It's the Little Things...

I am super excited because I got a new phone at work. This is totally dorky, but I've been asking for a new phone for a year. This one has caller ID (which I didn't have before) and 3 lines so I can put people on hold and switch over to another line. Yesterday, I was able to catch someone while they were leaving a voice mail...so cool! I realize that this is silly, but man it's already making my life better at work. Oh, AND it has 10 speed dial buttons so I don't have to remember any phone numbers anymore!

Another thing that is making my life better today is that I have gotten TWO good nights of sleep in a ROW. That is the second time since last July that that has happened. I'm not exaggerating! I feel so refreshed today! Yay!

Things That Make Me Laugh This Week

I have gotten addicted to the TV show, "The Office". My youngest sister, Laury, and her husband, Leighton, watch it and love it. I watched it a little when it first came out, but it didn't fit into my schedule at the time, so I didn't start watching it regularly. This summer, I decided that I need watch funny shows on TV instead of depressing ones. I love "How I Met Your Mother" and I watch it religiously, but not much else funny. Well, I really like "The New Adventures of Old Christine" because she is such an idiot and kind of reminds me of me. But that one doesn't always come on and I'm not sure if it's going to make the cut. So, I figured I need another sitcom in my life. I got the DVD for the first season of "The Office" and LOVED it. It is so hilarious. As a general rule, Steve Carrell is awesome, but this show takes it up a notch. That Dwight character is hysterical and the rest of the people on the show are so quirky and, well, real, I guess, that I laugh out loud the whole time. Now I'm in the middle of Season Two and it's even better. I really like the storyline about the guy and girl that like each other...so sweet and cute!

I am also re-reading my Dave Barry books. When I was in college, one of my roommates always knew when I was reading Dave Barry because I would try to laugh silently, but I would be shaking because it's so funny. Right now I'm reading one that was published in 1988 and it is just so hilarious. He is so clever...I highly recommend it for a good laugh when you're down!

I am a Space Geek!

Since I was 10 years old, I have wanted to be an astronaut. I can honestly say that, if I had 21 million dollars, I would spend 20 million of it on a trip into space with the Russian space program. I know that all my NASA friends just cringed, but I can't help it...I would abolutely die if I got to go into space. I think it's so cool.

So, in spite of the fact that I have lived within walking distance of NASA for five years (that's not an exaggeration, one of my old running routes was a 7-mile loop around Johnson Space Center), I have not really been on site. Part of me didn't want to go because I knew that it might not be everything I dreamed about or I would get so wrapped up in it and get obsessed. I know that you are all saying to yourselves, "Jenny get obsessed? Never!" : ) But, a friend of mine works with training and he gave me the coolest tour EVER!!!

I don't really remember the order of everything because I was so in awe, but I got to sit in the simulator where the astronauts train for take-off and landing. I was very overwhelmed by all of the switches there. Then, we went to where my friend works and I got to use the simulator for the robotic arm, which is what he works on. It's like a planetarium with a part of the shuttle inside it and it really kind of feels like you're moving because you can only see through the windows. He did a sim where he docked the shuttle with the space station. We only crashed into it once : ) I got to throw something into space. It was so awesome. I LOVED it!!!!

The best part, though, was when we went into the Mission Control building. We couldn't really see in and they were doing a sim, but we ran into someone that Matt knew and he had some extra phone or something. So, completely by chance, I got to go into the REAL Mission Control and sit on one of the consoles and listen in while they did a landing sim. I had white knuckles from holding the phone to my ear while I was listening to them and I was smiling like an idiot the entire time. It was the COOLEST THING THAT I HAVE EVER DONE!!! I am not kidding when I say that I think that was the best day of my entire life. Seriously, I can't think of a better day ever!

So, I'm an official geek. Make fun of me all you like. And all my NASA friends, please don't brag about how you get to do this all the time...it was a once-in-a-life time experience for me and I LOVED it!

Fun Lazy Weekends Rock!

