I’ve been asking myself and no one else that question since wRitErsbLock posted about wanting to buy Wicked tickets for the Tampa show. I’ve heard the name of the musical dozens of times, but I had no idea what it was about. I finally looked it up and learned that it is the back story of how Elphaba Thropp becomes the Wicked Witch of the West and about her rooming situation with Glinda, the future Good Witch of the North. That actually sounds like a lot of fun. If you’ve seen it, I want to know what you think. I heard for years how awesome Rent was supposed to be, and then I asked WB about it and learned that I never cared to see it (or sing a duet from it with WB!).

The Tricks and Treats edition of the Carnival of the Recipes is up over at booklore. Go check it out, there are a lot of interesting things going on.

I was sitting on the couch finishing a blog post and getting ready to do the November finances when the sky outside suddenly darkened by a few shades. I looked out the windows and saw that it was sprinkling a little. Well, Frank was out walking Rowdi, and by my estimations, they would be partway back by then. They get caught out in light rain and drizzle often, so no big deal. It was not thundering or lightning, so I wasn’t worried and figured Frank didn’t mind either.

And then suddenly, I could hear the rain on the roof getting pretty loud, and I looked out the windows again and saw that we were having a major downpour. Ack!

I didn’t even put on my glasses (which meant I couldn’t see so well driving to get Frank and Rowdi). Or my bra. I grabbed my keys and jetted to the car, didn’t even lock the front door or set the alarm. I was wet and cold by the time I got to the car, and I was just coming from the door to the driveway!

I didn’t even know what direction to go, so I went with Frank’s favorite walking path first. About a half mile from home, I found them waiting out the rain under a tree. I honked and rolled down the window and asked if they wanted a ride. They did. :) Frank said he was hoping I would think to come get them and that I got there really fast after the rain got heavy. Frank even felt and saw small hail while they were there, which was why they moved under a tree. I’m glad I went and rescued them.

And Rowdi was so happy when we got home, because wet dog means a nice towel massage. She practically folds her body in half because she can’t decide which part she wants you to dry the most. She’s not fond of having me lift her paws one by one off the ground and dry them off, though.

Frank dried himself off. Not because I didn’t want to. ;) Just because he didn’t want to wait for me to finish with Rowdi.

We’re planning to get another dog. No, really. Not yet, of course, but once we get settled in our own house in Idaho that we plan to be in for a very long time. I’m sure we’ll adopt another adult dog (they’re the most likely to be euthanized, plus they come house-trained), and I’ve been telling Frank that we need a low-energy dog to balance out Rowdi’s craziness. But I am too lazy to do all the research. The good news is, someone has done it for me.

There is a dog breed selector out there that asks you a short list of simple questions regarding what you want from your dog and what you can give to your dog. I answered the questions several times, fiddling with the energy levels and amount of time we’re willing to spend on grooming (Rowdi has short hair, so there is no brushing, and I’d prefer to keep it that way), how easy we want the training to be (I’m not so worried about that, because we try to be the pack leaders at all times), and amount of exercise we can provide. I had to change the exercise answer a number of times, because I know we *will* exercise the dog a long time every day since our high-energy Rowdi already requires a lot of exercise, but I don’t want a high-energy dog that will *require* as much exercise as Rowdi. When I told the selector that I’d like a low energy dog but I can provide a major amount of exercise? The site told me I’m best suited for a beagle. Hahahahaha. I’ve never seen a beagle that wasn’t nightmarishly loud and always jumping around. Besides, every beagle owner I’ve known was a little neurotic about their dogs. I’m neurotic enough as it is, right?

Most of the time, I got paired with a Siberian Husky. My only problem with that is the long hair. So much brushing… But they are sweet dogs, so I could see us with one of those.

Another dog popped up for me several times–the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Never heard of it, but other than the whole “energy of a nuclear bomb” description, that sounds like a good fit.

From the small amount of time I played with it, it’s a pretty good site. I like that they have a lengthy description of every dog with which they match you. It would be nice if they added a couple of questions to the list (length of hair you want for your dog, size of dog–I don’t want any yip-yappers, and I do want a medium-sized pooch), but I suspect they’ve left those questions out so they can pick out the best breed for you without your presets coming into play. Also, the site doesn’t seem to list “mutt” as an option. :-)

Anyway, I’ll play with it some more before we do get another dog–that will probably be a year or two down the road.

