Finger wars.

My fingers hurt.

2 weeks ago, I was building a platform thingy outside for my wireless outdoor speakers. I was building them above where I have flowers planted, so I didn't use a stepladder, I just hammered above my head. Big mistake. I managed to miss the nail but hit my finger. So after some severe cursing and icing my finger, I now have a lovely purple fingernail.

1 week ago, I was playing basketball and after 3 full games, almost done with the 4th, I jammed my finger - the same one that I hammered the week before. I've jammed plenty of fingers in my days of playing sports, but this was the worst. It was immediately swollen, and after 2 DAYS of icing it, the swelling hadn't gone down, and my whole finger was purple. My boss was even calling me Princess Fiona because it was so fat and purple that he said it looked like I was turning into an ogre one finger at a time. Well, 4 days later it was still bad, and I still couldn't bend it, so I went to the doctor. As expected, it wasn't broken, but I'd torn a ligament. 4-6 weeks before full recovery. It's been 1.5 and I still can't curl my finger.

Tuesday I was playing basketball again (fingers taped), and at the end of the game picked up my water bottle from the wood platform, and somehow - through my abundance of good luck - got a splinter jammed into my fingernail (different hand). let me tell you, THAT is painful. It's too deep to get out with tweezers, and trust me, I've cut off more of my nail than is comfortable. I am just hoping it will come out on its own before it gets infected.

Memorial Day BBQ

Party. Wow. So, Memorial Day Sunday I had a party. 57 people came (as far as I counted). 55 if you don't count the two babies that came. As I always say, I LOVE hosting parties. I love having friends meet each other, and I really enjoy seeing other people having a good time. I am always a little hesitant because most of my friends are people I know from all different things - Dancing, Tech, High School, work, just being Jewish, and completely randomly. I worry that some people won't meet other people, but I depend on the good natured friendliness of my other friends to include people. Sometimes that doesn't happen, so if you had a crappy time, I'm sorry, but hopefully for the most part, everyone had fun. From when the first person got here until the last ones left was a total of almost exactly 12 hours. Phew!

this is what I saw come and go within those 12 hours:
*50 Hamburgers, 30 pieces of cheese, 40 Hot dogs, 1 lone veggie burger (and buns to go with all of them)
*A full bowl of my famous Punch (and 5 other 2-liter bottles of soda)
*100+ Beers, 1 Litre of Liquor, A Bottle of Daqueri mix and bottle of Margarita mix
*7 bags of chips and a box of crackers - with two different spinach dips, a french onion dip and Moshe's 7 layer dip
*2 veggie trays, a fruit salad
*A batch of Brownies, a tray of cupcakes, A berry Cream cake (all homemade)
*A box of 2-bite brownies, a bag of chocolate, A tin of pirulines, a box of granola bars, a container of muffins, sugar and iced oatmeal cookies, and a large box of Donut Munchkins

Did I miss anything??

I had a wonderful time, and I am sorry I didn't get to socialize with almost anyone. Thanks to everyone who helped set up, cook, clean-up, and to all of y'all who are just the coolest people I know.

Oh, and All Moshe's pictures (and the few I got) are posted here

Directions

I have an issue with my subdivision. The main street that enters the subdivision doesn't have a street sign on it. There is a big new pretty sign with the name of the subdivision, but no street sign. So if anyone looks up directions online via a mapping service like google maps or mapquest, it says "turn onto my street". But then people pace the neighborhood back and forth since they don't see the street.

About a year ago, I went to a monthly meeting and brought this issue up to the board. They looked at me as if I was crazy, and told me "well, tell your friends that when they see the subdivision sign, they should turn. Or, send them to our subdivision website for directions, not google."

Great. So now, Every time I plan a party and send an evite, I have to say "wait, don't mapquest it, go to our handy dandy webpage instead!" No! so anyway, I finally emailed the president of the managing company, and he totally agreed with me. So, now we're getting a sign. hahaha I guess I should've brought it a level higher a year ago when I first noticed it.

Mother's Day gift

Mother's day was a week ago, and though we ordered our gift WAY in advance, they managed to not have the gift in time for us to give it to her. BUT, today the gift came in and it looks pretty good! Ordered through the discovery channel website, we got a blanket with a photo of all the siblings weaved into a blanket. This is what the entire blanket looks like, and then I took a close-up of my face so you can see how they did the work. it's a really fun gift, and my mom is so excited to get it. Other than that, nothing too exciting going on...

late week and a class

Every day this week I have something after work! monday I went to dinner with sebastian and then went dancing, Tuesday I played b-ball with our usual tues/thurs group after work and then went to Erin's for dinner with Kevin, Chris, and Scott which was fun.

Today I went to a class at emory on Entrepreneurship. It was funny. there was a statistic that 50% of small businesses fail in the first year, and 95% fail within the first 5. He commented that we were ahead of the game because we at least showed up at the class. But when I looked around the classroom and noticed
a) how many people came late or left early
b) how many people slept through it
c) how many people just looked like they'd never ever have the drive to maintain a business

I got a little cocky. It was nice to be in a class again. Maybe I'll take some more evening classes...when I have time hahaha =)

No more people in my house! (at least for a day)

Friday night I made Arroz con Pollo for the first time. A Cuban themed potluck Shabbat dinner. We had black beans, plantains, mojo fish, and “Cuban” kugel. The Arroz con Pollo turned out surprisingly well, and I was going to post a picture of it, but apparently Moshe didn’t take a picture when I thought he was going to =(. There were a total of 13 people over for dinner, and although the crowd was a little different than the usual Shabbat crowd, eventually everyone warmed up to each other and hopefully had a nice time.