This past weekend was so much fun. I just kind of did what I felt like doing, which was unusual, but very fun. Friday night, I had dinner at Barb's, then Maradee, Barb, Michelle, and I went to see the Spazmatics at Scout. So much fun. Here is a pic of Maradee and I later in the night...my hair was up because it was so freaking hot in there! I look a little scary, but it was really fun.

Saturday, I met my friend Michelle for lunch. We went to college together and, despite the fact that we live less than 10 miles from each other, we never see each other. So, we had lunch at Cheddar's and it was great. Michelle always makes me laugh. She has the most beautiful kids in the world (see her blog under my links) and her husband is great at hooking up electronic stuff. He made his own DVR and hooked up a TV that is also Michelle's computer monitor...I am so impressed! So, anyway, we had a great time catching up. As much as you can catch up in an hour, but it was fun. Here is a picture of us. My hair is quite windblown!

Later on in the afternoon, I went on a shopping spree. I have been on an electronics buying spree for the last couple of weeks, starting with a new running GPS. For the past several years, I have had a GPS watch to run with. These things are so cool! They tell you instantaneously how fast and far you are running. It is weird how I have no concept of how fast (i.e. slow) I am going. I cannot estimate it at all! So, back in May sometime, I set out my GPS on my car to link up to the satellites because it sometimes takes a while to link up. I was going to pick up a friend to go running, but you have to be still for it to link up, so I put it out a few minutes before I left. Then I drove off and forgot it was there. This is something I blame on my mother. When I was a kid, she was ALWAYS leaving her cup of Diet Pepsi on the top of the car and we would go driving down the road and Diet Pepsi would spill off the back of the car. If I was anything like my sweet niece is now, I'm sure that I was all-too-eager to point it out to her every time. Anyway, apparently I inherited this character trait of forgetting things on the car. I didn't realize that the GPS wasn't around until I got to my friend's apartment and then I kind of freaked. We decided to run, then go back to my house and look for it. When we got back there, it was lying in the street like 50 feet from my house and it had been run over. I was absolutely speechless...I'm such a moron!!! I really hate it when I do stuff like this. Like a few years back I lost a Best Buy gift card for $650. I'm still not really over that. So anyway, I finally got over the trauma of losing my GPS and decided to buy a new one. This one is even better! I can download my running info to my computer and compare routes and stuff. I bought it on 4th of July and I've used it twice and it is GREAT!!! I ran 4 miles in 39:19 Sunday and the last mile was 9:10!!! LOVE IT!

Well, in the process of looking for a new GPS, I went shopping with my friend Matt and I mentioned that I need a new TV for my room. The one I have in there is 9 years old (survived my fire in 1999). When I turn it on, it takes a full minute for the picture to come. Which is really annoying when I'm trying to catch the "Local on the 8's" segment on the Weather Channel in the mornings because if the picture doesn't come on soon enough, I miss it and then I have to wait another 10 minutes to see the weather. Actually, I don't really need to watch the weather...I live it Houston....it's going to be hot and probably rainy. Anyway, back to the TV thing. So, Matt convinced me to get a nice TV. I compared a regular old TV with an LCD flat panel and the costs were pretty close for 19" TVs. And there is something about a tuner and 2009. I don't really understand the details, but apparently my TV will be obsolete on February 17, 2009. Something to do with digital or something. So, I decided that I did want to get a nice small TV that would look less bulky in my room. Then, for some reason, Matt researched a nice big flat panel TV for me to put in my living room. Only I have a perfectly good TV in there now. It is a 27" and I got it at Sears about 6 years ago for only $200. There is nothing wrong with it at all. But, I really liked the looks of this other TV. But, it doesn't fit in my entertainment center. So, I ended up buying 2 TVs this past Saturday. Yes, 2 of them. I realize that this is completely ridiculous, but you should see them...they are so cool and clear and I LOVE them! I actually wasn't sure if I was going to like them all that much. But, we watched The Bourne Identity on the living room TV on Saturday night and it was AWESOME...so clear you could freaking count the snowflakes on the ground! The one in my room is so nice...takes up so much less room than my other one. Here are some pictures of my TVs...old and new. See the difference? So I guess I am now an electronics geek, too. But maybe not since I'm still not too sure how to use the remote controls.

