It pays to be nice!

So two years ago I got in my first car accident, and shortly after someone ran their door into my door.  So I went to this car shop to get my car worked on twice within the same month or so.  The people at the car shop were so nice to me, and really took good car of my car.  They made sure to get it back to me sooner than later, and honestly I was just so happy to get it back looking so nice again!  So I sent them a thank you card, because that's just the kind-of person I am! lol.  I know it's silly sounding to send a body shop a thank you card thanking them for something that they do all the time.  But I really wanted to do it, so I did.  They called me when they got it, saying that it was so sweet and they were so surprised because no one has ever done that before.  :)

 Skip to now and my horrible car luck and I'm back at the same shop.  Why go anywhere else, when I know that they do great work and treat you fairly?  Well, not only did they remember me when I called (two years later!) but they still have my thank you card pinned to their wall! Yes, really!  

Two years ago I got a $100 discount because they were a "VIP" body shop under my insurance.  Apparently they didn't continue doing this with Ameriprise because they had to keep up with certain training/paperwork, blah blah.  So although I love this car shop, I was bummed I wouldn't get my $100 off like last time.

I talked to the guys at the shop about it (the two owners) and they said that they will definitely save me at least $100 off my deductible, if not more! 

Ooohhhh yeaa! It pays to be nice! So all I have to say to those nay-sayers who say thank you cards are not necessary is Ha!

:)

I also got a discount off of the rental car place because they gave it to me when it was still damp in the driver seat (gross) and the cup holders were covered in pet hair.  So I called and complained and they are going to take a day off for me! 

My bad luck is starting to turn around!

Tomorrow I am dancing the thriller dance at my school's talent show.  Wish me luck! Lol.  Should be interesting...

Today is the day!

I'm taking my car into the shop today, finally!  I'm also getting a rental car.  The fact that I will be spending a ton of money with my deductible as well as the cost of a rental car for about a week is in the back of my mind only because I'm just so anxious for my car to be fixed already!
 
Woo!

I took a half day to get this done, and I'm hoping that I will have some leisurely break time between doing the car stuff and going back to school, just so I don't feel like I took the time to make sub plans just to be super busy and not have time to relax a bit.  We shall see.

Thursday night is the Talent show.  Originally I was going to do a staff act like I did last year, but a lot of people dropped out and it just didn't work.  So now I'm doing an act with a bunch of kids and our music teacher...Thriller by Michael Jackson.  Oh yeaaah.  I'm trying my best to practice non-stop but it's hard finding the time.  Pray that I don't embarrass myself onstage!

Anyways, have a terrific Tuesday!

What you learn living together...

from here

You can't really anticipate what it will be like to live with a significant other until actually doing it...

Here's what I THOUGHT would be a challenge:

• Laundry - we both do this very differently
• Seeing too much of each other
• Learning gross/weird facts about each other that we didn't know before
• Having issues sharing the bathroom in the morning
• Grocery shopping - we eat very differently from each other (different foods and different portions)

Here's what has actually happened (so far, since it's only been a little over a month)

• Laundry - we do laundry separately and it's fine.  I usually do mine randomly throughout the week and sometimes on the weekend.  He does his on the weekend.  No problem!
• Turns out our schedules don't match up really well, so with the exception of bedtime we actually haven't been seeing enough of each other!  We actually miss seeing each other sometimes, because our schedules are so busy/opposite. Weird!
• We haven't learned anything crazy that we didn't already know!
• We have a few shared food items that we can get together, and in the mean time we just keep a running list on the fridge so that when one person goes, they can get what the other wants too.  And then it's the other person's turn next time. 

Things that I have learned...

• My time frame of putting things away is very skewed from his time frame... I like to have things put away right when I see it or think about it...he's more of a I'll put it away sometime this week kinda guy.  Which is probably not too far from other guys' habits.
• We use alarm clocks in very different ways!  I set 6 alarms and turn them off each time so I can get a few more minutes of sleep in between each alarm.  For some reason it's gratifying for me to fall back asleep each time.  I always think of Steve Byrne talking about how he loves sleep so much.  D is a two alarm kinda guy.  One at a really early time.  And then an hour later, another.  He gets up right away on the second.  Way different than me waking up every 7-10 minutes six times!
• Our t.v. preferences could not be more different!  With the exception of Storage Wars, anything food related, and anything on the Home channel we pretty much don't have anything in common, t.v. wise.  He is all about sports, sports, and sports!  I love watching college football from time to time, but after a while, I get tired of it.  He could watch it all day, every day...and pretty much does (and not just college...professional too! and other sports)  I wholeheartedly admit that I'm addicted to reality t.v.  I enjoy the ridiculous drama of the housewives shows, the Kardashians, and True Life.  I watch Grey's anatomy every Thursday (and have been since college) and I also watch Glee when it's on.  I have just recently gotten into "Once Upon a Time" too on abc. 

