Wisdom Teeth

As many of you know, Shane had his wisdom teeth removed on Friday.  We've been recovering on the couch all weekend with plenty of chicken soup and popsicles.  Shane is doing pretty well, but gets a little achey right before his next dose of pain meds is due.  He's even gotten a little bit of work done this weekend (workaholic)!  He's being a very good patient and I've enjoyed playing nurse all weekend :-)

Now, for a little fun with numbers!

One - the number of individuals in our house who still have their wisdom teeth (his name is Archie)
Two - the number of teeth extracted from Shane's mouth
Three - the number of boxes of jello purchased for our recovery weekend (we've already eaten through two!)
Four - The number of hours between each dose of pain meds
Five - The number of movies we've watched this weekend (Killer Elite, Lion King, Woman in Black, Safehouse, and Wedding Crashers)

Ta-ta for now!

Interesting things I've done this week....

... I use the word "interesting" quite loosely, as you'll see:

1. Painted my toenails!

2. Made a fruit salad! (I actually do this everyday for breakfast, but isn't it a great photo??)

3. Took a jillion pictures of Archie!

As you can tell, unemployment is making me stir crazy.  Here's hoping I find a job soon!!!

Obligatory New Year's Post

I know I'm a little late on it, but HAPPY NEW YEAR! Can you believe it's 2012? I certainly cannot.  Where does the time go?? In any case, it's resolution time! The following are my goals/resolutions for the new year...

1. Finish unpacking so that we can have a functional guest room (the other half of this resolution is to harass everyone I know until they all visit!)
2. Exercise regularly (yeah yeah, this is on everyone's list but Shane and I really have been working out twice a week for a few weeks now!!)
3. Find a fantastic job that is both challenging and rewarding
4. Cook more (for those of you who've had the pleasure of tasting Chef Shane's masterpieces, you'll understand why I have let him cook dinner for 363 of the last 365 days -- but It's time for me to step it up!)
5. Get married!! WOO HOOOOOOO

Happy Tuesday!

Things that are making me happy today:

1. INTERNET!
   We fiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally got the cable guy out here and 4 hours later (yes, truly it took 4 hours) we have cable and internet so we can stop stealing the neighbor's jank wireless internet! Woo hoo!
2. FURNITURE!
   Shane got the call this morning that our second truckload of furniture and boxes will be arriving either Saturday or Sunday!!!
3. NAP TIME!
   Neither Shane nor I slept well last night.  He finally got out of bed around 5 to read on the couch, and I was forced out of bed at around 5:30 with a work call. My work settled down a little around 8:30 so I sat on the couch with Shane & Archie and we napped for a little over an hour before Shane left for work. It was fantastic :-)
4. MOM!
   Had a delightful chat with her first thing this morning (post nap time).  Is there any better way to start the day??
5. PAYDAY!
   Shane got his first paycheck today! Yay money!!!

Womp Womp...

As photo-documented in the last post, our furniture arrived on Wednesday.... sort of.  Unfortunately, the Bekins man who estimated the tonnage of our furniture underestimated and the stuff from our condo wouldn't all fit, much less ANY of the furniture and boxes from my storage unit.  So fine, we rolled with the punches and they picked up the remaining stuff in a second truck a day or so later.  Well, we were under the impression that we would receive ALL shipments in the 3-day window promised to us, but alas, our second shipment won't come for THREE MORE WEEKS (they quoted us 2 weeks but that's Thanksgiving and we'll be out of town). Are you freaking kidding me?? What a big, fat disappointment. So for now we're trying to make-do with the random assortment of things we received. We received the couch but not the coffee table, the bed but not the bedside tables, the TV but not the TV stand, Patio furniture cushions but no patio furniture, DVDs but  no DVD player.... etc, etc.

Also, the neighbors that live below us are terrible. Just plain awful. And noisy. And rude. And disrespectful.  And they smoke in their unit and it comes up through our vents. More on them later. Or not.

Also, San Francisco highways are super stressful and confusing to navigate. Why don't they put exit numbers on any of the exits?!

Quick! Make a list of things we like about California before we enter full-blown pity-party mode:
1. Living just across the bay from an old friend, Kennedy, and her darling husband Dan who are having us over for dinner tonight!
2. The promise of great restaurants and exciting things to do (though truth be told we have done little to no exploring/adventuring... yet) 
3. Scarf and boot weather (we rarely if ever got this in Florida)
4. The gorgeous views of the city at all times -- it's just so cool to see houses up the mountains. And it's really pretty at night when all you see are the twinkly lights.

Mi Casa es Winning

We just have the third floor

Things that rule about our new house:

1. Proximity to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Station -- Shane takes it to and from work each day!

 2. Backyard for Archiepants

3. Gas stovetop

4. View of the Pacific Ocean

5. Supercool landlord (additional blogpost about Lily coming soon...)


Thing that less-than-rules about our new house:

1. Godawful monkey shower doors

These are in BOTH bathrooms!

Close-up of monkey detail

Things I'll miss about my job

So yesterday was my last day in the Tampa office and although I'm keeping this position and working remotely, it still feels like the end.  The day was really nice -- everyone said how much they'll miss me and have enjoyed having me around and my boss took me out to lunch (sushi!).

