shocking!
alright this post ended up being WAY much longer than i had anticipated. here's a cut so i don't create too much of a wall of text.
i surprised myself (and probably the cats, too) when i woke up WHEN my alarm went off this morning at 6:30am. why this sudden change in habit? well...in order to keep up with my training schedule i needed to fit in 30 minutes of weight training today. today also happen to be the first day back to school after spring break (a very productive one, as i'll talk about later), which means i'll have work to do when i get home. with the advent of the last month of the semester i have 6 assignments to look forward to. this means i need to get my ass moving on a few of them, just to stay ahead of the curve. anyway, in addition to all this, i need to go grocery shopping tonight, as well as make dinner. the big M is still sick and the duties which we normally do together i must do on my own right now. no worries. but you see the problem: if i wanted to get work done tonight, after grocery shopping and cooking dinner, i doubt i would have a spare 30 minutes for weight training. not to mention the fact that dancing with the stars, heroes, and castle are all on TV tonight, too. yeah...at least one of these is going to be DVR'ed. *sigh*
in any case, i managed to drag myself out of bed this morning to brush my teeth, put on my workout clothes and head out the door a little before 7am. i also fed the cats and fish and kissed marshall good-bye. i got to work at a little before 7:30 (having no traffic is lovely in the morning, BTW) and realized i forgot my keycard to get into the building. luckily, the café was open and i got the cashier to let me into the gym. i got my workout done plus a shower and coffee from the aforementioned café all before 8:30am. i also manged to flag someone down to let me into the building where my cube is. all in all, i've been quite productive all before 9am. i wonder if satan's feeling a slight chill?
+_+_+
as i mentioned before, last week was my spring break. i planned on doing nothing but play WoW in the evenings. i didn't even check my school email. i was determined to have an actual BREAK from school. my WoW goal was to hit 75. i feel as if i'd been 74 for the longest time and that time in dragonblight was just dragging. i'd finish one area, only to be sent back there again and then one more time, all with 3-5 step quest-chains. i finally made it out by mid-week and headed to grizzly hills. i even got to run a few things with marshall on his priest, which was lovely. with his healing and my pseudo-tanking skills, we managed to handle all the group quests in dragonblight, including a 5-man fight which we took on AND accomplished with just the 2 of us. that's right: a priest and a rogue took down a rather big elite dragon. we also didn't wipe, either, which is really saying something. anyway, i finally hit 75 and was stoked. i keep playing and after a couple days of hardcore playing, i dinged 76 on saturday. i was so excited. as it stands now, i'm about 2/3's of the way to 77. 77 means a lot in that i can finally get cold-weather flying and fly around. there's a bad side to this, though. since i haven't bought any flying up to this point, i need to pay for the regular flying, epic flying, plus an actual mount. once i have all that, i can buy the cold-weather flying. adding this all up, i need to raise about 8k (for epic flying AND cold-weather flying) gold at 77, or thereabouts. i'm currently at about 3200. it's a start, but i still need a lot more. there are people who are generous enough to lend me money. marshall said he could help me out and i'm sure if i asked, our guild would be nice enough to offer some of our current reserves, too. i can funnel in some money from my 'lock, who's been sitting at 73 since winter break. i also have herbs in the bank, which i can sell for a bit. i actually have a few of the rarer herbs, which might bring in a little extra. so yeah...i'm really happy with my progress over the break and i look forward to may when i can start playing regularly again. i may even hit 80 and join the leagues of raiders. yes, i'm a little late to the party, but i am an experienced raider. :)
+_+_+
saturday was my first long ride, even though it ended up not being as long as i thought it would be. it was the last saturday of the month and the breakfast club all headed to BFF sarah and mike's place for breakfast. mike's "pop's famous breakfast" was a mixture of the best breakfast items all one skillet: potatoes, bacon and eggs. it was delicious and for his first time making it was a complete success. sarah made a delicious fruit salad and kickin' homemade granola. marshall ended up contracting my virus late thursday and has been out for the count since. we missed him dearly at breakfast and i missed him on the bike ride to and fro. i was a little apprehensive about going by myself, but i bit the bullet and went. i felt better that i did it. :) after breakfast, i headed home and got ready for the day. i tried my best to air out our home in the hopes it would blow away the sickness. i picked up the house and made a trip to the salvation army to donate our old furniture. i stopped by my mom's for a nice chat, too, which was nice. this is all after a very busy friday, which i was given a half-day from work, and got my car washed and oil changed. after all the running around, i was able to relax a bit and watch TV. my DVDs for the tudors came in the mail on friday. i introduced marshall to it and he hasn't complained since. perhaps he's just placating me, who knows? :P