It's amazing what you learn in a month!  Although there have been (and will be) some challenges, I know that we made the right choice with taking this big step.  I do look forward to coming home every day, and even on days where I don't see him much it's nice to know that he's next to me at night and there in the morning when I wake up...well, when I wake up the first time of my six alarms that is! :)

Have you learned anything crazy or surprising after first living with a significant other?

Easily Excited

Starting my day off with one of these babies...

turns an ordinarily ok day into a fantastic day!

I tried it for the first time this morning and LOVED it!  (I usually just stick with pumpkin spice lattes this time of the year).

:) Simple pleasures. <3

Worst Week EVER

So last week had to be the worst week EVER for me.  On Thursday morning, I got into a car accident on the way to work.  I was literally a mile away from work.  A girl cut me off, and didn't put her blinker on until she was already getting over and so we collided.  Of course she said I hit her, but really she ran into me because she wasn't paying attention.  After we exchanged information and got back on our way, I get a call from my bank saying that there's fraud on my debit account. WTF?! Yep! Almost $2,000.  So they're cancelling my card.  All charges were caught except one (which thankfully was only 50 bucks) so as soon as that one shows up I'm just supposed to go to the bank to file paperwork and get it back. 

...wait it gets better...

On Sunday morning at 6am, I was on the way to the Breast Cancer walk in Hunt Valley, and on Brokenland Parkway a deer ran in front of my car.  Of course there aren't many street lights there so it was really dark out.  I didn't even see it until it was in front of me.  So I hit it, it hit my hood and then rolled off to my right side.  Thankfully it didn't touch my windshield.  I got out, looked at my horrific damage from the huge deer (it was really large!) and then balled my eyes out in my car before getting back on the road. 

So within 4 days, I was in two car accidents (both not my fault) and had fraud on my bank account.  Awesome.  To top it all off, my co-workers that it would "lighten the mood" to make jokes about hitting wildlife at lunch on Monday.  Yeah, so not funny.  It got to the point where on Tuesday I snapped at them and said "I don't really find the fact that I got into two accidents within the same week very funny so I'd appreciate it if you didn't make those kind of jokes."  I was NOT in the mood for it.  They got the hint. 

Photo #1:  Damage from the girl who cut me off.

Photo #2: Damage from the girl who cut me off AND now the deer damage.  Ugggghhh.

So now it's SUPER confusing with two different claims, trying to figure out how I will get the damage fixed, and who exactly is paying for it.  So annoying!

Birthday Weekend Post

*I wrote this while we still didn't have cable :)

Birthday Weekend


Friday-


Everyone at school wished me a Happy Birthday all day long, including my students. I felt very loved! My co-worker got my some beautiful sun-flowers, while another got my favorite snickerdoodle cupcakes from this awesome Cupcake Bakery down the street from my school. A student of mine got me a half dozen cupcakes from the same place too! (She got me 2 red velvet, 2 cookies and cream, and two key limes). One of my homeroom students brought in some Halloween cookies for me. Another homeroom student gave me a Starbucks giftcard (the parents of this student brought me a pumpkin spice latte in the middle of the day, the day before). A student from my math class got me a Coach wristlet! No joke! I was shocked!




Red Velvet <3

 So I ate a snickerdoodle cupcake during lunch and enjoyed every single bite of it (pretty sure I moaned a bit, that’s how awesomely scrumptious those things are). Right after school ended, I got ready for my Happy Hour at Howl at the Moon in Baltimore, which is a dueling piano bar. I re-curled my hair and painted my nails at school, before leaving. When I got to the bar, my friend Kelly was waiting outside. We both went in, and were shortly joined by four of my co-workers. As the night went on, I had a total somewhere around 18 people or so that came. It was soooo much fun!

