This Just In....

It appears that the Mullen residence now has air conditioning!!



WE have AIR!!

WE have COLD AIR!!



They ended up having to replace the entire unit. Apparently, the compressor was busted and when the compressor goes out in an air conditioner...it's just time to replace the whole darn thing. I'm very glad we are not currently home owners! Yikes, I hate to think about that bill!!!
BUT it's over! The wait is over! We did not melt! We can now breath in cool air again without feeling like we're suffocating!!!!


Now what to do with all of this ice cream?!?!
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.
.
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Ice cream social date to be announced, stay tuned ;-)

Guess What!!??

The air.
The cold air...

is still not fixed.

Nope.

We are going on week 2 of having no air conditioning.
I don't curse, but I could! Oh I could.
It. is. HOT.

We took off to Rock Hill Friday evening. We had plans to spend the weekend with Kyle and Kennedi and were we ever grateful that they have cold air...and aren't afraid to use it!
So, we stayed nice and cool over the weekend.
We came home last night to a furnace!
I was closer than an ants eyelash to sleeping on the floor in the sunroom, the only room that has any form of air flow, last night.
I managed to open the window in our upstairs bathroom.
It had been painted shut.
I worked at it and worked at it, I pushed it, I kicked it, I used all of my might and FINALLY got the window to slide open, only to come to the conclusion that the inside of our house was the exact same temperature as the outside...therefore, the open window provided no relief....apparently, there is no such thing as "evening breeze" in Columbia.

Sev called to see when we could expect someone to come (BACK) out to fix the air.
He was told that it was going to cost a lot of money to have the unit fixed, so they were waiting to hear back from our landlord as to what they wanted to do about it.
.....I'm checking into a hotel TONIGHT if my landlord thinks I can survive any longer without air...in the middle of summer!!

Is it obvious I'm getting cranky?
I can't help it...there is no more room in our freezer for another pint of ice cream and I'm sick of the flavors we have!
Ice cream boredom would cause anyone to be cranky!
;-)

BAD NEWS!!

You guessed it!
The air is STILL not fixed! **sigh**

I made the decision to go to the gym after work yesterday. Bad decision if I've ever made one. I made the decision with the belief that when I came home, I would have a nice, cool, comfy house to relax in. I came home to quite the opposite.
The sweat never fully evaporated from my skin.
Misery.
Pure, 100%, misery!

Here are some tid bits for you:
Ice cream is all I care to consume when our air goes out.
You can only eat so much of one flavor of ice cream before it gets boring.
I started off with 1 carton of Edy's, slow churned, less fat, less sugar, frozen yogurt.
I now have 4 cartons of ice cream in my freezer.
That is 4 cartons of ice cream on top of the carton of frozen yogurt.
That is FIVE cartons of frozen pure evil in my freezer!
The time I have spent in the gym...amounts to nothing.



The thermostat read 91 degrees when I went to bed.
The thermostat is downstairs.
Heat rises.
Our bedroom is upstairs.
This has me draw to the conclusion that our bedroom must be....
HOTTER THAN HAITI....

I'm off to find a new flavor of ice cream.


Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and stays out of this heat!! It's brutal....just ask my waistline.

**PS. Yesterday I referred to the leak in our air conditioning unit as "anti freeze" I meant "Freon"....apparently there is a big difference...which I didn't know, but now I do...and it's filed under "useless pieces of information I never wanted to know but now I do...thanks Sev".**

Good News!!!!

No, the air conditioner is NOT fixed.

BUT

We did survive the night without air...well...cold air anyways (obviously we had to have air to live). ANYWAYS...
We survived!
The good news is, I do not have to change my address. I don't believe that it is going to come to me moving into the freezer.
They came today to look at our unit, they "hmmm" and "huh" and then "ah ha!" and ultimately came to the conclusion that we have (well "had"...we had a leak, we no longer have any antifreeze left to leak out) an antifreeze leak. My first thought went to my little man, Ali. I immediately asked "if we have(had) a leak, then uh, where did the antifreeze go?".
I was assured that the antifreeze was inside of the air conditioning unit and nowhere on the ground. Ali man was safe!
My next thought, "GREAT! Now...when can this be fixed?".
They hope to have it fixed today!
Hallelujah!

I'm sick of Popsicles!

In other, non related, news...
I'm getting new tires on my car today! Hurray! I was centimeters away from riding on rims!

okay...I realize that last bit of news was really boring...sorry. That's really all I've got.