We did some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart after church today. I answered the question asked by the scanner (Was your store clean today? Why, yes it was, because I’m at the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, not the regular Wal-Mart that smells like vomit in the meat section) and then scanned my debit card. I generally watch the prices go by, but I glanced away to put my debit card back in my wallet. As my eyes were leaving the screen, I thought I saw something go by that was over $17. I started looking through the bags we already had back in the cart, and all that was there were 2.25 pounds of ground beef, a pound of tilapia (I had specifically noted the price was supposed to be $4.98), and the Halloween candy (both bags under $6). I was confused.

I puzzled over this for a minute or so, and the cashier was in her own little world, so I figured I must have bought something that I didn’t realize was expensive. And it was highly possible that it had said $7.97 and not $17.97. Frank told me to check the receipt, and I said, “Well, I will, but I don’t have that yet.” Before I knew it, the bags were in the cart, and I did have the receipt. We got out of the way so the next customers could check out, and I saw that it was, indeed, $17.97, and the item in question was the 2.25 pounds of ground beef. Whoa. Nuh-uh. I told Frank, “When we were at Wild OatsWhole Foods, I didn’t buy the lean organic beef, because it was $5.39 a pound. There is no way that non-organic lean beef at Wal-Mart is over $7 per pound.” He agreed and said, “Did we buy Magic Beef?” There was no price per pound or total price on the package, only weight. So Frank went back to check the prices (very nice of him to volunteer). While he was gone, I calculated it by hand, rounding up to $18. That would make it $8 per pound!

Frank came back and told me that it was $7.88 for the entire package of beef, but he thinks we were charged that much per pound. I told him my calculations agreed. So we went over to customer service. I explained everything to the kid working the customer service desk. He scanned the bar code and got $17.97. So he called a manager (bless his heart, he looked like he had no idea if that was the proper price for beef–the look on his face was a little priceless). The manager came up, and he scanned the item for her and didn’t say anything else. So I explained to her that I thought we were being charged per pound when the entire package should be $7.88, and the price per pound was more in the $3 range. She looked at the beef and said she knew that had to be the wrong price, because the giant six pound packs of beef are around $16. And then she told the kid to refund the whole price and charge me the correct price. You know what he said to her? “Such-and-such told me we weren’t doing that anymore.” I was amused. I said, “Not doing what? Fixing errors?” with a cross between amusement and bemusement on my face. The manager said to the kid, very nicely, “Well, I’m telling you that we *are* doing it, because it’s the right thing to do. We do the right thing.” I was still amused/bemused and joked that if I had to pay that much for non-organic beef, I didn’t want any of the groceries. They knew I was joking, but, you know, I wasn’t–I wanted my ten dollars!

They finally got it all sorted out and gave us our money back. I just hope they fixed their prices for everyone else.

I’m pretty sure that’s the most I’ve ever been overcharged on a single grocery item. And yes, I do see the time we spent getting our refund as just a little bit of punishment for the free stuff I got from Amazon by being a dufus.

I watch a *lot* of television, as you know, and there is something that is driving me mad with the TV shows (same can be said for a lot of movies lately). When the actors are trying to emote the fact that they are really serious about something or that something is very secretive, so secretive that if anyone other than the other person on-screen (and the entire viewing audience) hears the secret, the entire universe will implode, they get really close to each other and speak in whispers so quiet that not even my highly alert dog can hear them speak. And then, THEN! Just to make sure we realize that this was such an important secret, the next scene will have an explosion so loud that I’m grabbing for the remote to turn the TV back down (because, see, I’ve already turned it UP so I can make out every other word of the whispering, only to realize that I *still* have to rewind again so I can watch with the closed captioning engaged).

The worst offenders in the TV department are Battlestar Galactica (any time Baltar has a conversation with anyone, not just Six) and Moonlight. There are too many movies to list, but you can assume any in the Noir category are bound to make the list.

23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.
25 Great multitudes followed Him–from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

I still need to send my old hard drive to _Jon so he can pull off my old picture files. I’ve been searching for pictures of my Amarillo kitchen on my blog, but I have a picture of the carpet in there, one of half the pantry, and that’s it. I loved that kitchen! There was a decent amount of cabinet space, a pantry that covered an entire wall, a lazy susan, pull-out drawers… The house was about five square feet, but I would have loved to move that kitchen with me. All it would need for updating is new paint, some new cabinet hardware, and new flooring. I’m not down with having carpet in the kitchen.

