I wish it worked on the lottery

So in case you didn’t know, Pepsi has had a variety of special cap games going on over the past couple years.  The only consistent feature of them is that some of them are a “Buy One Get One Free” (BOGO).  I used to work in a building that accepted these in the cafeteria.  Then I switched to a building that didn’t accept them because the cafeteria only sold Coke products.  However, I still ended up getting Pepsi’s out of the machine at odd times during the day, so I ended up getting more BOGO caps but never redeeming them.  I think at one point, I had about 15 of them.

I then moved back to the building that accepted the caps, but unfortunately, lost my BOGO-cap-sharing partner.  See, Dave would get Pepsi products too, so if I got a BOGO, he’d buy his usual Pepsi product and use my cap to get me one free.  If he got one, we reversed the process.  But at this point, I had no one to share the caps with.  So I didn’t use them.  What did I need with two 20 oz. bottles of Pepsi.

Well, when I switched jobs last year, I moved to another building that accepted the caps.  I still had no one to share the caps with.  But then I started coming home during lunch to let the new puppies out.  So I started redeeming the caps on the way home for lunch and leaving one here for later.  Of course, I got a few more BOGOs with all those Pepsi purchases, so I actually have yet to run out, especially since I don’t always use them.  Our cafeteria has very limited hours, and a somewhat limited selection, so I still get some out of the machines instead of redeeming the caps.

Lately, I’ve been extremely lucky though.  A couple weeks ago, I used my second-to-last BOGO.  The next day, I got a pop out of the machine and got another BOGO cap.  Last week, I again used my new second-to-last cap to buy two pops, one of which had a BOGO cap.  This week, I once again used my second-to-last BOGO cap to buy two pops, one of which once again had a BOGO cap.  So I still have two BOGO caps.  I’m apparently very lucky when it comes to BOGO caps, but like I said…I wish it transferred to other things.  I never win anytime I play the lottery, even a free ticket on instants, so I don’t play.  It’s too bad the skills don’t transfer.

Anniversary Weekend

Friday was the fifth anniversary of Mr. B’s and my first date.  He surprised me with flowers.  Stargazer lilies and roses are two of my favorites.  He also made a nice dinner on Friday night, including his version of Brandied Apples (apples baked in brown sugar and Southern Comfort).  Then we watched The Bank Job on DVD.  On Saturday, we got dressed up and went out to Jim’s Bistro in Peoria Heights for dinner.  We then went down to Crusen’s to see Too White Crew perform.  It was packed as usual for their performance.  You could barely move a couple inches without bumping into someone.  We ended up leaving early because the overwhelming warmth in that place was making me feel awful.  On Sunday, we just completely vegged out for the day.  All in all, a good celebration.

Strange Dream

Last week when it got really cold, I added a blanket onto the bed for at night because the comforter is close to shot.  I’m not buying a new one until we figure out whether we’re buying a king-sized bed.  Unfortunately, the blanket I added was a really warm one, which made sleeping those couple cold nights really nice, but made every night since a little hard to sleep through.  I’d be comfortable when I’d go to bed, but wake up in the middle of the night roasting to death.  I’d stick an arm out and be comfortable for a while, then wake up cause I got cold.

I went through this the other night and was in one of my awake cycles when Mr. B was getting up to go to work.  I started slipping back into sleep and that’s when the weird dream started.  For some reason, I was coming home to an empty house late at night.  I don’t know where Mr. B was, and I’m not completely sure where the puppies were either.  I wonder if I just skipped over the normal ritual of coming in the house and letting them out of their crates and out the back door to go to the bathroom.  There were some lights on the house, which is sort of usual.  When we’re not sleeping, we generally leave the small light on above the dogs’ crates whenever it’s dark out.  And then we sometimes leave the front living room light on.

As I turned to walk upstairs, I noticed that one of the bedroom lights was on, which is very unusual.  I thought maybe I left it on accidentally, so I just continued upstairs.  When I turned the corner into the room, I found a couple people (I think it was a guy and a girl) standing at the closet going through mine and Mr. B’s stuff.  They saw me and started coming after me, so I ran down the stairs, out the front door, and towards the neighbor’s house.  I got to their house, started ringing the doorbell repeatedly while screaming for help, then took off for the next house because the guy who was in my house was chasing after me.  I got halfway to the next house when he tackled me and drove me into the sidewalk. At that point, the neighbor came out to see what was going on.

Then it kinda jumped to the people who were in my house were scared away because the neighbor was there and had called the police.  The police got there and some went looking for the people who were in my house and some were taking care of me.  I had hurt my arm pretty bad, had a big chunk of cheek scraped away, and tons of other scratches and bruises from being tackled.  I woke up around that point.  Needless to say, I couldn’t exactly sleep after that.

