D-D-D-D-D-Dora!!

So my niece loves Dora. She's a year and a half and LOVES Dora. She loves to watch her, sings along, dances, says the words in Spanish that Dora says and just loves everything about Dora. So I decided to make her a Dora quilt. This was my first actual real quilt that I did without my mama. But I did have a woman at work help me with it. She is big into making quilts and had been telling me all about a quilt she was doing for her new grandson being born, and that is what started this whole thing. She was showing me the basics of her quilt and I thought how cute it would be to make my niece a Dora quilt. So I put that idea out to her and she immediately offered to help me. So my Dora quilt idea was born. That was in May. I've been working on it off and on when we'd be available since then, but this week we really kicked it into overdrive. As you can see it's 98% finished. Just needs to be tied and that's that!

I'm trying to surprise my sister-in-law with it. I've been sneaking around to sew this week and I've teased her a little bit about what I've been doing. Mainly telling her it's a surprise, it's good, she'll like it, etc but not actually giving anything away at all. So I'm going to show it to her today. I stayed home from church with my nephew who isn't feeling well and while she's gone I'm going to put it on her bed so when she comes home there it is. Hopefully I'll be able to capture her reaction on camera. Cause that would just be fun for me.

Anyway, I'm just so pleased with how it turned out. It really couldn't have been any better. I just hope my niece will learn to like covers. As it turns out currently she hates them and never sleeps with a blanket!! Hopefully she'll learn to like blankets before she outgrows Dora!

So now it's official

I get my apartment.

Minnesota, here I come!!

So I have an apartment in Cottage Grove, MN ready and waiting for me. It's 99% official, but I just really wanted to post this blog, so even though I haven't gotten the official final call of approval, when I talked to the apartment complex earlier today they were only pending the manager's signature to make it official. I might be jumping the gun, but just by a little bit.

I've been doing some apartment searching online and lucky for me I have a really great boyfriend who has been willing to look at some local places for me since he's there and I'm not. I'm going to visit him in Aug and will actually view the apartment then, but I wanted to have the searching done long before then because of availability. Right now people are looking to fill for Sept, which is my target move date. And where I'd be moving is only about 10 miles away from my boo, which was one of the main appeals of the apartment.

I'm so excited to be able to live nearby him. I'm excited to do the little things like making dinner together, going shopping together, taking the dog for a walk with him, making some meals at Super Suppers, going to movies, and getting to check out all the beautiful lakes and parks he tells me about all the time...like this awesome waterfall at Minnehaha Park that's practically in the middle of downtown Minneapolis.

I think it will be so much fun to be able to chill with him, and live near him and do actual couple stuff. There are so many cool places he tells me about in MSP that I can't wait to check them out. Local jazz clubs everywhere, great little restaurants, both the Minneapolis and St. Paul downtowns are apparently very eclectic and I'm excited to hang out there.

I really am very excited to move. I want to move around Labor Day so I can take advantage of the paid holiday rather than PTO. I'm planning on using the same moving company that moved me from DSM to PHX so if I can get them to pick up the trailer Aug 30, then I make the drive up to MSP leaving early Friday Sept 1 I should be able to be there by Sat night (hopefully) and then if the moving comp could drop off the trailer for me to unload it on Sun that would be perfect. I don’t know if that will necessarily be how it goes down, but that would be my ideal. Anyway, at least I don't have to do the drive alone. Kristen offered to take a road trip so I would have company and she would have something fun to do like ride cross country! If we can make it as far as Denver the first night, or even a little farther, we should be able to make it to MSP with no problem by late the second night. That would be the best way, cause I can’t really take PTO. I only have about 4.5 days left after I get back from my trip in Aug. And I want to go home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’m not sure how the PTO thing will work, actually, cause if I have a laptop and can work from anywhere with it, maybe I can not count that as PTO. We’ll see.

So as far as work details go, here's how it's going to go down. I'm going to stay in my same position, work for the same HMC in the same branch AU, but do it remotely from MN instead of just up the road from him. We're already in 2 different offices and work primarily over email, phone, fax and MAC mail. So we'll continue to do that. What will change, though, is he'll have to start doing some more "fixing" on his own. Like if there is a signing that was wrong and it needs to be fixed, or if something needs to be taken to the title company, or if a doc was notarized wrong and it needs to be resigned, etc, he'll have to handle that because he'll be local. Whereas I'll be off in the cold cold land of Minnesota, being a snowbunny!

Now I'm just trying to get my branch manager to set everything up with a local branch manager to let me just work out of their office. When I get a laptop I can pretty much work from anywhere, but I'd rather be in an office. I think I'd start getting cabin fever if I were to try to work from home in my 1 bedroom apartment with my computer, fax and printer hanging out in my living room. And I think I would really miss the interaction with other people if I were to work from home. Not to mention I'd be distracted with the TV (which is completely unlike when I'm distracted by updating my blog at work) and would probably put things off until they were a huge rush to get done cause I've been watching Buffy reruns all day. So the goal is to be working out of a branch that is only a few miles away. That would be ideal; so we’ll see how it goes down.

