cleaning house and monopoly

So, it's Saturday here once again. Marco worked until mid afternoon today, so i found myself with plenty of time to get the house in order. I took down the Christmas decorations and packed them up for another year. did laundry, which seems like a never ending task, cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed.... you know the regular Saturday chores. I opened the windows and got a nice fresh breeze going thru.... it was probably in the 60's, very pleasant.

Last night Marco and I had some friends over for dinner and games. It was fun! We broke out the juicer and had some fresh juice.... and played Monopoly. Now, I haven't played monopoly in YEARS, and when i did play... when i was like 9 years old, we didn't play by the real rules.... i don't think that before last night i ever made it thru an entire game, and i certainly never used the houses or the hotels. Well, I lost, and it was pretty pathetic. I had negative $92, and the other girl won with $10,000+ dollars. I guess this just means that I'm going to have to practice so that I don't suck so horribly bad next time!!

no, i'm not pregnant....

but i do have exciting news!! Marco and I got an offer on the house!! If everything goes smoothly we'll be closing Jan 22nd. We're looking forward to being in Washington, and most especailly being close to the family again. We've missed them so much! We'll keep you all posted as things progress. Happy Holidays!

I am Legend

So I'm not one for scary movies.... not that i get nightmares or anything bad. but sometimes i let my imagination run wild... especially when i'm at home alone and it's night.... i think too much. but anyway. Marco and I went and saw I am Legend last night. a little scary, but good. not as scary as i thought it was going to be. not saying that i didn't jump multiple times (half of those times because marco poked me)

i'd rather be.... suntanning!!

seriously. we had record breaking weather today (at least according to a guy i work with... but i didn't verify it) apparently the previous high was 74degrees, but today, December 11, 2007, when it should be hat and scarf weather, it's swim suit weather at a whopping 80degrees!! it almost makes me want to break out the grill and have watermelon, but that's just wrong. we should be having stew and hot chocolate. it's like a washington summer. I got a text from TJ (my brother, who happens to live in the " 'burg") and he said it was -3 degrees!!

a little somethin'-somethin'

So, nothing really exciting is happening right now, but i haven't posted in 2 weeks, so i figure i should drop a little somethin'-somethin' even if it really isn't much of anything.

The past couple weeks have been pretty uneventful. Marco and I have been Christmas shopping. Marco washed the car (yesterday, the weather was in the 70's once again!!) I started going to the gym across the street from my office. I go to a pilates class every thursday after work. We've both been a little sick the past few days. I'm making sugar cookies this afternoon. I cleaned up the green room, and I think i'm going to turn it into my "studio". Set up all my painting stuff and start painting again. Maybe i'll take a pic of that when i get finished.

Well i'm kind of grasping at straws..... happy holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving......'tis the season!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
I have so many things to be Thankful for this year, as I do every year. It seems as though things keep getting better, and better and I'm so grateful for that. I'm thankful for the many good things in my life, and as well as the struggles and the bad things... they make the good things just that much better. I'm grateful for my wonderful husband, my amazing family... everyone of them is a blessing to me. I'm thankful for my job and the joy i get from it. I'm so thankful for my church and for the guiding strength that it is in my life. I'm thankful for this opportunity that I have had to be in Raleigh and the amazing people that I've met here. I'm thankful for my cute little house and the warmth that it's four walls contains. I'm thankful for this time of year and the excuse that I have to look upon my life and realize how much is so amazing. So to all my friends and family.... thank you for being so wonderful.... and to the great Lord on High, thank you for blessing my life.

This being "the season" a family tradition of the Meynders has always been to decorate for Christmas Thanksgiving weekend. This is one tradition that I want to continue with my newly formed little family. So this weekend after Turkey day and doing a little shopping on Black Friday. Marco and I got out the boxes of Christmas Decorations (all 2 of them) and festivized the house.

Here is the mantle, you can't really tell but the candles are red. We've had a couple fires already this season and i love it... it is so warm and cozy.

It is my goal to get new ornaments for the tree each year. This year I got some snowflakes in red, gold, and silver. I love them... they are so sparkly!!

Here is the tree.... and it is SO fake. But it's ok cause it only cost $25 dollars. My sister and I bought it a few years ago when she lived here with me. I think it's kinda pretty. it is definately not evenly decorated, so if you're a fan of balance don't look too closely.