Yeah, I took the blanket back off the bed.  We’re back to just the comforter again.  Maybe that’ll fix my sleep. 

The Haps

Not too much going on lately.  I got out of my funk – as expected.  With the freezing cold weather, I’ve had kind of a weird working arrangement.  On Wed, I worked from home, not because I couldn’t have gotten to work if I tried, but more because by the time I was getting everything dug out (I park outside) and would then change (cause of traipsing through 4+ inches of drifting snow, my pants were wet from about mid-calf down) and drive slowly to work, I’d have been to work SO late.  On Thurs, I did go to work in the freezing cold – I had meetings.  On Fri, I stayed home because my supervisor told us all to work from home and stay out of the cold.

I had a baby shower to attend in Chicago on Sat.  I had originally tried to go up on Saturday morning, go to the shower, then hang out that night and come back Sun, but that didn’t end up working out for the person I was staying with, so I drove up Fri night and came back Sat after the shower.  It was just starting to snow in the Chicago area when I left, so I called Mr. B to find out what the roads were like before I took off.  He said there was a little snow starting in Chicago, and nothing the rest of the way, so I decided to come home instead of finding a place to crash.

Just south of Joliet, I ran into some idiot guys.  They were hanging out in the left lane, and when I finally gave up and went to pass them on the right, they sped up to match.  I then got stuck behind a car and had to slow down behind them.  They then dropped down to about 60 in the 65 and hung out there.  By the time we finally got around the car, they sped back up where I couldn’t get around them.  This went on continually, ticking off another car that ended up behind us, until I finally gave up and just slowed way down.  That time, they finally just went past me and the guy in the passenger’s seat opened the window, leaned out and blew me a kiss.  If I’d have been closer and it wasn’t already dark out, I’d have flipped them off.

Just after I got rid of them, there were a bunch of police and fire trucks off the side of the road.  When slowing down, I realized the roads were pretty icy and it turned out there was a camper and two cars in the ditch.  Slowed things down to about 45 mph on the interstate.  I called Mr. B again to get an update and he couldn’t find anything anywhere about any weather or bad roads through there.  It ended up lasting for about 30 miles or so, which was very not fun.  I ended up seeing at least 10 cars in the ditch between both directions of the interstate.  Luckily, the jerks in front of me had stopped messing around. The rest of the trip home was uneventful.

Then I tried to just spend the rest of the weekend being lazy.  I did end up getting a haircut yesterday, and then Mr. B and I went out shopping.  I’m trying to find a new swimsuit since both of my others are pretty worn out, and I want to get one while there’s still a good mix-and-match selection.  The stores that did have them out before Christmas no longer had them out.  And the ones that still did have theirs out really didn’t have much of any selection.  The only thing we could think was they put some out before the holidays for the people who are traveling to the warmer states for the holidays and then pulled them all back until a few weeks from now when they really start pushing them. I’m just going to be keeping my eye out for now.

Feeling out of sorts

I’m pretty sure I’ve used that title before – and for roughly the same reason.  I don’t know what my problem is, but I’m just feeling…not right for no particular reason.  I didn’t have that bad of a day.  OK, so I had a staff meeting this morning that really set my mood on edge and then almost had me crying afterward, but then I had a decent afternoon. So I really don’t know what my problem is.

I came home and tried to relax while Mr. B was in class, so I decided to watch 27 Dresses since it’s a total chick flick that he wouldn’t watch with me anyways and I just wanted some me-time.  And it was cute and enjoyable, but it didn’t help.  I’m just still kind of…upset.  I’ll get over it, but I wish I knew what caused it.  It just seems to crop up now and again and then I’m fine, but I don’t care for this feeling in the meantime.

Odds and Ends

On Friday, Mr. B and I decided to go to a movie.  Just jokingly, I suggested Bride Wars figuring he’d never go for it.  But, surprisingly, he agreed to go since it looked like it would be a pretty good comedy.  After the movie was over, he didn’t really say whether or not he liked it.  Just “Yeah, it was still a chick flick.”  I’m guessing that means he didn’t despise it, but was probably wishing we had gone to something else.  He just saw me writing this and said “It wasn’t horrible.  It had some moments that were pretty damn funny.”  He did not, however, correct my last statement.  Regardless, I thought it was cute.

We went out to his parents’  house on Saturday evening for a birthday dinner for his father and grandmothers.  We were originally going to go out Sunday, but a funeral of a family friend changed the plans.  Since we quite often go out there for dinner on Sunday nights, Saturday felt like Sunday and the whole weekend was thrown off at that point.

