Procrastination

The brilliant thing about having a blog is that you can pretend that you are working on your "writing" skills when you want to avoid other responsibilies such as.... term papers. As I continue battling through the eternal condemnation that is grad school I keep thinking "why didn't I listen to my Mom?" Obviously a question I try never to ask... so as not to encourage her.

When we told her we were going to get M.A.'s she said...

"Don't do it. School sucks!"

This from somebody with a Masters Degree in Education. Sweet!

When I was in Denver my Aunt told me that there is no hurry in finishing/no harm in not finishing school. My Grandma says there will be no time for grad school once we buy the house. It's nice to know that should I quit, there will be a whole army of people willing to support my decision, advocates for education that we are. :)

In other education related news-my friend Rachel who went to Peru in October without speaking a stick of Spanish, yeah well apparently now she can speak spanish. Should you want proof, just check out the comment section of my last posting. I'm happy/proud of her of course, in that way you are happy for your friends when they lose weight, that is to say... you are happy for them, but secretly you wish that you too were a miracle worker. :) Congrats Rach!

More family stories

As you might recall my parental units were here a few weeks ago, bringing cars, spreading merriment and doing the dirty work of house hunting. Well there was so much going on that I did not remember to recount a particularly entertaining episode with my Mom.... but background first. Our next door neighbors here seem a little... eccentric, they have been remodeling their backyard/garage thing for like a year now and last summer they did a lot of work/digging at night. At some point I think I mentioned this to my mother and joked "I think they are burying people back there", which isn't really that funny, considering that this crazy lady actually did that in this neighborhood like 20 years back. So anyways, keep this in mind for the reminder of the story.

Anyways one of the nights my Mom was staying at our house she emerged from the bathroom and whispered "Oh my GOD Emily, you have to move! Your neighbors are digging!" I'm like "Oh yeah, sometimes they do that." "Emily, you HAVE TO go listen in the bathroom, they are DIGGING!" So I go into the bathroom and I hear... nothing. But my Mom persists "Don't you hear it? The digging? It's rhythmic." She starts nodding her head in time with the "digging" and my eyes drift up.... to the clock.

Classic Mom.

After I pointed this out she said "Well you should still move."

Rolling with the homies

I'm back to Sacramento now and back to the absolute lunacy that is currently our grad school-house buying-post accident life but since I'm not ready to give my Denver sojourn up yet, here's one last story. On Friday night we went to visit my cousin whose house was a relative oasis of blissful calm. Based on the last visit Arnold and I paid I've come to expect exciting drama like Beagle fights but this night was just a relaxing time with family and massive amounts of artichokes. Yum!

And then afterwards comes the real story. I went bar-hopping with my Uncle, it was his idea. No, seriously, it really was. My Uncle has a legendary (within the family anyways) love of the nightlife and he lives in a conveniently hip downtown neighborhood. According to my Aunt he has wanted to go out to explore the nightlife for some time and has just been waiting for the right wingman... uh, I mean company.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I am an unlikely candidate for many reasons

1) I am lazy to stay up late
2) I am already married and therefore have zero motivation to meet new people
3) I am pretty sure I would pass out if I had more than two drinks in a night
4) I have never ever gone to more than one bar in a night.

Last Friday I went to five bars within 3 hours and it was awesome! Now of course the fun could have been the novelty of it all, but I think the best part was seeing my Uncle get progressively more excited about hanging out at night. An obvious night owl by trade we were doing community "research" of the security of the area and because my Uncle is on some kind of local board. I think the best part of the night was when my Uncle told me "You're hanging out with the f-in King of LODO (the neighborhood we were in) Hee! But it was kind of true, my Uncle rocks, I hope I still know how to have fun at 64. Also we had Mexico-city style tacos, they were good.

Of course I was a disappointment on the drinking front. My Uncle pointed out that I wasn't even trying to keep up with him. I pointed out that at least I am a cheap date. So there we go, it was an awesome trip.

Live from Denver it's McCMania!

Continuing our national tour, this week I'm in Denver, CO doing some prep work for an upcoming event and of course visting with the Double-C side of the family. I'm not sure if I've previously blogged about these particul relatives but I think one of the interesting things about them is that they are fun, not like regular normal-paced fun, like high-octane fun. My Aunt/Uncle are both firmly in the retiree category, but they can out-fun anyone with one hand and two legs tied. I will be here for approx. three days and in that time I will have

1) gone to an art museum and out to dinner
2) Gone to Happy House and the Historical Society
3) Attended a barbecue

These of course are all after-activities since I'll be working during the day. I think in these three days with them I will have more social interaction then I usually accomplish during a month by myself. Awesome.

Deep in the heart of Texas

As the little blog that could continues marching towards national domination Maghanoy.com is reporting live from San Antonio. The good news is that San Antonio is much more fun than you would expect from Texas. I of course, saint that I am, don't have anything against Texas, it's just that it is a state with a rather strange reputation. I am by the Riverwalk and somehow ended up in a hotel with a spectacular view and am currently typing this just blocks away from the Alamo. Unfortunately it is 5 am here and I am probably not going to get the opportunity to visit said Alamo because I have a full day of work ahead of me. bummer. It's hard to remember the Alamo if you don't ever see it... que no? In any case I have heard that it is very, very small. I'll let ya'll know if I get the chance to see it for myself.

