It's just not the same

Yesterday Kc called me while I was at work. I could hear banging and clanking and many loud noises coming through the phone. When I asked him what in the heck was going on, he said that the maintenance men were replacing the stairs in our building.

Replacing the stairs. That's a huge big ol' deal.

And I thought, if we were in China, it would've been hysterical, I'm sure. We would've rushed out to take on-the-sly pictures of the little Chinese men, attempting to put up the new framework of the stairs and then the concrete slabs that became the stair treads. There would've been huffing and puffing, and many, many grunts coming from said Chinese maintenance men. A lot of communicating of how to accomplish the job, and not a lot of accomplishing, meanwhile smoking an entire pack of cigarettes.

It would've made a great story to blog about and post pictures and be generally amused by such a story.

But, now, it's old news. It's boring. And why ever would I want Kc to slyly take pictures of the men replacing the stairway outside our front door? Who cares?!!

Sometimes, living in America isn't nearly as funny as living in China. Even though the people there did the same jobs and fixed the same type of things, it just isn't the same.

And that makes me sad. Simply because I used to enjoy blogging about boring, everyday stuff that mysteriously became absolutely knee-slapping, hysterically funny when overseas.

Little things

I got to work yesterday morning, and to my immense pleasure and excitement, there was sitting at my desk, a new chair.

My rotund backside is quite appreciative!

Seems that my wonderful co-worker, Michelle, sat in my chair while I was away in Pittsburgh last week, and decided that it was the most awful chair in the world and that I needed a new one.

Amen, sista.

I am the proud owner of a chair, with arms!, a cushiony back and seat. I currently have no room to move about in my tiny little office space, but you know, that's ok. Cuz my butt is happy and that makes the rest of me happy.

It's the little things, I tell ya. All about the little things.

Reminders to myself

"Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is
nothing
on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail.
but
God
is the strength of my heart
and my portion
forever."
~ Psalm 73:25-26


"The steadfast love of the LORD
never ceases;
his mercies
never come to an end;
they are new
every
morning;
great is your faithfulness.

'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul,
'therefore
I will hope in him.'
The LORD is good to those
who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him."
~ Lamentations 3:22-25


"Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet
my unfailing love for you
will not be shaken
nor
my covenant of peace be removed,
says the LORD,
who has compassion on you."
~ Isaiah 54:10

And I thought it would never happen

A glorious thing happened yesterday. It truly made my little heart happy. I believe it made my husband's heart even happier.

Our upstairs neighbors moved.

I'm not even joking.

We fell asleep, in our own bed, for the first time in nearly 11 months, without upstairs noise. It was absolutely divine.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones complaining and being generally annoyed with our upstairs neighbors. Seems that the woman who lived across from them also found them terribly obnoxious. So she's been complaining. And so have we. And the office people decided to do something about it. And moved them to another apartment in the complex. On the lower level. With a bunch of college kids who live above them.

Seriously. I thought this day would never come. Our last month in our apartment will be filled with much joy and happiness.

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If I had known what it would take to get 36 comments on one blog posting, man, I would've done something much sooner! I never realized that a wooden barn-like structure would cause so many opinions. I do realize that most of the comments are between my sweet brother and my sweet husband, but still, 36 comments? That's dang impressive.

In case you haven't been keeping up (cuz I know you all are dying to see which spouse is winning!) you should read the comments. They make me laugh. But mostly because it's my brother and my husband, both of whom I find to be quite amusing people.

And so, because of that, I can't call a winner. I mean, of course, naturally, I'm the winner, but dang, there were an awful lot of people who called those things "sheds". Shoot, man. It also appears that all Spiehlers call them a "mini-barn". So, a tie then?

How lame is that. A tie. But, I just can't do it. I can't.

However, I shall be thinking of another semi-silly controversial question to ask that will illicit even more comments this time around.

What would you call it?

Fellow readers:

What would you call this structure that I have pictured below? My dear sweet husband and I laid in bed last night and "discussed" what these structures are called. The house we made an offer on has one in the backyard and Kc was drooling over how wonderful it would be to have said structure. I sweetly informed him that he called it the wrong thing ... and it was determined that I'd find a picture on the internet and ask the blogging world. [I won't tell you which name I used to google these pictures but I think that, in and of itself, answers my question!]


