as they seemed THAT day. I'll never like the way Kathy operates, or the lack of organization in our department, and I still think tax accounting brings more hours and stress than I'd like for my career to bring on...but all in all, I'm happy here. I've really learned a lot and been able to challenge myself - which is a great thing. I also like the people (or the majority of the people) that I work with, and when times aren't TOO stressful its really a wonderful job. No job is perfect, I know that, and I know that it is all a learning experience. I'll just have to find my own balance between work and home, and if that doesn't work for Western Union (which Dana insists it will) I will have to find a job that works with what we need. For now though, I'm fine here and I think it will all work out well.

How's that optimism for a week off from work? Vacations work wonders.

I would LOVE to just do an entire catch-up blog here and talk about our trip to Texas, but then what would I write about tomorrow?

So Stay Tuned!