Progress!!! (a.k.a the post I really wanted to put up today :-)

So this was my original post for today before the world erupted late last night...

Yesterday at 9:30am marked a full 3 weeks of me being a nonsmoker. Three weeks, 21 days, 504 hours. To some this may not seem like all that much of an accomplishment. I feel safe in assuming they also have never had a pack a day plus habit to battle out against no one but themselves. I can definitely say this is by far the longest I have ever made it in a stop smoking campaign and I am still finding it hard to believe that I'm almost to the 30-day mark.  That whole 30 days to relearn a habit is a benchmark I have set for myself hoping that it works and I will have broken the habits of when I smoke and the random "I want a cigarette" moments will be fewer and further in between.

The Zyban has helped. A lot from what I can tell. It is somewhat hard to judge though; this is the honest to goodness first time that I have felt at peace with my decision to quit so that may also be playing a role. I havent had any adverse side effects that I can tell from taking the medication. Part of me wants to test it and stop taking them - I am not a huge fan of taking medication - but the other part feels that they wouldnt prescribe it for 12 weeks if it wasnt necessary to take it for 12 weeks so I should probably shut the fuck up and do as I was told...which is probably what I will do. Not worth risking falling off this wagon when Ive been on it for so long.

I am still having the random urges to smoke. Its strange because there is no pattern to why I have the craving, but it happens at least once a day that I have the overwhelming urge to find and inhale a cigarette. Doesnt help that I also have a really bad lil devil that likes to help me rationalize all kinds of bad decisions. The lil angel seems to be stronger than lil devil so I am still winning the battles and havent cheated. I wont consider the war as won until Im off the meds.  Talking to a bunch of ex-smokers they tell it kind of similar to an alcoholic, I will just be a smoker who doesnt smoke. I sincerely hope this isnt true. But I can totally see that it may be. Kinda sucks...but if I never wanted to crave nicotine I should have never started smoking...so I cant be all that bitter, really. My choice, now I get to reap the rewards of being an amazingly dumb 17 year old. Lucky me :-)

My other big deal was the completion of the painting of the steps.  The Mister & I are in week 3 of a major home improvement project - we are completely redoing the foyer & upstairs hallway. I decided, and whether this was smart or not will remain to be seen, to paint all of the wood work in those areas. This has been a major undertaking in that there is a metric fuck ton of wood in both of theses spots - an entire stair case, banisters & steps; the whole foyer which is one of those wicked leaded glass, side windows plus door; 3 bedroom doors, 2 closet doors, 1 bathroom door & a window frame to round it all out. Im doing it all in two colors so its not just as easy as tossing some paint on them and walking away.

I started with the hardest part first and yesterday afternoon I put the final touches on the staircase and all of its bullshit. I LOVE how it turned out, I did NOT love the sheer amount of tedious detail work involved with it. The doors upstairs are going to be a pain, but NOTHING compared to these steps with all the shit on them. They have been so bad that I have only been working on them a couple hours a time because I get so bored by the tediousness I get stabby, hence its taken this long. So when I got it done finally I did the happy girl dance. I see the light at the end of this project. Finally. Woooo!

Not a bad weekend, really. And finishing up that hard part means more motivation to complete the rest of it so the Mister can lay the new floor.  Ahhhhh....the joys of home ownership. Tell me again why I dont just fucking rent?!? Oh yeah...because I decided to buy a house at 23 and didnt realize until I was 28 that 1) that was a horrible idea, 2) I got completely FUCKED on the deal and 3) buying a house isnt all its cracked up to be when you dont have kids & a school district to worry about. Moral of the story kids: when your much older parents try to tell you something, like not to buy an old house at 23, think twice before not listening. Some shit just isnt so easy to get out of...a mortgage on a house is a dying neighborhood is one of those things.

Happy Happy Weekend!!!!

So I know its only Saturday night but its been a pretty awesome couple days so far!!

