SwimFinsSF

A few things for a monday morning

Not much to report here… Just getting to work and figured i’d post quickly before I start in on real stuff… Weekend was actually pretty low key which was very nice.. Hung out with Matt and Audrey on friday night – got to read her her bedtime story and then just hung out… My parents came out saturday morning to see the state of the remodel (and gave me t he appropriate ‘WOW’ that I needed after all the pain) and then we went to the Universal Cafe for brunch which was very nice. The rest of the afternoon and evening I spent shopping and doing chores including … wait for it…. LAUNDRY… I know… boaring and lame – right? Well not so much when you haven’t had a washer and dryer in the house for 4 years now… so being able to throw a load in the wash is GREAT… I went a little nuts and ran around the house finding everything I could to wash.. I’m SUCH a dork…

Yesterday was very lazy too – more chores.. cleaning the house.. then went to Drew and Adrian’s for their yearly Yule party which was very fun…

This morning was with my trainer at the gym – OUCH… He’s great but I managed to torque my right arm last week so i’m hurting a little bit.. He’s watching it to make sure I don’t do more damage but, being the good trainer that he is, he’s not letting me just nurse it and not workout… So i’m a little sore this morning again. Suppose thats part of the process! 🙂

This week is gonna be a little nuts – I leave to meet kevin friday night for a week (YAY) so I gotta get everything done before I take off… Got shopping to do. Work to do. and packing. and i’m sure more that i’m not remembering…

Anyway – thats bout it… Gotta get back to work.. But while i’m trying to be productive, check this out… Just made me giggle so I had to share! 🙂

Some things never change

I just wandered into this post when I was looking at my server logs at what people were searching for. Its a pretty good run down of me and the scary thing is that, even though it is kinda old, nearly everything still applies.. I’m even wearing the same black and white soccer shoes. Maybe I need to mix it up a little and see what things on there I can change. 😉

Begging to feel like a home

View out the back of the house

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Our house is finally starting to resemble a home rather than a construction site. Our contractor spent a fair amount of time friday removing construction shrapnel from the bathroom and putting down fresh protection on the floor so, while there is still a fair amount of work to do, it is actually presentable.. And yesterday he did the same with the kitchen as well as getting nearly everything in working order. So now we have a working washer, dryer, fridge, oven, microwave, dishwasher, and sink… All of the protective paper is off of things and it is actually pretty cool… There is still a ton to do (cooktop isn’t functioning, bar counter is still missing, electricial details, paint, and a bunch of other stuff – but its definitely cool… I even got to cook my own meal at home last night (don’t ask what – the dishes and stuff are still all packed away so it was a microwavable something or another.. but still cool)…

a few more pix are posted… :):)

Heimat

When I was studying German at the Goethe Institut a while back we got into a long discussion of the German word Heimat. If you look it up in a German / English dictionary the definition is Home / Homeland / Country. But the discussion around it was that the meaning was a far less tangible thing that is farily deep seeded and important to Germans. It is a sense of center and a sense of where you come from and where you live. There is a definition on Wikipedia that is interesting but that didn’t even quite cover it. Its a little hard to describe but I think the english word home has some of the same connotations but we tend to discount it much more and overload the term with ‘the place where you sleep at night’. I like Heimat better..

So I’ve been feeling a bit lost lately for a variety of reasons that really aren’t a big deal but as I got to work today that term popped into my head and I started to understand it. There are a lot of things that are rather topsey turvey in my life – for good reasons but still upside down for various reasons. I woke up in a cold empty house with Kevin thousands of miles away. I took a bath in a tub with no shower, leaky fixtures, and construction all around (don’t get me started). I’ve been drinking warm soda and eating in restaurants cuz of the lack of a fridge. November and December always suck at work cuz of performance reviews and deadlines. I’m trying to take care of all my Christmas shopping in time and find gifts for family that are meaningful. Oh.. and all my favorite shows are on their winter break so i’m stuck with re-runs.

All of this kinda makes me understand more clearly what they mean by Heimat and why its so important. Its your center and the keel that keeps your boat upright. Its a sense of whats truely ‘home’ in your life. Where you come from, who you are, and what you hold to be sacred. When those things get jostled its more unsettling and makes it harder to deal with the other things that don’t matter so much.

But this really isn’t a weepy or upset post or anything. All of these things will be fine and I just gotta muscle through them. House will be GREAT – Kevin’s learning good stuff – and Lost and Battlestar Galactica will return! :):). Its just the typical engineer / scientist analyzing touchey feely shit that I usually just ignore. All’s good – just doin a little self discovery! 🙂

Anyway – thats a long enough break – got bugs to fix… Hasta pasta! 🙂

He made it there

Celas Maya Courtyard

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Kevin made it to Guatemala safely and now is dealing with a little bit of culture shock. I’ve been swapping text messages with him yesterday and today (which will no doubt cost us a fortune) and he’s sent a couple of pictures which I’ve posted to my flickr account… I’ll let him describe the details on his blog (yes – he has one. Matt says kevin getting a blog may be a sign of the Apocalypse – we’ll see). But had to share a few pictures.

Now back to writing reviews… more later..

Back to Reality

Uggg… Some times coming back from vacation is particularly harsh… We spent the past week in a super cool condo in Cabo San Lucas Mexico… The timing work and otherwise was REALLY bad but we planned the trip so far in advance that I couldn’t skip out… The week was relaxing and just what I needed to recharge so I could dive into things back here with energy again..

Or so I thought..

Then we came home to our remodel project and I just want to scream.. Or cry… Or something… Everyone I know tells me that these never go the way they’re supposed to and I should just deal. But this is my house and right now it resembles a war zone.

We were supposed to come back today to a house that, while not completed, was at least a place we could live. Well – no such luck. The flooring guy is still trying to finish the floors so the fixtures aren’t back in and I could go on and on from there…

Luckily we have friends that are SO GREAT so we have places to crash (and I’m eternally grateful for that). But thats kinda not the point – being homeless for this long is really getting to me and some times it feels like the people working on the project just don’t get that or don’t care..

Anyway – enough ranting… I’ll post the pix from the trip shortly and we can talk about happier things.. I just had to vent a little… thanks for indulging me! 🙂