Also in there somewhere, we went to play Putt Putt. It was Tommy, Kinsey, Matt, Kristy D, Jess and me. Here are a couple of pics from later on in the evening. We had already been playing for a while and Jess had already left, so they're not the greatest pics, but they make me smile!

I Love My Birthday!

I turned 32 on June 17th. If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY. I don't know why, really. There is no logical explanation for why I love it so much, but I do. Seriously, I'm obnoxious about and I know this, but I just can't help myself...I just love it! My actual birthday was on Father's Day. I had flown in from North Carolina the night before, so I was a little tired, but I got to do many of my favorite things on my actual birthday...went to the gym, saw a movie, ate Mexican food, had Bible study, went running...so much fun!

The next day, I went to lunch with two friends at work, Kate and Katherine. We went to Tortuga's in Baytown, which is my favorite restaurant in Baytown. I just love their salsa...so yummy I would eat it with a spoon! On Thursday of that week, I ate dinner with my friend Shanna. Her birthday is a week before mine. We have, over the last few years, eaten dinner in the week between our birthdays, but this year I was out of town, so we had dinner the week after mine. She is having her first baby, so we spent most of the dinner talking about baby names and middle names...fun times! Friday, I went to lunch with a friend of mine from work and got treated : ) gotta love that!

Friday night, I had plans to play Ultimate Frisbee. In case you don't know, I also LOVE Ultimate Frisbee. This is always amusing to me because I don't usually like things that I suck so bad at. I am just not a great Ultimate Frisbee player. If someone is patient with and helps me, I can handle myself that day, but I always forget the strategy and get nervous when I have to throw, so I would never call myself a good player, but I still love it. The one thing I can do is, after we've been playing for 2 hours, I'm just about the only one that can still sprint down the field...one good thing I got from marathon training. So, I was playing with a group that I hadn't played with before and I was the only girl, which I'm used to. Only I didn't like playing with this group. They just didn't seem like they were having any fun, which meant I definitely wasn't having any fun. I was there because my friend Matt plays with them, but I kind of stopped playing after an hour or so because it wasn't very fun. I did learn how to throw the frisbee a different way...I'm sure there is a name for it, but I don't know it. Once I decided not to play anymore, I took off to take a very short jog around the park we were at and I came back and Matt was laying on the ground...he had hurt his foot. So, instead of playing spades that night like we had planned on, we hung out at the emergency room. It actually was fun. We got Fuddrucker's and, between the two of us, ate about 2 lbs of sauce (ketchup and spicy cheese dip). Nothing exciting, but it was a good story, which I always love! Did you know that they have portable X-ray machines? The X-ray tech was friendly (as opposed to the doctor) and brought it in the room and I was amazed by it...who knew?

Saturday was my birthday party...yay! 4 friends of mine threw the party for me and it was so great! It was at Maradee's house and she cleaned everything and made these awesome brownies that have big chunks of peanut butter in them...soooo good! She even got a trampoline a few weeks before and had it set up to jump on and it is so much fun! Heather and David came over and brought food...David cooked it on the grill. Matt and David set up this awesome projection thing in Maradee's garage. David brought the projector and Matt brought his sound equipment and we watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the garage...it was so neat. I hadn't seen that movie in several years. It took a lot of self control not to sing along very loudly to Twist and Shout during the parade scene. Maradee really likes the part where they go running through the yards at the end. We were originally supposed to set up the movie in the back yard, but it was rainy, so we put it in the garage and I think it was even better there. There was a good crowd there and I got lots of presents, which I also LOVE!!! We played cards very late in the evening and I played horribly, but we didn't lose, just had to stop playing because it was so late.

