new shower

we're having a new shower installed in the downstairs bathroom. finally!! we had several bids previously & they were so expensive! $10,000 & $12,000! for just a shower! luckily, we found someone that would do it for about $4,000, and they started on monday. it's going to be cultured marble (stuff they pour to size so there are less grout lines and it lasts a long time). we have white ("white heat" actually!!) with a few red stripes mixed in. the plumbing is in now and monday the put up the cultured marble. i can't wait to see the finished product. i'll post a photo when it's done.

LA trip

surprisingly, we had a really great time in LA. the plane ride wasn't as bad as it has been (i think b/c i read that "fear of flying" website), the drive from vegas wasn't bad, and our hotel was a cool art deco place right behind the hollywood/highland mall next to grauman's chinese theatre. http://www.hotelcelebrity.com here's a rundown of the vacation:

saturday - arrived in vegas & drove to LA. unfortunately, the mapquest directions sucked and we were kinda lost in heavy hollywood bowl traffic. gary's new slogan for mapquest: "we get you kinda near where you want to go." we were supposed to meet up with some dance friends for drinks, but we arrived later than planned. so we ended up eating a late dinner at mel's dinner.

sunday - we walked around hollywood blvd. funny story - we got on the elevator to view the hollywood sign. at one stop, the doors opened and spiderman got on board! definitely a surreal and welcoming experience to LA. :) i got my photo taken with a really bad chewbacca (really bad mask!), but it was funny with us both waving at the camera. let me just say - that whole street is pretty sad. other than the tourist area (that's basically 3 blocks) the rest of the bldv is filled w/trashy stores (cheap cheap items), sex shops, and pimp stores. if you stand back & look at the buildings you can see how beautiful the area prolly was 60 years ago. in the afternoon, and old friend of mine, christopher (whom i haven't seen in prolly 10 years), and his wife, picked us up and drove us around the city. LA is certainly as big as everyone says it is!

monday - we went to the erotic museum on (of course) hollywood blvd. it's was pretty interesting - especially the arts & crafts section. we drove into the canyons to see a friend of ours, lila. her husband was a balboa legend and recently passed away. i was glad to have the chance to see lila while we were in town to give her a little support. unfortunately, we couldn't stay long b/c we had tickets to "the tonight show". it was a pretty fun experience! but if you go, make sure you get in line early b/c we almost didn't make the cut! guests were kiera knightly, jim norton, & the killers. later we had a nice fancy dinner in the mall near our hotel.

tuesday - we went on the WB tour which was a lot of fun! some highlights: we saw matt leblanc getting into a golf cart as we drove by, we saw the little girl from one of the new shows (something that's on after "lost"), went onto the set of the parents' mansion from "gilmore girls", and took photos on the original "central perk" set (the stuff is original, not the location of the set). after the tour, we went to meet the bus that took us to the CBS studios to be in the audience of "4 kings" - a new show on NBC with seth green. they showed us the pilot and then we sat thru the taping of a new show. it was pretty funny - made us laugh hard at a few jokes. we were on the front row & the warm up comedian kept handing us his watch whenever he wanted to do different stunts. pretty fun experience! afterwards, we met up with matt & rebecca. matt used to be in a band with gary in tennesee. side note: matt has been on several tours with beck, and sang the "expedia dot com" and "jumbone" jingles. we went to dinner at a french restaurant, then hung out with them at their lovely house.

wednesday - we went to santa monica and spent the day walking along the shopping district, the pier, and the beach. oh, we also played putt putt which gave gary some interesting ideas for the course he's building in our back yard. for dinner we met up with the dance friends we were supposed to meet on saturday. i'd actually never met them before, but gary hung out with brian at several dance events in the past. they were both very nice & i enjoyed our dinner a lot!

thursday - we got up early to dive back to vegas. we gave ourselves an extra 2 hours to get thru LA traffic, but we didn't even get stuck except for 1 time! the flight back wasn't as bad as usually b/c gary let me play spider solitaire on his laptop. :)

so - a great anniversary trip, for sure!

more fear of flying

i just found this on a website:

Loss separates us and leaves us open to feeling lonely and vulnerable. Many fearful fliers developed their fear in their twenties or thirties. As we age many of us have new families that we care about. When we fly off and leave our children or spouses behind we may feel afraid that something will happen to ourselves or our loved ones. We fear we will never see them again. Also, as we age we become more aware of just how fragile and dear life is. The older some people get the greater their fears get.

i wonder if this is what i've been feeling since moving to seattle and leaving my family & friends on the other side of the country. i've been more nervous about driving on the highway (even though i drove myself across country when moving here), and i'd never really been afraid to fly. i'm getting better with the car thing (even though gary prolly doesn't think so :P ), and i'm hoping that more research on flying will help.

leaving for LA

our second anniversary was on tuesday, oct 4. for the cotton aniversary, i got gary a UNC blanket for him to curl up when watching the basketball games, and he got me a smoothie maker (yum!) and put 2 pairs of socks on the top. :) since he had to leave for a conference in las vegas on wednesday, we decided to take a week off & visit LA since this may be the last anniversary where it's just the 2 of us. i'll be flying to vegas tomorrow, then we're driving to LA in the afternoon. i've never been, so it should be fun (especially since it'll be sunny & upper 70s). :)

i've been really nervous about this trip for a while. at first i thought it was b/c i felt unprepared, but now i just realize it's b/c i absolutely hate flying now. i'm so freakin' terrified to fly that i get squeemish when i see anything plane-related on tv. i've flown quite a bit during my time, but lately i get scared at any little rumble of turbulance. i think it started with my trip to cleveland last year for the all balboa weekend - the flight was bad enough that it even freaked gary out for a second or two.

riding in cars doesn't bother me (even though i know statistically i'm more likely to get hurt by car than by plane). but i'm on the ground and if i get hit it's almost instant. if you're in a plane and there's an issue - that's a LONG way down to the ground! with several minutes of sheer terror! and unfortunately, i keep thinking of those things as i'm flying. i've taken to looking at other passengers around me and seeing how calm they all are. if there was something out of the ordinary, they would be looking nervous, too. to give you an idea of how nevous i am.... i'll even talk to the strangers next to me to keep my mind off things. for those of you that know me - that's a HUGE deal since i usually shy away from talking to strangers & would rather be left alone.

luckily, gary's on the same flight as me on the way back so i can talk to him & keep my mind off things.

and after this trip - an even longer one to orlando for christmas. eep! thankfully, gary's with me on those flights, too. :)

enough already!

i'm so freakin' sick of seeing danny bonaduce in the news & on tv! he's just as bad as lindsey lohan - drastic measures just for PR. attempting suicide?! maybe he should focus more on healing his PERSONAL issues, than worrying about getting back in show biz. is anyone even watching his VH1 show? does anyone even give a sh1t about him anymore?! i think it's great he wants to go to therapy to work out his issues, but i really don't think that broadcasting it to the nation is the way to heal. it makes it seem insincere - like he's just doing it to get back on tv. *shrug*

ok, that feels better. now i'll just go back to fast forwarding the commercials so i don't have to listen to his annoying gravelly voice!

off the pill

gary & i talked about our timeline for having a baby next year, and time snuck up on us pretty quickly! since we're going to start trying in january, i stopped taking the pill this month. i thought i had a little more time, but next year is almost here. i'm scared and excited at the same time. :)