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Jury Duty Recap

I got an email requesting that I update my blog. Well, here you go:

On Sunday I had the following conversation with Courtney:

WAJ: In other news I think I threw my back out painting

Courtney: I can barely move from raking.

WAJ: Think that’ll get me out of jury duty?

Courtney: I wish we could be pitiful together!

WAJ: I’m already in bed?

Courtney: Act really religious, that will get you out of it. Maybe wear a nun’s outfit?

Kids, I shit you not there was a Nun at jury duty. While I don’t have photographic evidence (homeslice kept moving around!), it’s totally true. This was Courtney’s response:

Here are some of the other folks that I sat near:

I, too, believe that an army green sweat suit with gold sparkly pumps is appropriate jury duty attire. True story: this woman later came up to me and asked if we got our $25 dollas just for coming or if you had to get picked to be on a trial. Don’t worry sweetie, you get it just for coming. Also,:

The gentlemen in this photo came skrait from the farm. He had: red leather cowboy boots (that lbh prob cost more than my tory’s), red leather belt with silver belt buckle (with turquoise accents), 4 silver rings (3 on the left hand, 1 on the right) all with turquoise accents, a necklace with a silver pendant that has turquoise accents a bracelet on each wrist along with a watch on his left hand. Understated much?

Where do these people come from?

First World Problems

I am well aware each of the following things are certainly nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I tell ya, they’re causing me to come rage-y.

1. My cleaning lady turns off the light switch in my bedroom every time she comes, thereby turning off my alarm clock causing me to reset it.

2. In the same vain, she makes up my bed and folds the sheet down over the coverlet and blanket, thereby creating unequalness in the lengths of all the layers. In case you were wondering, this is NOT OKAY. To fix this problem, I have to remake the bed….which kind of defeats the purpose of having a cleaning lady in the first place.

3. It’s girl scout cookie delivery day here in the office, and when I ordered them I only ordered 4 boxes in an effort to be healthy. Hi Regret, it’s nice to meet you.

4. I had jury duty yesterday, and I was able to pinpoint the spread of the swine flu. If one more person coughed in my general direction, I was going to have to ask if there was a seclusion room. Two showers later, I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same. As a general rule, people act tragically.

Carry on.

Totally worth being displaced for a week!

Y’all…it is with extreme happiness that I report that the Great Bathroom Remodel and Hardwood Replacement of 2k10 is complete. Want to see some pics? Hope so!

Here is the before:

I swear to goodness that I recaulked that bad boy 3 times in my 3 short years of living here…and that brown just above the tub has always remained. It grosses me out thinking about it.

Isn’t it beautiful?! I swear to goodness that I took a picture that was just like the one above, but I can’t find. Booo! Either way, the pureness of it all is amazing. Also amazing? The shower curtain (before):

And the After:

Isn’t she beautiful? PTL for Christmas, nice Mom’s and Anthropology!

Some of you may recall that in September my house flooded. As such, I had to remove the carpet in my closet, lest it cause all of my beautiful clothes to smell like mildew. So, for about 5 months, I got dressed on this:

Why, yes, yes, that IS in fact concrete. Thanks for noticing. Here’s the after:

Y’all. I know I’m biased and all, but I ADORE this tile. The dignity loss was totally worth it. Also, I may just pull up a chair and live in my closet it’s so awesome. I’ll be in my closet if you need me!

Apparently wood doesn’t like water…which is weird to me since it needs water to live. I guess it’s more accurate to say that dead wood doesn’t like water. So, when my closet (and front half of the house) flooded, this also happened:

It’s been just about as special as you could imagine having to literally body slam yourself into your front door in order to get it to open. Here’s what it looks like Post Hardwood Floor Replacement:

The door actually closes! With ease! There, that’s better. Here’s the main area of my place where the wood was also replaced (before):

…and after:

I know it looks exactly the same, except that I prom the floors are new! Plus, I drank all that beer that was sitting on my dining room table. And, I wore a different coat that day. See? And just for shits and giggles, the hallway before:

…and after:

Doesn’t she look amazing?! I’m extremely pleased. Now…pray it doesn’t flood. Ever again. Pleaseandthankyouverymuch.

This was fun:

Over the weekend someone told me that you can look up yourself on Urban Dictionary to find out what your name means. Here are my favorites from my name:

1. A fair Irish lass, as heard in the title of every other Irish folk song e.g. “Maggie In The Wood”, “Drowsey Maggie”, “When You And I Were Young, Maggie”, etc.

2. The biggest bitch in the world. Totally conceited. Used as an insult.

3. Commonly used dog’s name. If your name is Maggie, chances are every person that ever meets you who happens to have a dog named Maggie (Which will be at least 25% of the people you meet in your life) will immediately reply with, “Oh. My dog’s name is Maggie! How cute!” Because they think you A) Care and B) Also think this is “cute”.

