Friday, September 29, 2006

Freakin Friday

Actually, today is one of those RARE times when I am not ready for it to be Friday. We are having a big moving sale this weekend, and what have I done to prepare? Practically NOTHING. The only thing I did was post a moving sale announcement on CraigsList, which I need to do again now that it is tomorrow.

By now, I should have unpacked our China Cabinet, dresser, night stands, etc. I should have bought garage sale signs from Home Depot. I should have bought stickers to label prices and figured out what to ask. I should have picked up the stuff from storage that I want to sell. I was also supposed to get my husband to sign the apartment lease agreement and the condo association's review application in order to mail it out today. Shoulda Woulda Coulda...

So, the fact that today is Friday is not a good sign. The worst part is that I don't even feel like doing it tonight, but deadlines loom & and I need to get steppin. Do you know what I really feel like doing??? -Redesign my blog. I love this time of year when holidays are looming (even though it still is 90 degrees here) and I want to be cheesily festive. Must fight the urge.

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Thursday, September 28, 2006

Tagless Tees

For the most part, I like tagless t-shirts and other clothing items. They do have a downside though. When I get a chance in the morning (meaning the baby is still sleeping), I like to go through the morning rituals half asleep. I keep the lights off to take a shower and get dressed. We have Glade Plug-Ins with the little night light, so there is only a soft glow around. When I wore shirts with tags, I could easily feel the back side and slip on my clothing. Now, it isn't that easy and I have to move closer to the night light or turn on the blasted blinding room lights. OUCH!

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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Wife Kissing

Our morning ritual includes a hug, a kiss and saying, "Have a great day." This morning a few minutes after Steve left, he called to say, "Thank you." The DJs on his favorite radio station were discussing a poll. Apparently, men who kiss their wives before heading to work generally make more money than those that don't. That is true in our case; Steve's salary has jumped quite a bit since we met. Mostly, because he is more interested in his career, but we'll say it is simply because of the morning kisses.

Realistically, many people aren't career driven unless they have a reason to be. The responsibility of a family is probably the main reason men are afraid of commitment. I don't blame them. A happy family life only makes them want to do even better. That is my opinion anyway.

Other News: There is some confusion between the realtors. The letter was due in 15 days. One realtor thinks that is 15 calendar days and the other thinks 15 business days. Unfortunately, after thinking about it, 15 business days makes more sense to me. So, we probably will not be getting the letter until next Monday. However, the buyer's realtor/mortgage broker is extremely confident because he has excellent credit. We decided to tell the apartment lady we'll take it. Now, we have to continue to cross our fingers that everything works out.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

More Time in Limbo Land

As you know, I am on pins & needles waiting to see if we get to become South Beach residents. The day is dragging on and on while we wait for the letter. I will probably end up calling my realtor to make sure that someone else is going crazy waiting with me. Cruel right?

My urgent condition was increased this morning with a news broadcast about the real estate market in South Florida. Apparently, the market in Miami-Dade County is down 37% since last year. I don't like those odds in case this falls through. I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. I think the worst thing that could happen (besides not selling) is that they ask for an extension of time to provide the letter. That would mean that we would probably lose the apartment. It would really suck to lose it over a few days of waiting.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Waiting Game

I don't have much to say today because we're in a state of limbo. We found a GREAT apartment in the best part of South Beach. It is a 2/2 with a washer and dryer in the unit. The price is right and it is only a 3 block walk to the beach. My husband's commute will only take 5 - 10 minutes and I'll be traveling opposite of traffic. Sounds wonderful right? In a way, it is almost too good to be true.

Now, we are just waiting for concrete proof of financing from our buyer. He has until tomorrow to provide it. Isn't it horrible to be waiting for something to happen so you can get what you want? I feel like I am impatiently putting my life on hold to the point of being practically handcuffed. I don't know if I should start packing or making arrangements. Everything seems like a waste of time. If it all goes well, I will have to hit the ground running very soon.

Realistically, I will not be crushed if this all doesn't happen. I will be fine if the sell falls through. Just yesterday, we had a couple stop by that really wanted our house and were disappointed that there was already a contract in place. It was appraised for $5,000 more than our selling price, so we could probably get a little more. Plus, we can always find another apartment that we will like, even if it is not as great as this one. I guess mostly, I hate waiting to find out our fate.

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Friday, September 22, 2006

Casual Friday & Bumper Boldness


Lexi is getting into everything! One of her favorite places is our closet. I guess she was just trying to help me pick out what to wear. I am so glad today is Friday, because that means jeans (not to mention the all too exciting weekend).