Along with getting a new Ornament each year I also want to start a "village". We don't have enough to call it a village yet... maybe a backyard. We've got a treehouse, a winter garden, and this years addition is a guy ice fishing. Once we get to the point where we've got a villiage, I want to give it a proper name. but that will be a while so I've got time to think.....

The last thing we did was put garland and lights up the banister of the stairs. this is a really blurry pic... sorry about that. but i love it, not the pic, but the garland. it's all so festive.

Well, there you go. Christmas decor at the Munoz's. Enjoy the season everyone!!

short week!!

so being that it is thanksgiving this week, it's going to be a short work week.... which i'm kind of excited about. i'm not sure if the excitement is really because i only have to work 3 days, or if it's because i am really ridicoulously tired right now and want to sleep. who knows, but anyway yipee for thanksgiving.

as i mentioned in my last blog the Wake County Library Booksale was this weekend, and on-my-goodness!!!! it was so amazing. i spent close to 2 hours there and could have probably spent more time, but my box was getting heavy. If wherever i move to doesn't have a Library booksale, maybe i'll just have to fly back every year for the Wake county one!! I really got some good stuff. I got "Atonement" and another one by the same author called "Saturday" ... "me talk pretty one day"... "white oleander"... 4 or 5 by Jodi Picoult... and a bunch of others that i'm not remembering right now. but it was great.

one other note about this weekend.... i made some soup. and oh man it was good! i'll call it creamy crab and vegetable soup. It had crab (obviously), celery, onion, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and yucca. Marco introduced me to Yucca, it's kind of like a potato, except a little more firm when cooked, and its got some sweetness to it. anyway i'm really excited for lunch today cause i get leftover soup.... Mmmm Mmmm Good!

...life is like a burrito, a well contained mess....

so it's friday once again. i love fridays (and not just because every other one i get a check). it's a short day at work, i only have to work till 3 which is oh-so-nice. i love that you have your morning, and then after lunch i've only got 2 hours left!! every once in a while i do lunch with the girls (today we went to PF Changs.... candied walnut shrimp.... Mmmm Mmmm Good).
this friday is extra good cause i get to look forward to the Wake County Library Book sale tomorrow!! I'm so excited. Hard covers are going to be $2 and soft bound books are only going to be 50 cents!! I'm thinking about checking out some children's books. The only children's book i have right now is a little dutch book i got in holland. the title translates to "everybody poops" it's kinda cute. an educational potty training book.
I'm also excited cause earlier this week i got a gym membership and i'm going to use it tomorrow. i'm so excited about the gym, they've got a cardio-theater. a big dark room with a bunch of cardio equipment that plays a different movie every day. they've also got a pool!!


today on my way to work i could really tell that it was fall ( i didn't really notice it yesterday cause it was yet again an 80 degree day). the leaves are changing colors and it's so pretty. there are ton's of yellow, red and orange trees.... but there are also some that are a deeper red color, almost purple. then there are still some that are green.... it's so beautiful. it's one thing that i'm going to miss when we move away from here.
speaking of moving... here is a little update on that subject. we are still on the market. we've had a few showings the past week, but i haven't heard anything serious. which is ok. i'm kind of at the point where i'm content with whatever happens. moving.... staying..... i really like my job, and a guy was just hired to be our office manager which is really nice. i feel more productive with him there. i'm not consistently asking for work, which is something that i hate doing. plus i moved my"desk" so i now have an "L" in the corner. it may sound like a little thing but it feels so much nicer, and i feel much more organized. yay for organization!! so anyway... back to the subject of moving. i'm ok with staying for now.... it would be really nice if Marco and I could be back with the family for christmas, but the most important thing is that I will be with him.

ok well that's kind of a long blog.... a little of everything, nothing too special. have a great weekend everyone!!

Lunch Break Thursday.

i don't really have much to say, but i haven't posted a new blog in over a week, so here goes....

it's november... yipee!! the cooler weather is here, i turned on the heat in the house yesterday. although i looked at the forecast and it's supposed to get up into the high 70's again next week.

Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away... i'm really excited for that. i'm sad that i won't be in washington for it, casue it is one of my most favorite "family" holiday's. we do the whole turkey day with the family thursday and then friday (in the past) we've made chocolates (we're looking for a new tradition) and then saturday we decorate for christmas. this is my favorite time of year... after halloween thru the beginning of january. i've already started to listen to christmas music... albeit sporadically.

i've been thinking about making gingerbread houses... i kind of want to make a real one this year... not one of the ones made out of graham crackers. i remember when we were kids we went over to the alcorn's house and my dad did a real gingerbread house. it was so cool. i looked up some ideas online and they talked about using gum as shingles, and melting down jolly ranchers to use as stained glass windows. so many cool ideas out there.

i'm currently reading this book.... it's called "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield.... it's pretty good so far. it's sucked me in and i keep reading it, which is more that i can say for "Shadow of the Moon" by M.M Kaye.... i still have about 150 pages left in that book, and i'm finding it difficult to suck it up and just finish it... it has over 700 pages so i have made progress, but i'm just not done yet. i'm also dabbling in "one hundred and one days" and "the color of water" they are both ok, my go-to books when i don't want to read one of the others...

other stuff going on.... the house is still on the market. we had a showing on monday and they liked it, all except for the crack in the drive way... so we'll see what happens. things are going really well at work. i'm working on a whole myriad of projects... not that one is a whole lot different from the others, but i'm doing a lot for a bunch of different companies that we draw for, so that's cool. today i'm working on some redlines, and then i'll draw some new elevations. i'm not sure if it's work that is going so much better or the fact that i'm still getting up at the same time that i did before the time changed... or an hour earlier, however you like to look at it. so i have more time in the morning to get ready and have breakfast.... it's nice. maybe that's why i feel better about work lately.

anyway... speaking of work, i'd better get back to it. lunch is now officially over.

Marco's Work

So, Marco has done a lot of work for some friends of ours... he's painted what seems like every room in their house, put in new countertops in bathrooms, new light fixtures, drywalled and painted the garage, did some painting outside and most recently some concrete work. here are some pics of what he did.this is the little boy's bedroom.... yellow on top and blue on the bottom

here are the stairs with the living off to the left. i like the little plant shelf on the left side of the stairs

here is the little concrete pad for the garbage can.... i think it's so cute!!

and here is the nice big patio.... enough space for the furniture and the grill!!

tagged

so, Rach tagged me and now i get the pleasure of telling the world little known facts about me. Rach did 6, so I'll try and shoot for the same, but no promises!!

1. i have a mole on the bottom of my left foot. i feel like this is kind of a cop-out... but as far as physically interesting things go... that's basically it. I've got other moles (no gross one's with hair growing out of them.. shout out to all the witches out there) but they're mixed in with hoards of freckles.... but it's just a single mole in the middle of the bottom of my foot.

2. i have a hard time with left and right. i'm getting better when it comes to driving, but i still have to consciously think about it... a few times marco has told me to go left and i go right.... it's auctually pretty embarassing. when i was a little girl my mom and i were driving down the road and i asked what side of the road the train tracks were on.... she said the right. ok cool..... when we were going back home i said that the train tracks were on the right... she tried to correct me, but i'm stubborn and it didn't work. when i played soccer in maybe the 3rd grade i went to kick the ball, and the coach told me to kick it with my right foot... i asked which foot that was, he told me. so sometimes if i'm really having a difficult L/R day i have to look east (cause that was the direction that i was facing during soccer practice) and i'll totally know which is my right. it's all pretty embarassing.

3. i have multiple college degrees. but i kind of feel like i cheated getting them. i went to school for 4 years, and i got 4 degrees. 3 associates, and 1 bachelors. i didn't cheat. i kind of worked the system. i had a lot of interests, and i always only had to take a couple more classes to get another degree. when i graduated i only needed one more class to get another associates, call me lazy but it was going to be a hard class.... so i didn't do it. i don't really feel proud of my multiple degrees... i just think that it's cool i graduated.

4. i don't remember the last time i followed a recipe. i just use them as guidelines. if i don't have one ingredient, i'll omit it, or throw something else in... which means that i never cook the exact same thing twice. most of the time it turns out pretty good, i do have to admit that i have had some bad experiences and those nights it's time to pull out the PB&J.

