A day in my life

I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to do this. When Jill wrote the challenge it seemed like a fun idea. Unfortunately I’m afraid my life is rather dull right now. At least compared to when I’m actually flying.

But when I thought about it I realized I may like to look back and see what a regular day was like too. So here it is, a day in my life as seen through my iPhone and Instagram:

7:00am- Joel’s alarm goes off. I nudge him to turn it off and doze back off while he gets ready for work.

7:45am- Joel kisses me goodbye for the day. I wake up long enough to kiss him and then again fall back asleep.

9:00am- I roll over and see this adorable face staring at me. Check Twitter, email, etc from my iPhone.

Good morning sunshine.

9:15am- I finally stop cuddling Phoebe and checking tweets and make the bed.

Phoebe seriously freaks out about bed making.

10:15am- Breakfast eaten, showered, dressed and out the door.

Bye Phoebe.

10:45am- Laser hair removal appointment. Ouch.

11:00am- Out to lunch with Joel.

We’ve been wanting to try out Labriola’s cafe for awhile. It does not disappoint. Yum!

12:00pm- Drop Joel back off at work. Long day for him. Bummer.

12:30pm- Home again. And somebody is ready for her walk.

It’s kind of rainy and gross though so it’s a short walk.

12:45- Phoebe naps while I catch up on blogs and twitter and stuff.

2:00pm- Phoebe’s batteries are recharged and she would like for me to play with her.

She starts polite but if I don’t oblige quickly she goes into attack mode.

2:05pm- I give in and we run around and play with her new favorite toy.

Kill it!

2:30pm- I decide to sort laundry so it’s all ready to do tomorrow.

2:33pm- I grumble about how somebody always forgets to empty their pockets so it’s lucky that somebody always double checks because otherwise somebody’s flashdrive would’ve gotten washed. ahem

2:35pm- I almost kill our hamper because it. always. falls. off. the. freaking. hooks.

Laundry makes me grumble a lot. ahem

2:40pm- Laundry is sorted. I could wash it today but… yeah... So I read a book instead. A book and Phoebe cuddles are so much better than carting laundry up and down three flights of stairs.

Happiness.

5:00pm- Time to eat something for dinner.

I get kind of lazy about dinner when Joel has to work late. What?

6:00pm- Jazz class

7:00pm- Water break

7:10pm- Hip hop

8:30pm- Classes over and finally time to pick up Joel from work. P.S. Longest work day ever, right?

9:00pm- Home at last. Time to get a little quality time with Joel, watch some Psych on Netflix and enjoy a little post dance treat.

I’d say I earned it.

Now I want to know about you. What does a day in your life look like?

The Clothing Assassin

Joel is a wonderful person and I wouldn’t trade him for anything. One thing about him that baffles me is how hard he is on clothes. I have clothes that I’ve owned since 1997… not that I should be especially proud of that. And also not that I actually wear those clothes (ahem) often. But I still own them and they’re still in decent shape.

As far as the clothes that I haven’t kept for their sentimental value, they generally last me a long time. They either go out of style or I grow tired of them. Some of them that I wear really often get that pilled up look after awhile. (Which makes otherwise perfectly good clothes look rather ratty by the way. If anyone has a solution to this me and my wardrobe would be eternally grateful.) I have one pair of jeans that I got from a friend who bought them at a thrift store. After wearing those jeans for seriously years they finally just got a hole in the knee. That is the only pair of jeans that has ever gotten a hole in them without already coming home from the store that way.

Joel is a completely different story. I swear the man goes through clothes like you wouldn’t believe. It’s been about a year and half since the last time we bought him jeans and he just informed me that of a dozen different pairs he has one pair left that doesn’t have holes in the knees.

What. the. heck. people?!

He isn’t a five year old rough and tumble boy who crawls around. In fact, I can’t think of the last time I saw him crawl. He doesn’t play sports. He has a desk job for heavens sake. How does sitting at a desk 40 hours a week wear holes in your knees?!

