Spring Fever!

I am suffering the repercussions of not being able to go to India. I want to go on vacation so bad right now. Being that we are working on adoption stuff I am having trouble parting with money for a vacation when I know there will be a little one around in the next year or so. Ugh, tough decision. My Mom and Sister are coming out for a long weekend in April and I have time off for that so perhaps that will suffice, but I am thinking it isn't going to make up for time somewhere else in the world. I was thinking about going to Malta again in the spring and then Tim and I were talking about maybe taking a vacation together in the spring for our anniversary. I just don't know. I go to bed each night reliving my walks on the promenade along the Mediterranean sea. I remember that sailing trip like it was yesterday and want to go again, if there is a next time I will jump in the sea, I swear. I miss my afternoons laying on warm limestone and evenings shopping at Marks and Spencer. I want to eat dinner late and paint each night and slowly walk along cobble stone after evening mass while eating gelato. I could use some serious energy around Tim's birth certificate being delivered to the house so he can go and get his passport pronto because I am chomping at the bit to get out and get somewhere I tell you. It would be nice if he could go to Malta with me this time. Ugh, I am scared if I go myself I am not going to come back. I mean, I know I will, with the baby business and everything, but it was so tempting to stay there last time I was there. Maybe someday we will end up there. It can't come soon enough though, I tell you.

One thing holding me here tonight is ANTM is on tonight and I am pumped as always PLUS I get to ride Apache tomorrow.

Vernal Equinox TODAY

An equinox in astronomy is the event when the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth's equator, occurring around March 20 and September 23 each year. More technically, the equinox happens when the Sun is at one of two opposite points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator and ecliptic intersect. In a wider sense, the equinoxes are the two days each year when the center of the Sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on Earth. The word equinox derives from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night).In practice, the day is longer than the night. Commonly the day is defined as the period that sunlight reaches the ground in the absence of local obstacles. From Earth, the Sun appears as a disc and not a single point of light; so, when the center of the Sun is below the horizon, the upper edge is visible. Furthermore, the atmosphere refracts light; so, even when the upper limb of the Sun is below the horizon, its rays reach over the horizon to the ground. In sunrise/sunset tables, the assumed semi-diameter of the sun is 16 minutes of arc (minutes refering to parts of a degree, not minutes of daylight) and the assumed refraction is 34 minutes of arc. Their combination means that when the upper limb of Sun is on the visible horizon its center is 50 minutes of arc below the geometric horizon, which is the intersection with the celestial sphere of a horizontal plane through the eye of the observer. These effects together make the day about 14 minutes longer than the night at the equator, and longer still at sites toward the poles. The real equality of day and night only happens at places far enough from the equator to have at least a seasonal difference in daylength of 7 minutes and occurs a few days towards the winter side of each equinox.
Above informaiton is from Wikipedia

My Weekend at the Movies (sort of)

I was not feeling so well on Saturday so I was lying low and realized that we had HBO for free over the weekend. DANGER ZONE for Katie. I watched a few movies I saw commercials for that I swore I would never watch in the theatre and got sucked into watching at home. Here is my shameful list:

1. Take the Lead
2. Monster in Law
3. Wedding Crashers

None of these are really worth watching to be honest with you. Sorry if some of you saw these and liked them. I did however; watch a movie that I rented that I thought was fabulous. It is called In the Soup. The star of the film is Steve Buscemi (whom I love, I know, very strange) and also a cameo appearance by Jim Jarmusch which is always a treat. Most of you know, I LOVE movies about making movies and this was one that I was surprised I had not seen. I recommend it. It is a little dark (go figure) and off beat (again, go figure) and I loved it. Again, I never want to give away too much in case anyone wants to check it out.

Saturday was pretty boring, just hung out, watched movies and cleaned a little. Tim played tennis in the afternoon and I took a long nap, which was sooo delicious.

Sunday, Tim played tennis in the morning so I slept in (SLOTH). When Tim got home we went for breakfast at our favorite coffee shop in Daly City and then went to Target to buy some essentials and no so essentials (2 CD’s). After that we went to a game store to get some new games after playing Scrabble on Saturday night we needed a change. Tim had a tennis match in the afternoon so I had some time alone, I did some laundry and danced around (truly, that is what I do when he is not home, I am not ashamed, I LOVE dancing). I worked up a sweat so I took a quick shower, made dinner and Tim came home. After dinner we played our new game called, In a Pickle. It is a fun word game and can get real silly really fast. We laughed so hard last night I was wheezing. I can't wait to get home tonight so we can play again. Check it out http://www.boardgames.com/inpicklegame.html.

