Vacation Adventures -- That time I almost met Justin Bieber...with photographic proof

We have had a couple of really fun days...and it was nice to take yesterday to do very little.  Yesterday morning my husband woke up and told me to call and get a massage. I'm not sure if it was as a treat, to keep me out of pain, or to keep me out of his hair for an hour, but either way I was taking it.  I had a wonderful massage at 4pm, and came out to find him by the pool.  As I walked out I saw a kid fully dressed, in glasses, and a wacky hat sitting on the side of a lounge chair. I said to myself, "hrmm...he sorta looks like the beebs, but no way..." and sat down with my husband.

Let me insert here that my husband knows jack crap about pop culture, and is proud of this fact.  He turns to me and says "Uh...do you know who that is?" to which I respond, "he looks like Justin Bieber, but he's supposed to be in Europe right now, right? (sue me, I read the Huffington Post!) Wait..are you shitting me? Is that really him?"

Up until about a year ago, I had no idea who this kid was, and thought his last name was beaver the first time I heard it. I'm as vulnerable to being starstruck as the next person though, and I thought it was pretty damn cool that I was sitting 10 feet away from a really famous dude.  And my phone was almost dead. I got one picture off, and my husband and I sat and chatted for a bit.  While I had been getting a massage, he had actually talked to some people in the Beeb's posse, and every once in awhile people had come up and asked him for a picture.  People generally were polite...but I think that's because 99% of them had no idea who he was. Just for the record, had he been wearing a swimsuit, no sunglasses or huge ass hat, I probably wouldn't have recognized him.  I did not ask for a picture with him, because the kid was trying to relax and watch his friends play volleyball, and I'm by no stretch of the imagination a fan.   For all those that are wondering, yes...his pants were pulled up and secured at his waist.

So here is the picture you asked for, since my friend Paige is fond of reminding me, "picture or it didn't happen."

Fast forward to tonight where we decided to play some water volleyball and invited all of the kids that were looking at the ball longingly to play with us.  I had no idea what fodder for hilarious conversation this decision would render.

I'm 28, so it's been quite a few years since I was some screechy 12 year old girl. I really should have remembered this when I made the tactical error (for my ears) of telling the girls that we invited to play volleyball with us that Justin Bieber was at our pool the day before.  Yes, he was. I was not lying, and yes I had a picture to prove it.  What?!?!?!?! (insert copious amounts of screaming here, and a burgeoning headache...not to mention a ruined pseudo volleyball game that was left at the wayside as all three girls converged and started screaming in unison.

• Some hilarious quotes include, "I take my Bieber very seriously!"
• After much screaming about whether or not he was still here, my husband saying "What if he was still here? What would you do? What would you do if David Bowie was here instead?" to which a 12 year old said "Who is that? Is that a guy that looks like Justin Bieber?" (Clearly my 40 year old husband hasn't had a conversation with a 12 year old girl in a very long time).  
• Going along with the age thing...the girls on the husband 'team' (we really weren't playing) thought that he was my father. When I told them that I was almost 30, they thought I was lying. Apparently 30 year olds are really old, and I didn't look old enough. It seems to be a reoccurring theme that I don't look old enough.  Ha.  
• One of the girls that we were playing with was a 13 year old Canadian.  She introduced herself to the other girls and said "Hi, I'm Dee, I'm from Canada." Other girls response "OMG YOU'RE CANADIAN  YOU'RE LIKE AN ALIEN!"  
• These girls became pretty social after we stopped playing and decided to introduce themselves to other people in the pool. I heard Dee introducing herself by saying "Hi! I'm Canadian  I'm like an alien!" to which the people she was introducing herself to responded with, "uhh...hi. We're Canadian too." Umm...awkward!  
• I need to mention that even after showing them a picture of the Beebs, they didn't believe that he was actually here. They were fainting over themselves about it, but didn't believe us. Cause, we have nothing better to do than lie to pre-teens. Anyways, about 90 minutes later as we were leaving the girl Dee walked over and said, very proudly to us, "I believe you now that Juster Bieber was here. I talked to the security people and they said he left at 5am today." Oh good! Now we can sleep tonight knowing that you believe that we'd tell the truth.  