H-O-T

I wasn't planning on venting about how hot it is this summer.
I see way too many facebook comments, twitter updates, and blog posts...complaining about the heat. I don't like to complain about things I can't control. So I was staying away from any discussion on how HOT it is....

that is...

Until our air conditioning went out yesterday.

OUT.

CA-PUT.

No Warning.

No cold air!!!

It huffed, it puffed one little spurt of cold air and then nothing.
Worse yet, the air coming from the vent is no colder than the air I can blow from my mouth.
It's like its teasing me. Mocking me, saying "I'm blowing, I'm blowing...I'm just not going to blow cold air! and you can't make me!!"

Being hot and coming up with ways to prevent a heat stroke are all I can currently think about, so forgive me.
I just wanted say it's HOT. That is all.
If you need me, I'll be taking up residency in our freezer.

Just In Case

I took two semesters of Spanish in college.
It was required.
At the time I had no interest in speaking Spanish. What-so-ever.
I walked away from my classes with minimal Spanish speaking skills.
As a matter of fact, the only sentence I remember is, "Yo no hablo espanol".
I'm so proud of that sentence.


My mother decided that she wanted to learn Spanish this past school year (she's a teacher).
She decided there were a few sentences that she thought would be necessary, you know, just in case she is ever trapped in a Spanish speaking country with no one around that understands English.
Her list?
"Where is the bathroom"
"Can I have some water"
and...
"wait a second"
I'm not kidding. That is the list of sentences that my mother thought were THE MOST important sentences to know in Spanish.
You know, just in case.

After deciding on her list of must know sentences. She enlisted the help of a Spanish speaking individual.
Her help?
A 5 year old boy that recently moved to SC from Mexico.
She gave her list of sentences to her 5 year old student and asked him how to say them in Spanish.
She wrote down what he said, exactly how he said it.
She was so proud.

My mother and my grandmother came to spend the night with me this past Tuesday. Mom decided to take us all out to dinner. We decided on Mexican.
Soon after being seated, as the waitress was delivering the chips and salsa, my mother pulled a piece of paper from her purse. She unfolded the slip of paper, looked at our waitress and said, very slowly and deliberately, "on da est ah el ban oh".

You see, my mother had been telling us about the Spanish that she had learned.
She was so proud.
Severyn informed my mother that "where is the bathroom" in Spanish is "Donde esta el bano" but my mother insisted that her version was correct because "My little Spanish speaking student taught me! and he KNOWS Spanish!"
I love her. My mom.

I added "learn Spanish" to my bucket list.
I think I'm going to ask for a Rosetta Stone set for my birthday this year.
Really, it's something I would like to learn more of. Make up for the two semesters I wasted in college.
Help my mother learn the sentences that she thinks are very important to know, you know...just in case.

There are days...

When I get out of the shower,

look at my reflection

and sigh.

My hair is a mess.

My arms are too flabby.

My legs have spider veins. (I do NOT know what those are, but my mom likes to point them out and say "you are going to regret being so rough and getting so bruised up when you're older and those spider veins are very noticeable!" therefore I stare at them when I'm looking at myself and think "I really regret being so rough and getting so bruised up when I was younger!")

My ears stick out.

My eyes are too close together.

My stomach is not flat enough.

I have one too many freckles.

and then I take a look at this guy.....

.

.

.

.

and realize that he and I are both perfect in every way! ha! no matter what the mirror says!!

Have a great weekend and even if you think your butt is too big, be glad you can keep your tongue in your mouth!!