It’s the same with shoes. Today he was complaining that his feet hurt after walking around all day. After taking a look at what he was walking around in it wasn’t hard to see why.

These shoes are about a year old. One year old!

Holding them up to the light. You can see through them completely!

How does this happen? Just, how?!

I realize that I own easily twice as many clothes and shoes as he does so it makes sense that his clothes would wear out a bit faster. But this seems really excessive. Do other men destroy their clothes in record time like this? Or am I seriously married to the clothing assassin? Is there a way to prevent the massacre? I’m pretty sure I see pants and shoes alike shudder in terror as Joel walks by. Send help people. Future clothes depend on it.

Alarm drama

One of the oh so fun things I missed blogging about this summer was our freaking fire alarm. If you follow me on twitter you know that our fire alarm has been on the fritz most of the summer. It’s been incredibly frustrating. It started at the end of June.

The first time was around midnight. I was still up watching Netflix and Joel had dozed off on the couch. When the alarm went off I sprang into action, as any good flight attendant would. I quickly did a mental assessment of the most important things in our life and grabbed the laptop, DSLR camera and of course Phoebe and the bird. Joel must have really been tired because in the seven seconds it took me to scoop up the laptop and camera he still hadn’t stirred.

I kind of yelled, “Joel, the fire alarm is going off, get up and grab the dog.” I don’t think it was unreasonable for me to yell at this point since the fire alarm is loud and he hadn’t so much as twitched.

Joel (my hero) jumped off the couch and turned off the tv… because obviously that was what was making that awful noise and disturbing his sleep.

“Joel, it’s the fire alarm. We need to go outside, grab the dog.”

He groggily stumbled over towards the door and grabbed… not the keys, not the dog’s leash, not his wallet… nope, he grabbed….

His sunglasses.

And proceeded to put them on.

Remember, it’s about midnight. Not too many solar flares going on in this part of the world at that time.

I put down the laptop and grabbed the leash, put it on the dog and handed it to Joel. I reminded him that it was midnight and sunglasses were probably not needed. I doubted the fire was going to be that bright.

He finally snapped out of it and we made our way out of the building and waited outside until the fire department came and gave us the all clear.

Poor dude doesn’t wake up quickly, especially when he’s really tired.

The fire department sent three trucks and an ambulance. I think just about everyone in our building (and two adjoining buildings) came out for it. There was one lady who kept asking if anyone knew if it was a real fire because if it was she needed to go back in for her cat. Obviously none of us knew but I hope she got a travel case for it after that, just in case.

That was the first time.

It went off no less than fourteen times over the course of two months.

Just think about that.

By the end almost no one came outside. The fire department eventually only sent one lonely little fire truck and two firefighters. Even I told Joel to call me if it was a real fire. He went out every time and waited. He heard the firefighters voice how sick they were of our place. Greaaaaaat. Just what you want to hear from the people who will potentially have your life in their hands.

After about a million frustrated calls to management and more than three months they finally replaced the alarm board in our buildings today. A couple guys came into the apartment and replaced something about the smoke detector. I learned that the whole building alarm doesn’t just sound for smoke in one apartment. Smoke will only set off the individual smoke detector. It also has a heat detector that has to get hot enough before it sets off the whole building alarm. Kind of makes sense but it’s also a little scary to think how bad a fire would have to be to make it hot enough for our alarm to go off.

He also told me a story of an old apartment building that had no working alarm at all. Management changed and they had these guys in on a Thursday to fix the alarm. That following Sunday the whole place burned to the ground. Everyone got out except the guy whose cooking started the fire. The only call the fire department got was the building alarm, no 911 calls at all. If the building alarm hadn’t been functional everyone probably would have died because it was at 2am.

Scary.

It makes me so glad that the building alarm is fixed. The fire department got so frustrated with the false alarms that they turned it off completely. Our smoke detectors still worked but the fire department would only have been called if someone actually dialed 911.