I meant to link to tray earlier this week. She’s in San Diego and has a lot of great posts about the fires in California. Please go read about what is going on out there. There are too many great posts to link, so just start at the top and keep scrolling.

I have a bit of a shoe shortage going on here. I have my tennis shoes, but I hate wearing them, because it’s Florida, and my whole body is hot as it is, so I don’t need the help of enclosed feet. I have my ugly white foam flip-flops that I wear around the house (and, sadly, to church when I’m wearing brown, because I haven’t replaced the shoes that I dumped creamy chicken all over). I also have some uncomfortable black church sandals, meaning I only wear them to church and if we dress up to go out to dinner–a rarity these days (the dinners out, not the church). In my closet are zippy short boots and non-zippy tall boots, but again, you can’t really wear those here, because they generally require pantyhose, and no one wears pantyhose in the tropics. Ever. I even had a boss tell me, when I first started working down here, that I needed to get myself some dressy sandals and keep myself in pedicures, because it is always too hot for pantyhose. Even with this cold front that came through here (and by cold front, I mean it’s in the seventies), it’s still too humid to wear hose. When we have our two days of cold in January (Lord willing, we’ll be out of here by then), still too humid for hose. And since I’ve been here almost three years, I’m pretty sure I don’t even own one pair of good hose anymore–I’ll have to remedy that when we get to Idaho, because as uncomfortable as pantyhose are, they do help warm the legs in the winter under dresses and skirts. Plus, the support hose suck everything in. To an extent.

I’m not much of a shoe shopper. I actually loathe going shoe shopping, which is why I’m almost always seriously lacking in womens shoes. I still have my dingy Crocs shoes, the ones with the holes in the top–they seriously need replacing with a darker color, and probably a hole-less model. While I’m at it, I still need to replace the flip-flops Rowdi broke.

And now I’m going to have an all-new shoe issue (one about which I’m really excited, mind you). I don’t have any really warm boots. My boots are all thin autumn boots. So I will need snow boots–cute ones, if there are cute *and* comfortable ones. My feet still become angry if my toes are too crowded (I wear a size six in shoes and have to buy “wide” shoes, another reason I hate shoe shopping), so comfort is a major factor. There are some cute snow boots by Sugar (um, what’s with the Sugar Boots Origami–are people actually wearing tall plaid house shoes out of the house these days?), and I could order them online to make sure a wide six is available. Wide six. Six wide sounds better.

FRANK: Man, I had some crazy dreams last night. There were these people, and they were terrorizing us, and they messed up our carpet.
SARAHK: Were they called… pets?

Badum-ching.

All safe and sound. I don’t know who was happier to see whom at the airport. I had a huge smile on my face, and he had his adorable Monkeyface grin on… We couldn’t stop smiling and hugging and kissing (not the gross PDA kind, the “I’m so happy to see my spouse” kind). And then outside the airport, I reached for Frank’s left hand with my right hand. He reached for my right hand with his right hand. I said, “What are you doing? I’m not trying to shake your hand. I’m trying to *hold* your *other* hand.” Then he said, “Hi. I’m Frank. Nice to meet you!”

I love him so much.

The last two nights I slept with the dog crate open, the kitties nearby (Rowdi couldn’t have been less interested in anything but sleep), four guns nearby (you never know how many you’ll need to fend off attackers, and if you have to leave the house, you want to make sure your car keys AND gun are in the purse), and the lamp on. The lamp was kind of on purpose, kind of not. Both nights I was reading Order of the Phoenix when my eyes closed tight, and part of me thought, “I’m too tired to get up and turn off the lamp,” while the other part of me thought, “If someone busts in here, I want to be able to see my surroundings so there will be no stumbling when I’m grabbing for the .45s.”