First Mister FINALLY got the ice maker & water doohickeythingie (that is a VERY technical term) on my 10 month old refrigerator fully operational. It makes me giddy that I will not have to make stupid ice in stupid ice cube trays ever again...or at least as long as the maker keeps working anyway...because I do not know the recipe for ice ~ and this drives Mister nuts! (psssst- dont tell him but I really do know how to make ice I just absolutely hate doing it!)

I bought my tickets to Scarehouse for the Tuesday Night Tweet-Up shenanigans on 10/5 that is described ever so fabulously by BurghBaby right here. It benefits a couple of awesome charities, as she explains, and I am asking that if any of y'all would like to join that you do so via HER link on HER page. Please and Thank You! I have also managed to get Mister to agree to take me to this event, which would be our first haunted house trip in years. See...I LOVE this kinda stuff but him not so much but because he loves me he has agreed to deal with me there and buy me some depends just in case. I thank him for playing along and promise not to do too much damage to him as I am getting the bejesus scared out of me. Should be an excellent time!

Attended a seminar this morning & afternoon held by SCORE Pittsburgh about entrepreneurial types of things that provided confirmation that I DO know more than I thought I did (yaay!) and learned a few other things that will be helpful.  I think me & Mister have finally decided on the smartest path for us to take that will get us where we want to go with far less head bashing and am actually looking forward to starting this process. We have had a bazillion ideas about "what we want to be when we grow up" and all of them have been pretty awesome, but this one feels right and makes the most sense in my head. We need to think of an awesome name and start the planning, but because Im me half of the plan is written in my head already...now to get it on paper.

Since we were in town all morning & afternoon we decided to have lunch down there. Let me first say that holy hell all the Market Square construction bullshit is going to be well worth it once it is all complete. It was very reminiscent of a Grand Place in Europe and was gorgeous! We had a delectable Mexican lunch at Las Velas (if you dig Mexican you HAVE to go...it was delicious) and had a walk around the Cultural District. They had a bunch of the street lights wrapped up in that colored cello paper stuff and I dont know why though... It was a beautiful afternoon for a walk and as we rounded the corner to head back up Penn I HAD to go get a Burnt Almond Torte from Prantls. I got THE last one and wanted to squeeee because I have been jonesing for that cake since my birthday in August.

I finally got a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with a financial planner dude so we can get our personal affairs in order and get a plan of attack for getting that all squared away. Im sure it wont be the most exciting meeting ever but its a baby step toward bigger ones so win. I kinda felt bad for the guy, 3 weeks hes been trying to get me to set an appt...we finally found a day that works. He wanted to come by the house...I didnt think that was such a great idea unless he happens to be a dog person. Little puppy butt likes strangers a lot and can be a bit much to take if you dont dig beasts.

And in case anyone missed it....IT WAS A HOCKEY NIGHT IN PITTSBURGH!!!! In case you cant tell I'm a tad excited. Baseball - hell freaking no. Football - meh, if Misters watching it I will but otherwise I could care less. Hockey on the other hand - I will watch that alone! It was awesome to see all my boys back on the ice tonight at Consol! Chris "Sex Hair" LeTang had 2 fights, Geno (my hard core hockey crush) beat a guys ASS, I was impressed from all 3 preseason games with Mr Hillary Duff (Comrie, I know but my way is funnier) and Fleury looked really good in net. I will miss Staal until he is back but honestly Im just happy to have hockey back...I missed it so. I also decided that I will sell a kidney (or maybe even kill The Wizard for his tickets) to get into Consol at least once this year to see a game live. Anyone have 2 tickets and need a kidney? I haz an extra one & am willing to sell!

Mister & I also made a mostly final decision...we plan to sell this house sometime spring/summer next year as quickly as possible and move. We want to go downtown/East End and rent. After years of trying to force ourselves to be "responsible homeowners" we have decided that it just isnt us and would rather not deal with all this bullshit. We work way too much & would rather spend our down time doing things we want to as opposed to shit we HAVE to because of this house. If we had kids and had to worry about schools or whatever that would be one thing, but the dogs dont really care where we live and we just plain dont want to. It is going to be a project & a half getting this shit ball rolling but I am motivated to get the fudge outta here. Between the shitty neighbors, abandoned houses, ridiculous borough and just an overall unhappiness with the 'hood its time to roll! Yay!!!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring...but its Sunday so it cant be all that bad. I see a trip to an orchard to I can get some apples to make applesauce and some fall stuff I want in the very near future and as soon as my replacement paddle comes for my mixer I will be regaling you with a recipe for these cinnamon roll cookie things Mister found on line that just look like they should be awesome.  Hope you all are having a great weekend too!!!!

