Will It Ever Be Complete?

So this weekend was a well-welcomed few days of relaxing. After finally settling in back from New York and getting on somewhat of a normal sleeping pattern (I'm still going to bed at like 8:30pm and waking up tired) I got to spend some time with my hunny, dogs, and working on the house. We finally got everything set up in our family room with our new furniture and I can finally check that room off of my list of "To-Do's." The days were so nice it was hard not to be outside, so we decided to start fixing up our backyard (again) for the spring and summer months. We re-seeded our grass, bought some fun cacti for our planter, and tidied up our front landscaping which made our front look 10-times better. There is still a lot of stuff we want to do to our backyard, which led me to thinking if our house would ever be "complete." Sometimes I think it's just my nature, but here is a list of everything else I hope to accomplish in our house (probably just in time before we turn around and want to buy another house). Being a list person, this will also help me organize and prioritize my to-do's with the house.

Backyard

1. Paint the wall the same color as our house
2. Put up terraces with ivy along our back and side walls for more privacy
3. Plant a large shade tree in the middle of our grass or put in a fountain
4. Put a knee-high fence around our grass to help keep the dogs from treading on it
5. Make a fenced area for our trash cans

Dining Room

1. New kitchen table (I want a square, counter-top height one)
2. Small banquet or hutch
3. New, larger pictures on wall (I think the ones we have are too small)

Kitchen

1. Repaint to a neutral beige (I know, I just painted but I'm thinking it's too much green)
2. Back splash

Master Bedroom

1. Paint a country-blue
2. New dressers and bed frame
3. Pictures on walls
4. Headboard

Family Room (so I thought I was done)

1. Rug
2. Make covers for ottomans

Garage

1. Organize junk
2. Shelves for laundry area
3. Work-out area with our elliptical, bike, and upcoming weight bench purchase

Guest Bedroom and Guest Bathroom are actually finished to my liking (for now). It seems like my priorities lie with getting everything nice for people who visit rather than focusing on us, who live there! Looking at my list of things that I want to do, and realizing it will take years of tax returns to do everything I want, I wonder if it will ever be complete??

The Kids Are Gone!!!

So the kids finally left the nest and my work-wife for the week, Pam, and I are alone at last! We had a real New York day today. The kiddos (OK, so some of them are practically my age, but I felt really old this week) left after our last site visit to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society around 11:30am. We try to end on a not-for-profit to show that there is another part of New York that isn't money-grubbing, quick-talking, and all-night working. I think we got a few students to think about that as an option, but most of them sat there and stared blankly like they were looking at people from another planet. It's hard to relate to not-for-profits when you want to "buy a Ferrari in the next five years" as one of our students said.

To move along, after our last site visit Pam and I hopped on the subway to Times Square, had a bite to eat and shopped in the M&M and Hershey's store (which is way cool)! We came back to the hotel and got prettied up for dinner at the famous Rainbow Room and "Legally Blonde" on Broadway....which was completely awesome! I'm excited we finally have enough time, and energy, to enjoy the city! Tomorrow is our last day and night here....so we're going to try to make the best of the bone-chilling wind!

Too Tired to Type

So it's 8:00pm in New York and I'm exhausted! We just finished the 3rd day of our 5 day tour. Today marked the end of our "rough" days. Day 1 we went from 9:00am - 7:30pm. Day 2 we went from 8:00am - 8:30pm. Today, Day 3, we went from 7:45am - 4:30pm. We finished earlier today, which was nice, but spent all day in the Financial District walking back and forth from the East side to the West side, in the rain. Keep in mind that we have 17 students who don't always have the best common sense in all situations.

New York is New York. And New Yorkers are, well, New Yorkers. It's definitely different than the Southwest, which I like. I will type more later, probably when we get back to subtle, down-home Tucson. But right now, I'm just too tired to type!

New York, Here We Are

Here we are...finally in New York. After a 2-hour flight delay out of Tucson to Atlanta and a confusing boarding from Atlanta, we are now waiting in our hotel room for our luggage to arrive. For whatever reason, the plane and crew arriving into Tucson was 2 hours late and due to regulations the crew needed to sleep. So our 6:45am flight didn't leave until 9:00am. Getting into ATL, Delta for some reason booked us on two flights: one at 4:40pm and 6:40pm. We were able to get on the 4:40 one, but they (again for some reason) checked our bags in the 6:40 flight. We arrived (after a long shuttle ride) to our hotel at 8:45pm. We checked in real quick as we had a 9:00pm group meeting with our students. As we are meeting with our students in the lobby area on the 17th floor (where the woman on the reservation line told me to go), we got yelled at and kicked out of saying we didn't have approval to use that area. After a quick bite of New York pizza (YUM!), Pam and I headed off to our hotel room to wait for your luggage to be delivered. After an hour or so of it not being delivered, we called and they said it would either be on the 11:30pm delivery or 12:00am delivery shuttle. NICE! It's now Midnight and still no sign of our luggage. I'm tired and want to curl up in my comfy, newly washed, PJs I packed and go to sleep. On top of that, I miss my hunny and my dogs (who supposedly are very sad that I left). So hopefully when I write again, we will have our luggage (or I will be wearing my nice sweats suit to the site visits tomorrow)! Hopefully tomorrow goes a little bit better!

I Love New York

No, not that New York.



There, that's better!

So my boss and I are off to New York, the city that never sleeps, on Sunday for a whole week. And I'm very excited. Every other year, our office takes a groups of students to New York City to learn what its like to live and work in NYC. We have some pretty cool site visit planned for the students including Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Standard and Poor's.

On a non-work related point, Pam and I are hoping to do some pretty fun stuff while we are there. We are going to see Legally Blond on Broadway and dinner at the Rainbow Room. A student told me to go to Billy's Bakery as it has the best cupcakes. And if I can get a black and white cookie (circa Seinfeld) I hear they are pretty good at Cousin John's.

I am open to suggestions about places we should visit. New York here I come!!!