After we got home, Frank had to give the cats new water, give Rowdi a bone, take out the kitchen trash, and a number of other small items. Finally he said, “I missed my nagging wife while I was gone.” That’s what I was going for. ;-)

Oh! Frank brought me a long-sleeved shirt from Idaho. It says Idaho on it. It’s blue (a good color on me). Perfect size. I love it, and I love the fact that I’m going to actually need long sleeves soon! Of course, then he told me about the perfect shirt he saw for me at the airport that he couldn’t actually buy me, because it was only in kids’ sizes. It was brown (my favorite color) and said Idaho Princess on it (he has called me Princess from our first date). I was like, “Why’d you even *tell* me about that??”

I’ve promised Frank he can rest tomorrow before we hit the packing hard next week. We’ll see if I can stick by that.

My eyes are fighting me. I may have to take a nap! Surely I’ll wake up before the flight gets in…

In other news, Rowdi is mopey and grunty, because when I got her all suited up in her backpack for her walk, we got outside, and it was starting to rain. It’s been raining off and on ever since. So she hasn’t gotten her walk, which makes her go to her room and put her back to whatever room I’m in.

My Sweetie McSweetness is returning home this evening after traveling all day long. I guess I should do some quick cleaning so he’ll think I spent all of my time taking care of the house and none watching TV without him. Also, all that packing I was gonna do? I mean, I did a lot of it, but none while Frank has been gone. I think I Wiied too much and played Myst III too much. Bad SarahK!

Anyway, I’m going to keep snarking so we don’t lose DVR stuff tonight.

Haha, I just saw that Carrie’s music publishing company is called Carrie-Okie Music. That’s funny right there.

So Omen is getting better with the cat door. Usually she wails at the door until I let her into the garage, but lately, we can get her to go through the door to the garage if we get her started. And by started, I mean we have to push her head through.

Well, earlier tonight I walked into the garage for something and came right back in. Omen ran into the garage while I had the door open. So imagine my surprise when I heard her come barreling through the livingroom, wrestling with Minerva. I’m sure she was in the garage. The only thing I can figure is that she can use the door to get from the garage to the house, but she can’t use it to get from the house to the garage. I mean, it swings both ways, so I’m not sure why she can grasp the concept when she’s in the garage but not when she’s in the house.

In other news, her stomach seems really hard. All around the sides, hard stomach. Anyone know what that’s about? I think it’s been that way since we got her, and she’s seen the vet twice with her hard stomach. But I wonder if I should call Dr. Young again.

So my Amazon boxes arrived today. In one box were twelve bags of pretzels. Another box, Carrie Underwood. The third box was supposed to be thirty-six bars of Clif Nectar Bars, eighteen in one flavor, eighteen in another. Well, I took the two boxes of bars out of the box and left the box sitting there. And then I wrote this post, in which I said that I had two twelve-packs of Clifs. After I wrote the post, I realized I hadn’t checked the quantity on the boxes, so I went to check and make sure there were twelve in each box. There were nine.

So I went to Amazon, followed a million links to figure out how to contact customer service. I didn’t find any phone numbers, so I submitted a ticket. While I was link-jumping through Amazon, I realized I had ordered eighteen-pack boxes. So I had only half my order! I was a little annoyed, but since we have Prime, I wasn’t worried about getting the other half of the order soon enough.

Well, in the ticket, they don’t let you give any comments. You get to choose exchange or refund. I went with exchange, because there were no other options, and I couldn’t just send them an email saying, “Please just ship one box of nine for each flavor, and then you don’t have to pay for me to ship anything back.” Went through the whole process, and at the end, I was told to ship back the order I received with the shipping label provided and that customer service would be contacting me regarding shipment of the new order.

It took a while for customer service to email me, and while I was waiting, I was clearing out the boxes I’d received today. I picked up the Clif box and noticed it was heavy. Uh-oh. I opened it, and there was another box of nine for each flavor. I had received the entire order. I felt like such a butthead. Well, customer service still hadn’t responded about the next shipment. When they finally did, they told me that they were shipping thirty-six bars again. Also, due to health reasons, they didn’t want me to return the incorrect items (which, it turns out, were not incorrect). I could just dispose of those as I wished (in my belly). Oh, and the email was sent from an email address that could not receive replies.

I went back to my account to see what I could do. I mean, thirty-six bars? Roughly $50 (I got $10 off for buying two eighteen-packs). I felt sooo bad. I went to the orders that customer service had started. I was able to cancel one of the flavors, but the other one was being prepared for shipment and could not be canceled. In my cancellation of the first flavor, I was able to put comments, and I told them that I was really sorry about the mixup and had found the missing bars and to please bill me for the one flavor that was already being shipped. I have no idea if they will, but I guess it’s the best I can do.