5. i am never going to have chocolate again!! i know, it's a sad, sad thing. no more chocolate or avocado's for me. i started having migraines last year and have discovered that if i have either of those two things it is inevitable that i am going to be writhing in pain within the next hour, and up-chuck within 24. i have probably thrown up and had more headaches this past year than i have the rest of my entire life. even if i found a way that i could have chocolate or avocado's, i probably wouldn't... too many bad experiences. i know there's a psychological term for that, but i can't remember what it is.

6. i can't think of anything else at the moment.... if i do... i'll post an amendment, tagged 2.0 or something.

to keep the game going..... i tag Kelley & Lindsay!!

New Music Finds

There was an article that i read today about some of the top musicians to come from Canada.... and me being Canadian, it peaked my interest. I wrote down some of the names to check them out and I think that there are a few (unknown to me) potential winners. (There were also a few known winners... Sarah McLauglin, Diana Krall..... and a couple others (Feist).) The three that I chose are all kind of folk-ish music. Sarah Harmen... I'd like to listen to more of her music, I'm not sure I'm sold on it, but I need to listen to it more to form a more decisive opinion. The Be Good Tanyas are pretty cool... funky folk. But i have to say that my favorite is The Wailin' Jenny's the vocals are so pure. there were a couple of acapella parts/pieces where the voices just shone thru. "The Parting Glass" and "One Voice" were really great. so if you've got some time to spare, check em out... 30 second samples are on itunes.

... and the search goes on....

so, marco and i will not be moving to washington next week. the home sale fell thru. i don't really want to get into it cause it makes me angry. but on the upside the house has shown really well in the past and i see no reason for that to continue (although I'm thinking about prohibiting any single females under the age of 25 from looking at the house..... not to be agist or sexist or relationshipist, but the experience just wasn't good!!)

so here's to good home buyers.....

also... shout-out to chaddy.... good luck on the GMAT or LSAT or whatever that test is that you are taking... I'm so excited for you!!!

No Water

Orme, Tennessee has no water. I don't know if that, along with the California wild fires that can't seem to be quenched, added to the thing going on in my personal life is the "straw that broke the camel's back", but I'm a little distraught over it. The southeast has been in Stage 1 drought watch for some time. We, here in Raleigh, have had progressing restrictions placed on us all summer long. Currently we can not use sprinklers of any kind or wash our cars at any time. We can use a hand held hose 2 days a week between 6am-10am and 6pm to 1opm. We can also use a personal pressure washer on the weekends. We're supposed to be getting some rain today, which is wonderful, but the man on the news said we'd have to get 16" to make any difference. Orme has to have water trucked in every other day, and the Mayor of the city turns the water on for 3 hours every night. Can you imagine only 3 hours... to have to have water limited to you in such a fashion is so sad. I feel so small, the only thing that I can do to help is have faith and pray.

NC State Fair

Today Marco and I went to the NC State Fair here in Raleigh. It was a beautiful day, I think it got up to about 80 degrees. Nice and sunny, which is some great fair weather. We parked in the NC State Stadium parking across the street from the fairgrounds which was free, which was great.... there were tons of people there. it was a HUGE lot and i think it was pretty close to full. the Lynden Fair doesn't even come close to comparing!

Here is marco shooting a gun... 100 little bee-bee thingies... if he got all the red of the star gone then he'd win a prize... he didn't but he did get close.... he also tried to knock over 3 cups with a ping pong-ish ball... if he did that he would have won a bike.

Here is the pathway that we had to take when we were leaving the fair.... and this wasn't the worst of it. there were parts where you would stand there for what seemed like really long periods of time waiting for people to move... it was pretty frustrating!
Here is Marco shooting the REAL guns.... here if you won then you won a turkey!! He didn't win on his first try.....
but on his second try he did!!! we took the T-Shirt instead though.... I doubt that I'd have time to cook a turkey before we left here.
We also went to the demolition derby.... I swore that the silver car was going to win (it was a jetta!!) but it went caput very near the end.... about half way thru it took a pretty brutal hit to the front and leaked all the radiator fluid... it was intense!!

during the final heat at the demolition derby (there were 4 heats) the winner (the yellow car) won because the other 3 cars got stuck up on the wall.... here are two of the three that were stuck on the wall....

