You know what I love about the internet?  You can find just about anything you need — recipes, people, shopping items, vacation ideas, beautiful homes to browse through if only through a screen — the possibilities are endless!  Case in point:  a friend needed to find a Rochester personal injury lawyer the other week and all she had to do was google it and voila, she hooked herself up with the law offices of Scott C. Gottlieb & Associates, LLP.  Amazing!  And now that I’m back in school, it boggles me that a few strokes on the keyboard and the push of a button and I’ll have access to people who can write my term papers (not that I, uh, would actually resort to that).  Insane!

20 minutes, three times a week.  That’s how much time I need to devote for the KettleWorx workout to sculpt my muscles and eliminate fat.  Bet E would absolutely love it if I ordered a kettlebell.  My body could be transformed in 6 weeks, supposedly.  Wouldn’t E love that.  If you don’t know this already, if my husband could make the gym his career, he would.  Name anything that has to do with working out and being fit, his eyes get all crazy twinkly the way my eyes get when I see a Twinkie.  No kidding!  If he didn’t have me for a wife, he’d probably be all nasty buff and body-builder type-ish by now.  Eeck.  I really ought to get back into the groove of my weight-loss goals.  Afterall, the family that exercises together, stays together.

My mom is super generous.  She bought me and my sister life insurance because she claims the life insurance rate she was quoted was too good to pass up.  Plus, insurance is love .  So when my sister was here a few weeks ago, a nurse came by to draw our blood and check our blood pressures and weight in order to see if we qualify.  Fast forward to yesterday:  my sister received approval in the mail but I haven’t received anything yet!  I am probably too much of a liability for them because I’m so sexy (but hopefully, someone’s sitting in a board room rooting for me, LOL!).  I’ll find out in a few days, I’m sure.  Fingers crossed!  And just to throw it out there, if you can afford it, get insured.  I’ve heard too many sad stories.

I was cleaning out some stuff in our garage when I found some left over porcelain tile the previous owner didn’t use when he renovated the bathrooms in our home.  What am I supposed to do with it now?  Sell it?  Throw it?  Donate to charity?  Or I guess I could save it should one of the tiles in the bathroom chip or break off.  Speaking of bathroom renovations, I wanted to have our bathrooms ripped up (even though they’re brand new) because I wanted more of a vintage look complete with vintage tiles that you find in older homes from way back when.  Hubby brought me to my senses though — afterall, why fix something when it ain’t broke?  Someday though, I will get my vintage bathroom!

When our furnace gave out on us a few months ago, I freaked out when black smoke started coming out of the kitchen vent.  Smoke alarm went off and all and the fire department?  At the front door within minutes.  Timing was super bad because it was in the middle of the night, Erynne was fast asleep so she had to be wrapped up in blankets so I could drop her off at my mom’s house two doors away.  Long story short, our house smelled terrible, found a furnace guy in the yellow pages, had him come out and inspect the damage and my worst fear came true – he started talking about possible asbestos exposure!  Thoughts of mesothelioma started running through my mind and you better believe we immediately put him to work to replace the century-old furnace underneath our house. 

I have a midterm tomorrow evening and I’ve only spent about an hour or so studying for it.  Gave up and was watching HGTV when the little girl comes running to the family room because she can’t sleep without me.  4 years old and she still doesn’t know how to sleep on her own!  Sigh.  I’m in our room now and could use a media slingbox right about now.  That would enable me to watch tv on my laptop.  Have you seen one of those?  A friend of mine has one and she uses her laptop to watch tv when her husband hogs their main tv.  In fact, now that I think about it, hubby would probably love to buy one so that he can watch tv on his pc when Erynne hogs the tv during her cartoon runs in the morning.

We were driving back home on the Golden Gate Bridge when I decided to take this picture.  Started imagining the industrial equipment supplies that went into creating this masterpiece.  I love taking photos of this bridge — I’m suddenly a frustrated photographer when this bridge comes into view.  I figured I could also get some good exercise walking the bridge and capturing some photos that could serve as art on the bare walls of our home.  Why not?

Taken the other day at the Golden Gate Bridge.  Took my cousin M sightseeing and it was hubby and Erynne’s first time too.  Wish the weather was a lot better because it may not look like it much, but trust me when I say it was cold (try windy!).  Love this picture of us but I hate that I can see the pounds creeping up onto my body again.  Remember all that junk food I blogged about yesterday?  Need.to.be.friends.again.with.the.gym.ellipticals.  I am letting myself go again — I haven’t even lost 5 pounds this whole year!  Que terible!

I haven’t blogged about it but I’ve enrolled back into school and have been taking an evening class a few days a week since the end of June.  Things are going well (got an A- on my first midterm, yayy!)  and if all turns out well (read: I ace the class!), I think I’m finally going to reward myself with that netbook I was talking about a few weeks ago.  My class ends in a few weeks.  I think I’ve decided on an HP netbook and hope that there will be one on sale by the time I’m ready to buy *fingers crossed*.  At least I have something to look forward to because God knows it was such a sacrifice to give up most of my summer to take an evening class.  Let’s see what happens.

I think cruises are a great way to vacation.  I remember my first cruise to the Caribbean, I was so hooked that I made a vow I would always vacation by cruising to different parts of the world.  I was especially excited for the time I would be able to cruise with the husband and the little girl — only to find out that hubby doesn’t do so well out on the high seas.  The last cruise we took, he’d ask me every 5 minutes if I could feel the boat rocking and if I did, why wasn’t I feeling sick?  Hahahaha.  A couple we got to know briefly recommended that we get hubby some kind of patch medicine so the rocking and the rolling wouldn’t bother him so much.  I hope it’ll work.  There’s so much fun to be had by cruising, I can’t express it enough.