Anyway, it’s official: I’m a dolt.

This week was only our second week to watch Beauty and the Geek (Cadet Happy has been blogging it at SRM!). We love this show. This week was non-stop laughter, because the beauties had to be models… of superhero costumes at Comic Con (I wonder if they ran into Gus and Shawn, whose name is spelled the girl way). Costumes made by the geeks, no less, with a back story created by each team. All the comic book talk was so funny, because I actually knew most of what they were talking about due to my wonderfully geeky husband becoming a comic book addict over the last couple of years. I knew the answer to every question except the locomotive one (I said steam engine, but as Cadet pointed out, that’s from the radio incarnation, NOT the comic books.), even the questions William (?) was asking to help quiz the girls.

The thing I totally don’t get about the show, though? Ok, Nicole was plenty pretty before her makeover. And Sam? NOT a beauty. I’m always just looking at him, going, “Him?” Huh. I did think the whole tanning spray super power was funny (I wonder if George Hamilton watches the show — I doubt it), but wow, Sam is proud of himself without cause.

I wonder how long it will be before Cadet Happy notices I’ve been adding my own remarks to his Beauty/Geek posts. He doesn’t really pay attention. :-)

Carrie Underwood’s new CD, Carnival Ride, came out Tuesday, and it arrived in the mail today. I’ve been sooo good about not buying music recently, but sometimes you just have to make an exception. Like when your very favorite singer comes out with a new CD.

I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet. I’ve gotten through three tracks, only because my computer CD player was tied up with Myst III today, and our DVD player isn’t plugged into the TV right now because of the Wii. And I’m nothing if not lazy.

I did read the liner notes (first thing I do, usually), and she is still classy and thankful and adorable. Unlike Taylor Hicks. And I noticed Tuesday when I ordered the CD that in the photos she’s wearing the top she wore when she performed on American Idol this year. I *love* that she will wear the same thing twice. I do.

Anyway. First track, “Flat on the Floor,” is great. Second track, “All-American Girl,” starts off badly, because within thirty seconds I was rolling my eyes. The first verse is daddy/daughter sap, and I hate daddy/daughter sap songs (”Butterfly Kisses” always made me want to vomit); but the second verse shifts gears, so it’s ok. Not great. Ok. I love the melody, but I do not like family sap for some reason. “So Small,” the first single, is just lovely. I’ve loved it from the first time I heard it on the radio.

More on this when I listen to the rest.

UPDATE: How cute! The Soul Patrol are like Ron Paul internet supporters. Ladies, I’ve ranted about Taylor’s lack of gratitude before. If you were actual readers of this blog, you would know that. Here’s what I had to say about him in the past. And on my blog, I’m allowed to pretty much say whatever the heck I want. I pay the bills here. Kthxbai.

I’d love to tell you! I’m eating pretzels!

PRETZELS.

If you don’t understand why this is a big deal, we need to talk. But anyway, I’m eating pretzels! They’re a little crunchier than “normal” pretzels, but they’re pretzels, and they taste like pretzels, and I bought them for our cross-country trek.

Also for our cross-country trek, I have two twelve-packs of Clif Nectar Bars, three boxes of Pamela’s wheat-free, dairy-free cookies, three loaves of bread (I’ll make it ahead of time and they’re small loaves — we’ll go through an entire loaf in a day between the two of us), a pan of brownies (will also make those), peanuts for Frank, and a few bags of GF beef jerky. What else should we bring (I mean, besides the PB&J for the bread)? I have on my list: Starburst, Skittles (ick, not the smoothie ones, those are gross), pickles (for some reason they are so necessary on road trips), fresh fruit, cokes, natural cokes, water…

18 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
19 Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
21 Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them,
22 and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.

I didn’t really like working outside the home. In fact, at times I hated it. Of course, I was going through a lot of my health problems when I was working, which made the simplest work very difficult for me (on gluten, my concentration skills are practically nonexistent — not good for an auditor). I loved my one job in “industry,” as we accountants call it, but my jobs in public were not my idea of fun work. Except around the end of busy season at one of the firms. Ok, around the end of our first busy season of the year. For some reason, auditors had busy season during tax season and again during governmental and non-profit season (which started about a day after tax season), but tax peeps didn’t have the same problem.