I stayed at Maradee's that night and ended up going back over there to hang out on Sunday...I got a sunburn, ate too many leftovers, and watched the end of Lonesome Dove. So, that was the

end of the birthday extravaganza. Best birthday every!

Last 2 Days...then Home Sweet Home!!

So, Friday was kind of a slow day. We went to Central Park again and I got to run around the reservoir...equally pretty on Friday. Then we wandered back to the hotel and got cleaned up. We ate lunch at Houston's. Missy was so glad to be eating somewhere where we couldn't see the street, which is a funny commentary on the rest of our trip. I guess all the places we ate at were either outside or near the window, which would have been my doing, since I love to be outside. So, Houston's was great, as always. They have these in New Orleans and Houston, so it wasn't too much special, although I was sad that they did not have my favorite, Baked Potato Soup. Then we meandered down to Times Square so Laury could see the building where David Letterman is filmed and we went into the Hello Deli, which is very tiny. We were only in there for like 6 seconds and I was on the phone, so I don't remember much, but I think that Rupert G was there.

For some reason, we decided to go see a movie. And somehow we ended up in a not great part of town. I forget why...it's taken me so long to write this up that my memory is fuzzy on this detail. But we got there too early and we were exhausted, so we went into a McDonald's just to sit for a while. This was a 2-story McDonald's (not unusual...there is one at the corner of St. Charles and Louisiana in New Orleans), but the odd thing I noticed is that this McDonald's DELIVERS. Have you ever heard of such? Who is so lazy that they can't get to a McDonald's??? They're on freaking every corner...even in NYC! Of course, this reminded me of the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine pretends to be the Janitor of a building so this Chinese restaurant will deliver food to her. Also on that episode, Kramer adopts a mile of highway and makes it two lanes instead of four and it causes a big traffic jam...hysterical!

So, back to our trip. When we got to the movie theater, there was a little old man yelling at people to get in line. This theater had like 4 screens and the movie times were set up so that only one movie was ever starting at one time (not like the mega cinema plexes we have in Houston!). So, there just wasn't really much need for crowd control. AND it was like the 4:00 show, so the crowd was pretty much a bunch of people over 30...not your everyday houligans. But this man was serious about us being in line. And he really did YELL at a man (a grown man who was dressed in cackies and a polo) whose wife was buying their tickets while he stood in line. Apparently that is not kosher. Fortunately she walked up with the tickets so the old man didn't kick them out of line. Craziness...we decided that this old man should hook up with the lady from the theater we were at for Chicago...quite a Nazi couple you'd have, there!

We went to see the movie Knocked Up. I must say that it was pretty crude. I honestly liked the story and character development, but it was too over the top. I know, I know, I'm too old-fashioned or whatever you want to call it, but it really was just too much for me to absorb in my little protected mind. When we got done, we headed back to the hotel and ate pizza at a random place two blocks from the hotel, then back to the room. We rented Catch and Release on the hotel TV. I had already seen this movie and liked it just as much the second time around!

Saturday morning, we got up somewhat early. We went for our usual "breakfast" (I got a double chocolate chip brownie every day) and realized that we had not bought ANY souvenirs. So, we went looking for a shop and, turns out, there was a street fair one block over from our hotel. We bought all our souvenirs in less than 10 minutes! And I think we did pretty good because we got some different stuff...not just the normal "I Heart NY" T-shirts and such. Driver came to pick us up. I was really stressed out about it because I had gotten the flight time wrong (flight was at 3:15 instead of 4:00), but we made it. We had the same driver from Sunday, so he asked about our trip, etc. When we got to the airport, our flight was delayed due to weather somewhere. We were connecting in Baltimore. They held our plane for us. Good thing because we were all ready to get home. You know how, when something is going to happen, you're just ready for it to happen? I had a great time on the trip, but I was ready to be home. Got home and immediately went to Jamie's house to play poker...fun times and great to be back with my dear sweet friends who held up the game until I got there. I came in second...I am really liking poker!