I am about to reveal a strange quirk about me. I don't like bumper stickers. True, some are funny and I don't mind when other people have them on their cars. Lets face it, how else am I going to be entertained, while I'm waiting for a light to turn green? I will never put one on my car though. My reason is completely insane, especially since you know I have a blog. I feel like they give complete strangers a peek into your life. Fellow commuters don't need to know if I like fishing more than work, or if my kid can beat up your honor roll kid, or that I have a cute little family, or if I have a sense of humor, or if I hate tailgaters, or even what my political preferences may be. Now when you think about how open I am on my blog, you realize I am bizarre right? Why do I feel fine expressing some of the details of my life with anyone who checks my blog? I try to tell myself that bumper stickers de-value cars and that is why I don't like them. Really it has more to do with sharing info about myself. By the way, I also don't wear t-shirts that convey messages... Yep, way too personal.

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Thursday, September 21, 2006

Different Ideals

Since our house is under contract, we are apartment hunting. Unfortunately, the place we really want to live (where I loved living when I was single) Edgewater Apartments has disconnected their phone. I think they may have gone condo. We will be driving over there this weekend to check it out.

For now, I have been doing on-line searches and a few drive bys preparing for our weekend of hunting. The problem is my husband and I have completely different ideas about what the perfect place will be. Right now, I am pulling for the old world charm of Coral Gables, specifically the area near Venetian Pool. The big trees, quiet neighborhood, and walking distance to Miracle Mile are just too enticing. I have a few friends (both single and married) in that area and they all love it. Just check out the pictures I posted and tell me it doesn't look enchanting.

My husband, on the other hand, would like to be closer to his work. He works near the American Airlines Arena. Given that he is a HUGE sports freak, he may have another agenda (Miami Heat). I will admit that the more modern apartments in high rises have a very metropolitan feel and quite a few attractive points, but they lack the old world charm and quiet neighborhoods. I want to go home to a place that feels extremely relaxing. Plus, we can walk to a little cafe for dinner.

This should be an interesting weekend of us each trying to persuade the other. I plan on keeping an open mind and I hope he will too. I am not quite ready to tell him that Coral Gables has strict rules against trucks in residential areas. We'll also be checking out Coconut Grove and the Beach.

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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

My Turn/Safe to Return

To all my regular readers, it is safe to come back. It is all me again.

Before going back to the regularly tame (some would say lame) posts, I thought I would take a minute to comment on Miami Cross Blogination. I call it a success. I must acknowledge greenerMIAMI for the wonderful job she did organizing all of us wackadoos. There were so many interesting posts all over Miami blogs including mine. To be honest, I found most of them so funny that I could hardly contain the laughter. Then again, I find most things in the blog world & life quite hilarious. Really, life is too short to be taken seriously.

As for the two edgy bloggers that I interacted with, thank you for the experience. My post didn't inspire many comments on Al Capone's site, but I did make a huge effort to stick to his theme. I completely respect that he has a strong opinion and a very forward agenda. That is what I really like about his blog. For those who know a lot about me, I honestly do think that it is ridiculous to invoke No Smoking Laws on a restaurant called Tobacco Road. For those who don't know me, my mother-in-law passed away in June from terminal lung cancer. She smoked for about 45 years and her death was far from pleasant. Al Capone was already having nightmares about what I (a chic with a flowery blog) would post, so I decided not to post why I was probably the last guest blogger he would want. He would have run away kicking and screaming. Who would have blamed him? I guess I can admit now that I never even experimented with cigarettes as a teenager. Smoking just isn't something that has ever interested me, but his conviction is fascinating.

As for White Dade, he is GREAT at turning up the heat just to watch people get hot & bothered. Have you heard that saying, "Don't poke the bear?" Well, visit his blog and you'll see that it is his favorite sport. I find it so amusing. Secretly, I believe he is a very nice guy (but don't tell anyone because he would hate to have that information leaked).

Now about fake tatas, my opinion on plastic surgery has changed a LOT in the past 7+ years I have lived in Miami. I can't say it is all because of Miami (although it is VERY common here), society has changed and so have I. I still think nobody should ever alter your body merely to attract the opposite sex. Guys drool all over chics with or without them. However, if someone seriously feels the need to change something through plastic surgery and have honestly considered the risks and cost, then ok. I have personally seen some amazing work that has made me a believer! There are some TALENTED surgeons here. Although, I have only ventured as far as lasik. When it comes to fake boobs, if a girl ever plans to have kids she should wait. That will give her the chance to experience gigantic (GIGANTIC!!!) boobs and she just might not like it as much as she thought. Personally, I enjoy jogging so this particular surgery will never be on my must have list.

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BREAST IMPLANTS: NOT JUST FOR PORN STARS ANYMORE

Today, is the day for Miami Cross Blogination & I was lucky enough to get White Dade as my guest. **I just want to know how he figured out that this is a good topic for FFC b/c I wasn't naturally blessed in this area.** Without further ado, here is his post:

I need to preface this by saying that I love silicone. My mother, bless her heart, believes that breast augmentation is a practice on line with Chinese foot-binding and says that women filling their chests with bags of water is barbaric and cruel. And as a 60 year-old aging feminist that is her right. But as a 27-year-old male living in South Florida, it is my right to say that the recent trend towards artificial breasts is one of the great social advances of the 21st century.