Anyway, on tax day, after the last tax returns were out (I did no taxes until the last firm I worked for, so the auditors just kinda waited for the signal that it was ok to leave), this firm did a casino night (another one I worked for had casino night around Christmas). I loved it, because I don’t gamble on principle, so this was my only chance to play the casino games that I otherwise would not get to play. I shunned the poker tables — not my thing. I played blackjack some and roulette for about thirty seconds, but once I discovered the craps table, no other game could keep my attention. And the craps table was always the table with the fun people. We would hunker down there all night. The greatest part was that we were not gambling real money, so I could actually play. The people with the most money at the end of the night won the top prizes, but everyone went home with a prize no matter how much you had. It was so much fun. I’ll never do it in “real life,” but I loved playing when there was no money involved.

Rowdi finally got tired of waiting for me around 2 a.m. and went to her room on her own. She’d slept in front of the couch, on the couch (I let her up in Frank’s spot), and on her chewing rug. I *guess* I’m not mad at her for abandoning me, but I see that she chooses sleep over me. ;-) I would have, too. I think I ended up getting five hours or so. With the light on, because I was reading Order of the Phoenix in bed when my eyes gave out on me and closed against the will of their owner.

Alas, I had no one to snuggle last night. Frank always snuggles me until I’m asleep (once I actually put my head on the pillow, I’m out within one minute, and that is no exaggeration). I think it’s disgusting for dogs to sleep in or on the bed, especially when there are nice comforters and decorative pillows involved (cats don’t stink like dogs and don’t get right up on you and then excessively lick themselves, so they get a pass). So I couldn’t snuggle Rowdi. Minerva did come snuggle me, but she kept trying to make herself one with the book I was reading. Frank never tries to lie on my reading material.

I’m a little rambly. Sorry, I’m really sleepy. I’ll post more when I’m awake.

Ok, I probably won’t sleep, and since not sleeping means I’ll be up doing stuff, Rowdi will probably just lie around and watch me do stuff.

Frank should be in Idaho soon. I’ve missed him since before I left him at the airport — the first time. After I’d been gone from the airport about ten minutes, he called and told me I could come back if I wanted. I wanted. His flight was delayed, and the ticketing agent had told him not to bother going through the non-line at security yet, since there was nothing on the other side of security, and he had over an hour and a half to wait. So he called me, and I came right back so we could hang out for half an hour or so. And his flight still didn’t leave for another hour and a half after he went to his gate! Good thing he had a two hour layover, because he needed the cushion.

I’m going to lock all the cats in the garage tonight so I can let Rowdi sleep outside her crate. Of course, even without putting her in her crate, that’s where she’ll want to sleep. She loves her room. But she’ll be there to hunt bandits if they should come calling.

I bowled five strikes in a row on Wii bowling! I got my highest score ever, 224! I also got pro status for the first time ever (and the second time ever, as I lost my pro status as soon as I obtained it).

I’m totally addicted. And my abs and arms hurt.

I’m making a list of things that *still* have to be done to the house. Mostly it’s just touchups, which I’ve decided are low priority right now. One that’s not quite urgent but still important is yet another faucet issue. Frank already fixed the Moen faucet in the guest bathroom (I was so proud of him!), but we seem to have created a new problem in the master bathtub. It took me a while to figure it out, because we never use that bathtub (it’s a garden tub and therefore extremely uncomfortable). But when I was cleaning it last weekend, I remembered that we couldn’t find one piece of the bathtub knob apparatus after we painted the wall behind it, so we just put it back together without that piece. Well, the knob now only turns about halfway in one direction and 1/4 of the way in the other direction. Cold is hot, hot is cold, and turning the water off is a pain, because you have to find the midnight position on the dial exactly.

I think I’ll put Frank on that today. That and bathing the stinky dog.

Yesterday morning , we decided to do our Wii Fitness ages again. Frank was 38, and I was 34. So I aged seven years in one day.

After that, I decided to play one of the tennis training games… And I was quickly addicted. I bowled, I played tennis, I played baseball. I didn’t golf, and I didn’t box. Anyway, I must have played a couple hours (at least) yesterday. And I worked up a pretty good sweat and tired out my arms. I got a little bit of leg work but not much. This morning? My shoulders and upper arms were soooo sore. Also, my thighs were, surprisingly, a little sore.