True Story.

Lent potentials

Things I contemplated giving up for lent but decided I couldn’t:

*Stalking

*Shopping

*DC Refills (I’d never consider giving up the actual DC itself, just the vast quantity of it)

*Laziness

*Awkwardness

Any guesses as to what I’m actually giving up?

Back to home depot…wearing pants this time.

Anyone have any tips on how to regain control of my life?

A couple of weeks ago Mom and I were discussing the Great Bathroom Remodel of 2010 and Mom causally mentioned that I should have the tile placed in my bathroom diagonally rather than squared because it looks better. While I can’t remember her exact words, we all know that one simple sentence had a loaded meaning behind it, because obvi this sentence meant “you simply must tile your floor diagonally because the way it is now looks like crap and I can’t believe you’ve been able to stand living there with square tiling.” You got that from her words too? Good, because I’d hate to be reading into things.

As Mom tends to do, she forgot that we had already had that particular conversation and about a week later she brought it up again. She starts off very casually and then somehow the conversation is finished and you’re wondering if you actually own your house or if she does. Weird. (Remind me to tell you about that time that she came over for breakfast and ended up moving the couch and side table I had because she thought it’d “look better” over there.)

So, since I have zero control over my own life at the ripe ole age of 26, I told the tile man that I’d like the tile done diagonally, pleaseandthankyouverymuch.

Skip to last night, driving to an alumni event when Mom calls. I answer and I’m pretty sure the only reason Mom was calling was to ask me if I had considered putting my tile diagonally versus the awful way it is now. I tell her for the 4th time that the fucking tile is going diagonally and seriously? Enough with the tile already! Right then and there, this thought occurs to me: I should have done it square to spite her.

Well, the Gods were listening, because my tile man (Delio, which, btw is an awesome name) forgot that I had said diagonally and went ahead and did it in the same fashion that it was done before. I will surely hear about this for, I don’t know, THE REST OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. Thanks, Delio.

Facebook just suggested that I “reconnect” with my Mother. Obvi, they don’t know my “45 calls in 1 day isn’t too many” Mom.

Where’s my 20%?

I am about to commence some house projects to fix the damage done by the Great Flood of 2k9 and so in the past few weeks I have done extensive research, asked loads of friends for advice, and met more mexicans than I ever care to at my place for these things called “estimates”. I hope these people understand that estimate to me means exact price I am willing to pay and no more…but chances are good and tear might be shed over that simple misunderstanding.

I decided to not hire a general contractor to manage the project because it’s just an added cost, and I’m organized enough to be able to handle a simple home renovation. Right? Just call me a contractor!

Apparently not. On Saturday I convinced my Mom to go with me to Home Depot to help me pick out some tile and gather the materials needed for the bathroom renovation. There were precisely 6 items on my list, and I could not for the life of me find a single one of them. Also, those people that just got laid off from home depot 2 weeks ago? Greatly missed.

I think my outfit is a crucial piece to this story, and while I don’t have a picture to share, I just need you to try to imagine for me. I’m wearing a cute dress that’s probably a bit short for my 5’10” frame, tights (as to not show any ass-age in the short dress), cute flats, raincoat, scarf. Cute, right? You should also know it was windy.

Tile, apparently, is one heavy mo’ fo’. So, I picked out my tile which just so happened to be on the bottom and was highly successful at pushing the tile from the floor where it was stacked to my flat bed cart. Someone probably saw my ass while I was moving the tile over, but eh, they prob liked it.

In addition to having no idea what we were doing, we had my 3.5 year old niece that knows. how. to. shop…and just when you think “What would a 3 year old want in Home Depot?”, I need you to remember that this 3 year old’s husband and baby’s daddy just so happens to be bob the builder. 4 temper tantrums later, we walked out with some tape (?) and an extra pack of screws (??) because  ”Bob the Builder” needed them.

Enter the wind: Mom has pulled the car up to the front, yet left me with the 3.5 year old that’s married to a ficitional construction worker (yet, I’m not married…amazing how this works) who’s trying to sweet talk me into some m&m’s at the checkout while I’m paying. I push the 2 carts of shit outside, and somehow attempt to keep track of the 3 year old that is following me and immediately this huge gust of wind comes up and blows the dress up.

Hot.

So I start to attempt to put everything in the car (none of it which I can lift so I’m basically running around moving stuff around but not actually doing anything) and this nice young gentlemen comes up behind me and asks if he could help. Oh! I’ve never been so excited to see a man in my life. I re-arrange all of the dry cleaning that Mom was too lazy to carry in in the back so we can fit everything. I tipped him all the cash I had and sent him on his merry way.

I then climbed into the car and immediately stated that in the future I would be paying the 20% upcharge for a general contractor because I promptly lost 20% of my dignity the second my dress flew up.

Contracting is for the birds.