So, do you call these structures:

A) Tool shed or B) Mini Barn

Leave your comment and may the best spouse win! :)

If your name isn't Colin Koons, then please disregard this post

I wanted to send these to my brother via email, but it was being stupid so I have to use this venue. Many, many apologies for the poor quality of the video and of my appearance. Having worked out till I thought I was going to die and then chilling in my home for a Friday night, doesn't lend itself to extreme beauty.

Colin - this is for you.

Dude.

Thank you for including me on your amazing night last night, when you got to see Coldplay in concert, again. Even though you were with your cool law school friends, you still wanted to include me. You are da bomb. I loved answering my phone and then listening to screaming for the next 10 minutes, and occasionally getting to hear the actual music. In case you couldn't tell, I was weeping like a baby, while listening to the concert, via a cell phone. Seriously. Big ol' tear drops were rolling down my cheeks. It wasn't so much because Coldplay's music was moving me (which it can, trust me) but rather because I wanted to be there with you. And I remembered how much fun we had 4 years ago, when we all went to our first "real" concert together.

And I just missed you. A lot.





So, anyways, I just wanted to say thanks. For remembering me. For including me. For making me smile. And for making me cry.

I love you a whole, whole lot and am so stinking proud of you and how hard you are working to finish up your law degree.

I can't wait to see you sometime soon.

Love, Meg

An update on the house-hunting:

We decided to terminate the contract on the house. After all the inspections and engineers got done doing their thing, it was estimated that there would be about $20k worth of repairs that we didn't want to deal with but felt the Sellers should take care of. They felt differently about the matter, and so we walked away.

I'm bummed. And disappointed. And true to my word, I knew I was probably jumping the gun by showing a picture and all.

Rest assured, I'll wait until it's ours and we've moved in before showing the next picture. :)

We are going house-hunting again this Saturday. Now, it feels like we are suddenly in crunch-time with the searching. Our lease ends on July 14, and even though we can pay extra to stay longer, I'd just rather move out then.

Cuz I'm seriously starting to hate our neighbors. I know it's wrong to hate, so maybe I'll say I'm really starting to greatly, with much passion and vehemence, dislike the people that live above us.

It appears they bought a yippee dog.

And since I'm such a dog-lover I can easily overlook this new addition, as it's simply delightful to lay in bed and listen to the yippings of a dog that sounds like it's a plastic squeaky toy. Seriously. I can overlook that. But, it's really hard to enjoy listening to the thump-thump-thump of a washing machine, that sits almost directly above your bedroom, running at midnight.

Wait.

Did I say I was a dog-lover?

I lied.

The yippee, squeaky sounding dog is terribly annoying. As well as the running of a washing machine at midnight.

And before I get in trouble for sounding so negative, I'll change the subject. :)

We saw Pixar's new film, "Up" over the weekend. And if you haven't seen it yet, you need to cancel all plans for the weekend and make sure you do! It's precious. We thought it was one of Pixar's best films yet and they've made some great ones. We saw it in 3-D and the little man sitting next to me, reached out and "grabbed things" the whole time. So cute. It really was a great movie. You laugh. You laugh some more. You cry. And you walk out just feeling great. I'm not sure that it's good for little ones to see though -- I felt that it was scary in some scenes that a young child might be frightened by. But as a 27 and 29 yr old, we handled it just fine and enjoyed ourselves.

On Sunday, Katie and Rodney (and Abigail) spent the day with us. They were driving through Dallas on their way back to Houston and called to see if we could hang out. It was great to have some face-time with them and to love and kiss on Baby Abigail. She's 4 months and just starting to smile and be interactive with those she's around. Simply precious. She's got fabulous chunky thighs and dimples in her elbows that made me just want to kiss and kiss and kiss on her. Unfortunately we were having too good of a time together and didn't get any pictures. [sigh]

Remember that time when I lived in China and carried my camera everywhere I went and took pictures all the time?!!? I always had pictures to post and stuff to talk about? Yah. I vaguely remember that time too.

Anyhoo, it's back to work for me. No more goofing off. :)