Cold and Tired

Sunday 8pm - go to bed early because I don't feel good and want to be well rested.
12:45am- fire alarm goes off. Takes another 15min to track down which one, replace the battery and then another half hour to get back to sleep. So much for a good nights rest.
4am- alarm goes off to get up and go to work. Notice it's unusually cold. Check the thermostat and notice it's only 58 degrees. Crap, no heat!
4:15am- go in the basement to see if pilot is still lit. However, I don't know what that looks like. mmmm
4:20am- decide it's not the pilot, maybe we're out of propane?
4:25am- out in the backyard with a flashlight digging up the propane tank so I can check the gauge, which I shortly found to read zero!
4:30am- finally leave for work, while Marc calls for emergency fill up.
4:45am- receive call from Marc, the gas company is not doing emergency runs due to weather and call back after 8am. So basically screw you.
7:00am- Marc calls and tells me that the house smells of gas, so he's taking the dogs to his parents. Great, the dogs will be ok, but maybe no house when we get home.
8:15am- Marc calls and says they're coming out sometime today, but didn't ask why they didn't fill it last week when they were in the neighborhood. Also, that they said they'd fill it today, but they're going to turn the gas off and we'll have to turn it back on and he didn't get instructions on how to do this.
9am- I call myself, woman tells me the guy was supposed to come Friday, but just didn't. They don't know why, so he'll be around some time today. Nice. She did give me instructions on how to turn the gas back on though.
2:15pm- I get home and check the tank and it's full and gas is turned off. I turn it back on, go in the house and turn on the heater and nothing! Oh no! I wait a few minutes and finally, WE HAVE HEAT!!!!
I'm hoping to get a better nights sleep tonight.

I couldn't help but think of Buddy.

The Burp

I was talking to my sister on the phone and I could hear my nephew's running around in the background. We were talking about Justin almost turning 2 years old and I was asking how much he's been talking. So she called him over and said "say hi Aunt Di". Then I hear Justin heavy breathing in the phone and then clear as day he says, "hi Aunt Daaaauuuiiii". He had burped my name. We both cracked up and Jen says, "well how many 2 year olds do you know that can burp your name?"

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

When I came home the other night I saw this as I went to enter my bedroom. mmmm?








I followed it around, into the bedroom, around the dresser, and then I realized it was a roll of toilet paper. It just kept going....





Finally at the other end I found the remainder of the roll in the bathroom.









I quickly turned around and called for Riley and Layla to see who was the culprit. Riley was there in a snap. Meanwhile I had to go looking for Layla. I found her hovering at the bottom of the stairs and she wouldn't look at me.

Hummm, who do you think did it???

I Heart Climbing

I have had a rough week or so. I already hate winter. So nothing much going on. It's cold and blah and I don't get out as much as I'd like because it's so miserably cold outside. Then I got sick a week ago. It came on kinda slow, thought I'd be ok, but alas, I succumbed to a week of snot, sore throat and low grade fever. Lack of sleep also accompanies these symptoms, which seems to make a week last forever. So anyway as of yesterday and several boxes of tissues I am better.
I thought ah, what a nice day to finally be feeling better. Right? Well turned out to be the day from hell. I was so mad and upset by yesterday evening that I hated all people. That is until last night when we met up with Marc, Christian, Wes and his friend Genia and we went bouldering. All my worries of the day just melted away. It was so awesome! I love climbing. We had done a little bit of climbing years ago when visiting a friend who had lived up near the Philly Rock Gym. But it was a haul and he no longer lived up there, so we stopped going. That is until last week when we met up Wes, a couple of his friends and Rob at a new gym not too far from home.
This time no ropes. We've been strictly bouldering. It's been so much fun. Last week I was sick, but I went anyway. I had a lot of fun, but paid for it the rest of the week as I ached and think it took my cold for a turn for the worst. This week was better. Felt a little more comfortable. Though I still panic when I get too high, or just think I'm high. I fell once and held on for dear life dangling around, tore up my knuckle, skinned my forearm, bruised my butt and drug my back down the wall as I finally released, and it turned out I was only about 3 feet off the ground. Yeah, I'm a chicken. After that little incident Wes's friend Genia showed me how to fall correctly. Genia is great. She is so nice. Wes has some of the nicest friends. She is so friendly and helpful. She was giving me tips on how I could do things and move to make things easier. She was great.
I would like to say that the euphoria of climbing held over until today, but it did not. As I drove home my stress slowly crept back in. As I tried to sleep last night my mind raced with the problems I had to deal with today. But at least I found a little reprieve and I guess I don't hate all people.