Another Post Without Pictures

This past weekend was just what Sev and I needed.
We spent Friday night just hanging out together.
On Saturday we slept in and then got ready for my mom and Sev's parents to visit.
My sister in laws baby shower was scheduled for Saturday at 2pm. I put the finishing touches on the cupcakes I made for the shower and my mom arrived just in time to wash all of the cupcake dishes! Man, what are moms for!! Less than an hour later Sev's parents arrived. We gave them the grand tour of our new place and then the ladies headed out to the shower. We left Sev and his dad back at the house to do a few chores.
After the shower we came back to our place and within an hour everyone had left, I was asleep on the couch and Sev was...well, I don't know what he was doing, I was asleep and he was outside doing "guy" things.
I woke up about an hour later, just as Sev was coming inside. We sat and stared at each other for a few minutes, neither of us could decide on what we wanted for dinner, there was nothing on TV, there was nothing really to do around the house (okay, there was nothing either of us wanted to spend our Saturday evening doing). Basically, we found ourselves with no plans! This rarely happens for us. We were lost, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. So, we called up our best buddies to see what they were doing and within an hour we were on the road and headed to spend the night in Rock Hill.
We enjoyed a late dinner with Kennedi and Kyle.
Sunday morning Kyle, Sev and I slept in and then went and had Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast (it's kind of our "thing" dunkin' donuts for breakfast before church). After breakfast we headed to church. Sev and I LOVE North Rock Hill Church. We can not find a Church that we like better, which is sad, because Rock Hill is a good hour away from Columbia...though don't think we haven't thought about making that drive every Sunday morning. Kennedi sings in the Church band and that is just the cherry on top for us. We enjoyed the service and afterwords we had Chinese before heading to the lake. We spent all of Sunday afternoon on Lake Willie, riding jet skis and meeting up with friends on their boat. It was a perfect day. We ended the weekend with some Mexican food and then Sev and I made the one hour drive back to Columbia.
After sitting in silence for the first 15 minutes of the car ride back, we each spoke up at almost the exact same time and said "Man, I wish we lived in Rock Hill".
There is something to be said about great friends, an awesome Church and good food.

Alligator Park

On Friday we went to Brazos Bend State Park, aka: Alligator park.

It was so hot you seriously could have fried an egg on the sidewalk!

We have gators in SC, so seeing an alligator was nothing new, but the park was still a great spot to visit and no matter how many gators you've seen, there is still something spooky and yet intriguing every time you get the chance to see one. Therefore, I was all about visiting the alligator park.

We grabbed some subs and had a delightful picnic lunch when we first entered the park.
The park entrance (I realize this is a poor picture, I'm sorry. It was the best I could do as my brother in law was speeding through the gate):

After lunch we went inside the ranger station.

That is where we got to see the baby gators and other creepy reptiles that I don't mind behind glass but would hate to come up on in the wild.

I love the way alligator skin feels.

Look at that baby alligator tooth sticking out...bless him, he sure was cute!

I worried for this birds legs. Didn't he know he was standing in alligator infested waters!?


Just some swamp photos:

This here, well these here smiling faces are my family. Brother in law, husband and sister in law.

This guy here is not related, thank you! Even if Sev does claim I can be as mean as an alligator...or maybe that's snake. Whatever. Aren't those eyes eery looking!?

I spotted this very impressive tree vine and just had to have a picture. It was actually growing from one tree to the next.

Then the guys decided they just had to have their picture taken while swinging on the very impressive tree vine.

Then my husband...bless him, must I claim him??...pulled off a very impressive backwards dismount.

Not to be out photographed, my sister in law and I just had to have our picture taken too! However, we posed very gracefully and tried to show the boys how ladies swing on a very impressive tree vine.

(side note: PLEASE ignore my blinding white legs!! **sigh**...they were so bad Sev asked if he had to claim me!)

Then my sister in law had to blow the whole "graceful" thing out of the water and pull off this bit of randomness. ....it's scary really, how similar our personalities are.

So in an effort to take some actual pretty photos...with out all of the blinding white legs, acrobatic maneuvers and family randomness, I snapped a few shots of the flowers growing around the park:

(Please do not ask me what these flowers are, I have no clue. Me and flowers...well we all know how that goes. I'm about as knowledgeable on flowers as I am with self tanning lotion)

Hmmmm, wonder what gave them the idea that annoying an alligator would be a bad idea??

How I spent my Hours in Houston

Well, not all of my hours, but it was one of the projects that I went to Houston to work on.
My sister in law does not want to find out the sex of her baby. I don't blame her one bit. I think there is something magical and sweet about not knowing, call me old fashioned, but I like it.
Anyways, one of the hard parts about not finding out your babies sex is that it makes decorating the nursery "tricky tricky tricky" (if someone can tell me the movie that this line comes from I'll seriously be impressed!! I myself had to google the words because, although the line popped into my head, I could not figure out what movie it came from!!).
Jessie (my sister in law) came up with a cute tree theme. She found girl and boy bedding to match. All she needed was one willing and able sister in law to help bring her creation to life!

We started by painting the tree onto the wall. At first I tried to draw the tree in pencil, then I decided it would actually just be easier if I free styled it.

We then cut different shades of green wallpaper, into the shape of leaves. We painted the backs of each leaf with wallpaper glue and stuck them onto the tree.

This process took fooorevver.

I cut strips of wall paper to make the grass and applied it the same way we did the leaves. Again, this took forevveeer.

