Where Was I?

I am coming out of one of those slumps... You know, when you just don't feel like taking the time to get onto all of your social sites and update stuff... All my fish are most likely dead on Fishville, Chupi is surely (I almost typed shirley...) at the pound, and my farm is lying fallow and unchecked. Here is the abbreviated highlights of the last two weeks...

My Wonderful Four Day Weekend:
Saturday I got my hair done, so I feel refreshed and happy. Sunday (the 24th), I went and had coffee with Kristina at Tsunami Coffee Co, which is where Clipper Ship Coffee used to be in LC. Before coming home I stopped by my dad's and saw all o'them peoples. Monday (the 25th) Collin and I slept in late, and then made our way up to Portland. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott City Center. It was a great hotel, awesome view, and I got some nice pictures that I will someday take the time to edit and upload... We had dinner at the Original (the restaurant downstairs and adjoining the hotel); they had great food and reasonably priced. Then we went to the AFI concert at the Roseland Theater. I wasn't to thrilled with the opening band Ceremony, I hadn't heard any of their stuff before (and maybe they sound better on CD first and then live...) so while the music had a okay sound all the vocals sounded like to me (for every single song) was, "ACK ACK ACK ACK!!!!" AFI finally came on stage and I was in heaven! I was sad when I thought maybe it was over and they hadn't played one of my absolute favorite songs, but then they came back on, played some more and closed with "Silver and Cold" from their album Sing The Sorrow. I was ecstatic. After the show we walked back to the hotel, and in the process learned there were a bunch of fellow concert goers staying there. I think we crashed around 1:30am (which is insanely late for us considering most mornings we are up before six...). We woke up around 8ish, got coffee, checked out, and found our way across Portland to IKEA. I love that store! We got a bunch of great things that we needed and only spent $70! The most expensive thing was the new clock for the living room and it was only $6.99. After IKEA we came back south, went to the Wooden Nickel for lunch, went and saw LeeAnn so she could cut Collin's unruly hair, and then we went to Addictions and I got my eyebrow pierced. All in all it was a wicked awesome long weekend.

This last weekend (the weekend of my birthday) was not so awesome. We had been battling our Toyota almost the entire month of January, and it was still giving us issues. We had run the course with it and were so insanely frustrated. Friday night we had to replace the alternator again, for those of you with a score card that was the third one in January... Saturday morning we checked some other stuff that could have been causing issues, found we needed to replace two fuses and clean out the corrosion that had formed around them, everything seemed fine, Collin went to work. Then on a break he decided to go get a soda and the car wouldn't start. A friend gave him a jump and he made it home okay. We took the battery in, it tested fine, the starter was fine, all of it was fine... Sunday morning Collin put the battery back in and scraped off as much of the corrosion around the terminals and posts as he could, and the car started right up... *knock on wood* Since then the car has been okay... But because of all the stress of the car and what not.... Collin essentially forgot my birthday until he got home that night and I told him I had not made any plans for dinner... It took a minute but then it dawned on him, he apologized profusely. I wasn't mad, for the most part we had celebrated my birthday on my long weekend, including his birthday present to me of the eyebrow piercing.

So now I am twenty five... Crazy.

Work this week has been a roller coaster. Monday we found out one of our three remaining collectors had found another job, so now there is me, Renee, and the two collectors... And for now we are not hiring any replacement. So the office is running bare bones... But we seem to be doing well thus far. The last couple days have actually been moderately bearable.

In case you don't follow me on Facebook, or just missed the post... Wednesday we went and did taxes... Or I guess I should say we went to get screwed by the government, and it was utterly wretched. Thanks to the wonderful "Tax Relief Credit" in 2009, and the fact we both worked all year, we owe the IRS $827.00, and we owe the Oregon Department of Revenue $327. We paid the state already and I will be mailing a check to the feds this weekend... We had the money set aside in case this happened... But there were so many other things I would have loved to put that money towards. Our tax lady said with the money we make we should really consider getting a house... If only life were that simple, it'd be easier to do if we had all of our debt paid (which we will hopefully by the end of 2010). Thursday morning I changed my W-4 to single and zero so they will withhold more... Ugh....

And now I have reached another weekend, which I intend to do what I had planned to do last weekend until we had car issues: NOTHING! Of course, most likely I will end up cleaning the house out of boredom, and I need to pay the bills this weekend at some point... Ah, adulthood, how I love and loathe thee within the same breath...

Enjoy the sunshine!