We had a fun time. I'm glad we went early during the day, cause when we were leaving there were definitely more people coming than going and it was already really crowded!! One more thing.... October 20th and I get a sunburn!!

Punkin' Carvin' Day

Here is a lovely pic of Marco and I as we begin our first annual Punkin' Carvin' Day.

My job was to draw the face on the pumpkin... i also got the lovely job of cleaning it out and roasting the seeds for a lovely snack!!

Marco's Job was to cut the wholes in the Pumpkin. Here he is taking the top off.

And here he is taking out the mouth.

And here we are with the finished product. I'm excited to put a candle in it tonight so it will glows all pretty!!

Color Me Happy!!

or a little de-stressed, whatever you want to all it, but color me good!!

Just got an email from the real estate agent and the inspection for the house is tomorrow morning... FINALLY!! We should know Monday how things went and hopefully I won't jinx it all by packing this weekend.... but things are looking good!!

And some other good news.... its raining!!

Too Blind to See

Marco and I got new front brakes put on the car, oh i'd say about 6 weeks ago. Marco noticed shortly there after that the people who had changed them had put some pretty deep gouges in the wheel near where the lug nuts are. So we called the guy and told him about it... not a problem we could just bring in the car and he'd take it to his body shop guy and they'd repair it for us. Sounds great, right.... but Marco and I only have one car and we can't exactlly go without it for a day... so I've been stressed out about getting this stupid wheel fixed, i didn't want to rent a car, and i hate asking for help... don't want to have people go out of their way for us... so anyway, marco talked to a friend yesterday and he said that we could borrow his truck today. Neat... Yipee! so i call the guy last night and ask him if this would work out. He called his guy and this morning i found out that the guy can't do it until next week... ug. the whole problem over again. BUT then the guy suggests that we come in and he'll put the spare on for us and then call us when the wheel is fixed. I felt like a total idot. this whole time i've been stressed out over this thing (among other things) and there was an obvious and simple solution right in front of us. arg....

Oh, PS. earlier when i went out it was 82 degrees and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. I'm ready for summer to end!!

Could it be... is fall finally here?

i am really really hoping this time that fall is beginning here in raleigh. this is the first day (so far, cause it is only noon) that it hasn't gotten into the 80's. plus the air has got that crisp clean feel to it as opposed to the hot, moisture filled air that has plagued us for the past few months. i don't know if there are any benefits to humidity, but i can't think of any... or rather i don't want even try to think of any. i hate not being able to drive down the road with my window open cause my skin feels all icky afterwards... and not being able to sleep with the windows open during the summer casue it doesn't get below 80 at night!! I guess washington will be a system shocker. anyway... back to fall... the trees are just beginning to change... there is one that i can see from my office window that is pretty. there are some things that i'm going to miss from raleigh. the fall colors being one of them, and maybe one day i'll miss the long hot summers.

"Best Days".... love it!

I have a new favorite song.... "Best Days" by Matt White! SO GOOD!! it's one of those up-beat happy songs that make you want to dance and sing in the wooden spoon or hairbrush microphone. I haven't really listened to the lyrics yet, but I'm not a lyrics person.... but that's a whole-nother topic of discussion.


I should probably also give a shout-out to Natasha Beddingfield and Sean Kingston... their new one is pretty cool too!

Charleston, South Carolina

Marco and I headed down to Charleston Saturday Morning... he'll be down there all this week working, so we though that we'd see the sights while we were at it. We'd never been to Charleston before so it was a cool adventure!! Depending on when he gets done this week we might spend next weekend there too!!

We went over to the beach on Sullivan's Island, and me being corny me wrote our names in the sand. There was this cool square lighthouse near the beach access that we parked by, but of course I didn't think to take a picture of that until I got back to Raleigh... maybe next weekend.


This is the bridge that you have to cross to get over to Sullivan's Island. The people that we stayed with said that this is the biggest cable bridge in the US... They also talked about the loggerhead turtles that come to lay their eggs on the coast of the rivers.... well apparently they get disoriented with lights, so, during the loggerhead egg-laying-season they dim the lights on the bridge so that the turtles lay their eggs and keep the loggerhead species intact... i don't know if it's all that dramatic, but there you go.

