Wednesday, January 31, 2007

It couldn't get more complicated (crosses fingers and dodges lightning)

We keep going back and forth on this house thing. The more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I am with spending a big bunch of money on a house that isn't really close to right, if not exactly right, for what we need. We're both in lovely homes, though of course mine is going on the market soon. Mitch's house is fine until we start a family-- though I am not looking to put that off forever.

However I will leave it at that, as I've learned that several homeowners whose homes we looked at, salespeople whose subdivisions we looked at, etc. have been enjoying my blog... so I don't want to give them too much insight! :)

Just say a prayer for us to make good sound decisions; it's stressful and uncertain these days.

G

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

All kinds of news!

Aagghhh... I've been so busy, I can't even begin to think about getting photos up.

Mitch and I are talking marriage... wedding... selling my house... buying or building a new one... plus his company is getting software out to their client AMD, so he's been super busy... plus my aforementioned multiple deadlines (and I forgot if I mentioned I've been made first chair on an evidentiary hearing scheduled for June-- so tons of prep work to get started on there.) I'm delighted that all my "woes" are good news, but it's still tiring and stressful, no matter how pleasant the ultimate end!

I'll say this-- my priorities are still in order. Loving God and listening as best I can, doing my work well, loving Mitch with all my heart, and making wise decisions for the future. As long as I keep those in focus, everything else will fall into place.

This is the model of the home we're looking at building--



We both think it's a little big, a little square, a little ostentatious, a little McMansionesque. But the floorplan really has what we're looking for, and it's close to downtown, on a hilly lot looking down on the city, with some trees. So we're going back and forth. Ayy!

That's about all I can update for now-- gotta get a LITTLE work done today. (I know Susie, a salesperson for one of the builders we've been talking to, reads my blog to get clues about my lifestyle, so everyone say "HI SUSIE!" lol)

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Sorry I'm not keeping up to date...

Work has been insanely busy. I discovered a glitch in the scheduling/calendaring process in my office (partly my error, partly the system's) and realized I have six deadlines in February instead of the four I'd anticipated. Fortunately one is done already, and two can be extended, making February really just three. But of those three, two are extremely time consuming, and one is just weird but short thank goodness. Plus, had out of town guests last weekend for the Austin Salsa Extravaganza (which was GREAT!) and I will be out of state for two weekends in Feb, as well. Feb 7-10 we'll be in Vegas for Mitch's uncle's 80th birthday party; Feb 16-19 I'll be visiting some friends up north. Soooo.... not enough time to be uploading my Christmas and New Years photos, or the photos of the "BIG ICE STORM" that wasn't so big, but was big enough to cancel work for 3 days :)

Hope everyone reading is doing well and staying warm. I'll do my best to upload some photos maybe this weekend.

XO,
G

Friday, January 05, 2007

Welcome home...

I know, I know, it's January 5th already and I haven't blogged about the vacation. I haven't downloaded the photos from my camera yet, so the blog will have to wait until I have accompanying illustrations.

In the meantime, a rant about the environment:

I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but it's probably a pretty good indicator that global warming is continuing to grow as a problem when ice sheets (41 square miles of ice) start breaking free in the Canadian arctic and drifting out to sea. Scientists estimate that the most recent ice sheet in question (which broke off maybe a year ago, although it was only spotted more recently through satellite imaging) is at least 3000 years old. Given the recent trends in global warming, scientists doubt that mere coincidence is to blame for the recent movement of the ice shelf. This news comes only days after Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne proposed moving polar bears onto the "threatened" portion of the government's list of imperiled species, citing the fact that global warming has been responsible for melting away Arctic sea ice which constitutes significant portions of the polar bear's environment.

And yet Bush still refuses to ratify our singature on the Kyoto Protocols (guidelines developed by the U.N. to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions amongst member nations), despite the fact that the U.S. remains the world leader in the emission of carbon dioxide (primarily due to our consumption and burning of fossil fuels). The current administration's stance is simply that the cost of compliance with the Kyoto Protocols is likely to cause serious harm to the economy of the United States.

Somehow I just can't by the argument that sacrificing the earth's climate is a good way to cut costs or protect our economy. I'm not so sure anyone's going to be that excited about record numbers on Wall Street if LA and DC are underwater.