But the main point is that I am so excited to move. I wanted to wait until I knew I was in the apartment before I put it out there that I was moving. I'm excited to be closer to my friends from DSM again. And I so cannot wait to be near my baby. I miss him and I’ll be glad to not be doing a long distance thing anymore.



Can you tell? I'm excited!!

I ice-skate.

That's right, I'm an ice-skater. This is based on the fact that I ice-skated last night and did not fall down and was actually able to propel myself gracefully across the ice without falling. I got to go with my sis-in-law and her kids and it was a lot of fun. I, of course, was awesome. Here’s a really bad picture to prove it!

What happened to Andrae?

So speaking of TV that I really like, I've become a slave to Project Runway. Last season I caught it half way through and this season I plan on watching it start to finish. I thought the audition episode last week was hilarious, and last night I got all reminiscy about the funny stuff in last seasons reunion episode so I have to post some of the funnier clips.












Just so funny!

I love House

Housey, House, House

I love House. I think it's so funny and real. Well sometimes it's not necessarily real, cause it's just too good to be real, but I really like it. I just started watching it a few episodes before the season ended but I'm addicted. I think Hugh Laurie is great in his role as Dr. Gregory House, a diagnostician who hates people and is addicted to painkillers for his bum leg (although I haven't figured out how he got his bum leg yet). I didn't even realize I had seen him before until looking him up just now on imdb.com but turns out he's been in a lot of stuff, and I had seen him in Flight of the Phoenix and Sense and Sensibility but never would have known that was the same guy. He plays a completely different type of role in House and I think he's great in it.

I also really like the supporting cast: Dr. Allison Cameron; played by Jennifer Morrison (think Stir of Echoes with better hair), Dr. Eric Foreman (not from that 70s show!); played by Omar Epps, Dr. Robert Chase; played by Jesse Spencer (think Uptown Girls), and my favorite Dr. James Wilson; played by Robert Sean Leonard. I love him from back in the days of Dead Poet's Society and My Best Friend is a Vampire (geeky I know, but how great is it that he can't eat pizza with garlic on his first date as a vampire cause of the garlic! that's just classic).

So anyway, I'm addicted to House. I just discovered I'm watching the summer reruns of the 2nd season. And as much as I newly love House, I thought I was watching reruns of season 1. So now I want to see season 1 as well. Maybe they have it on DVD at Hollywood Video. Since I'm not ready to commit to Netflix, I'm going to have to stick with the local video store for a little bit longer... if they have it.

I could keep going as to why I love it, but let's just say, I just do and leave it at that.











I love House. Housey, House House

Man it's hot outside

This was last night at 9:45. It's too freaking hot!!

He's my guitar hero

So we rocked out to Guitar Hero on playstation over the 4th, too. That was a lot of fun!

Hit 'em up style!

My baby was here this last weekend and it was awesome. We had such a good time. The Sat he was here I had to finalize all the last little bit of apartment move out that had to be finished. Moved the rest of the little stuff out, finished all the cleaning, did the walk through, and turned in my keys. The corporate office will be sending me a final letter stating whether I owe them any money or if I get a refund of my security deposit (but to tell you the truth I don't think I even paid one). But hopefully I will have a clean slate. The apartment was freaking spic and span so they shouldn't have any complaints. Then after the apartment stuff we had to run a few more errands and then it was off to chill the rest of the night. We rented Prime and watched that over at Kristen's. It was pretty good. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, but I liked it for the most part.

Sunday we had our awesome massages at Massage Envy. It was very relaxing. A little too much pressure but overall very soothing. I could get used to having one once every 2 months I think. We also ate at White Chocolate Grill on Sunday which was freaking awesome! And then chilled for a bit and then wound up at the movies. We saw Superman and Nacho Libre. Very happy with Superman, really didn't care for Nacho Libre. Then Sun night we went to this real cool spot that I mentioned in a previous blog, Bobby C's. We had a great time listening to some live jazz, ate some good food, got to sit next to the owner and just really had a good time. Definitely worth going back.

Monday we chilled and then went to more movies. We saw the Devil Wears Prada (loved it) and Click (also very good) and had dinner at Tara's. Props to Tara for some yummy shepherds pie! Then Tues we saw Cars and then it was time for my baby to go home. That was very sad, cause we had so much fun together. I can't wait to see him again and I have a trip planned for the middle of August to go to visit him. During one of the days I'm there we'll head down to DSM for the IA State Fair, and that should be fun. I've never been to that fair before, and Kristen is getting me all hyped for it talking about the dang root beer, so I'm excited about that. But I'm so excited to see BP's place!!! He has a PHAT apartment. I saw it before he moved in so I can't wait to see how it turned out now that he's settled and making it his own. So we'll have a few days to hang out and chill before the fair, so that will be cool.

So anyway, my weekend was really good. I had a lot of fun, a lot of good food, a lot of good times with my boy and I can't wait to see him again!!