I had to add my own little touch...can you see it?
A lady bug!!
I'm sorry I did not get a final picture of the tree. I'm going to get Jessie to send me one and I'll post it here! I was thrilled to get the chance to help decorate the babies nursery. I can't wait to meet the little bundle of joy.

"Don't Mess With Texas"

I will admit, I had to google where this phrase came from. My thoughts were that Texans got picked on by the other states, kind of like the smaller kids did in junior high (I was a smaller kid, I know! Junior High was brutal!). However, it appears the phrase actually comes from a "no littering" campaign. (just a bit of random fun facts for you! Thank me later when you're on "who wants to be a millionaire").
Here are a few pictures to document our first day in Texas.

Our first peek into downtown Houston:

Texans are all about some Texas pride!

(us South Carolinians can't say much, 9 out of 10 cars sport the palmetto tree sticker)

These flags hung on every other light post in downtown Houston:

Here we are! On our way to lunch we stopped to take a quick picture. As we were pulling our cameras out a nice gentleman stopped and asked if we would like for him to take our picture (if we learned anything while in Texas, it's that no one is friendlier than a Texan!). We thanked him and posed for the camera. As we broke from our pose and were retrieving our camera he said "wait a minute! We're not done just yet!" He proceeded to remove his own camera from his jacket pocket. What? Jessie said "uhm, you don't want a picture of strangers do you?" and in fact that IS what he wanted. I'm not quite sure what facial expressions his camera captured, we had our arms around each others back and we were squeezing each other as if to say "really, is this stranger taking a picture of us with his own camera? who does that?"

but I guess one could ask, "who lets a stranger take a picture of them with his own camera?"

(ps. can you see the baby bump?....that's baby bambino! My future niece or nephew!)

Just some downtown Houston shots:

Our first stop was to eat lunch at Sambuca. It was scrumptious!

After lunch we headed to Sugarland. Isn't that a lovely name for a city? Sugarland. It just sounds happy and hyper. Not to mention I think it would make a lovely name for a country band.

Look what I spotted!!

We took a few hours to relax and refresh ourselves from the flight before heading out to meet my brother in law and some friends for dinner. We ate at a little British pub in midtown Houston. The friends we met were beautiful people, from England. I decided if I could have any accent I wanted I would choose to have an English accent, because..well...it was marvelous really, just marvelous. ( Please say that last line with an English accent....SEE...isn't it lovely?! ha.)

(Please ignore the slight oil slick on my forehead! Holy cow it was HOT in Texas!! Heat does nothing pleasant with my face **sigh**)

After dinner we went back to the house and relaxed. Jessie and I took an evening stroll around her neighborhood and then called it a night. We both needed our beauty sleep. We had plans to visit the alligator park the next morning.

I Never Saw One

Sadly, I did not see any armadillos while in Texas.
Not one. Not one stinkin' armadillo, the entire time we were in Houston.

However, apparently they are fairly common in Texas. Either that or Texans just love the little fella's because everywhere we looked there was some sort of armadillo paraphernalia.

I saw these guys in the Houston airport:

This guy was hanging out at the airport too:

This little guy was in the rangers station at the alligator park:

and this one was hanging on the National Museum of Science wall:This was also a picture that was hanging in the Museum:

Texans must love these creatures, even though they are not wandering all over the place like a non Texas native would believe. I was a bit disappointed.

I've also come to the conclusion that maybe SC is missing out on a valuable tourist money maker. Squirrels! I can see it now...squirrel souvenirs!! I think there is a market for it, don't you?

We're Back!!

Safe and Sound.
We left Houston yesterday morning and arrived back in SC mid-morning.
We had a great time and were sad when the weekend came to an end.

While we were there we visited an alligator park. We ate Texas BBQ (not to be confused with East Coast BBQ). We ate Tex-Mex. We visited the National Museum of Science. We watched an IMAX movie. We attended a lovely pool party in downtown Houston. We ate my sister in laws awesome cooking. We painted a tree mural on the nursery wall. We felt the baby kick. We shopped. We saw numerous cows...lots of them, longhorns too! Jessie and I even started a stampede! I saw boots, I saw lots and lots of boots. I also saw cowboy hats. I'm sad to report that I saw no live armadillos. We enjoyed spending time together before a baby enters our world. We really enjoyed our time in Texas and can't wait to visit again.

I took tons of pictures and have plans to share them. I just can't seem to find the device to download them with. I will work on that and share them asap!!