In other exciting news Arnold and I have officially entered escrow on our possible future home. Yay! :) It is exciting that this time around or home-based dramas are now being based on another landlord-tenant debacle. From now on we will strictly be complaining about things breaking in the house and not knowing how to fix them rather than our landlord refusing too.

Moving on up

Well, I've been a bit delinquent in posting but it's because the dynamic that duo that are Arnold and Amelie have been busy.... trying to buy a house. That's right my friends. We have picked out a house, we love it, it's beautiful, it's in Land Park and it's in our price range. It is a funky house in all the ways we love. So... we are saying our prayers and getting ready to review our counter offer tonight. I of course am worrying, because that's my thing, I am a worrier as is my mother and her mother before her... and you know what they say The apple doesn't fall far from the worry tree.... actually the apple never falls because the worry tree is so exceedingly careful that it creates a safe little nest for it's .... whoa I just realized I was getting a little out of control with that analogy.... anyways on the whole we are exceedingly excited and hope that in 45 days we will have good news. And it makes me think (Not to repeat myself but)...

What a difference a year makes, last year at this time we were just recently escaped from the crapartment and now we are making the first steps towards buying our first home, as Betty said "OH my GOD, it's like your grown-ups". Indeed. :)

Happy Easter! - This is the longest post ever.....

Realizing it's Easter again, I'm thinking of how quickly things change. Last year we had just moved into this apt. were still dealing from the fallout of the last apartment and Arnold was in a credential program. This year Arnold is teacher and we are dealing with the fallout from his accident. It has been really hard, but it's Easter and today I'm looking up and staying positive. Here's a non-comprehensive list of things shallow and serious we(the fearless duo that Arnold and I compose) are thankful for:

1) Our families, maybe not perfecting but always entertaining making us the envy of many.
2) Cake, OKay maybe that's just on my list but still
3) Working full time in awesome new jobs!
4) Not freezing in the crapartment
5) The fact that we made it through another year alive, normally not something I consider an achievement, but given recent events.....
6) All our equally non-perfect but always entertaining friends!
7) We are FINALLY getting ready to buy our first house

Which brings me to my next point... as you might remember the Maghanoy parental units were here last week bringing Red Thunderbirds to the rescue and helping us engage in ignoring homework-based responsibilties. Since I had to work for most of their visit Arnold, BWM and GAD took a day to hit the house-hunting path. They were with our poor realtor for more than 5 hours. I hope the weekend has helped him recover. Sample conversation....

GAD: OPen that thing over there
BWm: (Shrieking) OH my God! Is it gross.
GAD: NO! Just open it.

Apparetly some of the houses within our price range were quite unsettling. But two stood out as contenders which is encouraging given that despite the ridiculous mortgage we are preparing to take out we still can't afford somehting that big/nice. I shall call our two contenders by there given nicknames Cathedral Perez and Giganticor! Cathedral Perez is beautiful, there are some horrid wallpaper issues but overall it is everything we have every dreamed of in a house. Gigantacor is weird, but it's huge! I mean 1800 feet, that is a big house in California for your first house. But back to my parents....

After house-hunting-o-rama we fed the masses at New Canton (so goood!) and hit up St. Francis for HOly Thursday service. On Holy Thursday our church St. Francis holds a foot washing service in which each person has their feet washed in a symbol of humility and love and rememberance of the last supper which would have taken place the Thursday/night before Jesus' death. It's an amazing service, one of my favorites. My GAD was duly impressed. "You should stay at that church! Foot washing! Never heard of it" I forgot that the service is really long, like an hour and half so thank God nobody passed out, we had eaten A LOT of Chinese food right beforehand. As my Mom said "We stink, the four of us are repelling everyody around us." I said "It doesn't matter Mom, this is a service about Christian love and mercy, they have to deal with us."

Yes, I know this posting is a homage to really bad writing skills, sorry about that, it's been busy lately.

Anyway, per usual it was an awesome time, now they are back safe in sound in the suburbs of SoCal and we are left to address our homework. :( Boo!

Arnold loves Amelie!

I just got back from St. Louis, it was the longest I've been away from Arnold since we've been married. Chhimi says I am a bad wife for leaving him alone in his convalescence, but c'est la vie, a girls gotta make a living. Now we are back to our regular schedule of food network, him convincing me to go to Peets and getting ready to go to Palm Sunday service, but this is how I know he really misses me (I mean besides when he says things like "I miss you")

"Honey, can you cook something good tonight? I am tired of eating the crappy food I cook for myself."

Aww, he loves my cooking! He really loves my cooking! Thank you Giada!

Also in a preview of exciting things to come, the Maghanoy parental units are coming to Sactown for a visit this week. Mayhem is sure to ensue.