We hung out at the Battery (a park on the tip of the peninsula of Charleston) a bunch while we were there. Apparently it is the number one place in Charleston to get married (there were two weddings while we were there), but back in the olden days it was used as the location that they hung the pirates.... they kept their bodies there swingin' in the wind for a couple of days as a warning to all the other pirates that passed by. It's also the place that Charleston got "battered" the most with cannon fire and stuff during some war (I'm not very good with history). Thus the name the Battery


Here are some pics of Marco hangin' out at the Battery. They had a cool sea-wall walk-way thingy.

Here is a pic of me (all gross cause of the HOTness and the ucky humidity) pinchin' the naked statue's wee-wee.

Here are a couple of pics of houses that were along the Battery. All the houses South of Broad are Historic and worth over a million. The most recent one that sold was for 7.7Million. One of the ones that was turned into an Inn is really cool (2 Market Street Inn). The father of the lady that built it gave her a load of money and told her to build her dream house (apparently she modeled it after her wedding cake.. and there are a few stained glass Tiffany windows) Her in-laws gave her and her husband a 2-year Honeymoon in Europe and a ridiculous amount of money to buy furniture. Today all the original furniture is still in the house, and no one under 12 years old is allowed inside. The pics I have below are just private residences.

Here's Marco ridin' the cannon, and me just hangin' out in the park... nothin' too exciting.

Here is a truck that Marco liked..... 8 wheels. BIG TRUCK!!

And here's the sun going down behind the palms.

It was a fun trip. Other than hanging out at the Battery, we went on a Carriage Tour and saw some pretty cool stuff. We had some wings at a place called "Sticky Fingers" and shrimp at "Bubba Gumps" We walked around the open air market, saw people making roses out of palm fronds, and baskets out of sugar grass. Next time I think I'd like to do a little shopping, get some souvenir's, and maybe take another tour... maybe the Gullah Tour.

Comin' Along

So we worked out a price with the peeps who put an offer on the house.... and things are going well. The inspection should take place sometime this week. We're tentatively set to close October 30th at 11am.... Here's to moving out west!!

Extra!! Extra!! Read all about it!!

Exciting news!! Someone looked at our house, and liked it so much that they decided to put an offer on it!! YAY! but it's a really low offer so we'll see what we can do to negociate, but it's movement in the right direction so that's cool!!

here are some "before" pics of the house.... i personally think it's quite an improvement from before to after. I think that my favorite room before.... due to pure jaw dropping power is the "pink" room... which is now green. but then again all the wall paper is pretty bad too!!

First Post

Ok. so here we go. Blogspot. I had a heck of a time getting to the website!! i did a google search for blogspot, clicked, and all the sudden the screen is covered in Korean (Seo used this computer before me!!) shout out to Rach for gettin' me started here. I'm loving the whole keeping in contact thing.

marco and i are trying to sell our house so we can move back out west.... shorten the distance between us and family. so far we'd been averageing 3 showings a week... until last week when we didn't have any. it was kind of disheartening. but then this week things turned around. we had a showing monday, tuesday, nothing on wednesday and we're going to have two today!! maybe it's cause it rained last week, and people didn't feel like looking for houses. who knows. we're just waiting for the right person/people to say they love it and want to make it their home. I'm going to miss it when it's finally gone, but it will be worth it to be close to the fam

Here is the front of our little home, or at least our half of it

here's the sink in the pdr under the stairs.... i LOVE it now... before it was this hideous dark paisley pattern with an ugly vanity and the funkiest (in a bad way) toilet ever!

the bedroom.... it's kind of blah. but that's ok. makes it good for sleeping

the back deck... which isn't totally up to date.... we just refinished and weather proofed it. and cut that stupid bus down cause it always hit me in the head when i was grillin'


the dining room. with our cool world market table and ikea chairs

the kitchen.... we got new cabinets and countertops.... and it's auctually fun to use this kitchen now... before it was not at all fun! again hideous wallpaper and cracking countertops.

the living room. i want to get some autumn decorations and spruce it up for autumn. the first day of autumn was last weekend so i figure that gives me the right to decorate for it.... even though the forcast calls for weather in the 80's for at least the next 10 days!!! I'm looking forward to scarf weather!!