Speaking of hosting, Saturday we celebrated my little sister’s 21^st birthday. She didn’t want to go out on the town, so instead I hosted about 20 of her friends over. Surprisingly, her UGA buddies didn’t drink that much! I thought that was their extracurricular hobby up there, but I guess since they all had to drive back to Athens or home, they couldn’t drink too much. It was still fun though.

…and some more hosting – Sunday morning I had my family over for Mother’s day brunch. We had omelets, homemade bread, fruit salad, and potatoes. I think my mom enjoyed it, and then I had the rest of the afternoon to resuscitate my house from the destruction that is caused by hosting too many things in one weekend =)

Life Changes.

I like the way Josh worded it. We're going to "see other people". As some of you know, Josh has recently earned his wings, and has been assigned to his aircraft of choice (the Cobra helicopter) at a base just outside of San Diego, CA. As anyone who has been in a long distance relationship knows, trying to maintain a relationship in different cities is hard enough, but a 3 hour time difference makes it even harder. Obstacles that don't help the situation are that during Josh's stint in CA, he'll be on a deployment schedule, to and from somewhere - likely Iraq. The whole Jewish thing is still an issue for me, but it doesn't seem to be the deciding matter here. I am not ready to pick up and leave everything in Atlanta and move to CA where I won't know anyone and Josh'd be gone half the time. Josh is an amazing person. He is kind, charming, intelligent, and funny - meanwhile, protecting my freedom on the side =). He has so many of the qualities I am looking for in a guy, but there is just too much in the way right now to stay together. Maybe one day, but not this day. I love you Josh.

ATLX pics and a flower.

I took almost no pictures at ATLX, but I managed to scour all the other photographer's pages, and found these pictures of me. And I finally uploaded them!

Meanwhile, this flower came up outside my house, and I think it's really pretty.

Want to live with me?

Hey everyone!
As some of you may know, I am looking for a roomate to live at my house!
I live in dunwoody, just outside the perimeter. It's a 3 story townhouse with 3 BR, 2.5 bath, a den, large kitchen, and hardwood dining and living rooms. There's a huge storage basement, washer and dryer, and a patio out back with a ton of grassy areas behind it. It's a 2 minute drive to get to 285 (exit 30)

Everything in the house is furnished pretty much, except the bedroom.

rent is $575/mo + 1/3 utilities (usually comes out to about $65)
OR 650/month including utilities - electricity, cable, HS internet (wireless)

If anyone is interested, or wants more info, please let me know!

Thanks!!

2 years!

yesterday was the two year mark since I graduated from Georgia Tech. I CAN'T believe it's been that long already! I feel like my parents when I say that time flies and you don't know where it goes. I honestly feel like it was just a few weeks ago when I was on campus.

Now when I return, there are just a few faces left that I know, and it doesn't quite feel like home as much anymore. I really miss walking around all day, and rolling out of bed to go to class. I don't miss studying for tests, but I miss meeting all sorts of amazing people (that are my age) every day.

I love working now. I love having a paycheck, I love that i'm able to live in the same place longer than 2 semesters. I really like that usually I don't have to do work on the weekends. I just miss the fond memories of college.

wow. where has the time gone...

Addendum.

Back to me writing...I'd like to add the following to the previous blog post:

1) this is a picture of david before he gets attacked by the massage chair.

This is a candid picture while the chair is attacking him.

2) I got ants in my kitchen. I am trying some new ant stuff that is this sweet liquid that the ants come, drink, and then poison their colonymates. In just one hour, they'd drank all of the liquid on one of the locations. here is a picture of my ants.

3) I really found $20 on the ground the other day. Now, I can tell the story of what I was doing, end it with "and then I found $20", and I'd be telling the truth!!!

4)Amanda and I hung out saturday and watched a movie and made yummy food.

Outsourcing...

Bela's blog entry 5/7/07
By David Ziskind, staff reporter.

Outsourcing has finally hit my blog. With so much to do, I've turned
to David to create frequent blog entries. He complained that he did
not have anything to read at work, so I tasked him with writing them.

Sunday I got up and went for a run in David's new shoes. They fit so
well! I run 3.1415 miles, but to avoid sounding like a dork, I say I
run 3.2 miles. I went to check out David's awesome new couches, and
then helped him look for coffee and end tables. We had fun at a place
with massaging chairs. The sales guy asked if he should turn out the
lights! After that, we went to Costco where I bought stuff for Leah's
birthday BBQ and my Memorial Day BBQ. I didn't tell David or Ross,
but I purposely planned her birthday party for a weekend when they
would both be out of town, so they couldn't hit on her. They really
don't hit on her, but they like to tease me, which drives me up a
wall. Sunday I had a meeting with the dance people.

Today is Monday, and it's back to the grind at work. Oh yeah, I have
a hot new business idea. Let me know if you want to buy in =)

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