I’m hoping this is the end of our alarm drama. You better believe that next time the alarm goes off I won’t be pulling my pillow over my head and waiting for Joel to call me if it’s real. Their stories were enough for me to realize the inconvenience of standing outside for 10 minutes for a false alarm far outweighs the consequences if I ignore it and it’s actually real.

But let’s hope we don’t have to deal with any fire alarms anymore, false or not because having to put on a bra and shoes at 3am is just plain annoying.

Oh so grand

Today was basically devoted to the Grand Canyon. How could it not be? One of the natural wonders of the world deserves at least a day. Of course we could have spent a week there and not seen and done everything. The day we spent there was definitely spectacular though.

The Grand Canyon was something I’ve wanted to see my whole life. I’ve been to Arizona and the vicinity more times than I can count and have never been. I’ve always thought that was beyond wrong. I have now officially corrected it. My life feels a bit more complete as a result.

I assume that if you grew up on planet earth you’ve seen a million pictures of this wonder. It doesn’t disappoint, it is every bit as breathtaking as it appears in pictures.

But I know what you really came here for is to see the pictures of us. Right?

Just say yes.

Well good because there are a bunch. And since this is my blog I’m posting my favorites. All of them. Be forewarned, there are a lot. But I saved the best for last.

Just after our first glimpse. Looking at this picture I can still feel the awe I felt as we came around the corner and the canyon came into view. My stomach dropped and all I could do was gasp. Absolutely stunning.

Just chilling on a rock. You know, at the Grand Canyon.

One thing I couldn’t get over was how close you’re allowed to get to the edge. No rails or bars prevent you from just walking off.

Or being an idiot and jumping off. I wonder how many tourists have plummeted to their death because they wanted to get a cool photo.

Not these idiots. At least not today.

Funny story about that picture. We clearly have not played with our camera enough because we could. not. get the timing down. What you don’t see are the 15 outtake photos of us in various stages of landing. Finally some dude came up and offered to take the picture for us. I think he was just tired of my sighs of exasperation.

Family photo.

Fact: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are more delicious at the Grand Canyon. Look it up.

Gratuitous close up of me.

And finally, the hands down best picture ever taken at the Grand Canyon.

Our love? A world wonder all its own.

A picture worth almost dying for

Today was our shortest driving distance of the trip so far. That and the fact that a good chunk of original Route 66 is gone between Albuquerque and Flagstaff meant that we spent a decent amount of time on the interstate and made fast time.

That’s not to say that we didn’t have a wonderful time. We made sure to stop along the way for some photo ops.

Owl Rock. Bet you can’t guess why it’s called that.

Tiny little double bridge. I wouldn’t recommend driving through it with anything much taller than our little Accent.

Who can tell me what movie this is in?

The highlight of the day was definitely the Petrified Forest National Park.

Unbelievably gorgeous!

The only downside was it was unbelievably windy.

It was too hard to keep my eyes open long enough to get a picture.

Phoebe was not impressed either. I’m pretty sure if I had let go she would have blown away completely. I’m not really even exaggerating.

Despite almost getting blown over by the gusts of wind I braved going out on a ledge for some pictures.

I didn’t realize Joel was taking my picture but I’m so glad he did. This may be one of my favorite pictures of me ever.

Almost getting blown off a cliff to my death for a photo? Worth it.

The only bummer of the day was trying to visit the meteor crater only to find out it’s completely fenced in. You have to go through a visitor center to see it and no dogs are allowed. Obviously leaving Phoebe wasn’t an option so this was about all we saw of it.

That mound in the distance? That’s it.

In the long run it’s not that big of a deal. Having Phoebe with us has been so fun. I wouldn’t trade this time with her for my own personal meteor crater.

Not that I’d know what to do with a meteor crater if I had one.

Probably charge admission.

But allow dogs of course.

Tomorrow we get to see the Grand Canyon, which is the site I’m probably most excited to see on this whole trip. I just hope the wind calms down so I can get some decent pictures.

You know, looking at the camera with my eyes open.

And maybe not getting blown off the edge. That’d be good too.