However, if you’re easily embarrassed, you should be warned that Howl at the Moon is not the place you want to go to on your birthday! Within the first hour of being there, they asked if it’s anyone’s birthday or not, and of course my whole section of friends made it very clear that it was. The entire bar, yelled “Get on stage, Jess!” When I got on stage, they had me place my hands on the piano facing away from the bar of people and shake my bum while they played music! Thankfully, I had two friends who went with me! It was a bit embarrassing, but funny. Later on, my old roommate put a song request in, with another request: to put the birthday girl Jess on the piano as they played. She told me she did this, and I was really hoping they wouldn’t see it or ignore it…NOPE! They asked me to get on the piano. They gave me a stuffed black cat, and started singing about something that rhymes with…mussy. It was pretty raunchy, but it was amusing nonetheless. Although I didn’t appreciate the longggg time I was up there in front of the entire bar, I think I was a pretty good sport about it and made the most fun out of it.


The night went on for a bit, and I was there for around 5 hours or so. I was happy to have a mix of people all in one place: some family (cousins) came, my sister and some mutual friends of ours, my co-workers, my guy, my friends and their hubbies, etc. It was a really great way to spend my birthday. Dan and I left after a while, and started walking to our cars. When I almost reached my car, I got a text message that I had won some crazy prize from the bar and reached “rockstar status.” My sister grabbed it for me, since I had just left. She said it was some pass that would make it so I never had to pay a cover again at that bar, and I could skip the line when I get there every time as well. Sweet!


Later that night, I uploaded my steps** from my pedometer to the internet for the last time for my school competition. I was in the lead last night at 11:30pm (it ended at midnight) so I’m pretty sure that I won, but I’m not totally sure. I’ll keep you updated.

** I TOTALLY WON THE CHALLENGE! OHHH YEAAAA **

Also, I should mention that when I came home, I came home to some beautiful flowers from my awesome boyfriend! :)

Saturday-

We woke up, got showered and ate some breakfast and left the house to go to… TIFFANY’s!!! Although it took some major deciding, I decided on a beautiful heart pendant necklace. It’s super sparkly and feminine and awesome and I LOVE it! Dan wanted me to experience it all with him, and also make sure that I get something I really wanted, so he decided to take me with him, as opposed to surprising me with something he had picked out. Then we met up with his brother and sister-in-law to help them move some couches. We spent some time with them for a bit, and of course we had to stay long enough so that we could see our special K. :) We left there, came back here and then took a two hour nap. So far, so good! What a great day! 

What a great weekend! (I didn't go back to write about Sunday, and now I forget, so Friday and Saturday is all you get!)

We Moved!

*Pictures of our house and moving process to come...

This past weekend, we moved into our new house. :) With the help of some awesome friends/family and a U-HAUL truck we were able to move the majority of our belongings to the new place.  We had to get some more the next day too.  Oh man, the amount of steps I got this weekend was insane! I am kicking my step competition's butt this week!

Dan's mom was a huge help on Sunday by helping me get the kitchen all together.  I took off Monday and got my closet/clothes all organized and together.  Since then, I have been trying to do a little bit each night.  I still have three boxes or so to unpack and put away.  Then it's just deciding where to put the boxes.... (a lot of them we recycled, but some of them are the plastic kind that you keep).

I'm most excited about our kitchen right now, because we put up all of our fun kitchen art...again, I have pictures to come soon.  I'm exciting about what the living room will be like soon...a good friend is giving us a loveseat for free! Woo! We just need to get a cover for it and I think it'll match our room perfectly!  We needed some more seating, so I'm really pleased about it, and thankful for such generous friends!

Here's what the loveseat looks like:

We already have a big couch that has a dark brown cover on it.  So a beige loveseat would go great with the color scheme that we want.  :)

So it's October...here's my list of why it's such a fantastic month:

1. My birthday is this month!  It's the 7th, which is this Friday :)
2. It's the month of our anniversary!  The 21st :)  In 16 days it will be 4 years for us! 
3. I love dressing up for Halloween, both at school and with friends at home
4. Although I am not a fan of cold weather, I love to watch the leaves change.  I also love those perfect fall days...cool outside with the sun shining down still.  Beautiful!
5. If it's October, that means we're getting closer to my other favorite holidays...Thanksgiving and Christmas! Woo! (and breaks off of school, of course!)

Is anyone else excited that it's October??