Sunday morning, he used the snow blower for the first time just because he felt like trying it out.  Not sure it was really enough snow to justify it.  Now we’ve got more, so I think it’s gonna get used a bit.

Tonight I ran to Target in order to get some necessities and a baby shower gift.  It apparently takes me forever to pick out shower gifts.  It didn’t help that a lot of the stuff I wanted wasn’t actually in our store.  And then, since I was getting a bunch of little stuff, I was trying to follow a general theme.  Yeah, gave up on that and just got stuff that was actually in stock and useful.  But my normal 15-20 min trip turned into 1-1/2 hrs.  But on the positive side, I took a quick run through shoes (since I’m doing that at about any store I go in these days cause I’m looking for a certain type of shoes to replace ones that I have that are falling apart) and got a new pair of shoes on clearance for $6.  Granted, I won’t be able to wear them right away cause of the weather, but oh well.  They were cute and $6.  Not what I was actually looking for at this particular time, but ones that were on the list.

Now I just got all caught up on bills and am looking forward to relaxing for the first time tonight.  And just in time for bed.  There’s something just not right about that.

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What I did on my winter vacation

Ya know, I much prefer summer vacations.  Can we move some of the freebie vacation days there?  No?  Well, then I guess it’s just winter vacation stories. Had quite a range of activities this holiday break.  Here’s a few highlights:

• Went shopping with Mr. B’s mom to pick my Christmas presents.
• Went to Mr. B’s work Christmas party and then got to take care of Mr. B for an hour or so while he worshiped the porcelain god.
• Got a call from work that big news was coming the next day and I needed to log in and check out the e-mails.  Checked e-mail at the appropriate time.  Was then called into work about 30 min later to make an emergency change.  Was called later that day to make sure I had read the e-mail and all the other supporting documentation in detail.
• Went to dinner with a group of friends.
• Caught up on Tivo’d shows.
• Spent Christmas Eve with my family.
• Spent Christmas morning with Mr. B’s family and Christmas evening with my family.
• Got a snow blower for Christmas from my parents.
• Drove through the near white-out stage fog to drop Mr. B’s car off at the shop.
• Hit the after-Christmas sales…hard.
• Went to lunch with a friend.
• Cleaned out most of my dresser and half of one closet.
• Drove up to Chicago to ring in the new year with a group of college friends.
• Read several books.  Bought several more.  Lost count of exactly how many.
• Watched several movies on DVD that we had purchased unseen based upon recommendations from friends.  Lost count of those too.
• Deflated and fixed the lights in the inflatable Santa car.
• Had dinner at Mr. B’s parents.
• Stayed up late and slept in later.
• Completely screwed up my sleeping schedule making the 1st couple days back to work slightly difficult.

If there was anything else, I’ve already forgotten.  Oh well…

Vacation is over

I’d just like to say that while I like my job, I really enjoyed being off the past 2+ weeks and I’m not really wanting to start the daily grind again tomorrow.  Who’s with me?

Happy New Year!

I’m a day late in posting, and so far, the New Year is kicking my butt.  After hanging out with some friends in Chicago to ring in the New Year, I couldn’t sleep pretty much at ALL.  Which kinda sucked.  Felt like I had downed some energy drinks and then tried to get to sleep.  My eyes were stuck open and my heart was racing.  I had a good time and all, but I don’t know what brought all that on, especially since I had been drinking Malibu mixed with juice all night, which wouldn’t have caused me to stay awake.  And I had stopped drinking a couple hours before I went to bed.  Oh well.

This morning I was woken up early (relative term – it was 9:30 but remember the no sleep the night before, so I was going for later) by Mr. B being annoying (a shock to those of you who know him, I’m sure), followed by Sylvia getting sick all over the floor in the bedroom.  Not really a way to start the new year.

On the positive side, the pups are now a year old.  Tag’s birthday was New Year’s Eve and Kyra’s birthday was New Year’s Day.  They’re growing out of puppyhood so fast.  For those keeping track – he’s about 75 lbs and she’s about 65 lbs, so they’ve been beyond puppy size for a while now, but still quite in the puppy playful stage.  Sylvia still doesn’t want anything to do with them, so we’re still working on that.  Our main obstacle is Kyra’s excitedness.  She sees Sylvia and runs over to greet her, which freaks poor Sylvia out.  Tag’s more calm, so we’ve tried a couple times to get them used to each other hoping that it will help her get used to them and also will keep Sylvia from feeling overwhelmed with both of them.

And I’m going to try to post more.  Still not completely defined on how much.  Certainly not a post a day, but anything’s gotta be an improvement on last year, so we’ll see how it goes.