Vacation highlights, life updates and blogging confessions

I realized today, while my husband was giving me another HTML/CSS lesson that, in the midst of the insanity of the last week, I had neglected to post much. Some of these updates are short on purpose--I want to expound on them in other entries that I haven't had the time to write yet. I feel bad 'stealing' my husband's laptop while we're out of town, and I can feel his palpable desire to be playing a video game from the other room.

Swap:
I was reluctant to post about this immediately afterwards because I didn't want to come off as bitchy, but here goes. It did not, in any way, go as planned. In the past, I spend a week frantically attempting to clean my house,  begging for tables, and having everything prepared, then on the appointed morning, everyone shows up on time and swaps. At the end, people take all the leftover stuff to charity, leaving me exhausted but with a moderately clean house.  This time though, most people seemed to cancel, show up really late, or just showed up to hang out.

 I can't overstate the awesome of having few enough people in my house that I was able to sit down and have real conversations with people. However,  I have to admit that it was frustrating to spend so much time, energy and money, only to have the swap aspect of it...sort of flop.  I know my husband had an awesome time gathering geeky stuff for his side of the swap, but since none of his friends seemed to show up at the same time, he's going to basically warehouse all of the stuff people brought, and have another event in the future.   I also felt bad for the people that brought things to swap, and took home very little.  I feel like I need to apologize to them, even though so much of this was out of my control.  All ends well though, since the high schooler that scored all of our leftover clothing to give away to our local community, was super psyched. I would also like to give a huge thank you to our friends that came and hung out all day, and made it a really fun time. Also a thank you to my table providers, food cookers, people who moved stuff for me, and everyone that showed up.

Trainer:
Ummm...so I've been somewhat steadily losing weight over the last 15 months, and have realized that I really need to kick up the physical activity aspect of my weight loss, and work on getting muscle tone back and getting some endurance. I'm pretty pitiful in the endurance department right now.  Watching Biggest Loser has actually inspired me to get more active, and in that spirit, I took my friend up on her recommendation of a personal trainer.  This woman is beyond perky. Think...hyper without caffeine, now add in a gallon of coffee to the mix. I have to admit, when I met her at her gym for our first session, the fact that it was filled with skinny fit people...very intimidating.  Just for the record--I was rightfully scared of the hyper one, because my quads were so sore the next day, that I could barely walk.  She failed in the 'taking it easy' aspect of our first session.   This session is short because I'm going to write more about this later.

Vacation: 
Ha...ha...ha. Oh so many stories already.  Did you know this massive blizzard was supposed to hit the DC area last week? Actually supposed to hit the same time yours truly was supposed to fly out of a DC area airport to fly to sunny Florida?  Oh well, it was, but in true DC style, the storm was a dud.  We didn't know that though, so we ended up in Florida a day ahead of schedule, sans a hotel room or car. Here are some highlights so far though:

• It sucks, but you can pack for vacation in an hour. You'll forget your camera, an extra duffle bag, cash and a variety of other things, but it can be done.
• Getting a rental car that I've dubbed 'the dickmobile!
• Buying a vacation package and when we arrive finding out that it's a timeshare.  Kitchen and laundry for the win!
• Finding out that there are two outlet malls in Orlando and we're at the wrong one
• Rainforest Cafe -- definitely about the experience, and the experience is better if you're under 10
• Heated pools are manna from heaven
• 5 story arcades make 40th birthday's awesome
• So does getting a blue handprint on your head
• BUTTERBEER BUTTERBEER BUTTERBEER!!!!! Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter!!!!
• I likey resorts...

Confessional: 
Overall, a hectic, crazy, but fun couple of weeks.  I think blog writing is sort of like exercising, the more you do it, the more you want to do it.  If you stop for awhile though, it's much much harder to get back into it. Consistency is key in so many aspects of life and has always been what I struggle with.  I however, love writing this blog, love getting the feedback, and love having random people I didn't know read my blog, quote it to me.  Yes, I'm a bit of an attention whore and it makes me feel special inside.

