October 5, 2010

Tonight all the TLs and ETLs (supervisors and managers) went out for a team builder. We met at Barnaby's for dinner at 4. Pizza, beer and fried pickles! Then we all met at Strikes and Spares for bowling and go-karts. I was winning the go-kart race by a mile. But Bryan and Brian conspired to take me out and I ended up third. I had decided early on that I wasn't gonna bowl because I didn't want to risk hurting my bad knee. Peer pressure and the jams on the jukebox lured me in anyway. I bowled two games and will pay for it tomorrow.

October 4, 2010

Today I went shopping for new work pants. If there isn't anything else in the world that will motivate a person to lose weight, trying on new clothes will. I have to get motivated. I need help.

I came home and cleaned today. Did the dishes, did some laundry and put a couple Halloween decorations up. This light-up spider hanging from the ceiling fan made a really cool light pattern on the ceiling.

October 3, 2010

Halloween is coming. Or as Target Marketing calls it--Halloweekend.

Duke is sporting his trick or treat collar for the month. I am trying to teach Duke to walk on a leash. We have an acre of yard and for the most part, it's all fenced in. Duke has always had the run of the yard for whenever and for however long as he has wanted it. So we don't walk him. Which means he is a nightmare to walk on a leash whenever we need to take him somewhere. I'm using the Gentle Leader to break him of his habit of pulling. He doesn't like to wear it, but I'm hoping he gets used to it. And eventually, when he learns to not pull on his leash, he won't have to wear it at all. If you don't have a dog, or have never heard of it, it fits over the snout and around the neck. When your dog pulls forward, it pulls his nose to the side, theoretically stopping him from pulling. I'm taking him out into the yard for only a little bit at a time. This is the first day, and my goal is for it to take less than a month to break his pulling habit. I'm jealous of people who can take their dog anywhere and the dog will trot right next to them on a loose leash and not be a pain in the ass.

October 2, 2010

D&B. Not Dooney and Bourke. Duke and Bubba.

October 1, 2010

Have you ever used Restaurant.com? It's wonderful. It is a website where you can buy restaurant gift cards for less than half the price. For the most part, they sell $25 and $50 gift certificates for $10-$15.All you do is put in the zip code to pull up participating restaurants in a certain area. Now, I will admit, there isn't a huge selection, and certainly not your most popular restaurants. No Hacienda, Fridays or Granite City. But if you ever want to try out a new or unknown restaurant, this is the best way to do it without spending a ton of money. Here's the kicker--most of the time they run a deal where you can get anywhere from 70-90% off the purchase price. Today, I bought 2 - $25 gift certificates for Francesco's (on Lincolnway, near the 100 Center). Normally, they would have been $15 a piece. But since they were 90% off, I got them for $1.50 a piece. Now, when Jon and I decide to go (because they never expire), we just print off the certificate and take it in with us. It sounds too good to be true. But it's totally legit, and yes we have used them already and they work fine. In fact, we used them twice for different restaurants when we went up to Ludington last weekend.

September 30, 2010

It's beginning to look a lot like...fall. There's lots of corn down. Leaves are starting to turn and fall. The days are breezy and the nights are getting cooler. We'll probably have to mow the lawn one last time this year.

September 29, 2010

Today I cleaned out our hall closet. This is not the first time I've done this. It tends to get filled up with crap I really should be throwing away. I have a small problem with hair products. It's not like I have some grand fashionista hairstyle, but every time a cool new product comes out that I see advertised in Cosmo or on TV, I buy it. Whether or not I'm done with a previous product. So if I buy a new, healthy, trendy shampoo, I will take the half used bottle I am currently using and put it in the closet for later use. Let's get real. I'm not gonna use it again. I also have quite the hoarder's collection of Bath and Body Works product. Besides the fact that I used to work there, it seems to be the 'go-to' gift among women at work. So I've built up quite a collection. I filled a large trash bag with crap that I ended up throwing away. Mostly hair product and BBW products. I saved a small amount of crap for the next garage sale. (Now I have to find a place for it until someone decides to have a garage sale.) I reorganized what was left. First aid in one plastic bin, cleaning stuff in another, etc. The vacuum cleaner is actually in there now. I'll probably be doing this again in another year.