Anyway, hope none of you are having a manic Monday. Today is the day that sets the tone for the rest of the week, try to make it positive.

Stay tuned...

All Dressed Up!

It is a rare occasion that we get to get dressed up, so I thought I would post this. Although the reason for dressing up was not so pleasant (Brian's Grandma's funeral). It was a nice mass and beautiful weather.

PS - I think someone has been secretly watching ANTM. Nice pose Tim.

Aaarg!

I got out of work later than planned and didnt get to go to yoga - poop! I am so bummed. I was pumped to the max to go too! I am pouting for sure. Dammit, I told my boss I was going to go to yoga too and needed to get out of there. I should have been more firm, that was my fault for sure. I thought what he asked was only going to take a minute - return two phone calls; however, one kept me on the phone for way too long.

I got home and did ballet though and that made me feel good. My problem is, out of all of the exercise I do, NONE of it is cardiovascular. I need to get out and run or something (that would probably give me a heart attack). Even walking doesn't get my heart rate up where it should be to get a good cardio workout. I need to stop ballet and start hip hop or something where I am literally jumping around. Oh, yesss, jumping rope, that would be good. For like 30 minutes, gosh I am going to get bored out of my skull. I will try it tomorrow with my heart monitor on and see what happens.

Anyway, it is 10:00 PM and I have completed absolutely nothing tonight besides a salad that Tim got me at Whole Foods Market when he took his racket downtown to get restrung. I think I need to do something creative before I get into bed. I need to work on my book.

Sleep tight.

Stay tuned...

Spring is here!

I LOVE the time change! I am SO EXCITED about it. My yoga schedule is back on point. They always change the schedule in March and now the classes I used to take are available again and I am pumped! I am ready to shed my fluffy winter coat that has been hugging my midsection for some time now. I love being able to do things after work and not get home in the dark - yippie! I woke up on time today too, which is a small miracle considering I went to bed at 11:30 PM.

My weekend was great. Friday after work, I drove Susan home. It is so nice to get stuck in traffic with someone you can really talk to, you know? So much better then when you are alone. After dropping her off, I swung by the house and picked up Tim and we went out for dinner (Celia's for Mexican). We walked around Target to burn off our dinner and then went home.

Saturday, I woke up at about 9:15 and took my time getting out of the house to run some errands with Tim. We went to the Filipino Bakery that he is addicted to and then went to get some photos taken (passport, visa, adoption, etc.). After that we went to the pet food place to get Bay-Lee some new nail clippers and look for a laser for Gus (my catphew). I went to SuperCuts to get a hair trim for the spring. I needed my ends cut off, they were looking kind of rough. When we got home we took one of our online adoption courses (we have to take 10 hours worth) - we took turns reading the information on the screen and completed a quiz at the end. This week's class was on Attachment and Bonding (mostly about attachment disorders, which is pretty scary). We have a lot more to go, but will be done in a couple weeks. We have a couple nights a week set aside to do the classes since we can take them at any time, which is really nice.

Saturday night I watched a movie that I will recommend to all of you, thanks to Debbie. The movie is called, On A Clear Day (2005) from the U.K. It is a feel good movie about a man, midlife who is going through some bad times and decides, with the help of his friends that he is going to swim the English Channel. I loved it, I cried at the end, happy tears. It was a great movie. Since I am on the topic of movies, I also saw another Debbie recommendation called, Home Movie, this is a documentary about the whacked out things people do to their homes or weird places people live. One family lived in a missile/rocket launch site, it is only about 65 minutes and pretty entertaining. People crack me up so I really enjoyed it. There are some freaks out there for sure.

Sunday, again, slept in a bit. Tim played tennis so it was nice and quite in the house so Bay-Lee and I lounged in the bed until Tim got home at about 9:30 or so. Got up, tidied the house a little and then ran the vacuum. We met up with Jadin for a late lunch/early dinner at 2:30 http://www.mandalaysf.com/ and hung out at the restaurant until about 5:45 and then walked around Clemente Street until about 8:30. It was so nice the city yesterday, in the 70's and not a cloud in the sky, even in the Richmond district!