What I did on my (2nd) Summer Vacation

HOLY HELL! So Ive been on vacation all week. Sort of. Well.....I havent been to work all week anyway.

First - I will NEVER understand why when I tell the folks that work for me that I will be off work and incommunicado for a week and to PLEASE email me if I am needed they still insist upon calling. I would NEVER call any of them on a day off, least of all while on vacation, unless it was dire. None of the calls have been dire. For the record I have let them all go to voicemail and havent returned one of them...all could have been very easily handled via email, so thats what I did. Just annoying. I run restaurants, not hospitals...there is no life & death in my job generally and an email will suffice. I have had a blissful week of not really knowing where my phone is...leave me alone and GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

So Mister''s jerkface manager decided to go ahead and schedule him to work this week and ignored his ROs for the weekend...so no going aways for me. Side note: I have met & chatted up Jerkface manager he is not JUST a jerkface - he is also an amazingly incompetent assbag who, if when my vacation rolls around end of October, is still Mister's manger and pulls this bullshit again will not only be dealing with a surly Mister (this is torture BTW, I know from personal experience) he will also be getting a pissed off Mindy upside his melon of a head. Last I had spoken to Jerkface Manager was while I had dinner at the bar while Mister was tending. He was telling me how amazing he was for being a corp assistant manager at 34 and all about his resume full of suck (Mister did not enlighten him as to what I do for a living at all apparently) and I took a moment of sheer pleasure when I told him my job title at 34 and a little about what I do. Unrelated - through the course of this conversation he said the weirdest thing to me. Hes a black guy, and made a crack about how he doesnt understand ebonics. He made this comment out of no where and it had NOTHING to do with our conversation. Even made a comment about his brother not being professional and "ghetto". I am not sure why he felt the need to tell me any of this -strange fucker to say the least. And Ill kill him if he fucks up another vacation for me.

Anywho....back on track. So since all travel plans were prohibited by Misters work schedule I decided some home improvement was necessary to keep me busy - I cant sit on my ass at home all week with no purpose. The Dining Room. It was one of the first rooms we tackled when we moved in here...and it showed in the plaster & patch work we were learning to do when we did it. Honestly that wasnt the main driving force behind my desire. When we did the room initially I did a sponge paint on the walls, we hung mahogany wainscoting & a chair rail and it was done in taupe & beige colors. This room is also in the back corner of the house  so its kind of dark but I dug it for awhile. The more Ive looked at it over the last, oh I dont know, 5 years, the less Ive liked it. For some unknown reason that I do not understand at all I decided that I wanted the ceiling painted the same base color as the walls - a beige kind of color - and I hated it more the more I looked at it. Made the whole room look like a cave and it was just dark and felt oppressive......yeah for the 3 times a year we actually use that room.  So dining room make over it is.

I painted all the wood a light sage color, the walls are a really light yellow, ceiling is white finally and we spent yesterday laying a laminate floor that I AM LOVING. The whole room just looks airy & bright and welcoming. Have a couple more floor pieces to lay today or tomorrow that involve some serious cutting around the radiator base...but overall I feel like we have a new house! So many hours of labor, a lot of swearing and most of a bottle of ibuprofen later and its looking good. Once its finished completely I will post some pics...at the moment it looks like a bomb went off somewhere around the center of the house and shit got flung everywhere.

My Mother-In-Law will be here Monday for a week - itll all be cleaned up & put away before she steps foot in my house!!

Have a whole nother post to write about this house....but I'll write that one later. I'm going to go sit on my new floor and bask in the glory that is our happy new dining room!