The Calm Before the Storm

It's Monday afternoon, I had a very productive day at work and my weekend was very relaxing. I drank some adult beverages, watched a couple action flicks and a Brisbane Lions game (W over Western Bulldogs) and set the DVR to record the college football games this upcoming Thursday thru Saturday.
My life is on "autopilot" at the moment, routine-wise; Work, Dinner, Sleep & Repeat. That should change shortly. This Wednesday afternoon I'll be heading to New Orleans with my buddy Chandler to eventually meet up with some old friends and begin my Bachelor Party cruise weekend. A voyage to Cozumel, Mexico is planned and should be an interesting adventure. I've been out of the country before, but not by boat and never to Mexico. My main concern is returning to America... with 'staying alive' being a given.
Right after the cruise, I'll be driving to Florida to meet up with my lovely fiance for a week at the beach. She has a dental conference... so we'll both technically be working in the mornings... but it will be a nice week of afternoon vacation time. Roughly a month after that, the two of us will be getting married.
The excitement of all these events hasn't set in yet... and I don't think it will until the day before each.
Hopefully I'll have some good stories after them all as well.

July '13 Wrap-up

July was a busy and exciting month, so I'll start with the small stuff. First, someone decided to drive through my yard and take out my mailbox... so that was nice. So much for painting the mailbox post. It was inconvenient in that I basically had to miss a morning of work to drive across the bay and fix my mailbox before the weekend. (You never know when someone will come by to view the house) Fortunately, even though the mailbox post was uprooted by the mystery vehicle, it had not snapped the wooden post. Another plus is that, while doing wedding reception shopping, Jillian had already purchased a mailbox and no longer needed it, so I didn't have to go buy a new one to replace the crushed can that was sitting in my lawn. A little post-hole digger work and everything looked as good as new... apart from the tire tracks on the white paint.
For a short period of time, I also adopted an office pet. Unlike my lizard friend (named Steve) at the house in Mobile, this was one of those jumping spiders... and it was the size of a quarter. Our friendship lasted about 20 minutes before he decided to get a little too close to my keyboard which I thought was a clear violation of our unspoken agreement. Our friendship was terminated via shoe roughly a millisecond afterward. Friendship is a complicated thing.

Much more importantly that those things listed above, Jillian celebrated a birthday. I note, "A birthday" b/c I'm not sure at what point I am no longer allowed to list numbers; Better safe than sorry I suppose. Like the terrific fiance I am, I ordered all her birthday presents online. It may be hard to believe, but I failed to pay full attention to what I was doing at the end of the purchasing process and managed to change from my old mailing address. So, Jillian's birthday came and went without the appearance of any present. Tracing the packages online (and making a few calls to post offices), I got to watch the packages go to Mobile, Atlanta for re-routing, back to Mobile and then to Daphne. Two weeks after her birthday, they arrived. Thankfully Jillian liked her presents, so all was forgiven (or at least that's what I just have to assume). 

I know it's not a part of July, but today is my birthday and I'm typing this blog on a Bluetooth keyboard Jillian got for my tablet. Some of Jillian's family were in town this weekend and we had a nice day at the beach yesterday and had a few nice evenings out on the town. I've got a couple pictures from Friday night at the windmill market in Fairhope. 

I've got no big plans until my bachelor party at the end of the month so that's probably the next time I'll make an entry... about whatever I can remember (and choose to disclose). So I might not be posting then either.