marshall missed out on another social event on sunday. saturday was my very good friend sanam's birthday. she decided to have a picnic at tilden park in the berkeley hills. i had never been there before, so i was flying blind. i managed to get directions online and she provided me with further directions once in the park to where they would be. after an hour and a half of driving up into the hills and getting lost a few times, i finally found them. they managed to stake their territory on 2 bbq pits and 2 tables. it was a beautiful day and we spent it just hanging out, drinking, eating and chatting. i had a great time catching up with people i don't see very often. sanam also made a delicious picnic paella and keith bbq'ed up some yummy italian sausages. it was a great way to spend a sunday, i tell you. :D
+_+_+
all in all i've had a pretty great week and weekend over spring break. even though i had to work every day, i didn't mind it quite so much. i am looking forward to the summer when i can really relax for a while. that is, until wedding planning starts up again. goals for the summer include ordering my dress and bridesmaid dresses, finding a photographer and florist and ordering our cake. last week i was looking at bakeries and one of the suggested bakers from hollins house was the buttery. i've had their cake before and it's delicious. i noticed on their site that they offer olallieberry filling. now, i love olallieberries and i think it would be awesome to have in our cake as it would fit with our santa cruz theme. however, i know that it's a strong berry and not everyone likes it. i'm thinking perhaps we could make ONE tier white cake w/ olallieberry filling and the larger tiers my original choice: chocolate w/ raspberry filling. having a choice would be cool, although it may cost more. unfortunately the buttery doesn't have an online pricing guide. here's hoping i won't be breaking the bank. :P i also looked a bit at photographers. our events coordinator highly recommended 2 photographers in the santa cruz area, both very experienced with hollins house as a venue. they both have some amazing websites and sample photographs. it's going to come down to a) price and b) personality. i would love to use either one, at this point. when it comes to flowers, i'm kind of at a loss. luckily, one of my godmother's good friends is a florist. according to my godmother and my mom, she does fantastic work. she did my godmother's 50 birthday party and my mom said the flowers were beautiful. she's based in the san ramon/pleasanton area, but my godmother said she'd do santa cruz. i'll give her a call and see what she's like. it'd be nice to find someone close to the family, so to speak, and perhaps she might cut me a good deal. :)
i surprised myself (and probably the cats, too) when i woke up WHEN my alarm went off this morning at 6:30am. why this sudden change in habit? well...in order to keep up with my training schedule i needed to fit in 30 minutes of weight training today. today also happen to be the first day back to school after spring break (a very productive one, as i'll talk about later), which means i'll have work to do when i get home. with the advent of the last month of the semester i have 6 assignments to look forward to. this means i need to get my ass moving on a few of them, just to stay ahead of the curve. anyway, in addition to all this, i need to go grocery shopping tonight, as well as make dinner. the big M is still sick and the duties which we normally do together i must do on my own right now. no worries. but you see the problem: if i wanted to get work done tonight, after grocery shopping and cooking dinner, i doubt i would have a spare 30 minutes for weight training. not to mention the fact that dancing with the stars, heroes, and castle are all on TV tonight, too. yeah...at least one of these is going to be DVR'ed. *sigh*
in any case, i managed to drag myself out of bed this morning to brush my teeth, put on my workout clothes and head out the door a little before 7am. i also fed the cats and fish and kissed marshall good-bye. i got to work at a little before 7:30 (having no traffic is lovely in the morning, BTW) and realized i forgot my keycard to get into the building. luckily, the café was open and i got the cashier to let me into the gym. i got my workout done plus a shower and coffee from the aforementioned café all before 8:30am. i also manged to flag someone down to let me into the building where my cube is. all in all, i've been quite productive all before 9am. i wonder if satan's feeling a slight chill?