Where will you be at Midnight on 7/21?

It's finally been set. Saturday July 21st the 7th and final book in the Harry Potter series will be released. Many bookstores are already taking pre-orders. Borders actually sent me a pre-order request a couple weeks ago. Which I found very odd as there was still no release date at the time. But now there is. So pre-order away if you want to be assured you will be one of the ones to get one on release day.

I will say. I did not pre-order book 5 and I did manage to find one the same day it was released. It take several trips to several different stores. But after some hunting we did find an ample supply at Walmart.

For book 6, I wasn't taking any chances and I pre-ordered with Borders. This is one of the few stores that was releasing the book at midnight. So yes, I was one of the goofy people out there standing in line for what seemed like forever to get my book. And though all I could do is go home and go straight to bed, it was still worth it, because as soon as I woke up on Saturday morning I could begin reading instead of heading out to the store to pick up mine.

This may sound a little obsessive. However, it's not that I can't wait to read it. Well actually I can't. I do want to find out how this whole thing plays out. But also, I hate spoilers. I can't stand all the rumors about what is going to happen. Or the people who say they got a hold of the manuscript and leak out what is supposedly about to occur. Whether it be true or false, it just spoils it. I want to read it as it comes and not know something might be coming up.

Shortly before book 6 was released there were a ton of rumors about Dumbledore dieing. I figured no way, she can't kill Dumbledore, he's a vital character. But low and behold damn if they weren't right and Dumbledore was killed. Now the rumor is that Dumbledore really is alive. However, Rowlings has squashed that one and said no, Dumbledore really is dead. And no one can come back from being dead. She has been consistent in that. Except for Voldemort of course. But he never really died either due to the horcruxes.

So on July 13th the 5th movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" will be released. And on Saturday July 21st the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be released. It's going to be a very Harry July. His fate will soon be known.

The Goldilocks Ride

I didn't ride Saturday due to the cold and wind. Though I wanted to ride, I'm having a rough time motivating myself to actually go out now that it's cold. Marc said he heard it was supposed to be better Sunday and no wind. So I said ok.
I slept in a little too much and missed leaving with Marc. So he took my bike over for me and I went over later. I wasn't going to ride with his group anyway. So no big deal. And I still can't haul my bike around as I haven't put the rack back on my car since the garage incident.
Anyway, I get up, grab as many warm clothes as I can find and head out. When it's cold as a general rule I do not like to turn the heat on in the car so my body can get acclimated to the cold and not be all warm and toasty and go into shock. But I found I was loosing more heat that I felt I'd need later, so I had to turn it on a little. Then I checked the temperature. 24 degrees! That's just crazy.
I arrive at the park and put the rest of my clothes on as quickly as possible. It's so cold, but it will be better soon as I get moving. That's what I keep telling myself anyway. As I'm hauling my bike out of Marc's car I see James, he's out riding too. We say hi, he says he headed over to Middlerun and asks if I'd like to tag on, I decline, I'd rather stay close to the car because I wasn't so sure how long I could talk myself into staying out in the cold. He takes off.
I get on my bike and unfortunately the beginning is a fast open field downhill. AHHHHH! The wind is so cold, my face is burning, my eyes water up so bad I can barely see. Oh it's just torture. I'm bargaining with myself, if the next hill doesn't warm me up I'm heading straight back to the car and calling it a day. Just as I reach the top of the climb I run into a huge group with Fitzie at the lead. He stops and asks where I'm headed. I say I've just started, as I really had. So he says goodbye to his group and heads off with me. Now that he just left his group I can't hardly call it a day so we keep going. We talk as we go and I do warm up some. It was really nice to ride with someone and it helped to keep the cold off my mind. After a while of riding he tells me it's the Goldilocks ride. Of course I have to ask what he means by this. He says, he started out with Marc, Buddy and Todd's group, but they were too fast. Then he pulled off and went with another group, but they were too slow. Now it's just the two of us and it's just right. I laughed. Good analogy.
We ended up riding the entire park. Actually he rode some of the trails 2 and 3 times due to the group switching. But I didn't freeze, I was really really cold, but I didn't freeze. It was a good time. Thanks Fitz!