I have a confession to make though. I don't ever feel like I can be completely open here. I really struggle with not wanting to hurt peoples feelings, or having stuff that I write come back and bite me in the ass.  The two times I've written and posted opinions about people in here, I was immediately told how wrong my opinions were, or that my recounting of a story was incorrect.  Just for the record--I'm not changing a post simply because you don't like how I perceive a situation.  That would ruin the entire point of blogging for me.

My husband has even given me a strict directive to not make fun of him here, although I may tease, cajole, and regale you with tails of his funny antics, I have no intention of mocking him or hurting his feelings.  I never want to do that, but at the same time, I do want to be open, raw, and honest with my writing.  I have an unfortunate tendency to lean towards the negative in my speech and writing, and I make a conscious effort to keep my blog on the happier sunshiney side of things.  I also have this odd, pathological need to have some conclusion in what I do--in my writings you'll see that I always have to 'finish' a post, or in games (why I can't stand games that take too long to play) or books (I like finishing them in 2-3 sittings max).  This need for conclusion makes it really hard for me to open up about issues that I haven't figured out myself yet.

Conclusion?  We will see.  I'm learning a lot about blogging, myself, growing older...and it will be really interesting to see how this blog evolves with me.  My husband originally named my blog, when he set it up, but I never changed it because it resounded so well with me. We all start on square one, and then figure it out as we go. Here's to attempting to figure stuff out.

We're Going To.....

So we left off with my husband thinking, that when I was talking about going to swim in'the Gulf,' that I was talking about his time overseas during the first Persian Gulf war. Feel free to facepalm--I did. The next day however, out of the blue, this beautiful Google chat happened:

Insanity comes to visit!

Where to start?  I made a big mistake in life. I somehow must have said, written or thought that I didn't have anything to blog about anymore so all of the sudden more insanity has occurred in the last 3 weeks than in the last 3 years.

I need to preface this...entry by saying that I had a grande pumpkin spice latte a couple of hours ago and I am really buzzing.  I think I could probably fly right now if I tried hard enough, so excuse the many run on sentences and chock them up to way too much coffeeeeeeeeee....

In a sentence....we had an earthquake, my inlaws come, a really bad sinus infection, really annoying badly explained classes, a hurricane, a week of horrible hives, my parents came, with a kitten, it rained...and rained...and rained...and of course my basement flooded, our AC broke, I still have some hives but I'm not allergic to my cat and there might have been sort of a fight in an Olive Garden thrown in there.  What? You want me to go on?  Well...if you insist.  

My in-laws came in on a Thursday. I'd been feeling awful with this horrible chest cough for a couple of days, so when my ears really started hurting I gave in and decided to go to the redi-med place to get some antibiotics.  She also gave me a steroid in hoping to open the passages between my sinuses more so that I could actually get better from this sinus infection.  I thought "great! I'll be better and life will be grand" and  went on with my day. dot dot dot... six days later (last Thursday to be exact) I woke up a day after finishing those steroids and had...some hives.  "Mysterious," I think to myself, but I am far too busy with a luncheon today and class this afternoon to take benedryl and be out of it all day...so I just made a pact with myself not to itch and went on with my day.  That seemed to work until I got to school, went to pay my bill and touched behind my ear to find that there hives...all...over...my damn neck.  I went to the bathroom and they are all over my neck, chest, legs, arms and ITCHHHHHH.  I make up my mind to go to class long enough to hand my homework in and go home.  Only problem is...that my teacher was 45 minutes late for class.  People had already started leaving when this guy just sort of rolls into class like it's nothing.  I handed my homework, caught up with a classmate in the parking lot to tell him that the teacher finally showed up, and headed home. Days of benedryl later, and I wasn't any better.  A trip to the doctors office where this arrogant jerk of a 'doctor' ignored how much pain and discomfort I was in and instead told me 'not to swear', gave me MORE steroids that didn't work and set me home, and I was about to lose it.  By the time my parents came on Friday I couldn't walk because my feet were so incredibly swollen from the hives.  Monday I ended up in the ER since whenever the hives got bad, I started wheezing, couldn't breathe well and realized that the benedryl wasn't cutting it anymore.  Whatever they gave me in the ER seemed to kill the hives long enough that I got an appointment with my new favorite doctor--my dermatologist, today.  I explained what was happening and he said basically that I most likely had virus hives from being sick, and that all the steroids were just making it worse, and they shouldn't have given me so many and so much and here have this antihistamine and relax.  Did I mention that I love this doctor? This is the man that solved my 20 years of dandruff problem with one shampoo.  Love!