Anyway, it is Monday and I am positive it is going to be a GREAT week! I feel it is up to me to make that decision for myself in the beginning of the week and it will happen.

Yoga tonight and I am very EXCITED!

Stay tuned...

Hiding Out

Today is one of those days I feel like hiding out. I wish to be a turtle so I could crawl inside of my shell and seal off the world for just 1 hour. Sometimes I just need some peace, darkness and time to be alone, you know? I know some people like to be surrounded by others at all times, I don't think that is very healthy though. Time alone is always nice.

Went to get live scanned last night at the SFPD station at 850 Bryant. What a weird place at night, or any time for that matter. For some reason the theme song from Night Court kept playing in my head as we looked for the right department to report to. Pretty scary, we walked in and the security alarm went off and no one came to check it out. I am notorious for setting them off though so they must have gotten the memo about my day planner with the magnetic closure - thanks to my PR people, ha ha! We were only at the station for about 20 minutes, it doesn't take long and is a pretty cool machine they use to capture your prints. That was our big outing last night besides going out for Mexican food before hand.

Tonight no plans except to go home and hopefully purge more stuff from my bedroom. I hate working in there in the evening though, it is already dark and at night it is even worse which makes me loose motivation. Baby steps and it will all get done. We or I should say, I, have collected so much crap in the past couple years that I need to have a sale or something to get rid of it; even more tempting is to just donate it all and get it out of here.

Oh, I forgot to mention another movie I saw, that I am not embarrassed about called Monster House - made for kids, but enjoyed by adults, like Nemo, you know? The animation is pretty cool, and I usually am not into anime. The characters are hilarious and it was a great story for all ages. Check it out and let me know what you think. I have some movies on their way to my house from Green Cine that I am looking forward to and will review after I watch them

Stay tuned!

Turning over a new leaf

Wow, I went back and read my blog from this year and seems like it has been a bummer so far. So, I have decided to turn over a new leaf. I think it is going to be an exciting year! Tim and I have a lot going on, on the home front. We have started the International Adoption process, I think most of you know already. We are working on paperwork like you would not believe. We are looking forward to starting a little family. I didn't know if I should put it out there or not, I mean, what if we don't pass the home study or something and then I have to tell you all that it isn't going to happen? I will be devastated. I am not going to think like that though, I know it is going to happen and appreciate any prayers and positive vibes you all want to put out there for us. We are going to get fingerprinted and live scanned tonight for the home study agency. This process checks our criminal backgrounds and also checks for any child abuse charges, etc. I think we will pass this one. We are almost done with the home study paperwork and when we mail it all in we will be assigned a social worker who will come to the house and interview us and check out our place. Yikes! So between now and then we have been moving things around, purging our closets of old stuff and making things look pretty - like the addition of the valance in the kitchen this weekend and sheer panels in the living room windows. Those two little things take away from the eye sore of the blinds. I love it.

I saw a couple weekends ago, the worst movie ever made - Reno 911 - I went along with Tim and his cousin and her husband. It was so stupid. I am embarrassed I am even telling you all that I saw it.

Anyway, more updates to come. Even if I have nothing to say, I will add a picture or something to my blog so my fans (the two of you) have something to look at.

Update long overdue

Here is a long overdue update - in a nutshell.
I am not in India, I am in the U.S. trying to clean up my accounts since I found out someone went crazy with my ATM/Visa card a couple days before I was to leave for India. I have been working my tushie off trying to make sure nothing besides my bank accounts were tampered with. What a mess. I don't wish this on anyone. I had to cancel my credit cards, place a police report and spend countless hours on the phone trying to make sure I was covered and freeze my credit for a while so no one can establish credit in my name. I just got my ATM card this past weekend. I couldn't leave for India without a credit card and also needed to stay to get all the paperwork complete in a timely manner so my bank can credit the charges back that I did not approve. So now, not am I only missing out on India, I am also thinking a lot about Vietnam as I usually go there this time of year.
What a headache.
I am bouncing back and my life is starting to get back to it's busy self.