Friends of mine, most of whom have never gotten to experience the endless hours of fun that are augmented tits, often say to me "No, no, I don't think I could ever date a girl with implants. Girls who get them are obviously messed up. They must have self-esteem issues or are overly concerned with their appearance." Okay, first of all, what is better than a girl with self-esteem issues? Those are the ones who will do pretty much anything to get your attention and affection, up to and including, apparently, cutting themselves open and artificially inflating their chests. Second, look around you: It is hard to go one afternoon of grocery shopping in Dade County without seeing at least a few silicone racks. Are you trying to tell me they are all deeply, deeply in secure and nuts? No, of course they aren't. They just want to look good like everyone else in this crazy place we call South Florida. And it won't be long until eliminating surgically enhanced women from your dating pool makes your choices very, very slim. In more ways than one.

It used to be that the only women you saw with implants were porn stars and chicks in their forties who needed them to keep their rich husbands from running off with the 19-year-old babysitter. But no more. Go out to any high-end restaurant in Coral Gables or South Miami and see how many women over 30 there do NOT have implants. I say do NOT because on a recent night out at one of said establishments, I was hard pressed to find a woman in the place who was not carrying a couple bags of silicone in her D-Cup bra. And it was fantastic. It has become not only socially acceptable, but now socially expected for women with any money to restore their youthful chests once they hit a certain age. Perhaps it is the pervasive culture of superficiality in South Florida. Although during my two years in Orange County, not exactly a hotbed for intellectual thinking and deeper meaning, I don't remember seeing this much silicone. I will give credit to the one aspect of Latin Culture I can get behind: The expectation that men will mess around on their wives. So women feel they need to compete at any costs to keep this infidelity to a minimum and: Voila! I'm copping cheap feels just by walking around on a crowded day at Merrick Place.

But it's not just the cougars and Desperate Housewives going under the knife. A trip to Tavern in The Grove on any given Thursday will garner coed after coed after coed with surgically enhanced racks. Now, again, I am sorry to say I must have missed the ball on this one. When I was in school, I think I knew two girls who had got implants, and both were actresses. Now? I am hard pressed to walk around campus at UM without seeing a good amount of silicone. Yes, the skinny High School Band Geek A-Cups have decided that reinventing yourself in college not only means lying about having a boyfriend back home, but also includes a new pair of tits. And at a school where BMW's outnumber Saturns about 5 to 1 in the student parking lot, it is not surprising that girls at younger and younger ages are able to do this. Are they all insecure and undesirable? Not to me they're not. A nice set is a nice set, whether they were given to you by God or by the South Florida Center for Cosmetic Surgery. (Thank you, Super Claudia!)

And finally, I would just like to say that people need to stop calling breast implants "fakes." They are not fake. You can touch them, taste them, play with them and a whole slew of other enjoyable things with them. I know, because I have, and those things are DEFINITELY real. They are just not natural, and there is a marked difference. Not that I am a bastion of political correctness here, but I think the term "fake" would imply that when the girl gets home she just takes her tits off and puts them in a drawer next to her fake hair (extensions) fake nails (acrylics) and fake eyelashes. But hose tits, no sir, those stay on. Artificial or Implants seem like better terms.

So God bless the Breast Implant. Whether you are an aging beauty trying to stay young, or a young girl trying to get hotter, I am all for using any tool you can. And it seems like more and more women are. A day will come soon, and probably sooner than you think, when women who do not have augmentations will be considered the freaks and weirdoes, and not the other way around. But love them or hate them, you have to admit you are seeing a lot more silicone than you used to. And I'm loving every minute of it.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Four Pack Blogination

We are hours away from the big Miami Cross Blogination and it has become apparent that 2 of the little 4 pack are nervous. What is this 4 pack you say? Well out of the 21 blogs, our group somehow became a little circle. I'm writing on Al Capone's site. He is writing on Tere's site. She is writing on White Dade's site. And yes, he is writing on mine.

When I first read the assignments, I laughed because two edgy bloggers got stuck with two mommy bloggers. I had a feeling they would be disappointed. All single guys want smokin hot chics, right? Hey, we are smokin hot chics. It is just that we are married and have cute little babies that have changed our perspective a bit.

Anyway, both White Dade and Al Capone have conveyed a bit of apprehension about what we'll post. I laughed this morning when I read Al Capone's post and just now when I read White Dade's. There is only one rule. We have to post something that we think would fit the blog. I can't wait to laugh tomorrow when I read what White Dade came up with. I am also interested to see if Al Capone thinks my post sucked. It isn't quite as edgy as his usual material, but well...I tried. This is exactly why I signed up...to see different perspectives about my blog. If nothing else, they can appreciate the million links in this post that just added to their Technorati popularity.

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