This Saturday the Brooks threw a fantastic Halloween party, good food, good drinks, good friends and good lighting. Nick and I went as Miss Scarlett and Colonel Mustard from my favorite board game, Clue. Since our costumes didn’t really scream what we were, I, of course made cards. However, it was more of an after thought so they didn’t turn out quite like I wanted. Anyway, back to the party. I can not tell you how incredible everyone looked. So many fun, clever and interesting costumes. I was so impressed.

However, that morning Kari and I did Race for the Cure and it was freaking cold and right afterwards I was a mess. It felt like the cold air stayed in my lungs. I couldn’t catch my breath, now I know I am out of shape, but not that out of shape, it almost felt like before an asthma attack and I felt this all day Saturday into Sunday. So, of course, by Saturday night my lameness set in and we exited the party at a disrespectable 1 a.m.

You know I’m feeling bad when I don’t feel like taking pictures. Though, Derek got some awesome pics of the costumes. Check it out.

Rest of my Halloween pics.

Anyway, it was super fun to dress up and see everyone. Next weekend, oh boy, Ninja’s birthday party! And I am going to be that crazy person and dress our midget dog up.

Since Ella is pretty much the cutest baby ever, I entered her in a contest. (I will not turn into psycho cousin and enter her in everything) However, she did take some adorable pictures. See Here.

My favorite

We live in a townhouse and I always get the question, do you hear your neighbors and I could honestly say no. In fact, I love, love, love our neighbors. On the North is a middle-aged woman who has 2 cats and keeps to her self. And the West a snobby bitch who in the 3+ years we have lived here, I’ve seen her maybe 5 times. In my mind she is so incredibly wealthy that she keeps that townhouse when she visits family here in Iowa. Nick and I constantly made up stories up about her and then by accident found out her name “NB” because our ever so competent postman deliver her mail to us. It was always an occasion when NB was home.

This last summer three people in our area, including NB put For Sale signs up. This crushed me. I loved NB, I loved that she was never home, I loved that when she was it was an occasion, I loved she was never home…now what was going to happen. Well, after a few months, couple Saturdays ago we saw her move the sign in the garage and moved the very little she had out of the townhouse. Last Friday our new neighbors moved in.

Ok, the street is narrow and it is really hard with a truck to move into our community, so I give slack for a couple days. However, not only did they block their driveway, the street, my driveway and the mailbox, they had cars park everyway and anywhere…horizontal in spots. Ok, fine, annoying, but whatever. It was really the midnight hanging up pictures on Saturday that started to work my nerves or the Sunday of constantly banging around, or Monday morning at 5:30am listening to them get ready and then finally after working coming home to see again I cannot park in my spot because they are painting their garage and their shit is in my driveway. I promptly got on IowaRealty.com searching for anything we can afford. Fuck, yes FUCK, I am not living in an apartment and some consideration would be nice.

Moving on…Last Saturday also brought me a headache when I opened my email to 83 spam messages from ebay, well, I thought they were spam until I started reading them. Once I got to the email that said my account has been suspended due to a third party unauthorized access, panic struck. And it was all true. It appears Last Friday night someone got into my account bought around 15 items and posted around 40 purses for bidding. They changed the banking information to some Vermont bank. So that was seriously annoying.

Other than those annoyances this weekend it was a pretty fab weekend. Pizza and Poker on Friday. Pedicures and Rico’s Party on Saturday. Being Lazy on Sunday.

Reminiscing tonight about my childhood, which led me to iTunes which led me to kick-ass Paula Abdul and hell yeah I crank that shit up. Straight up.

Then, cruising around “Listeners also bought” saw gold: NKOTB. Now, I have never hidden the fact I am a NKOTB fan. Joey forever! However, I don’t think I have actually listened to a song since the early 90′s and let me tell you it took me back to leggings, a hair brush microphone, my grandma’s house and singing my little heart out. So I immediately bought it. This was the moment that the whole night spiraled out of control. Next was Tiffany then Debbie Gibson, flip it was crazy awesome.

Side note on all things that are awesome…went to Gordman’s this weekend (I know) and happen to walk by the women’s perfumes and just happened to see Electric Youth and Vanilla Fields on the shelf. First, I was shocked they were still in production, or perhaps they are still the originals from 1992. These were the smells I sported in my younger days. I promptly opened to take a whiff. WHOA. I can’t describe the horror my nose went through. It was the most sugary, strong, nauseating smell ever.

“I’m not that kind of guy who can take a broken heart
So don’t ever leave
I don’t want to see us part”

RECOGNIZE!

New developments at work, I got a desk. Most of you don’t realize that when I was hired they did not have a place for me. Shit, I was so happy to have the job I would have sat on the floor and designed on an etch-a-sketch. Instead they gave me an island from my co-worker’s desk, which, stuck out in the main hall of our office, completely awkward and dangerous. I think on an average day I was bumped into 5-6 times. It got annoying. However, do to our recent co-worker quitting I took reign over her space. I love the new real estate; I can finally proudly display my Star Wars M&M’s guys. However, two things I’ve noticed, I face the wall and my back faces upcoming traffic, so I get scared pretty frequently and oddly enough the space is about the opposite of ergonomic. The desk is to short, the tower is right at my feet and my chair barely adjusts. This leads to awesome back pain and headaches. Generally I would complain about this, but in a month we are doubling our space and I will be moving my crap again, so until I find my permanent home, I will deal with the short desk.

Second, my boss put her two weeks in. This threw my entire day off. I will sincerely miss her, she was a good boss, whom I respected and admired. I am scared that the next director will be the art-bitchy cliché. (Always the optimist)

And last, but not least, insurance. I started June 5th, insurance was to take affect September 5th…hmm, now October 9th and I still don’t have any proof I have insurance. I hate having to remind people of their job. I have enough crap going on in my day than to keep up on yours, FLIP. (I am trying to stop the constant F-bombs and replacing them with the more fun word “Flip”)

On a side note, I heard the classic Prince tune “When Doves Cry” this weekend and decided that I desperately need that version and the Romeo and Juliet version on my iPod, however after three failed attempts to download the Prince version, my computer crashed. Ahh! And you can’t download the Romeo and Juliet version. Flippin’ annoying.