I’ve bowled and played tennis for about an hour this morning. Frank and I just did our fitness ages. Frank got all boxing minigames and was 22! I, however, got the tennis one with the moving wall (not my best tennis game), the home runs one (I suck at that one), and the tennis returning one (it’s one of my best games). Even with the last one to balance me out, I was 63! Clearly I need more practice.

Anyway, I’m planning to start Wiiing every day. If nothing else, it will work out my arms and make my whole body sweat a little. Couple that with three to four mile walks every day once we get to Idaho, and I’ll be getting a decent amount of exercise!

Frank is going to Idaho this week. Wah! I mean, it’s good that he’s going, but I’ll miss him so. While he’s there, he’s going to try to meet with a realtor to go look at houses and neighborhoods. I’ve already been looking at houses online for a while (rent and buy), and I know which kinds of houses we can afford (no luxury homes — we’ll probably get a plain jane house and fix it up into a nice home like we did this one, except we’ll do even more, and we’ll do it over years, not months). And even though Frank will be able to pick out a good kitchen for me, we will want to go house shopping again together once we’re there (we can’t buy anything until we sell our Florida house, of course). That’s one of the exciting things about moving. The house shopping! It’s so cool we’ll get to shop for our first house that we pick out together.

I’ll still keep looking online so I’ll be able to add to the list of houses that we want to look at together. I have my eye on a couple that would be great for us, and we’d be able to stay in them for a long time. One of the best things about the houses up there are the gigantic pantries. Dream pantries, they are.

I’m so excited! Our move to Idaho is almost starting to seem real!

Do you remember the first time you ever heard of that super-expensive watch (not Vacheron Constantin, the other one) with the “indestructible” crystal face and the ability to… keep time? I never understood the whole nice-watch thing. Ok, I’ve never understood wearing watches at all. I mean, I get why people wear them — to keep time. But I had a hard time making myself wear them when I was growing up (kids shouldn’t have to be concerned about the time), and since it was never a habit for me, the only time in my adult life I’ve consistently worn a watch was when I was running inconsistently. It was a runner’s watch (digital, and yes, I wore it to work), and it was there to remind me that I needed to get out and run a few miles. I usually didn’t.

And of course, now there are clocks everywhere, so I really don’t need one. In school there was always one in the classroom and one in every hallway. At home there is always at least one on the stove, on the microwave, on the walls. In the car, there’s a clock on the radio face. I have a clock on my cell phone. There’s a clock on the DVR, one next to the bed, etc.

I do keep my running watches around, because I plan to hit the exercise hard when we get somewhere that has four seasons. Which will be soon!

So I brought the decorations and such from the den out into the livingroom Friday so I could pack them. Rowdi was walking by me, and she suddenly stopped and started fixating on something to my right. I looked over. It was our desk globe. I tried to get her attention, and when I stood up, she growled once and then barked at the globe. Frank and I just started cracking. up!

I went around the couch and stood right by the globe and called her over to me. She came over there, and when she saw the globe, she immediately went into her play bow and started taunting the globe. Bow, back up, dart toward the globe, run away around the chair, peek around the chair to see if the globe was still there or had decided to chase her. Repeat. It was so funny.

Finally I had her come over and sniff the globe, and I think she determined that it was not, indeed, alive. Until I spun it while she watched. Then she started backing up and taunting it again.

Animals are so amusing.

Yesterday was Piera day at the house of J. wRitErsbLock and sherlock and RTY came over, and I fixed linner (potato soup and crock pot “brisket”). Before linner, we played Wii (I got the youngest fitness age of all — 29! That’s younger than my real-life age! sherlock was the oldest, WB was second oldest, and Frank was second youngest.).

After linner was karaoke. I Dreamed a Dream that my hair would not be so funky in this video and that I would not emote with such ridiculous faces. What’s with the closed eyes, you freaky SarahK!?! You’ll want to turn it down. This was recorded on a picture camera, so it sounds like I’m busting the speakers. Go over here to see/hear WB want to go somewhere far… far… far… far from Skid Row.

Don’t judge me. I’ve never had any vocal training. And obviously, those drama classes in high school didn’t do much for my acting skillz.