As much as I've hated the 1 hour 15 minute commute everyday (2.5 hours roundtrip!), I am going to miss it a little. I have compiled a list of the things I will miss, as I say farewell to the Tampa office...

1. Howard Frankland Bridge

• Gorgeous view of the water
• On a good day you may find yourself driving with a pelican flying alongside which is super cool 

2. Free lunch

• Since it's a major regional office, they host a lot of employee trainings here and they always order enough food for the office staff to eat too

3. Coworker Deb

• Made me delicious ceviche on more than one occasion

• Left random treats on my desk for no reason

Easter egg!

I named him Fred

• Owns an adorable basset hound named Merlin and regularly sends me photos of him
• Made me a carrot cake for my last day in the office :-)

4. My boss (although he worked remotely at least 80% of the time so it's not like I saw him all that much in the office)

• Adores me and regularly tells me how awesome I am at my job
• Asked for our new address so he can send us a housewarming present. HE IS SO NICE!

Things I've accomplished today

1. Mail forwarding
   - Our mail will be forwarded beginning this Saturday, October 29th.  If you'd like our forwarding address, please email :-)
2. Dropped the price on our craigslisted couch, and craigslisted a second couch that we forgot we were getting rid of
   - Seriously, what is wrong with us that we have two excess couches?!
3. More sorting through things/getting rid of things
   - Cleaning out junk drawers, etc.
4. Farewell dinner with Lauren O
   - Got a little teary-eyed leaving the parking lot, but hopefully she'll come visit :-)
5.  Farewell dinner with Square1 Burgers
   - Very important. Obviously.
6. Faxed in our signed lease
   - This just got REAL

Countdown to the big move: 5 days!

What I'll miss most... A guest post by Archie Harter

1. Walkin'

2. Smellin'

3. Explorin'

  I can't believe we're movin' in 8 days!

The To-Do List

1. Find a moving company
• Luckily, Shane and I were proactive enough to begin this process last week getting estimates from various moving companies.  We got 3 quotes, all were around the same price, but Bekins was the company that really stood out to us and seemed the most professional and reliable.  
2. Pack up the house
• Because Shane is such a bad@$$, Formspring is paying for his relocation with enough money for a team to come in and pack us! Can you say blessing? This allows us both to continue working (i.e. earning money) right up until moving day, thereby keeping a steady flow of income. 
3.  Find Taylor a San Francisco job 
• Because Taylor is such a bad@$$, her boss is allowing her to stay on and work remotely through the end of the year, at which time she has the option to transfer to the west division.  This is amazing for a number of reasons: a) I'll keep a steady flow of income, with no lag time between end of old job and beginning of new job, b) no stress of trying to hurry and get settled in a new home while simultaneously getting settled in a new work environment, c) I'm able to fulfill my committments to my company so they're not left high and dry, d) my resume will show a tenure of 10 months instead of 8 months, which looks a little better to potential employers, and most importantly e) I get to work 100% from home, which means working in my jammies!! Woo hoooo!
4. Find a house
• Oh Lord what a stressor this is!  How do you find housing in a city you've only visited once without actually seeing it before signing the lease??!?!  There's so much to consider: how safe is the neighborhood? is the house as cute/clean/big as it appears in pictures? We have 1 pretty good prospect on the table in Daly City (just southwest of San Francisco proper), but nothing is settled or signed yet. We'll keep you posted :-)
5. Get rid of the stuff we're not moving
• So far this includes old clothes and other miscellaneous items around the house, excess non-perishables in the pantry, 1 large couch, 1 king mattress and mayyyyyyybe Taylor's car.  We're all over Craigslist and have made a few trips to the Foodbank and Goodwill. How in the world did two twenty-somethings acquire this much unneeded stuff???
6. Say goodbye to Florida friends and family
• So very sad to say goodbye, but everyone has been really excited for us and really supportive so far. We have a few lunch and dinner dates planned with friends, and we're planning to crash at Shane's uncle Jim & Aunt Debbie's house for the night after the movers take all of our stuff.
7. Say goodbye to Sarasota
• This basically includes saying goodbye to our favorite restaurants.  We have dinner reservations on Saturday at Euphemia Haye (the site of Shane & Taylor's first real date), at least 2 more take-out meals planned from Star Thai (Star Thai Tuesday has become a tradition in our home), and hopefully 1 more meal from Gateway to India (Sarasota's finest Indian restaurant, in our opinion).  Other honorable mentions that we'll try to fit in but there's only so much time and damn eating out is expensive!: First Watch (we ate here every Sunday for breakfast for at least 3 months before we realized that their belgian waffle was making us both fat), Main Bar (their jalapeno dressing and gazpacho soup will change your life), our favorite McDonalds (don't judge us -- somehow their fries are ALWAYS hot), Red Elephant (so many memories, I don't even know where to begin), and believe me the list goes on and on...

I'm sure there's way more on our list that I'm forgetting, but that's more than enough to overwhelm us right now!!

Countdown to the big move: 11 days!