Thursday - Museum Day (or Not)

Thursday was the last day that our New York Passes were valid, so we had grand plans to use them as much as possible. We went to the Museum of Modern Art (or MOMA) in the morning. It was pretty cool. They have Starry Night there and some Andy Warhols, which I thought were cool. This is the best part about being there with my sisters...we all have essentially the same appreciation for art, which is "Eehh...that's neat...let's go do something else now." We were there for maybe an hour and saw the whole place as much as we wanted to. I actually took a lot of pictures of artwork that I liked. We all walked around with our iPods on and used sign language to say that we wanted to go to the next floor or leave. By the time we left, Missy was sitting on a bench text messaging, so she was "done" little before Laury and me.

We left MOMA and headed to Greenwich Village. We were going there for 2 reasons: (1) to eat a hot dog from Gray's Papaya, which I've heard in multiple movies (Fools Rush In, You've Got Mail) and (2) to see Washington Square Park. So we take the subway there and get off and it's just not the cleanest place we've been. It's near NYU, so I'm sure it's just less well-kept than say the Central Park area. We went straight to Gray's Papaya because we were hungry. It's just a corner store with the doors open and no A/C. They sell hot dogs (with mustard or ketchup) and like 20 different varieties of papaya drinks and that's it...no french fries or anything. Eating there meant standing next to the pane glass windows at a metal counter. This was, without a doubt, the best hot dog I've ever eaten. However, it was really small, so we were still hungry. We left Gray's Papaya and went to get batteries for my camera (which EATS batteries, BTW) and the drug store we went into also didn't have good A/C, so we decided that they must not like A/C in Greenwich Village : ).

From there, we went to Washington Square Park. This is the park with the arch that looks like the Arch du Triumph in Paris (except this one has George Washington on it, which I'm pretty sure they don't have on the one in Paris) and I really wanted a picture of it, so my sisters walked there with me. I wandered around trying to get a good shot of it, which I did. As I was walking back to the park from my photographing session, I passed Uma Thurman out with her kids. I took like 3 pictures of her like a big dorkie tourist!!! My sisters were across the park, so they didn't see her, though!

After that, we decided we were still hungry, but I wanted to get to the Guggenheim, so we took the subway back up to the Central Park area. We wandered around the Guggenheim looking for a place to eat, but couldn't find much. By this time, we were REALLY hungry. We wandered for over a half hour looking for a place to eat and finally stopped at this place called Jackson Hole. I do not recommend this place. I got a chicken sandwich that was supposed to have BBQ on it, but it was just ketchup. Don't get me wrong, I like ketchup, but not on grilled chicken! Anyway, we survived that meal and went back to the Guggenheim. Let me point out that the reason I wanted to go to the Guggenheim is that it's really cool to look at. It's the one that is spiral-shaped on the outside and I wanted to go in and just see how it is set up. Well, they were doing some work on the building, so we couldn't see the outside (had scaffolding, etc. on it). And then, when we got back after our unsuccessful lunch, we discovered that it's closed on Thursdays...so, no Guggenheim for me. The funny part of it is that we had walked right by the sign saying it was closed during our quest for food, but didn't read the sign.

After that, we went back to the room. I think we took a nap. That night, we went to eat at Planet Hollywood because we got $10 off with our New York Passes. We were excited to be getting a deal. Only thing is that we ended up spending a lot of money because we got appetizers, meal, dessert, etc. Silly girls!

On the way back to the hotel, we were walking down Fifth Avenue minding our own business, when this girl walked up next to us and said, "Do you see those people over there across the street?" We kind of said "Yeah" (there were a lot of people across the street...it's NYC!). Then the girl said "They're following me, don't let them cross the street." So, let me tell you why this is ridiculous. First of all, no one across the street looked remotely interested in this girl. Second of all, how were we supposed to stop someone from crossing the street? Anyway, Missy, Laury, and I kind of gave each other weird looks. When we looked back at the girl, she was gone! She had turned a corner and was RUNNING down the street...very weird. No one on the other side of the street seemed to respond to her quick departure, though.

OK, that was it for Thursday.