+_+_+
as i mentioned before, last week was my spring break. i planned on doing nothing but play WoW in the evenings. i didn't even check my school email. i was determined to have an actual BREAK from school. my WoW goal was to hit 75. i feel as if i'd been 74 for the longest time and that time in dragonblight was just dragging. i'd finish one area, only to be sent back there again and then one more time, all with 3-5 step quest-chains. i finally made it out by mid-week and headed to grizzly hills. i even got to run a few things with marshall on his priest, which was lovely. with his healing and my pseudo-tanking skills, we managed to handle all the group quests in dragonblight, including a 5-man fight which we took on AND accomplished with just the 2 of us. that's right: a priest and a rogue took down a rather big elite dragon. we also didn't wipe, either, which is really saying something. anyway, i finally hit 75 and was stoked. i keep playing and after a couple days of hardcore playing, i dinged 76 on saturday. i was so excited. as it stands now, i'm about 2/3's of the way to 77. 77 means a lot in that i can finally get cold-weather flying and fly around. there's a bad side to this, though. since i haven't bought any flying up to this point, i need to pay for the regular flying, epic flying, plus an actual mount. once i have all that, i can buy the cold-weather flying. adding this all up, i need to raise about 8k (for epic flying AND cold-weather flying) gold at 77, or thereabouts. i'm currently at about 3200. it's a start, but i still need a lot more. there are people who are generous enough to lend me money. marshall said he could help me out and i'm sure if i asked, our guild would be nice enough to offer some of our current reserves, too. i can funnel in some money from my 'lock, who's been sitting at 73 since winter break. i also have herbs in the bank, which i can sell for a bit. i actually have a few of the rarer herbs, which might bring in a little extra. so yeah...i'm really happy with my progress over the break and i look forward to may when i can start playing regularly again. i may even hit 80 and join the leagues of raiders. yes, i'm a little late to the party, but i am an experienced raider. :)
+_+_+
saturday was my first long ride, even though it ended up not being as long as i thought it would be. it was the last saturday of the month and the breakfast club all headed to BFF sarah and mike's place for breakfast. mike's "pop's famous breakfast" was a mixture of the best breakfast items all one skillet: potatoes, bacon and eggs. it was delicious and for his first time making it was a complete success. sarah made a delicious fruit salad and kickin' homemade granola. marshall ended up contracting my virus late thursday and has been out for the count since. we missed him dearly at breakfast and i missed him on the bike ride to and fro. i was a little apprehensive about going by myself, but i bit the bullet and went. i felt better that i did it. :) after breakfast, i headed home and got ready for the day. i tried my best to air out our home in the hopes it would blow away the sickness. i picked up the house and made a trip to the salvation army to donate our old furniture. i stopped by my mom's for a nice chat, too, which was nice. this is all after a very busy friday, which i was given a half-day from work, and got my car washed and oil changed. after all the running around, i was able to relax a bit and watch TV. my DVDs for the tudors came in the mail on friday. i introduced marshall to it and he hasn't complained since. perhaps he's just placating me, who knows? :P
marshall missed out on another social event on sunday. saturday was my very good friend sanam's birthday. she decided to have a picnic at tilden park in the berkeley hills. i had never been there before, so i was flying blind. i managed to get directions online and she provided me with further directions once in the park to where they would be. after an hour and a half of driving up into the hills and getting lost a few times, i finally found them. they managed to stake their territory on 2 bbq pits and 2 tables. it was a beautiful day and we spent it just hanging out, drinking, eating and chatting. i had a great time catching up with people i don't see very often. sanam also made a delicious picnic paella and keith bbq'ed up some yummy italian sausages. it was a great way to spend a sunday, i tell you. :D
+_+_+
all in all i've had a pretty great week and weekend over spring break. even though i had to work every day, i didn't mind it quite so much. i am looking forward to the summer when i can really relax for a while. that is, until wedding planning starts up again. goals for the summer include ordering my dress and bridesmaid dresses, finding a photographer and florist and ordering our cake. last week i was looking at bakeries and one of the suggested bakers from hollins house was the buttery. i've had their cake before and it's delicious. i noticed on their site that they offer olallieberry filling. now, i love olallieberries and i think it would be awesome to have in our cake as it would fit with our santa cruz theme. however, i know that it's a strong berry and not everyone likes it. i'm thinking perhaps we could make ONE tier white cake w/ olallieberry filling and the larger tiers my original choice: chocolate w/ raspberry filling. having a choice would be cool, although it may cost more. unfortunately the buttery doesn't have an online pricing guide. here's hoping i won't be breaking the bank. :P i also looked a bit at photographers. our events coordinator highly recommended 2 photographers in the santa cruz area, both very experienced with hollins house as a venue. they both have some amazing websites and sample photographs. it's going to come down to a) price and b) personality. i would love to use either one, at this point. when it comes to flowers, i'm kind of at a loss. luckily, one of my godmother's good friends is a florist. according to my godmother and my mom, she does fantastic work. she did my godmother's 50 birthday party and my mom said the flowers were beautiful. she's based in the san ramon/pleasanton area, but my godmother said she'd do santa cruz. i'll give her a call and see what she's like. it'd be nice to find someone close to the family, so to speak, and perhaps she might cut me a good deal. :)