So my in-laws have been here 2 weeks, my parents were here a week and I've managed to go out to dinner with them. That...is...it. Unless you count my mother in law coming to two different doctors appointments with me and my sitting in Starbucks with my mom.  I'm just really disappointed that I've felt so crappy and haven't been able to do stuff but at the same time I feel so incredibly blessed to have had 5 adults around me when I was sick that wanted nothing more than to help me.  Laundry, dishes, kitties fed, love and Starbucks. It was wonderful.  I'm not used to having company come and it being less work for me...I could really get used to this.  Seriously though, I am going to try really hard to do some fun stuff with them this last week of their visit and be happy in the knowledge that they were able to come out and spend time with us, which was the most important aspect of all of this.

My parents came and brought their adorable little kitten Charlotte.  She is about 4 months old, short haired, grey, incredibly curious and in love with Newton.  All we had to do was hold her towards Henry and he would hiss.  Henry did NOT appreciate the kitten at all.  Newton really appreciated having someone to play with for a week. My parents left this morning and he spent all morning looking for her.  It was sad. I think Newton needs a kitten but I also think that a kitten would break that last tenuous thread on reality that Henry is clinging too.  Poor neurotic Henry.

My parents came with all this AMAZING produce from their garden.  They brought the biggest most delicious beefsteak tomatoes that we made bruchetta from with fresh mozzarella.  They brought squash that we ate like mashed potatoes, and carrots, cucumbers, peppers, and more roma tomatoes that I knew what to do with. My dad spent a lot of time canning most of the roma tomatoes into delicious sauce, and he also made refrigerator pickles.  I didn't know that I liked pickles--but these ones are great, and really low in sodium.  My floor looks forlorn and empty without all of the buckets of produce. I think that I might have to make pizza with these beefsteak tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese though.  Oh yum!

So far in my life I have dealt with stress somewhat well. Publically I hold it together quite well and then privately I sort of lose it.  Yesterday, I didn't hold it together so well and I'm feeling very fortunate that my in-laws were here. My mother in law heard some noise coming from the laundry room and went to investigate where she found brown muddy water GUSHING up out of a pipe.  Just GUSHING everywhere and yelled for me. I grabbed some cups from the storage room and sent her upstairs for a pot and started grabbing towels while my father-in-law started collecting the water and attempting to keep our carpet from getting destroyed.  I just sort of lost it at that point and wanted to crawl into a corner and not come out.

Apparently our sump pump, which works (for the record) is hooked up to just dump water out the the back of the house. Not really away from the house and not really in anything drainage like. Nope, just dump it out of the back of the house.  Well, when you get something like a foot of water and there is already water where the water is trying to dump...it comes back INTO the house and apparently into my laundry room.  Yeah it was gross. I'm glad it was just muddy water and not sewage though!

Last night after spending far too much time playing this addictive game 'coin dozer' and attempting to fall asleep with the windows open (because our AC wasn't working either!!) a particularly loud crash of thunder  roused me from bed where I saw that the 'Lake' was forming behind our house again. I warned the hubby that the basement was going to start flooding again,  and he, at 2 am, went downstairs and outside to dig a trench to help move the water away from the house.  My hubby is my hero.  Oh yes, so are my in-laws.

So...this is enough of my adventures for today.  What craziness is happening your way? I can't be the only one with lots of crazy happening! I'll try to add some pictures later, but I just needed to write it all out first!

p.s. I got like 5 hours of sleep max last night and I'm too tired (okay lazy) to proofread this well....just saying Hubs, no criticizing!